Jess shoves a tight, heavy lid on the instantaneous panic that This is how it starts. The next words out of her mouth will be parroted from a corpse's mouth. If she allows herself to think about it for half a goddamn second, she's going to do Kamala more harm than good. Her hands ball into fists and she looks down into the girl's face, searching her eyes for that purple glaze, but she appears alert through and through.

"Okay," she breathes, forcing her hands open. "Just tell me what's happening to you." And where is your mother. And why can't you be bleeding all over the place, which Jess would have some idea how to handle, instead of possibly brainwashed or god knows what else.