“Piercings take a while to heal.” Conrad says almost bored. “We decided to be efficient, and use the years we had waiting for her to come of age to our advantage.”
“Bastards,” I hiss under my breath.
“What’s that?” Conrad says, grabbing my face, forcing me to face him.
I shut my eyes, shuddering as that awful memory hits me; that flashback of him and Magnus holding me down as they shoved those needles into me, as they mutilated me and turned me into a glittering whore-in-waiting.
He flicks the diamond encrusted bar that goes through my right nipple, then flicks the left straight after. There’re tiny little bells attached, and they ring out far too merrily.
“Be grateful, Grace.” He murmurs. “We didn’t have to auction you at all. Magnus and I could have simply kept you here, kept you locked away in Oblivion and used you as our own personal slave.”
I know he’s trying to scare me, trying to intimidate me, but it won’t work. They’ve already done their worst in killing my father, in killing my aunts and uncles, and my baby cousin too.
Selling my virginity, selling me is just the last insult in a list of so many.
I throw my head back, spitting right into his face, and it lands on his cheek as a white foamy mess.
He wipes it clean with the cuff of his shirt, laughing.
“Let the bidding begin,” He says, turning his back on me. “We’ll start at fifty million…”
I shouldn’t look. I shouldn’t watch this and yet as one man after another shouts out a number, it feels like I can’t stop. My eyes twist from one awful face to the next. As I reach the eighty million mark the majority die off, and I don’t know whether to be grateful for that fact or not.
“Eighty five.” Someone yells from the back.
“Eighty seven.” A man barely a metre from me hollers, and I realise I know him. His name is Jones, he used to come round our house, used to spend hours holed up with my father in the good old days. He used to ruffle my hair as I sat by the fire, playing with my dolls. As our eyes meet, I swear he grins wider and then he drops his eyes, making a point of staring not at my face but between my legs, where I’m entirely exposed.
I shut my eyes, wishing I could shut all of this out.
The bidding war continues. The man at the back is clearly invested enough to not back down and when the price tips a hundred even Magnus looks surprised, like he thought I’d be a cheap little ornament to sell off and be done with.
The man up front starts to waiver as the man at the back shouts out a new price. Before Jones can react, Conrad claps his hands. “Sold.” He says loudly. “Sold for a pretty penny indeed.”
Hands grasp me, someone cuts me down and I collapse from both the shame and exhaustion at being held like that. But I know this here, is just the beginning.
Conrad wraps a cloak around my body, and my hands clutch at the fabric tightly now that I’m covered. My face heats with more shame and I can’t look at them, at any of them.
“Let’s go.” He mutters into my ear, forcing me to move, only it feels like my entire body locks up. Like fear overwhelms me.
I can’t take another step, I can’t even utter a word. My legs shake so violently that I think I’m going to collapse and just as I blink back the tears, I seehisface coming towards me.
Only, that’s ridiculous. That’s absurd. It can’t be him. It can’t be.
I have to be imagining it, to be hallucinating. Is my mind playing tricks, trying to soothe the trauma now by making me believe I might just be saved after all?
The man who looks so much like Antonio struts onto the stage, pushes my temporary keeper aside and he scoops me up, tosses me over his shoulder and turns back around.
I realise with horror that this is who I belong to now.
This man here is my so-called owner.
I want to lash out, I want to fight, to slam my fists into his back and demand that he put me down. But the fabric I’m wrapped up in prevents that. We slip into the quiet corridor, he carries me on, and I know where he’s taking me, what is coming next.
He’s bought his prize. I’m certain that now, he’ll want to claim it.
3 years and 11 months until auction
The room is white, too white. A punitive white, a white that doesn’t reassure so much as erase. It takes and it takes until your edges fray, and you question whether you even have colour at all.
