The older girl's eyes flickered with something, recognition, maybe understanding. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Six months of being beaten for speaking had destroyed her ability to vocalize even when she wanted to.
"You don't have to tell me now," Shuyin said gently. "When you're ready, when you feel safe enough, we'll figure out what each of you needs. For tonight, just rest. Eat the food the doctors approve. Drink water. Sleep in clean beds. Tomorrow we'll start working on everything else."
She repeated this careful approach in several rooms, always sitting low, speaking softly, asking but not demanding, offering time and patience that these children had never been given before.
In one room, she found a boy who appeared older than the others, perhaps sixteen, though malnutrition made age difficult to assess. He watched her enter with sharper awareness than most of the others showed, some spark of defiance not quite beaten out of him.
