"Anywhere else?"
I don't answer.
Lumi is quiet for a beat too long.
"Keep breathing," she says. "In through the nose. I want you to think about the last seventy-two hours. Not the events — not what happened. The feelings. What emotions have you had since arriving here?"
Anger. Confusion. Fear — though I'd rather chew glass than say that word out loud. And something else. The thing that has no name. The thing that started in the common room when pale eyes found mine through dark hair and my body reacted.
"Anger," I say. "Confusion."
"That's normal for a new placement." A pause. "Anything else?"
I open my eyes. She's watching me. Not my face — my left hand. Which is resting on my thigh, and my thumb is pressing into my wrist, and I didn't tell it to do that.
I stop. She looks up. Our eyes meet.
She knows. Whatever this is — she's seen it before.
"The Panel will ask about the night," Lumi says. Quiet. A shift in direction so smooth I almost miss that she changed the subject entirely. "The incident in your file. The one that brought you here."
My stomach drops. "Gavin already asked."
"Gavin documents. The Panel evaluates." She says it like there's a difference that matters. "When they ask — and they will— they'll want details. Sensory details. What you saw, heard, felt. What you remember and what you don't."
"I don't remember anything. I told Gavin that."
Lumi nods. Slow. "They didn't believe it when you told the police. They won't believe it when you tell the Panel."
She said they. Not I. I file that.
"What do you believe?" I ask.
"I believe that memory is complicated. Especially when the body does something the mind isn't ready to process." She holds my gaze. Steady. Warm in a way that I can't find the angle on, which terrifies me more than Gavin's clinical stare. "I believe that what you don't remember might be more important than what you do. And I believe that if you don't start understanding what's happening to you before the Panel makes its assessment, you won't get to decide what that understanding looks like."
I should ask what she means. I should push. I should demand specifics — what's happening to me, what do you know, what is this place, what am I.
But she's already leaning forward where she picks up the glass of water and offers it to me.
"Drink. Grounding exercises can be dehydrating."
I take the water. Drink. My hand is steady. My pulse is not.
“Let’s take a few minutes to just breathe. Unless you’d like to journal.”
I shake my head.
Lumi settles back into her chair, closes her eyes and begins breathing deeply.
I don’t understand her strategy. Everyone else here treats me like a liability.
I sit and take in all of the room’s details. My gaze fixes on the candle flame.
Finally, Lumi opens her eyes and leans forward again.
"We'll meet weekly," Lumi says. "Same time. Same room. Whatever you tell me stays in this room — it doesn't go in the evaluation file unless I determine there's an immediate safety concern. That boundary is real. You can test it."
"Everyone says that."
