Shrug.

"It could matter. How did you know they had recognized you -"

"They took me back here."

"I mean, you ran, why did you assume they were looking for you."

"Oh, they had whips and yelled for me to stop and I thought they'd get close enough to see the piercing and -"

"Okay. Can you think of a good excuse to have been missing your earring?"

" - I guess it could've gotten snagged on something?"

"Your piercing isn't damaged, it can't have ripped out. Hit your head on a wall, broke the post, it fell off later?"

" - yeah. And I ran because I thought they'd think I was a runaway?"

"And you were on a legitimate errand but didn't have proof of it on your person, and you can go back to work without any further disciplinary problems."

"If she'll allow it -"

"Why'd you run away?"

"We were talking about it before I got sold here. If you can make it, uh, somewhere, there're people who can do the rest."

"The terrorists sent a representative here a little before you were bought. Offered to steal some people. Nobody went with 'em."

"Well, that's their lookout."

"Are you going to try again?"

"I assume she'll kill me the second time?"

"Let's assume the goal here is that you do not get caught escaping again, and that you are simply not good enough at escaping to avoid being caught without some help, what can we do to make this work?"

"I'll stay."

"Are you sure? Because I may be able to convince her to send you on an errand that gets you far enough away to get help the rest of the trip - still dangerous, but if you don't have any self-control -"

"Wouldn't that make it kind of obvious that this time wasn't a misunderstanding -"

"It would be a hard sell, and then if you were caught there would be all kinds of fallout, some of it might land on your sister who is the reason I told Amait to buy you in the first place, etcetera, yeah."

"I can stay."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."