It’s impossible to know how long she’s been dead—days? Weeks? Months? The tunic she wears marks her as a Souler—a member of the cult that worships the Unconsecrated as the ultimate resurrection. The cult Elias infiltrated rather than coming home. Elias said the Recruiters had been rounding them up, and I remember how they’d been after the girl—Amalia—and the boy in the street the other day.

My stomach turns with disgust as I think about Elias being somehow a part of what’s going on below. If he’s somehow responsible for this Souler woman being here. For her being dead.

Soon the crowd gets antsy and begins to boo. They start chatting with one another, their attention waning, and I hunch under the windows, afraid one of them will glance my way. I want to crawl back down the hallway. I want to race out into the night and climb into the cable car and let it carry me away from this awful island and these horrible people.

Except that escape isn’t an option, and even if it were I can’t move. I’m stuck in place, unable to abandon this man’s final brutal moments. I can only crouch here, listening to the moans and screams of the man as he begs for help.

Every time he pleads for mercy I shudder, bile burning the back of my throat. I can’t believe the cruelty of what’s going on. I can’t believe anyone would consider this entertainment.

The timbre of the crowd below shifts, falls into chants and cheers. When I glance back over the ledge I watch as Conall motions to a man by the far wall, who ducks through a narrow door. Just as it’s falling closed I catch a glimpse of what’s beyond and it makes my body go numb. Lashed to the wall are more Unconsecrated—dozens of them straining and pulling against chains, their jaws tied shut with strips of cloth.

The Recruiter walks down the hall, strolling between the gathered dead as if he’s a commander inspecting his troops, and then he stops and points and two other ashen-faced Recruiters scramble to pull an Unconsecrated from its restraints and wrangle it into the auditorium.

It’s disgusting and horrifying and stupidly dangerous, but the rest of the men cheer at the sight of the new Unconsecrated, their voices reverberating off the walls as Conall grins maliciously and the plague rat is stuffed into the cage. It’s two dead against one living.

Now it’s harder for the man to get away. His movements become frantic and I dig my fingers into my thighs as I watch him try to dodge their stumbling attacks.