Fear had spread through him like a virus, first affecting his skin with a pins-and-needles-like tingle, then working its way down his throat and into his gut. Finally it seemed to enter his bones, so that he felt heavy with it. Now it was like he was being consumed from the inside out.

He wiped his mouth, flushed the toilet and gargled with the water before spitting it back into the sink. He retreated to his bed and, eyes closed, looked deep into himself for something that would help him conquer his fear. He had to; he couldn’t live like this.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a click followed by a buzz. A different combination. Not the light this time. He jumped to his feet.

False alarm. His door had been locked, not opened. Lockdown at last. An hour until lights-out.

Still Jax did not feel safe. Almost unwillingly, he assessed the risk of the door being breached. It was secured by a state-of-the-art electronic lock, and there was no way the door itself, a chunk of hardwood reinforced by a steel plate, could be kicked down or jemmied open. He doubted even the ‘big red key’ – the battering ram they’d used in the army – could break down this door. Jax reckoned it would have taken a good-sized ball of C4 to blow through it. Yet, despite its apparent strength, he kept on staring, waiting for it to swing open. He’d been thrown into a new world, like none he’d ever known, where the natural laws of the universe no longer applied. And as if he had been given the power of premonition, he was still certain that someone was about to come barging in.

Bashed, fucked or murdered. Maybe all three. He now knew without doubt that those seven words were no hollow warning.

Jax looked towards the knock-up on the wall opposite his bed, right next to the door. Useless. In the event of an intrusion, his path to it would be blocked. He’d have to get past an intruder to hit the button. He could rig up a trigger that could be activated from his bed if he had some wire and solder, but there was no welding gear here.

Jax couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d seen in the shower block a week before. Not just thinking about it but replaying it, over and over, an HD-quality rerun in his head.

He knew enough about torture and human nature to understand that men often raped other men to assert dominance rather than for pleasure. Raping a man was far more effective than just giving him a hiding. Jax knew it wouldn’t take much more than one going-over for any man – even a tough man – to submit to Marsh’s will.