“Oh, poor child.” She barked, “I am not scared of the queen. She’s nothing compared to her. I can’t be like Lamia. I can’t let her touch Petros and Iosif. I can’t.” She backed away from me, crying into her hands as she crumpled to the floor. At least now she didn’t look like she was about to murder me.

I crouched down next to her. “Listen,” I said, knowing that my words were meaningless, “no one’s going to hurt you.”

The second I let my guard down she moved with lightning speed and lunged at me, her hands wrapping around my neck. I released an ear-splitting scream as I tried to escape her, hitting and kicking wildly, but she was determined to choke the life out of me.

I punched at her again, but my fist hit something else—a boot? Two guards came into the cell. They yanked her off me, restraining her violently and dragging her away. I scurried back into the far corner, curling my knees up into my chest, crying with relief.

“What the hell just happened?” Officer Warwick asked me.

“I should be the one asking that,” I choked out.

Officer Warwick barked orders to the three guards behind him to secure the perimeter. He then kneeled down and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to be okay.”

He picked me up like I weighed nothing and brought me to the medical room located at the back of the building. The nurse stood almost immediately when Officer Warwick slid the door open using only his elbow. The doctor, who was in the middle of reading something, set her papers down and adjusted her glasses, nestling them on the bridge of her nose. The doctor pointed to a bed attached to the wall and told me to make myself comfortable. Even in the best of conditions this would have been difficult because the blanket on top of the thin mattress was made out of a scratchy, puke-yellow fabric.

Officer Warwick put me down on the bed. “I’ll wait outside,” he said with a nod.

In addition to the physical checkup, the doctor also asked me how I was feeling. In all honesty, I was in shock. It was not every day a woman spewed nonsense at me before trying to kill me. Yet, if I was honest with the doctor, the examination would take much longer. It was funny how just yesterday I had been so desperate to leave my cell that I had been willing to have a visit from my parents. Now, all I wanted was to get back to my cell so I could be alone. After convincing her that there was nothing wrong with me, I was given permission to leave. I thanked her before getting up to go.