If she wasn't frozen, Alex would have flinched away where he touched her, but she couldn't for a moment before her muscles began to slowly come back online with his concern. The concern is palpable, and Alex can feel it almost like she felt the ice and she doesn't know what to say to that for a moment.

She wants to say something about how making it her fault isn't something that people would do, but she can't. Instead Alex tries to focus on her breathing and on controlling her panic. She uses square breathing and tries to ground herself within her own body but she's reminded of all of her nightmares that she'd had where Richard had been a demon, where he had changed in the same way that he'd done today.

Only not really because in her nightmares Alex could always wake up screaming and then know that he was safe. But Richard hadn't been safe since well before she was born. Since before her biological mother was born. And now he's said that if she left he'd kill her.

Alex believes him.

"I won't. I won't try and leave again." Her voice is low and husky, weaker than normal. "I'm fine." It's a lie, but one that's familiar and one that Alex had been saying for two years. "I'm fine."