Mimi followed after Officer May as quickly as she could. Sometimes she hated that she couldn't walk right- couldn't keep up with everyone else around her. Before, she had never thought anything about it because her mommy never let her around other people.
The other children- who were all different ages- all looked at her sadly…as though she was being given a bad thing.
She didn't understand.
Mimi noticed that they all had brown and purple splotches on their skin as well as scratches.
Officer May hurried them into a room away from the eyes of the other children and sat her down on a chair in front of a desk and a man.
"Nathan," Officer May said, almost without any kind of emotion of all. That was weird to Mimi.
"Belinda."
"This is the girl we talked about. Her name is Memory Jordana Shepard- she's five."
Nathan leaned forward and eyed Mimi over like a piece of meat. He seemed to focus mainly on her blond hair- and that was when Mimi realized that she hadn't seen anyone with blond hair since she had left home.
"She's a pretty little thing- shame about her walk," he sneered. "I'll take her."
Mimi looked quickly to Officer May who continued to look at Nathan, except her expression turned to one of disgust.
"Put her in the beginning kindergarten class- I doubt she knows how to even spell her name."
The meeting was long and had a bunch of words that Mimi didn't understand before Officer May stood and smiled reassuringly at Mimi. "You'll be just fine here, okay?"
Like she had any other choice but to nod.
Nathan came around his desk and laid a heavy hand on Mimi's shoulder. "Come now, Memory, let's go meet your new friends."
Mimi sat by herself in a little corner, watching as all the other kids talked to each other and sometimes hit each other. She didn't understand the rules in this place.
Where was she supposed to fit in?
A kid, probably about Kaidan's age, spotted her and walked over.
"What's your name, girl?" he demanded.
"Mimi," she informed him, wishing that he would go away. He wasn't nice like Kaidan had been.
The boy looked her up and down. "What d'you do to get put in here?"
She wondered what she was supposed to say. What was supposed to tell the truth? Lie? No one told her what to say!
"I killed my mommy's boyfriend," she said matter-of-factly.
The boy stared at her with a look between disbelief and awe. "Oh yeah? How'd you do that?"
Mimi realized that she had to let him know that she wouldn't take his crap. He was here to figure out where she belonged in this place. She slowly got to her feet and stepped close to him so that they would have been chest-to-chest if she wasn't shorter than him. She raised her head and an eyebrow. She had seen people act like this on TV- the people on the TV shows called them badasses (whatever that meant).
"I stuck a knife into his neck," she informed him quietly and ran a finger along his neck in the place she had stabbed Ryan, "and pulled it down. He bled to death in our living room."
The boy stepped back and stared at her with wide eyes. After a few moments, he nodded. He thrust out his hand for her to take and said, "The name's Finch- Tony Finch."
She realized that she had been accepted. She then had a place in the place she was stuck at. "Shepard- Mimi Shepard."
