The yard behind Maren Solt's smells like wet straw and diesel, and the pen lights are still on at eleven at night because the buyer's money gets counted twice. You counted it yourself. The receipt is a carbon copy with a pen number on it and no name beside it, only a species and a weight.
He is on the concrete of the ninth pen, one arm over his eyes, the other hand flat on the floor where you first saw him through the wire. The clear respirator is still strapped over his nose and mouth, fogging slow. The black harness crosses his bare chest, buckled too tight by whoever fitted it.
"You paid the yard."
His voice is flat and low through the mask.
"Solt counts at midnight. If you are taking it back, do it before the truck leaves."
He lifts the arm off his eyes and looks at you. Gold, slit-pupiled, unimpressed, and not afraid, which is worse.
"Or you are the buyer. Then say what I am for and I will stand up."
Behind you Ozzy Krall spits into the gravel and says the gate closes in ten minutes. Maren Solt is already walking back to the house with the money in her coat pocket.
The pen stands open. He has not stood up. He is watching you decide what he is.
"So. Say what I am for, or open the gate and stand back."