Chapter One Kiera Jack Seth looked across the room as if I had somehow managed to break free of my chains and had slapped him across his emaciated face. His eyes burnt fiercely in their sunken sockets. His face looked skull-like, glaring back at me in the fading light which spilt through the window. My father sat forward in his chair, opposite me, and he groaned in pain. Blood seeped from the gashes Jack had opened in his belly. A black patch of congealed blood covered the front of my father’s boxer shorts. The mere sight and smell of the blood made my stomach leap and the back of my throat burn. I wanted some of it – needed some of it. I couldn’t touch a drop, though, however bad things got for me. However intense the pain, however much Jack would surely taunt me with my father’s flesh, I wouldn’t have the slightest taste of it. Not just because the strips of flesh had been sliced from my father, but because I knew if I were going to save him and Potter, I would have to become a statue. I would have to turn to stone. “What did you say?” Jack asked, coming towards me, blood dripping from his fingers. “Who are you to make me choose between my father and Potter?” I