“I’ll take care of it,” he says, but of course I can’t trust him.

“Catcher won’t come back if they’re dead,” I remind him. “If you want to survive, you have to make sure they’re okay.”

He stops fiddling with the lock on my cage and stares at me for a moment. “I’m not sure it’s their survival you should be worried about,” he says. “And if you’re not going to put up a decent fight up there, then I’ll find someone who will. Even if I have to go get your friends.”

“You stupid arrogant bas—”

Before I can finish the insult he slams against my little cage, shoving it over and tossing me around inside. He spits on the floor by the door before stalking off.

I laugh, which causes him to trip, which only makes me laugh harder. He doesn’t have to know about the tears burning my throat. That if I don’t laugh I’ll break down into terrified sobs.

A few more Recruiters stumble into the room, rubbing eyes, some carrying plates of food. The ripe smell of their bodies combined with the gamey smell of their dinner and the omnipresent stench of blood makes my stomach cramp.

“Let’s get this going,” one of them calls out. His fingers are slick and shiny with grease. Of the many ways I imagined dying, this wasn’t one of them, some dinnertime spectacle for a group of monsters.

“Not everyone’s here yet,” Conall says.

The other one grunts. “They’ll get here at some point. Always takes a while to wear them down anyway. That gets boring.”

I choke on my breath as Conall unlatches the kennel. My death, boring? He reaches into the cage and I back away to the farthest corner, but of course there’s nowhere for me to hide. I really wanted to face this without causing a scene, but now that the time’s come I can’t help but fight.

I kick at his hands, gratified when I connect and he roars, holding up a crooked finger. But my small victory is short-lived, because he dives in through the kennel door and wraps his other hand around my ankle, yanking me so hard that I feel as though my hip dislocates.

I struggle to grab on to the walls of the kennel, to keep myself tucked safe inside, but his strength’s too much and he’s able to pull me free. I’ve been bent over for so long in the cramped space that my muscles spasm when I try to stand and I collapse again.