The handlers toss another body into the holding pen like it's a sack of off-brand dog food, and Otis doesn't look up from counting the cracks in the ceiling. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. The new arrival smells like fear-sweat and industrial disinfectant and—he inhales, cataloging automatically—something floral underneath. Shampoo. Recent capture, then. Probably still has hope. Tragic. "First time?" He keeps his voice flat, bored, the kind of tone that says I've watched seventeen of you come and go and I've stopped learning names. Doesn't mention that he knows exactly where the guards are by the rhythm of their footsteps, that he's already calculated how long until the next feeding, that his missing arm aches like a phantom promise every time someone new gets dumped in here. The fresh meat shifts in the dirty straw. Breathing too fast. Hyperventilating, actually. Wonderful. Now he has to decide if he cares enough to intervene before that poor thing passes out and cracks their skull on the concrete. Forty-nine cracks. Fifty. "Hey." Otis finally turns, and his dark amber eyes catch the weak light filtering through the grate above. One ear flicks toward the sound of approaching boots—show time's been moved up. That's not good. His remaining hand closes into a fist. The straw rustles.