A heavy iron chain was locked around my neck.

Every day, the only thing I was given to eat was rancid slop.

Every night, the thugs from the village walked into the pigsty.

In the darkness, I endured round after round of blood draws and brutal drug trials.

The bodyguards hauled me up and threw me into the trunk of an SUV.

When the plane took off, I lay in a corner of the cabin.

I opened my mouth, trying to make a sound.

Only a ragged hiss escaped my throat.

Constance sat on the sofa and slipped a pair of black noise-canceling headphones over her ears.

"Enough. Stop playing mute. Save your strength. You're going back to the city to get on your knees and beg Caspian for forgiveness."

The plane landed on a private helipad in the heart of downtown.

A bodyguard wrapped my body in a sheet of black tarp and shoved me into the last row of a luxury van.

The vehicle pulled into the underground garage of the Continental Hotel. An elevator took us straight to the top-floor ballroom.

The doors swung open.

The ballroom was draped in heavy red carpet, and crystal chandeliers cast a blinding glow over everything below. The bodyguard ripped the tarp away and hurled me onto the center of the carpet.

Constance stood beneath a spotlight, microphone in hand.

Guests holding champagne flutes crowded around on every side.

Constance pointed at me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the gift I've prepared to lift Caspian's spirits."

Her gaze swept the crowd.

"A vicious man I dragged back from the mountains."

Laughter erupted.

Several men in couture suits strolled forward, wine glasses in hand. They looked down at me.

"I heard he spent three years up in the mountains?"

"Covered himself in mud on purpose and reeks of blood. Trying to disgust Caspian, no doubt."

I lay facedown on the red carpet.

I reached out with my right arm, pressed my elbow into the floor, and dragged my body forward.

My broken legs trailed behind me, leaving a dark, wet streak across the carpet.

Caspian descended the spiral staircase in an immaculate white suit.

The moment he spotted the bloodstains on the floor, he let out a sharp gasp.

He collapsed into Constance's arms, fingers clawing at her trench coat.

"Constance, the blood on him is so red... I'm scared..."

Constance's expression turned ice-cold.

She turned toward the hotel security guards stationed by the entrance.

"Get water over here. Scrub every drop of that filth off the carpet."

Two security guards came running with plastic cleaning buckets. The buckets were full of freezing, grimy water.

"Pour it over his head. Wash off that disgusting act of his."

The guards lifted the buckets.

Ice-cold water laced with grit came crashing down over my skull.

It streamed through my brittle hair and seeped into the unstitched wound on my abdomen.

The bone-deep cold sent violent spasms ripping through my body.

Constance walked over and stopped beside me, the point of her stiletto heel landing an inch from my fingers.

"Crawl over there. Kneel before Caspian and bow your head to the floor three times."

She stared down at me.

"Admit that you faked a terminal illness to compete for my attention. Do as you're told, and I'll let you stay at the company as an errand boy."

I lowered my head.

The gala moved into its second half.

The bodyguards dragged me out of the ballroom and dumped me in a corner of the hallway near the restrooms.

My clothes clung to my skin. Bloody water dripped from the hem of my shirt onto the marble tile.

Caspian stepped out of the restroom, adjusting his cufflinks.

He stopped in front of me.

He raised his right foot. The hard heel of his leather shoe came down on the broken index finger of my right hand.

He ground it side to side.

Every nerve in my body screamed at once. My whole frame seized tight, and I recoiled on instinct.

Caspian watched me and let out a light, cheerful laugh.

"You really thought Constance set you up at some quaint little farmhouse?"

He bent down, his face inches from mine.

"The day Chief Grogan got the money, he messaged me asking how I wanted you handled."

He straightened up, smoothing the hem of his suit jacket.

"I told them to do whatever they wanted. Just keep you breathing so they could use you as a blood bag."

Caspian's gaze drifted to the bloodstain spreading across my abdomen.

"All those hundreds of days and nights, having your organs hollowed out bit by bit. Must've been something, huh?"

The sharp click of heels echoed from the far end of the corridor.

Constance appeared around the corner.

Caspian threw himself backward instantly, slamming hard onto the marble floor. He clutched his ankle with both hands, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Jacob, I know you hate me, but why did you have to push me..."

Constance's expression shifted like a switch had been flipped. She stormed toward us in long, furious strides.

She didn't spare me a single glance. Her right foot drove straight into my body.

The pointed toe of her stiletto connected with surgical precision against the wound on my abdomen.

The scraps of cloth holding me together burst apart. Blood and shredded flesh sprayed across the wall.

I lay flat on my back, eyes wide open, lungs frozen mid-breath.

Caspian leaned against the wall, pale-faced and gasping.

"Constance, the shock triggered my anemia again. I'm so dizzy..."

She turned her head immediately, her gaze locking onto me like a blade sheathed in ice.

"If you had the strength to push him, you can repay Caspian with your blood."

She pulled out a two-way radio and called for her private physician outside.

Seconds later, the doctor came running down the corridor, medical kit in hand.

Constance pointed at my arm.

"Draw his blood."

The doctor crouched beside me and pulled my left hand toward him. He cinched a tourniquet around my upper arm, then withdrew a glass collection tube fitted with a thick, long needle from his case.

Inside my skull, the System's alarm blared again, the intervals between pulses collapsing to almost nothing.

Seventy-two-hour countdown interrupted by lethal external force. Program accelerating termination.

Host body vitality severed. Pain suppression protocol disengaged.

Soul detachment successful. Wishing the Host a pleasant journey in the new world.

The needle plunged deep into a collapsed vein.

The extraction pump whirred to life, emitting a faint mechanical hum.

Constance stood over me, glancing at the watch on her wrist. Her expression was one of pure, undisguised impatience.

"Faster. He's not going to die."

Her cold gaze swept over me.

"He starved off every ounce of fat under his skin just to play the victim. This kind of pathetic act only fools the hired help who don't know any better."

I stared up at the chandelier hanging from the corridor ceiling.

The light was dimming in my vision, bleeding away at the edges.

I didn't have the strength left to twitch the corner of my mouth.

My eyes lost focus. My head surrendered to gravity, lolling softly to the right against my shoulder.

Constance's brow knotted tight. Her voice cracked through the air like a whip.

"Stop playing dead. Look at me!"

The words had barely left her lips.

CRASH.

A piercing shatter rang through the corridor.

The doctor let out a shriek, his hands flying open.

The glass collection tube hit the marble floor and exploded into fragments. Dark red liquid splattered in every direction.

Constance strode forward.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

The doctor didn't answer her.

His eyes were blown wide with horror. He scrambled backward on the floor until his spine hit the wall.

His hands trembled violently in the air, one finger pointing at the gaping hole torn open in my abdomen.

Foul, black blood was pouring out of it in a steady, unending stream.

The doctor's voice came out so shrill it barely sounded human.

"Ms. Simmons... what came out of that tube was nothing but septic blood from catastrophic organ failure!"

He grabbed his head with both hands.

He pointed at the rotting flesh.

"And his abdomen has no healing muscle tissue. There's nothing inside but a mass of necrotic, blackened, mangled organs!"

The air in the corridor froze solid.

Everyone stood paralyzed.

The doctor's trembling voice continued to echo off the walls.

"Ms. Simmons, this body was already falling apart days ago. He's been dead. Completely dead!"