NICOLE
The raw roar of the underground auction echoed through the whole room. My body ached from the bruises, and my mind raced, a trapped bird beating against its cage. I didn't know who would get me. I was just… next.
I snapped my head from one end of the room to the other, my heart hammering against my ribs. The shadows seemed to breathe with all kinds of people. I started to sort them in my head, just to keep from screaming.
The noise was a living thing, a raw animal roar that pressed against my skin. Every ache in my body, every bruise, throbbed in time with it. My mind was racing, going nowhere, a scared animal trapped in a corner. Who would get me? The question was a drumbeat in my skull.
I couldn't stop looking. My head snapped left, then right, my eyes wide and taking in the crowd of shadows. In the dim, smoky light, I started to see them. I put them into boxes in my head. It was better than thinking about the hands that would soon be on me.
First, there were the Businessmen. They didn't look scary. They wore nice suits and had calm faces. They looked at us like we were numbers on a paper, not people. They were the scariest because they looked so normal.
Then, there were the Thugs. Big men with hard eyes and tattoos snaking up their necks. They grinned with missing teeth, pointing at us and making jokes I was glad I couldn't hear. They wanted something loud and breakable.
In the corners were the Creeps. Their eyes were hungry, sliding over my skin like slime. They didn't look at my face. They licked their lips and leaned forward, and my stomach turned over. I prayed I wouldn't go to one of them.
And then, the worst ones. The Monsters. They were quiet. Still. Their faces were empty, like masks. Their eyes were black holes that showed nothing, no feeling at all. They were the ones who wouldn't even get joy from hurting you. You would just… disappear into their nothingness.
I was so busy sorting them, trying to find the least terrible option, that I almost missed him. A man near the front. His eyes weren't empty. They were cruel, and they were focused right on me. He smiled, a thin, cold curve of his lips, and he nodded at the man on the stage.
My blood went cold. He wasn't a businessman, a thug, or a creep.
He was a monster who enjoyed his work. And he had just bought me.
I remember what brought me here,to this hell,to this action.
– – –
(The man's hands were everywhere. His breath was hot and sour on my neck, smelling of cheap beer and cigarettes. I was pressed against the cold concrete wall of the warehouse, the rough surface scraping my cheek.
The other girls had learned to look away, to make themselves small and silent. But something in me that night, something that had been curled up and dying for two years, finally snapped.
I didn't plan it. My hand just flailed out, my fingers scrambling over the crate next to us. They closed around a heavy metal bolt, left behind by some careless worker. I didn't think. I just swung. There was a wet, sickening crack, and his weight slumped against me, suddenly heavy and still.
The silence that followed was louder than any scream. Then came the shouting, the heavy boots running toward me. They pulled his body off me. They saw the bolt in my hand, the blood on my temple. Their faces weren't angry. They were… amused. I had just made their merchandise more interesting.
The beating was methodical. Fists, boots, a short wooden baton. They didn't hit my face—that would lower the price. They taught a lesson my body would never forget.
As the pain swallowed me whole, I heard one of them laugh. "This wild one is done. Put her on the list for the special auction."
The incident. That's what they called it. I didn't kill a man. I had an incident. And it condemned me.)
– – –
The light on the auction stage is too bright. It burns my eyes, but I don't look away. What's the point? I'm just merchandise now.
The man on the platform points at me, his voice a slick, oily thing as he lists my age, my health. He doesn't mention the fresh, purple bruises coloring my ribs and back. He doesn't talk about the incident.
I don't fight the hands that shove me forward. My body moves, but inside, I'm gone. I have completely surrendered to my fate. The fight in me died on that warehouse floor. The hope leaked out with the blood.
A man in the front row nods. He has cold eyes and a crueler smile. He doesn't look like the others. He looks like he enjoys the hunt. The auctioneer slams his gavel. "Sold!"
The word echoes, but it means nothing. I am already gone.
I have been bought.
The metal cuffs fell away from my wrists with a cold, final clink. The men who'd held me for so long just... pushed me forward. I stumbled, my legs weak, right toward the man with the cold eyes and the smile that didn't look right.
He caught me, his hands firm on my arms. His smile was wide, meant to be nice. But it stretched his face in a way that was wrong. It was a psychotic, painted-on thing that didn't touch the emptiness in his eyes.
A new kind of fear, cold and sharp, unlocked deep inside me, freezing me in place.
"Easy now," he said, his voice too soft. "Don't worry. You're fine now. You're with me." He kept talking, a stream of empty, nice words that felt like spiders on my skin.
He took my hand. His grip was surprisingly gentle, but I couldn't stop shaking. "What's your name, little bird?" he asked. I stayed silent, my throat locked shut. "I'm Kento," he said, like it was a friendly introduction.
He led me to a sleek black car and helped me into the passenger seat, even buckling the belt for me like I was a child.
The gentleness was worse than the roughness.
It was a game, and I didn't know the rules. The engine purred to life, and we pulled away from the nightmare, into the dark streets.
I stared straight ahead, my hands clenched in my lap. The nice words kept coming. I felt dizzy, confused. Maybe... maybe I was wrong. Maybe—
The world exploded.
A deafening crash of metal and shattering glass. The car jolted violently, spinning me forward. The airbag punched out from the steering wheel with a loud whump, a white cloud filling the space where Kento's smiling face had been. My head snapped back, the seatbelt digging hard into my collarbone.
For a second, there was just ringing silence and the smell of burnt powder and fear. Then, through the cracked windshield, I saw them.
Figures emerging from another car that had rammed us, blocking the road. My heart, which had just begun to slow, seized up again.
One nightmare had just crashed into another.