At four years old, Jay learns a simple rule at The Annex: If you don't learn fast, you die. The orphanage is no home. It is a place where children are beaten, trained, and forced to fight for the entertainment and profit of the people who control them. Jay refuses to become another victim. When he steps between the Warden and a terrified little boy named Tim, he unknowingly takes on a responsibility that will shape the rest of his life. Jay becomes Tim's protector, and together they learn how to survive the only way they can—by fighting back. Years of beatings, brutal training, underground fights, theft, and blood turn two frightened children into survivors. Jay has one rule he refuses to break: He will never kill. But survival has a way of changing the rules. As Jay and Tim grow older, the bond between them is tested by something more dangerous than the people who raised them. Jealousy. Some people break under pressure. Others become the thing they were trying to survive.