Tru hadn’t expected that. In a camp like this one, he’d expected something a lot less horrifying. The cages weren’t big enough for a man to stand, so he sat on top of rusted metal that bit into his thighs. A faint scent of musk lingered. Perhaps they’d used the pens for animals. Pen turned her face blindly, tracking the bastard with the aura that matched the man who’d intended to kill her. Maybe the same one who’d made Zhara disappear, too. That was where things got murky. Without proof, they couldn’t guarantee her intuition was correct. Whether Tru believed her or not wasn’t the point. “You there?” she whispered. She had to know the answer if he showed up on her radar, but he answered anyway. “Crowd’s getting big.” Pretty much everyone on the island had come to see the show. They gathered just beyond the cages. Muttering. Judging. Arturi took charge of the proceedings as the settlers asked about how the traitors would be dealt with. He’d shocked the hell out of everyone by announcing Zhara’s disappearance, and things had been chaos ever since.
