I won’t lie to her.
False hope is crueller than the truth.
“Next,” a commanding voice barks from somewhere to my left.
We shuffle forward, inch by inch, like cattle in a slaughterhouse. It feels like we’ve been doing this for hours, each step dragging us closer to something we can’t see but all instinct screams to run from.
If I could just get this damn hood off—if I could see—maybe I could map the space, find a weakness, a way out. But they’re too smart for that. They know sight is power, and they’ve stripped us of every ounce of it.
“I want to go home,” the girl whispers, her voice cracking as soft sobs escape her.
I let a few tears fall too. Just a couple. I can’t afford to cry them all out. Not yet. I’ll need what strength I have left. Because whatever’s waiting at the end of this line—I’m not going quietly.
The girl doesn’t speak to me again.
We don’t exchange names, because names won’t save us. Wherever we’re going, we won’t end up together. I know that I’ll probably never hear her voice again.
“Next,” the voice barks.
A rough hand clamps down on my shoulder, shoving me forward with sharp, impatient jolts. Each push drives me closer to whatever hell they’ve lined up for me.
“Move,” he snaps.
But something inside me snaps first. Panic floods my veins, white-hot and blinding. It drowns out reason, silences fear, and for a split second, I act on instinct.
“No fucking way,” I snarl, lunging forward into the dark, praying for a gap—any gap—I can slip through.
I make it a few steps.
A few glorious, defiant steps.
Then—impact.
Two hands slam into my chest like a battering ram, knocking the air from my lungs and rattling my ribs. I stumble back, arms flailing, trying to stay upright. Then I twist, ready to bolt in the opposite direction, but I don’t get the chance.
Something sharp jabs into the side of my neck. A needle. A dart. I don’t know. I just feel the burn.
And then everything tilts.
My balance vanishes. The floor sways beneath me like a ship in a storm. My limbs go heavy, my thoughts scatter like leaves in wind. I try to plant my feet, to stay grounded, but the ground won’t stay still.
All I can focus on is staying upright.
One of them shoves me hard, and I stumble into a room that is somehow even warmer—thick, suffocating heat wrapping around me like a fever. The floor beneath my feet shifts from cold concrete to coarse, scratchy carpet. The fibres bite into my soles, raw and unforgiving.
But the room won’t stop spinning.
“Bidding starts at twenty thousand.”
Bidding?
The word slices through the haze like a blade. I stagger forward, reaching out blindly with bound wrists for something—anything—to anchor myself. My fingers meet glass, or what I can only assume is glass—it’s cold and smooth. And it stings against my overheated skin, a cruel contrast to the warmth pressing in from every other direction.
A loud buzz blares overhead, sharp and mechanical.
Then the voice drills through me again—calm, clinical, detached.
“Do I have twenty-five?”
