They muscled Ghost forward. The half-man was chained, ankles and wrists locked down, lengths of chain as thick as Ocho’s arms disappearing into poured concrete.

Even captured, the monster was a frightening sight. Not far away, the doctor girl lay roped to her own pillar. Blood smeared her face and her skin was blotched with bruises.

“Mahlia?” Ghost asked.

“LT?” Ocho asked, uncertainly. “Are you sure—”

“Steady, soldier,” Sayle said.

Glenn Stern was standing over the girl, smiling. “It’s time you learned your choices have consequences, girl.”

The doctor girl was looking from Stern to Ghost. “Mouse?”

“What are you doing?” Ghost asked them, looking from Stern to Sayle to Ocho. “What’s going on?”

“One last time,” the Colonel said to Mahlia. “Your friend wars on our behalf, or you suffer the consequences.”

The girl shook her head.

“Mahlia?” Ghost asked. “What’s going on?”

Ocho was wondering the same thing. There was a terrible tension in the room. The smell of blood was strong. The girl huddled against the pillar. The half-man was growling, low and warning. Ocho had seen similar scenes, but this one filled him with unease.

Glenn Stern turned to Sayle and Ocho. “Put him on his knees.”

“LT?” Ocho asked.

The lieutenant barked at him, “Do it, soldier!”

Reflexively, Ocho responded to the order. Glenn Stern produced a knife. “You want this for the boy?” he asked Mahlia.

The girl was staring in agony. At first, she’d looked like she wasn’t even there, so drugged and out of it, she’d seemed, but now she was straining forward. “Don’t touch him!”

“Mahlia?” Ghost asked again, his voice cracking. He was starting to fight now, but Ocho and the lieutenant held him. The half-man was growling, louder, deep in his throat.

Ocho knew what was coming, and yet his mind refused to believe it. It felt as if someone else was holding Ghost. Someone else was forcing the soldier boy to hold still as he finally realized the boy was about to be a blood sacrifice.

Is this me? Am I doing this?

Ocho’s mind felt like it was molasses. Ghost struggled, but Ocho was stronger. He thrust out his warboy’s hand, sickened, as Stern seized the boy’s fingers.

“You want this?” the Colonel shouted.

The knife flashed and Ghost howled. Blood poured onto the tiles. And there was a finger, too. Right there on the floor. Ghost shrieked and bucked. Ocho held him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the finger.

Am I doing this?

“What’re we doing?” Ocho shouted. “He’s our boy!” No one seemed to hear him, though. Ocho wondered if he’d said anything at all.

Had he just turned coward and shut up? Did he imagine that he’d protested?