I turn a corner and there’s a light glowing ahead, and I walk toward it hoping maybe Elias and my sister are there. The hallway opens up, widens with windows set into the walls—most of them broken or missing their glass. Instinct telling me to hide myself after the earlier altercation, I crouch close to the floor and peek my head over one of the ledges.

I end up looking down on a crowd of Recruiters huddled and sprawled along tiers of benches sloping to a concrete floor below. Some of the men stand with their arms raised, clapping and shouting. The air’s thick with the stench of them, unwashed bodies and greasy hair.

Everyone’s focused on one object: a large metal cage in the center of the auditorium. In the corner, several Unconsecrated trudge around in wheels powering lights strung across the ceiling under night-darkened skylights. They moan and reach for the living and I can see from here that most of them are missing fingers or even their entire hands.

I’m starting to back away when Conall climbs onto a platform balanced across the top of the cage. The Recruiters shout and jeer and eventually fall silent as he whistles.

“Tonight should be a good one,” he calls to the crowd. “Place your bets.”

A door off to the side slams open and the entire room goes quiet, everyone waiting but for what I don’t know. Eventually, I hear someone wailing and then a young man stumbles into the auditorium. He’s terrified, face drained white, eyes panicked as he scours the room.

My hands move to cover my mouth as if the crowd below could hear my strained breathing. Dread begins to unfurl in my chest.

The Recruiter who hit me earlier pins the man’s arm behind his back as he cracks the gate to the big center cage open and tosses him inside. The Recruiters on the benches roar. The man turns back to the gate, trying to yank it open. He’s screaming words I can’t hear or understand over the shouting of the crowd.

He slams himself against the fence, trying to climb, but the top’s enclosed with wire. Even from here I can see that he can’t escape. He reaches his fingers through the links, his mouth moving and cheeks wet with a sheen of terror sweat, but the Recruiters nearby only laugh and taunt.

Just then a door in the far wall opens and the crowd dissolves into a raucous chant as another body is dragged toward the cage using chains attached to the end of rigid poles. The woman’s tall with a shaved head, her body clad in the remnants of a white tunic. At first she seems confused, and for a moment I don’t realize she’s Unconsecrated. She stands there dazed as the scent of so many living overwhelms her.