“You’re at the auction house.”
My pulse rushes, and I choke on thin air.
The auction house?
An actual auction?
I glance around the dark room again. It most definitely looks like a basement.
Oh my God, are those shackles?In the room’s corner iswhat looks to be a cage filled with naked women.Oh Jesus, no.
“Au-auction for what?” I ask, but I already know the answer. It’s an obvious one. One I’m unprepared for, nevertheless.
“For skin,” she whispers back. “Man or woman,” she tacks on. “But we’re the lucky ones,” she says with perkiness in her tone.
My eyebrows shoot up, and a flurry of hope blossoms in my chest.
She’s going to tell me they’ve got this all wrong. That I can’t possibly be a part of an auction and I’m not for sale.
That no man or woman is for sale.
“We’re the willing ones, at least we’re not being auctioned off like those.” She points toward the small group of women huddled in the corner of the room, sobbing; they certainly don’t look willing. “You’ll join us back at the club.” She smiles at me while I gawk back at her, dumbfounded.
“C-club?”
“Yeah, you know, the ones the Carreras own. The strip clubs and fight clubs.”
I blink.
Did she say strip club?
Fight club?
What in the hell is happening?
My temple pulsates, and I glance around the room again.
“They look after you well in the clubs; you just need to please them.”
She giggles, and I search her face for a telltale sign of potential dependency, one I’ve learned to uncover with a well-practiced ease.
Her brown hair is silky and straight, with a gloss to it Iwouldn’t expect. Her hazel eyes shimmer with mirth as she tilts her head from side to side and scans me up and down, her eyebrows knit together, and I wonder if she’s on drugs. But there’s no dilation in sight, and her skin is flawless, with a healthy glow, not covered in track marks. She’s pretty and alert, full of inquisitiveness normally absent from a user.
Nope, no signs of drug dependency.
She tilts her head to one side. “You’re not like us, though.” She gestures toward the other women not caged, and I slowly survey the room, taking them in.
They don’t cower; they aren’t naked, and they don’t appear confused. They know exactly where they are and why they’re here, and they don’t seem to be scared by it either.
“I don’t think I’m meant to be here,” I whisper, and my eyes fill with tears.
Is Stefan looking for me?He’ll call the police the moment he realizes I’m missing; I know he will. He has to.
Does he realize yet that I never made it back to the dorm room?
A dull ache surges over my chest, rendering me powerless as my thoughts become more frantic.
My roommate will notice I’ve been out late and haven’t come back, surely.
