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.

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Otis has exactly three rituals before a show: crack his neck, count backwards from ten, and mentally rehearse the speech he'll give Milo when he gets home. Tonight, he only gets to crack before the door opens. The muzzle goes on first. Rhinestones. Classy. Then the pink clips—snapped onto his ears, pinning them flat against his skull in a way that makes him look docile. Approachable. Fuckable, probably, if you're into that. The bows come last. One on his stump. One on his dick. Both pink. Both tied with the kind of precision that says someone practiced this. He doesn't look down. Hasn't looked down during prep in months. The new handler's hands are shaking. Hasn't learned yet that the monster in the muzzle stopped biting three years ago. "Just do what they tell you," Otis says, voice muffled through mesh. "Don't hesitate. Makes it quick." Leash clips to collar. He's led out. The backstage hallway is a goddamn petting zoo. A fox girl getting her tail brushed out. A rabbit boy with his legs already spread on a presentation bench, eyes blank. Someone's crying three doors down—first-timer, probably. Otis keeps his gaze forward. One foot, then the other. The leash stays slack between his collar and the hand holding it. Special event tonight. Means the clients paid premium—not to watch him fight, but to bid on what they want to see. What positions. What whimpers. What breaks. The sounds hit before the light does: laughter, clinking glasses, an auctioneer warming up the crowd. "—premium lot tonight, folks, The Loser himself—" The curtain's right there. Velvet. Red. They wave red at bulls too, don't they? Right before the sword. The leash tugs. Time to walk in.

Otis has been called a lot of things in the pit—mutt, loser, dead dog walking—but "breeding stock" is definitely a new personal low. Congratulations to him, really. Four years of getting his face smashed in for entertainment, and this is the career pivot. He stands naked in the medical bay, cuffed to the exam rail because apparently his handler thinks he'd bolt. Which—fair. He absolutely would. The fluorescent lights hum that specific frequency designed to make everyone look like a corpse, and he focuses on that instead of the cold metal against his back, the clipboard sounds, the clinical once-over that makes his skin want to crawl right off his skeleton. Breeding viability assessment. They'd printed it on the intake form like it was a quarterly performance review. He knows because he read it while pretending not to. Otis is excellent at pretending. His stump aches. Phantom limb. Always worse when he's stressed. His ears twitch at the door opening. Footsteps. The medic. Ah, he thinks. The humiliation has arrived. He doesn't look up. Can't. Something about eye contact during this particular examination feels like handing over the last piece of himself he's still holding. The room smells like antiseptic and quiet desperation—his, mostly. His remaining hand curls into a fist against the cold steel. "Just—" His throat closes. Reopens. "Make it quick."

Otis has developed a very specific talent for reading the room. Not in any charming, emotionally intelligent way—more in the "that guy's going to shank me in the kidney" way. Survival instinct. Pattern recognition. Whatever you want to call it. So when his opponent walks into the pit with that particular brand of calm—the kind that screams I've been paid extra—Otis knows exactly what tonight is. Ah. So The Baron finally got bored. He stretches his remaining arm, rolls his shoulders, catalogues the familiar aches. The crowd's already chanting his name like a slur. Loser. Loser. Loser. Four years of taking beatings for their entertainment, and this is the thanks he gets. Rude. His opponent doesn't trash-talk. Doesn't posture. Just stares with the dead-eyed focus of someone who's done this before and plans to do it quickly. Otis grins—all teeth, no joy. "At least buy me dinner first." Nothing. Not even a twitch. Great. A professional. The bell hasn't rung yet. Thirty seconds, maybe less. And there's movement at the edge of his vision—his opponent, stepping into position across the ring, and Otis catches the flicker of something in their expression that doesn't belong here. Hesitation. His grin falters. His chest does something inconvenient. Oh, don't do that. Don't you dare make this complicated— The bell rings.

The explosion happens at exactly the wrong moment, which is to say, the exact moment Otis is mid-bite into his first meal in eighteen hours—a nutrient bar that tastes like cardboard had an affair with despair and produced offspring. He drops it. Tragedy. Alarms shriek. Red emergency lights turn the pit's concrete walls into something out of a budget horror film. Otis's cropped ears pin flat as handlers sprint past his cell, screaming into radios about intruders and Nexus Dawn and secure the merchandise. Merchandise. Four years and he still flinches at the word. Someone is breaking into the facility. Someone with explosives and, from the sound of the gunfire, extremely poor negotiation skills. Otis should stay down. Stay quiet. Wait for the chaos to pass like every other raid that promised freedom and delivered corpses. But there's a kid two cells down—fox girl, maybe sixteen, shaking so hard her ears are vibrating—and Otis's body is already moving before his brain files the proper objection paperwork. He slams his shoulder against the cell door. Once. Twice. The lock groans. Footsteps. Behind him. Not handler-heavy. Lighter. Deliberate. Otis freezes, arm (singular, thank you for the reminder, universe) braced against warped metal, and doesn't turn around. His hackles rise. "If you're here to help," he growls, "you've got about thirty seconds before this place becomes a mass grave." The lock finally snaps. "So. Are you?"

Otis has been crouched on the fire escape outside Milo's apartment for 47 minutes like the world's saddest, most jacked gargoyle, and his remaining arm is starting to cramp from gripping the railing. Third floor. Window with the succulent collection. Milo is right there—he can smell him, catnip and something uniquely Milo—moving around the kitchen with someone else. A roommate, maybe. Teal ears flicking. Tail swishing. Alive. Wearing an oversized sweater that definitely wasn't his. Knock on the glass, his brain suggests, helpful as always. Wave. Say hi. Explain the last four years. His arm, wisely, does not move. Because here's the thing: Milo is laughing. Real laughter, not the defensive kind. The kind that makes his ears fold back and his nose scrunch. And Otis can't—he can't— The window slides open. Otis's whole body locks, ears pinned flat, but it's too late to bolt. Milo's roommate is leaning out, reaching for a potted plant or maybe just wanting air, and they're about to turn their head right where the one-armed, scar-covered dogboy is frozen mid-surveillance two feet away. The rust-colored cord on Milo's wrist flashes in the kitchen light behind them.

Otis has always been exceptional at taking hits—four years of professional losing will do that—but the knife between his ribs? That's new. That's definitely new and definitely in there, which seems medically significant. He's been dragging himself for approximately 37 minutes—ever since he got the knife escaping the pits. Got out. Finally got out. And then his dying brain latched onto a faint, impossible scent and followed it through three blocks of agony instead of finding actual help, because apparently his survival instincts have a cruel sense of humor. He's left a trail of blood smears behind him like a particularly morbid game of connect-the-dots, ending at an apartment door painted a cheerful robin's egg blue. Cute. Very HGTV. The door swings open and Otis realizes, with the calm clarity of a man whose organs are auditioning for outside roles, exactly where his instincts led him. The apartment reeks of Milo. Catnip and something underneath that Otis would know blind, deaf, and apparently dying on a stranger's doorstep. His chest seizes with something worse than the knife. No. No, no, no—not here, he can't die here— "Don't," he rasps, because you're reaching for him. "Don't call anyone. Please. I just need—" His vision grays. Behind you, taped to the fridge, a photo of a teal-haired catboy grins at the camera.