"I'm sorry. "
"Please, I-I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Handler Petrus leans in close, so close his face takes up the trainee's entire field of vision. Dread pools cold in his stomach and races hot over his skin. The trainee swallows, his hands in fists bunched in his shirt to keep them from tapping, twisting, moving at all.
"Are you?" Handler Petrus asks in a low voice, threat laced through every syllable. "Are you really, 499?"
"Yes, sir! I am! I am, sir! I, I didn't mean to... I did not mean to spill the food, sir." He carefully slows his voice down. Adrenaline rushes through him, his heart pounds, but he can't show it. He can't.
"Hm. Well, clean it up." Handler Petrus looks up, at the other boys in the dining hall who pretend they don't see.
The trainee swallows. "May... May I have a towel, sir?"
"No. Use your shirt."
"But it's so cold-"
"Did I fucking stutter, trainee?" Handler Petrus fingers the black baton that hangs from his belt.
The trainee shakes his head rapidly, trembling as he slowly pulls the shirt off over his head, balling it up between his hands. Goosebumps pop up under his freckles. "No, sir. I'm sorry, sir."
"Better. Now clean up your fucking mess."
The trainee drops to his knees, mopping up the spilled shake slowly, feeling against his bruised back the weight of every pair of eyes pretending not to watch.