Verrus is a beast kept chained up for pit fights, and has been all his life. As a large mutt with impressive shapeshift abilities, he draws in crowds, which draw in money; there is little incentive for those who profit off of him to treat him like anything more than a beast of the Wastes. They don't speak to him like a person. They don't treat him like one. When Rhecka's hack hit the city, Verrus spent those months alone and chained up, subsisting on water from the leak in the ceiling and pests that came too close. He was an animal, alone and in the dark.

When he wasn't starving, he had time to think. And he doesn't quite know how to make his escape, but there is more intelligence in him than they believe. He is biding his time, now, until the opportunity arises. He won't stay chained in this hole forever.