Chapter 2

The first day at The Gauntlet was a baptism in filth and fear. They didn' t take him to a studio or a cell. They threw him into a concrete pit. The heavy metal door slammed shut, plunging him into near-total darkness, the only light coming from a small grate high above.

He wasn' t alone.

The skittering sounds started almost immediately, accompanied by a foul, musky stench. His eyes adjusted slowly, and he saw them. Dozens of them. Rats. Their beady eyes reflected the sliver of light from the grate. They were large, their ribs showing through their matted fur. They were starving.

They stripped him of his clothes, leaving him with nothing. His broken hand throbbed, a useless, swollen club. He scrambled to his feet, backing into a corner as the first rat darted forward, its teeth bared. He kicked out, a raw cry tearing from his throat. The night was a blur of motion and terror. He fought with his feet, his one good hand, his teeth. He screamed until his voice was raw, but the only answer was the squealing of the hungry animals. By the time the sun came up and the door finally opened, he was covered in bites and scratches, his body smeared with blood-his and the rats' .

The second day, they dragged him to the main studio. It was a cavernous space, the floor stained with paint, clay, and God knows what else. The director, a man with dead eyes and a cruel smile, stood over him.

"You have a dirty mind, Alex," the director said, his voice a low growl. "So you will learn about cleanliness. Lick the floor. All of it."

Alex stared at him in horror. Two guards grabbed him, forcing his head down.

"No," he choked out.

One of the guards kicked him hard in the ribs. The air exploded from his lungs.

"Lick," the director repeated.

He was forced onto his hands and knees. The floor was gritty, coated in a chemical-smelling grime that made him gag. He closed his eyes and touched his tongue to the cold, filthy concrete. He spent the entire day on his belly, crawling from one end of the massive studio to the other, his tongue scraping against the rough surface until it was a raw, swollen piece of meat in his mouth. He couldn' t speak. He could barely swallow. The metallic taste of blood and chemicals was all he knew. It would be weeks before he could form a word, and his speech would never be the same again.

The third night was worse.

He was in his small, windowless room when the door opened. Ten men filed in. They were other "inmates," their faces hard and desperate. They didn' t speak. They just looked at him with a hunger that had nothing to do with food.

Alex backed away until he hit the wall. "Please," he whispered, his swollen tongue making the word almost unrecognizable. "Don' t."

His screams echoed through the halls of The Gauntlet that night. No one came. No one ever came.

That was only the beginning. The year that followed was a relentless, systematic breaking of his body and spirit. They beat him for looking at a guard the wrong way. They practiced bloodletting on him, claiming it was an "archaic art form" he needed to appreciate. They called him into rooms to be used by "clients," powerful men who paid for the privilege of breaking someone who had once been Olivia' s heir.

They conditioned him. They played recordings of Olivia' s voice, a lecture she had once given at a university. At the sound of her voice, he had to prepare himself, to be ready for whatever was coming. If he failed, the punishment was three days of solitary darkness with no food or water. They told him it was to cure his "addiction" to her. In reality, it was forging a new, terrifying connection in his mind. Her voice, once a source of comfort, became a harbinger of pain and violation.

He learned to disconnect his mind from his body. He learned to be a thing, an object. He stopped thinking about his art, about his past, about Olivia. He learned to survive moment by moment. The vibrant, passionate artist named Alex was buried under layers of scars, both visible and invisible. What was left was a hollow shell that knew only two things: pain and obedience.