He opens the box.
The Avatar is there, slumped into a corner with her head drooping against the wall. Rivulets of dried blood pattern her face. The source, he sees – a wound – is at her brow. He supposes that when she received the blow it knocked her out, as the blood had obviously been allowed to flow unchecked. The dark red marks curved with the shape of her eyelid, cheek, and down beyond her neck to pool in her collarbone.
As well as a face covered in blood, she has untreated gashes on her arms and torso, and as bruising all over her.
Amon decides he is quite disgusted that Tarrlock, a grown man, would do this do a teenage girl. After all, compared to someone with that bloodbending ability even the Avatar, unable to reach her defense mechanism, was powerless.
This kind of needless violence is exactly what Amon hates so much about corrupt benders.
Though, he thought, in the interest of fairness… he had to admit that the Avatar was not like the rest of them, and clearly the criminal benders were as cruel to her as they were to non-benders. They were only interested in an Avatar for them not an Avatar for everyone like she was trying to be.
Perhaps Amon and Korra were not so dissimilar.
She really wasn't so bad. A pity that she had been born a bender – born the Avatar no less – and ended up like this. Also that, ultimately, he saw no way to achieve equality without destroying her.
Shame.
He watches her for a second, and sees that she is coming to consciousness. Her eyes flutter slightly, and he considers what he will do. He is more than certain that she won't make a move against him, and that he could handle her if she did. He crouches down and rests his elbows on his legs, allowing his hands to cross unthreateningly between his knees as the Avatar stirs in front of him.
She makes a pitiful noise as she tries to straighten up, a hand – that Amon now sees, with more displeasure, is broken – coming up to touch at her face.
He makes a point to look away from her at the wall. Korra sees him for the first time now, and doesn't jerk in shock like he expected. She just stares in silence, and after a moment of this he looks directly at her.
Her expression is something between sadness and resignation.
"Hi."
"Hello, Avatar."
He can tell she has something else to say, so he waits. She stares at him like a person broken, and even though these events make his own life far easier in terms of defeating benders and achieving equality, he's not certain he likes the way things have gone. They were supposed to just have a big, old-fashioned showdown and fight it out. Instead, this. He wasn't even entirely sure she cared about what was going to happen to her now.
She took a breath, and he returned his attention to her. Her expression was intensified now – yes, definitely sadness and resignation. A bit of pain – physical, probably.
The Avatar lets out her breath, and he decides she may need some encouragement to spit out what is so obviously on the tip of her tongue.
"Well?"
She looks a little surprised. At least that proves she's still alive in there, he supposes. Her eyes harden all of a sudden, and her mouth turns down.
"I think you might be right," she says simply.