She hopes, almost, that the brief silence means he's left, though Mila's attention on the door shatters that hope even before he speaks.

"You've never been able to keep people from hurting me," she says, low and harsh. He hadn't harmed any of the girls himself - but neither had he been able to stop the other trainers from doing so. Some small part of her mind, not drowning in dread and acidic fury, wonders, not for the first time, if his occasional disappearances, his occasional lapses in recall, had coincided with times he'd tried. "And you don't have to wait to fuck up for me to hate you."