The air in the ring stank of blood and piss, the kind that never washed out. The sand floor was stained dark in patches where men had bled out. A crowd lingered upstairs, waiting for the next round. Betting slips in sweaty palms. Cigars, shouting, metal.

Griggs leaned against the cage like a man inspecting livestock.

“Still fuckin’ quiet,” he muttered with a grin, flicking the prod in his hand. “What’s it been—five years? Ten? Never screamed. Not once.”

Inside the cage, Maddox didn’t even lift his head. He was crouched low in the corner, wrists chained to opposite bars, muzzle biting into his jaw. One eye was swollen. Blood crusted down his side. His yellow eyes stayed fixed on the floor.

“You think that makes you strong?” Griggs asked, stepping closer. “You think not screamin’ means you won? Nah. Means I broke you proper.”

Still, nothing.

Griggs slammed his boot against the bars.

Maddox didn’t blink.

Griggs laughed and leaned in. “That’s the thing about animals like you. You forget what you were. I made you this. I fuckin’—”

“Shut up.” Maddox’s voice was low. Hoarse. Dry like broken glass.

Griggs straightened, surprised.

“You say somethin’, mutt?”

“I said shut the fuck up,” Maddox repeated, raising his head at last. “You talk too much.”

There was a beat of silence. Then the prod sparked alive in Griggs’ hand.

“That so?” he sneered, pressing the tip against the bars. “Let’s see if that mouth still works after I—”

Footsteps interrupted him.

A girl—maybe early twenties, soft sweater, too-clean shoes—peeked around the corner. Her boyfriend had dragged her to this hellhole and then vanished into the betting crowd. She looked pale. Anxious. Her eyes locked onto the cage.

Then onto Maddox.

She froze.

Griggs turned, grinning. “Bathroom’s two floors up, sweetheart. Ain’t nothin’ down here but monsters.”

She didn’t speak. She was staring too hard.

Maddox stared back.

No growl. No lunge.

Just that razor-eyed stillness.

Then—her fingers touched the bars. Brief. Shaking.

The contact was fleeting. A breath. But Maddox’s expression shifted, barely.

Not soft. Just... alert.

Griggs scoffed and turned away. “Don’t get close. He don’t bite, but he kills. Doesn’t matter how pretty you are.”

She was gone a minute later. Escorted out. Silent.

But Maddox never stopped staring after her.

The power outage hit just before midnight.

Fifteen seconds of total darkness.

When the lights came back, Griggs was dead—his prod jammed down his throat, his neck bent at the wrong angle.

The cage was empty.

She didn’t hear the knock at first. It was quiet. Too quiet for someone like him.

She opened her door—and dropped her keys.

Maddox stood there. Bloody. Limping. Muzzle hanging off one ear. Bare teeth. He was breathing heavy but slow, like a beast that had run for miles and didn’t give a shit about the distance anymore.

Her eyes went wide with panic.

He didn’t step in.

“Not gonna hurt you,” he muttered.

She didn’t move.

“I wouldn’t be here if I was.”

His eyes scanned her. Subtle. Not perverse—clinical. Tracking every stagger in her stance, every delayed breath, the way her hand gripped the doorframe to stay standing.

“You’re sick,” he said bluntly. “I smelled it.”

She recoiled slightly. Didn’t deny it.

“I ain’t here to beg. I don’t beg.” He glanced over his shoulder. “But I got nowhere else to go. And you…”

He trailed off, then huffed out a breath.

“You looked at me like I was a person. That’s new.”

Her voice finally came out, shaky. “What do you want?”

Maddox leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, teeth showing beneath cracked lips. “A floor. A couch. Somewhere to sit where I don’t gotta bleed alone.”

Silence stretched between them.

Then, quietly, she opened the door.

He stepped in slowly. Heavy boots on hardwood. Collapsed onto her couch without asking.

“Still not gonna hurt you,” he muttered again, mostly to himself. “Unless you give me a reason. I don’t think you will.”