Chapter 82: | The Big Rumble

The place had been converted into a kind of holding area. All around, people were gathered in groups, slumped on the floor or against cracked tile walls. Their eyes were glazed, their bodies stiff and lifeless. They were being held in crude pens fashioned from welded fenders, girders, bits of scrap iron – presumably, anything Stroke's thugs could lay their hands on. A bucket made do for a toilet. The damp concrete floor was their table, littered with assorted fast food debris: empty buckets of chicken, burger wrappers, and soda cans.

It was like a detention camp for all the poor souls that Stroke and his kind had snatched from the streets.

Paul stood beside Ava, looking down at his scruffy sneakers as if trying to blank out the rest of his surroundings.

'Why are you keeping these people here like this, Stroke?' she demanded.