Arthur's muffled screams through the walls from upstairs simply prolongs his time with the scorpions. This is something he's cognizant of, but is unable to control.
Mrs. Read finishes setting the table before calling her loving and happy family down for supper.

Cirql chapter 7;
Dearly Beloved

"It smells delicious, Mrs. Read!" Mr. Read and them said as they sat down on the table and adjusted there napkins into bibs and lap blankets.

"Dig in!" Mrs. Read says joining the table.

"Is Arthur coming?" DW asks, scraping bloody meat onto her plate and taking a sip of dog milk.

The supply of dog meat in their coldbox is wearing thin, and they'll need to harvest another Pal from the core before too long, but not before Arthur learns his lesson and sufficiently cycles the heartbreak of losing his only true loved one once again.
Only then can the product truly be recycled. For if it were to exist, even in secret, it were to exist.

DW contemplates the sacrifices she makes for this family before savoring another thick mouthful of canine lactation.

"Your brother will stay in his room with the scorpions until he's quiet long enough to achieve an intimate introspection session," Mrs. Read says flatly.

"He keeps screaming," DW says over his pounding on the door. His begging for mercy. "I don't think he's anywhere close to an intimate introspection session."

"Neither do I," says Mr. Read. "The fool is hopeless. That's why I added significantly more scorpions this time."

"How many scorpions, daddy?" she asks, knowing full well how many scorpions.

"Oh," he starts, chuckling, sipping his cocktail of whiskey and crushed ice. "I added a bunch to his room. Hundreds. All kinds. That's not even counting the spiders. Killing them all isn't quite the reasonable expectation you might think it is. Especially since I emptied his room entirely and took his shoes."

This was one of DW's favorite stories, and she is glad her father is telling it to her.
She remembers a time Arthur's parents loved him, but they don't misbehave that way anymore. Such is the nature of her influence.

"DW, you are my favorite child, living or dead," Mr. Read says, looking at her and then his wife.

"I agree with Mr. Read, DW, you are objectively the best of our children. Living or dead."

"In fact!" Mr. Read says, proposing a toast,, "you're the best children ever! In the whole universe and all of its adjacent dimensions!"

Mrs. Read drinks to that. "Speaking of our wonderful child, how was your day at school?"

"Oh, you know," DW says, knifing the charred remains of what is understood by her "parents" to be her "sister". Chopping and cutting at it really sloppily. She thoughtfully takes a bite and speaks with her mouth full. "Mr. Ratburn gave us a test today so I made him eat his lungs. He stayed alive for a whole hour because I kept him that way!"

"He must of suffered a lot," Mrs. Read says, lovingly supporting her perfect daughter. Her eye twitches, the flash of a trapped soul can be seen deep within her pupil, seemingly unnoticed. But DW knows its there. That's where she put it on purpose.

"Probably," she says, chewing another mouthful of baby Kate. She eyes the infantile cadaver centerpiece to the table before looking at her parents in the eyes simultaneously from across the table. "Aren't you eating?"

She gives them all just enough free will to make it painful beyond conscious understanding to react defiantly.
Arthur was always the most defiant. That's why she's most interested in him at times. The desperation emitting from his very soul as he pounds on that door and begs deaf ears for help, mercy, and perhaps most amusing, love from the people doing this to him.