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Russ steps back.

Coward.

Always.

He looks at the leader, then at me. “Enjoy the fight, Clair.”

“I will,” I say. “I’ve gotten very good at surviving men who thought they could finish me.”

His jaw tightens.

The leader claps once, slow and sharp.

Russ turns away, but he doesn’t get far.

“Enough,” the leader says, still smiling. “Tearful reunions are over.”

“Aw Bryant, man, but I miss my soaps,” one of the cannibals says.

Taking advantage of their banter distracting Bryant, I turn before the tears can fall from Poppy’s eyes. She’s staring at Russ, face pale, mouth trembling. I drop to my knees in front of her even though the movement makes my skull throb.

“Hey.” I cup her face gently. I keep each word steady, because she needs them steady. “Look at me. That man does not matter.”

Her chin trembles.

“Leon is coming for us.”

Russ’s eyes flicker at Leon’s name.

Not jealousy. Recognition. And . . . fear? It’s gone so fast I almost miss it.

Poppy’s eyes harden, and she nods.

Bryant sighs like we’re boring him now. Then he snaps his fingers toward the cart.

Two guards shove the metal bowls through the gap and onto the floor. Something grayish slops over the sides, splattering tile already stained with old footprints and darker marks I don’t want to identify. The smell hits a second later, greasy and acrid in a way that makes every prisoner recoil.

“Dinner,” Bryant says brightly. “You’ll need your strength.”

The bowls slide across the tile.

One stops near my boot.

I stare down at it.

At first, my brain refuses to understand what I’m seeing. Chunks of something pale float in thin broth. Bits of onion. Maybe potato. Maybe not. A strip of skin curls near the edge.

Then the bowl shifts, and something rolls to the surface.

A finger.

Gray-white. Bloated. The nail still attached. A ring of puckered skin marks the severed end, the bone pale in the center like a tiny, horrible button.

My stomach heaves.

Poppy sees it at the same time and clamps both hands over her mouth.

The guards laugh.