Not a single guard had drawn their weapons. Yet, many had broken necks, their heads completely turned around—as if one by one, a shadow had crept up upon them and laid them to waste.

Corday did not see one gunshot victim. This carnage had been done with bare hands.

The deeper they moved, the more obvious it became. Something very wrong had taken place here.

Shepherd, his Followers, had done this, and then they had shut it up.

Why?

Why seal up the Premier’s Sector? Why not make use of the arms, the food, the space, the warmth? Under the Dome, even Shepherd’s soldiers were suffering from the cold.

They found what might be an answer in the most prominent room in the mansion. With a view overlooking the icy mountains in the distance, sat a desk, a flag every citizen of Thólos had seen via COMscreen during Premier Callas’ mandatory weekly address to the population behind it. There was not a wall, a piece of furniture, or even a window that was not grimy with old, crusted blood spatter. What was left of Callas’ body was in pieces scattered all over the floor. Fingers, parts of an arm, segments of leg... his limbs had been splintered, ripped from his torso, and flung about. Even the ceiling held traces of mushed organs stuck to it.

Shriveled up innards coated the floor, lay tossed aside in the corners, the broken, splintered edges of exposed bone a testament to the rage of his killer.

Not two hours prior, Corday had imagined committing this very type of violence against Shepherd. Seeing it in person was extremely sobering.

He could not do this to another person... not even the man who’d murdered his people.

Leslie went to her knees near the fragmented and crushed skull of the man she claimed was preparing to make her his bride. “I knew he was dead, but this...”

Corday had watched her when her eyes roved over the scene in the safe house, seen how she’d looked at the lifeless body of her uncle... as if she didn’t understand what she saw. Her face had been blank, her eyes blinking slowly. Never had she cried.

It had been the shock, he was sure.

Now, there were tears on her face.

Corday watched Leslie grieve over a man who had been one of the first true casualties of the breach, and wondered at the difference between her impassive, determined reaction to her uncle’s body and her silent tears seeing the old remains of the man she’d loved, ripped to shreds.

Something seemed strange in the behavior.