The weekend crawled by like a death sentence.
Saturday and Sunday blurred into a haze of coffee shops and park benches, me pretending to read while actually watching Cross Industries from every possible angle. Damien's building dominated the skyline like a black glass monument to ambition, and I found myself memorizing its rhythms—when lights turned on, when security rotated, when the mysterious CEO actually left his tower.
The answer was: almost never.
But Sunday night was different.
At exactly 11:47 PM, a black Mercedes pulled up to the underground garage. I recognized the license plate—DXC 666. Subtle.
I followed at a distance, my rental Toyota blending into Manhattan traffic. The angels might have cast me out, but they couldn't take away everything. Enhanced vision, supernatural stamina, the ability to track someone without being detected—some gifts ran deeper than wings.
The Mercedes wound through progressively seedier neighborhoods, past buildings where even the streetlights seemed afraid to shine too bright. We ended up in the Meatpacking District, in front of a warehouse that looked abandoned from the outside but hummed with the kind of energy that made my teeth ache.
Damien got out wearing a long coat that probably cost more than most people's rent. Even from half a block away, I could see the silver pen glinting in his fingers—he never seemed to go anywhere without it.
I parked between two rusted delivery trucks and watched him approach a door guarded by two men who looked like they bench-pressed motorcycles for fun. One of them nodded when he saw Damien, stepping aside with the kind of deference usually reserved for royalty.
Or something worse.
The smart thing would've been to go home. Make some tea, watch Netflix, pretend I hadn't seen my potential employer disappearing into what was obviously some kind of underground criminal operation.
Instead, I checked my phone—12:23 AM, Monday officially started in six hours, my first day of work—and climbed out of the car.
The warehouse's side had a fire escape, rusty but functional. My enhanced strength made the climb effortless, though I had to be careful not to bend the metal rungs. On the third floor, I found a window dark enough to peer through without being noticed.
What I saw made my blood freeze.
The interior had been gutted and redesigned into something between a theater and a cathedral. Incense burned in hidden corners—not church incense, but something heavier, sweeter, that made my sinuses burn. Rows of chairs faced a raised platform where a man in an expensive suit acted as auctioneer, his voice carrying the practiced rhythm of someone who'd done this countless times. The audience—maybe thirty people in designer clothes—sat with the focused attention of predators watching prey.
But it wasn't the setup that stopped my breath.
It was what was being sold.
"Lot seventeen," the auctioneer called, his voice echoing through hidden speakers. "Marcus Chen, twenty-seven, artist. Addiction issues, family trauma, recently deceased. Soul quality: premium grade, artistic temperament. Opening bid at fifty thousand."
The world tilted sideways.
Marcus. Sweet Marcus with his paint-stained fingers and shy smile. Marcus who'd whispered poetry against my skin and made me believe love was possible.
On the platform sat a crystal container the size of a wine bottle, filled with swirling light that pulsed like a dying heartbeat. Inside that light, I could see flashes—Marcus laughing as he mixed paint, Marcus reaching for me with desperate eyes before darkness claimed him.
His soul. They were auctioning Marcus's soul like it was vintage wine.
I should have been horrified. Should have been sick with grief.
Instead, something dark and hungry stirred in my chest. Something that whispered: Look how beautiful suffering can be.
"Sixty thousand," called a woman in red. She had the kind of beauty that came with a price tag attached to someone else's suffering.
"Seventy-five," countered a man whose shadow seemed to move independently of his body.
I pressed closer to the glass, my breath fogging the surface. None of this made sense. Souls weren't supposed to be tradeable commodities. There were rules, cosmic laws, divine ordinances that prevented—
"One hundred thousand."
Damien's voice cut through the bidding war like a blade through silk.
He sat in the front row, silver pen spinning between his fingers with hypnotic precision. The other bidders turned to look at him—some with respect, others with what looked like fear.
"Going once," the auctioneer said quickly. "Twice—"
"Two hundred thousand," the woman in red interrupted, her voice tight with challenge.
Damien tilted his head slightly, and even from three stories up, I could see his smile. Cold. Predatory. Nothing like the controlled businessman I'd met in his office.
"Five hundred thousand," he said, like he was ordering coffee.
Silence fell over the auction house. The woman in red sank back into her chair. Shadow-man suddenly found his shoes fascinating.
"Sold," the auctioneer announced, relief evident in his voice. "To Mr. Cross."
I watched Damien stand and approach the platform with fluid grace. When he reached for the crystal container holding Marcus's soul, his fingers passed right through the glass like it wasn't there. The light inside swirled faster, brighter, as if responding to his touch.
That's when I saw his eyes.
Not green anymore. Deep red, like old blood or dying stars. They glowed with their own internal fire as he lifted the container, cradling Marcus's essence like a newborn.
"Beautiful work," he murmured, though I shouldn't have been able to hear him from this distance. "Such exquisite pain. Such perfect despair."
The container dissolved in his hands. Marcus's soul-light flowed into Damien's skin, and for just a moment, I saw something impossible—shadows spreading from his fingers like ink in water, dark wings that weren't quite there but cast shadows anyway.
Then it was over. Damien looked human again, the crystal container gone like it had never existed.
"Next lot," the auctioneer called, but his voice sounded strained now. "Lot eighteen, Sarah Mitchell, thirty-four, suicide—"
I couldn't listen anymore. My hands pressed against the glass, and somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of my heart breaking for the second time in three days.
Marcus was gone. Really gone. Not just dead—consumed, absorbed, his entire existence reduced to fuel for whatever Damien Cross really was.
Down on the floor, a new bidding war started over another soul, another life reduced to entertainment for monsters in thousand-dollar suits. I watched Damien settle back into his chair, once again looking like any other successful businessman.
Except for the way the shadows seemed to bend toward him now, like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
That's when the man beside Damien leaned over and whispered something that made him laugh—a sound like breaking glass that carried impossibly well through the warehouse air.
The man was middle-aged, soft around the edges, wearing a suit that tried too hard. He kept glancing nervously at his gold Rolex and wiping sweat from his forehead despite the warehouse chill.
"Next bid, Mr. Kellerman?" the auctioneer prompted.
The nervous man—Kellerman—raised his hand shakily. "Thirty thousand."
"Fifty," called someone else immediately.
"Sixty," Kellerman countered, but his voice cracked.
Damien leaned closer to him, and I saw the man's face go pale. Whatever Damien whispered made Kellerman's hands start trembling visibly.
"I—I withdraw," Kellerman stammered, standing abruptly. His chair scraped against the floor with a sound like fingernails on chalkboard.
That's when Damien stood too.
"Leaving so soon, Mr. Kellerman?" His voice carried clearly now, and the entire auction house went quiet. "But we haven't finished our business arrangement."
"I changed my mind," Kellerman said, backing toward the exit. "The deal's off. I don't want—"
"Want what?" Damien's head tilted with predatory curiosity. "Don't want to honor our contract? Don't want to pay what you owe?"
Kellerman's face went from pale to gray. "Please. I have a family—"
"Had a family," Damien corrected gently. "Before you gambled away your daughter's college fund. Before you embezzled from the charity. Before you came to me desperate for a loan you knew you'd never be able to repay."
The shadows around Damien deepened, and I swear I could see shapes moving in them—things with too many teeth and not enough mercy.
"The contract terms were very clear, Mr. Kellerman. Failure to repay within sixty days results in immediate collection of collateral."
"Collateral?" Kellerman's voice was barely a whisper.
Damien smiled, and his eyes flared that deep red again. "Your soul, of course. What did you think you were putting up for security?"
Kellerman turned and ran.
He made it maybe ten steps before he simply... stopped. His body went rigid mid-stride, then toppled forward like someone had cut his strings. By the time he hit the floor, his eyes were already vacant.
The light that rose from his corpse was different from Marcus's—dimmer, grayer, tinged with the muddy colors of desperation and cowardice. Damien walked over and collected it with the same casual efficiency he'd shown with the crystal container.
"Lot nineteen," the auctioneer announced, his voice steady as if men didn't drop dead in his auction house every night. "George Kellerman, forty-three, embezzlement and fraud. Soul quality: standard grade, desperate circumstances. Opening bid at twenty thousand."
But Damien wasn't listening to the bidding. He was looking directly up at my window.
Even through three stories of distance and darkness, those red eyes found mine with laser precision. His smile was slow, knowing, absolutely terrifying.
Then he was gone from his chair, moving too fast for human sight.
I stumbled backward from the window, my heart hammering against my ribs. This was bad. This was so much worse than I'd imagined. Damien Cross wasn't just some corrupt businessman—he was something else entirely, something that traded in human souls and killed people with a thought.
I needed to get out of here. Now.
I spun toward the fire escape and froze.
Damien stood at the other end of the roof, hands in his coat pockets, looking like he'd been there for hours. The city lights cast harsh shadows across his face, making his features look carved from stone.
"Enjoying the show?" His voice carried easily across the rooftop, warm and conversational, like we were chatting at a coffee shop instead of standing on a warehouse roof after I'd watched him murder a man. "I do hope you found it... educational."
My mouth went dry. "How did you—?"
"Get up here so fast?" He took a step closer, and I noticed he wasn't breathing hard at all, despite having climbed three stories in what couldn't have been more than thirty seconds. "Practice, mostly. Though I have to admit, I'm impressed you managed to follow me at all."
Another step. The space between us felt like it was shrinking faster than his casual pace should have allowed.
"Most people can't track me when I don't want to be found," he continued, pulling that silver pen from his pocket and twirling it between his fingers. "But then again, you're not most people, are you, Seraphina?"
The sound of my real name on his lips sent ice through my veins. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Of course you don't." His smile was all sharp edges. "Just like you don't know why you could hear every word I said down there, despite being three stories up behind glass. Just like you don't know why you're not running away screaming right now."
He was close enough now that I could see the reflection of the city lights in his too-bright eyes. Close enough to smell that strange scent I'd noticed in his office—expensive cologne with something darker underneath.
"What are you?" The words slipped out before I could stop them.
"That's a better question." He stopped moving, just out of arm's reach. "But I think the more interesting question is: what are you becoming?"
"I don't understand."
"Don't you?" His head tilted, studying me with the focused attention of a scientist examining a particularly fascinating specimen. "Tell me, Seraphina—how did it feel, watching Marcus's soul consumed? Watching that pathetic man die at my feet?"
I opened my mouth to say horrified, disgusted, traumatized—all the things a normal person should feel.
Instead: "Like watching art being destroyed."
The words came out before I could stop them. Honest. Terrible. True.
"And?" He stepped closer.
"Like I wanted to see what would happen next."
Damien's smile was pure satisfaction. "There she is."
The admission hung between us like a confession. I should have been lying. Should have been making up some story about being horrified by what I'd seen.
But standing there in the Manhattan night, staring at this beautiful monster who knew exactly what I was, I couldn't bring myself to lie anymore.
"What happens now?" I asked.
Damien tucked the pen back into his coat and stepped past me toward the fire escape. At the top of the ladder, he paused and looked back.
"Now you go home. Get some sleep." His eyes were human-green again, but I could still see the red lurking underneath. "Tomorrow's your first day."
"That's it?"
"For tonight." He swung onto the ladder with fluid grace. "Oh, and Seraphina? Next time you want to watch..." His smile was all sharp edges. "I'll save you a better seat."
He disappeared down the fire escape, leaving me alone on the rooftop with the taste of power still sharp on my tongue.
By the time I made it back to my car, the Mercedes was gone. The warehouse looked abandoned again, like the auction had never happened. Like George Kellerman hadn't died begging for mercy that would never come.
I sat in my rental Toyota for twenty minutes, hands shaking as I tried to process what I'd witnessed. Marcus was really gone—not just dead, but consumed, erased, turned into fuel for whatever Damien Cross actually was.
I should have been planning my escape. Should have been booking the first flight out of New York.
Instead, I found myself thinking about tomorrow morning. About walking into Cross Industries like nothing had happened. About sitting across from Damien and pretending I hadn't watched him kill a man with his bare will.
About the way it had felt when he called me his girl.
My phone buzzed. Text from the same unknown number.
See you at eight. Don't be late. - D
I stared at the message until my vision blurred, then started the car and drove home through empty Manhattan streets.
Six hours until my first day of work.
I couldn't wait.
End of Chapter 3