Taka sat up from her bed when Rufus came back in. She scratched the stubble on her head, fresh shaved again like her first visit. She just started thinking about cutting it into a style when they took that choice from her for more tests. They dialed down the sessions. Originally at once daily, then down to twice a week now. No one knew what happened that night, in the basement. Least of all her. Sometimes she had nightmares about it, the crippling uncertainty she felt speaking a language she didn't know. The blind fear when things changed from social silliness to horror story.
At least now they accepted that she honestly didn't know anything.
Instead they moved from psych evaluations to physical tests. Blood work was regular for her. The last two menstrual cycles saw her strapped into a chair while they monitored every bit of brain activity. For the first one, she was drugged. The second one she got to count the seconds in her cell while they made sure her 'emergence' didn't have a hormonal trigger.
She stood up and fixed her pj's - shorts and a t-shirt - then started moving towards the center of the bunk, wanting to hear what Rufus had. She saw them planning something, but until now hadn't quite been involved. She wanted to help. She wanted to do something.
She slipped into the crowd - a skill that she'd had since she was ten. No one paid attention to her, so she learned how to make it work for her. She didn't glanced back at Kat - really the only person whose opinion mattered to her right now - and quickly slid into the small group of people forming up at the announcement.