Chapter 6: The Cellar

The cellar smells like wet stone and rot. They've chained me by the neck. Actually chained me, a dog collar and a length of iron bolted to the wall, and my knees are shredded from the floor. Bianca stands in the middle of the room in her scarlet dress, perfectly clean, and behind her three enormous dogs throw themselves against the bars of a kennel, snarling, spit flying. She kicks over a bucket. Something black and stinking spreads across the stone toward me. "Eat," she says. I stare at...