He makes his way to the other side of the desk and sits in his comfortable chair across from me. He looks at the guard at the door and waves him off. When the door closes, his eyes meet mine for the first time today. “I did what has to be done.”

“You know I didn’t murder anyone,” I say. “I never denied stealing from you, but I didn’t kill Skip. You, Gabe, Mendez…you all know this.”

“It is for the best,” Paxton says.

“How?” I ask, clearly confused.

“I’m not running a prison here,” he says, repeating the same slogan he fed to the elders when discussing my punishment. “None of the elders thought stealing was enough to send you away, but none of us wanted to keep prisoners either.”

You didn’t want to keep prisoners, not the other elders, is what I want to say. I wish I could tell him that I heard the entire deliberation and how he took control over the elders…how he refused to listen to anyone else’s opinion.

“Was this Shadowface’s idea?” I ask.

Paxton’s eyebrows lower as I say these words. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know you answer to him,” I say. “I know he’s a supplier, and apparently he’s the one actually running things around here. Not the elders.”

“Just because you read the word Shadowface in some record journal doesn’t mean you have any idea what you are talking about,” he says, but he looks away when he says it. He starts tapping his fingers on the desk in front of him - not with his fingernails, but his fingertips which gives an offbeat flat tempo in the much too silent room.

“I will do anything it takes to stay,” I tell him. My wrists are really beginning to hurt now. My fingers are starting to go numb. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“Why did you break in?” he asks. “That’s what puzzles me the most.”

I shrug. “I was actually looking for records. I wanted to know what kind of people you were. The gun was secondary. I saw it and I took it. It was stupid.”

“Foolish,” he says. “Not necessarily stupid. You saved our lives with it.”

The fact that he is commending me for saving his life with the gun he claimed I killed Skip with makes me livid. “So, why are you banishing me? I didn’t do what you said. You don’t have to imprison me. You don’t have to banish me. Think of another punishment.”

“The punishment must be well-remembered,” he says. “I want you gone for the stealing, but it’s not enough to banish you, so, you’re a murderer.”

“Don’t you see that it’s not right?” I ask.