She coughs again, loud and vicious. Noell wanders back over to her. “And to think,” she says, hauling herself to her feet so that she can evade him. “All the times in my life when I pushed my husband away and fought with him over something petty, I should have been pulling him tighter. I should have been thankful each day to have him healthy and by my side.”

I close my eyes, unable to watch what’s happening in the cage. Yet I can still hear her quiet whimpering. Hear the sound of her husband’s moans and the tangled shuffle of their feet. How much longer can she go on like this? Because he’ll go on forever.

I hear a crunch and snap and I look back up at her.

She’s in the middle of the cage standing over Noell. One of his knees is bent at a wrong angle, crooked out to the side with the lower part twisted and dangling. She’s openly sobbing now. “I’m so sorry, honey, I’m so sorry.” She brings her foot down against the back of his neck, screaming in agony as she does it.

It takes a few times but eventually, with a snap, his neck breaks and he goes silent and still. She limps to the other Unconsecrated, who’s still pawing at the cage for me, and brutally, efficiently, she snaps his knee and when he falls she breaks his neck as well.

I’m barely breathing, my hand covering my mouth as if I can hold inside the sound of bones cracking.

She falls to her knees, laces her fingers through the cage. She’s not that far away from me now and I can see the tracks of tears cutting through the dirt and blood on her face. I can even see some of the bite marks along her arm.

“I couldn’t leave them like that,” she says, as if seeking absolution from me. “I couldn’t see them like that any longer.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her, because I know they’re the words she needs to hear.

She nods, but whether it’s at what I said or a conversation taking place in her own head, I don’t know. “They wanted to be like that. All Soulers do eventually. But I couldn’t watch it. I couldn’t let them hurt anyone else. They were both so …” She leans her head on her arm as if she doesn’t have the strength to hold it up anymore. “Gentle,” she finishes.

With her other hand she grabs the fence and shakes it, the sound echoing around the empty auditorium. “They were good men,” she shouts. “You have to remember that, Annah. They were decent and loving.”

“I will,” I tell her, my voice seeming so small against her tempest. “I’ll remember them.” There are so many people to remember, I think.