"It sounds like Hell," Nico corrected him, pulling her arm out of his grip and wrapping it around herself instead. It was clear that Raph was trying to be supportive, but him acknowledging that the whole situation was going to be awful for her was still saying it out loud. It was going to be awful and she was going to hate it, but she still had to do it. And if she had to do it, she didn't want to have to wallow in how awful it was going to be.

She set her jaw and turned her face away to glare into the gold orb on the head of the Staff of One. Normally she'd try to come up with a change of subject to get them off one she didn't want to talk about, but all other topics for discussion seemed to have been swallowed by the yawning pit growing in her stomach.