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Sitting heavily, he looks adorably confused. “So you do speak. I mean I’ve heard you, but why are you so damn quiet?” Isaac asks.

“It’s safer,” I explain. “So what’s next?”

“Safer… for who? Silla, I don’t know why, but I really want to understand,” he says softly.

A harsh knock sounds outside of the partition, and Isaac reaches out to open it. He has tattoos that I was too focused to notice before that climb up his sinewed arms. His body is a compact kind of grace, and he’s a few inches taller than me.

A nurse is waiting impatiently, and I turn toward her, ready to go where I’m told. The judge told me not to cause trouble, and that’s my plan. I just want to get through this.

“Isaac, if you were going to be late, you could have sent me a message,” she says.

Sheepishly, he shrugs. “We just finished, Patricia. I was going through her scores, but I can do that alone while you take her back. Please check her wrists,” he rumbles insistently, and my lips curl slightly. This man is going to take care of me even while I kick and scream about it.

It’s sad that I’ve never met a man like this. Every man I’ve ever met has wanted something from me, except for my step-father. I don’t remember my father very well, since he died when I was five.

“Were these wounds self-inflicted?” Patricia asks worriedly and I shake my head.

“The bailiff handcuffed me with my arms over my head and then left me there,” I explain.

“Why wouldn’t you just stand to release yourself if you were sitting?” she asks as if I’m dumb.

“Cameras,” I tell her in a withering tone. First she thinks I tried to kill myself, and now she thinks I’m an idiot. We’re off to a wonderful start.

Stopping herself, Patricia stares at me for a moment. “Clearly there’s more going on than I understand right now, and asking rapid fire questions is going to make your tone even more justified,” she says. “I’ll make sure to take a look at her wrists, Isaac. Handcuffs are nasty things.”

A little more content that she’s not judging me, I begin to follow her out.

“Silla, I’ll see you around,” Isaac says, his eyes already glued to the computer. Whatever it is, I hope that my scores are decent enough to place me somewhere I won’t hate.

“Bye, Isaac,” I mouth. It’s important to me to say it, even if he’ll never hear it.

I keep my secrets, my life, the things that are important to me closely guarded. I’m not a saint, but if you don’t know anything about me, it won’t hurt as badly when you talk shit.

The worst insults are the ones encased in hints of truth, so I prefer to keep mine, thank you.

The medical side of the room is past all of the intake cubicles, and that’s when I realize how large it actually is. Thankfully, the space I step into is a little bigger than the one I was in with Isaac, and it doesn’t trigger my phobia of being closed in.

“Let’s look at those wrists while I go through your medical history, Silla is it?” Patricia asks, her bad mood apparently forgotten.

I don’t trust anyone who swings between good and bad humors this quickly, so I merely nod, holding out my wrists to her.

Beginning to unwrap them, she asks, “Do you have any kind of allergies?”

Nodding, I hate having to give a piece of personal information away like this. “Can I ask where this information is going?” I ask.

“Of course,” Patricia agrees, frowning at my wrists. Grabbing some supplies, she sets to work on cleaning them again. Gods, I really hate this part. “I’m going to input this into your chart, and the only people who will know it are the nurses or doctors in the reform camp. Depending on the information, I may need to pass it along to an instructor so they’re able to help if an allergic reaction is triggered.”

Chewing on my lip for a moment, I think. I know my nerves are showing, but I have another question. “Will my allergies be used against me?” I ask.

Her eyes fly up to mine, and I notice she’s actually really pretty, with curly blonde hair and hazel eyes. “Absolutely not. Warden would blow his top,” she says vehemently. “We aren’t savages, and while the instructors can be difficult, we have people to answer to. What are you allergic to?”

“Penicillin and strawberries,” I tell her and she nods.

“Have you ever had your allergies used against you?” Patricia asks as she finishes cleaning my wrists. The broken skin is brown as it starts to attempt to mend itself, and I can see where it’s also bruised. God, that man was a dick.

“Yes. My sister went through a very cruel streak when we were kids,” I tell her, my eyes firmly on my arms. “I survived, which means she didn’t actually want me dead.”

Patricia doesn’t say anything as she wraps my wrists in new gauze. “I typically work in the nurses station. I’m rarely an intake nurse, so please come see me once a day to check on these, okay?”