Margaret shoots her a warning look.
"Compose yourself," she hisses. "Or you'll be removed from the lineup."
Removed. Sent back. To wherever girls who can't compose themselves go.
Number nine goes still.
Margaret opens the doors, and we file into a smaller room off to the side—a holding area.
It's dimmer here.
Quieter.
Through another door, I can see the theater continuing to fill.
More men in tuxedos.
They look like they're attending the opera.
Distinguished, wealthy, powerful.
Some are young—thirties, forties.
Handsome in that carefully maintained way that comes from personal trainers and expensive skincare and probably cosmetic procedures I don't have names for.
Others are old enough to be grandfathers.
Silver hair. Liver spots on their hands.
One man is in a wheelchair, pushed by an attendant in matching formal wear.
All of them looking at us through the two-way glass like we're cuts of meat behind a butcher's window.
My skin crawls.
I force myself to breathe through my nose, slow and steady, the way I used to when Father Thomas would deliver his sermons about the wickedness of women.
Four counts in, hold, four counts out.
It kept me calm then, but it barely touches the panic now.
At the Sanctuary, I knew the rules.
Obey. Submit. Don't question.
The boundaries were clear, even if they were suffocating.
But here? I don't know the rules.
Don't know what happens after someone buys me.
Don't know if the man who wins my auction will be kind or cruel or something worse than either.
Don't know if I'll survive this with any part of myself intact.
"You'll go out one at a time," Margaret explains. She's done this before. Many times, probably. Her voice has the practiced cadence of someone reciting a familiar script. "When your number is called, walk to center stage. Stand there until the auctioneer finishes your introduction. Then turn slowly—three-sixty degrees—so they can seeallof you. When bidding ends, wait for instruction. Do not leave the stage until you're told."
"What if no one bids?" number thirteen asks, her voice cracking.
