Why is something settling in my chest? Something indulgent, mirroring a sharp ache awakening and begging to be fed.
Hell.
It’s in my bones, coiling in my blood. She’s a problem. One I didn’t know I’d been waiting to have all this time.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEA
My legs barely keep upright as I’m flung into a small, padded room. I spin to ask the escort where I am, but a solid mahogany door slams in my face. Stumbling back, I run into a white marble table with a glass pitcher filled with water and a single glass.
I reach out for it, but pause, hand halfway extended. Is it laced with something? Something to make me more agreeable? I snatch my hand back and scan the room.
It’s no bigger than an oversized closet with a white stone floor. Red pads, almost like soundproofing material, line the walls and ceiling, making me feel like I’ve stepped into an insane asylum. Though I could argue this whole thing is insane. Disgusting.
There’s no seating, so I pace around, cognizant of the cameras in each corner of the room. They move while I do, so apparently, they aren’t hiding their constant recording. They ditched the chains before shoving me in here, but I’m still stuck in three-inch heels. I stretch my legs, roll my ankles, and hate every inch of them.
I shake my head, disappointed in myself. All week I prepped myself for this with the help of the other girls willing to share what was in store for theMarket.Sick old bastards. Theyexplained it down to each bone-chilling detail. Women, who are lulled by the money and paid to play dress-up with us like we’re dolls, would take and scrub us. Pluck, wax, and doctor us in fancy makeup—the foundation alone costing more than my gas for a whole month. The more I struggled, the rougher they got until eventually I went limp, letting them dress me up and shove me in shoes and chains.
It’s only been a week, but I’ve already lost a bit of what it feels like to be a person. Fed and cared for only for the benefit of the money they decide we’re worth. The escorts, workers, or people that spoke with us this week skimmed over me like I was just a body, a function.
I found myself wanting to hear less and less about what was going to happen and allowed a strange hollowness to take the place of fear. It’s demoralizing. Dehumanizing.
Regardless, I knew I’d be taken to a room after being bid on. The other girls told me I’d have at least an hour in here while the man who won me gloats and celebrates with drinks, cigars, or snorting a line. I know better, but I approach the door and jiggle the locked handle.
Nothing.
I stare down at my shaking hand while fear and fury ravage my body. I wrap my arms around myself, staring down at the dandelions dusting my arm. My mother’s words won’t budge from my mind, no matter how many tears I’ve cried or how many times I slammed my fist against the metal door back in our holding cell.
The tickle of a scream burns the back of my throat, and I fight the tight breaths of panic getting hotter. Rage coils low in my gut, and I oscillate between thinking I won’t let them break me and that I’m already broken.
I eye the water again.
Screw it.
I walk over and pour a glass, chugging it quickly before I can second-guess it. I hope it masks something. Anything so I don’t have to feel, don’t have to imagine what this ghost of a man is going to do to me for the next twelve hours. I couldn’t see him in the crowd. With the bright lights on us and the distance between us, I could make out only a tall silhouette and the faint outline of frames on the bridge of his nose. The old man can’t even see, yet he’s willing to spend an outrageous amount on a broke community college student whose father sold to feed his drinking habit.
One hundred thousand. Do you know what I could do with money like that? Part of me wants to laugh at the idea that Phil may have been ripped off. Chuckling, I step back, landing in the center of one of the pads on the wall. It’s soft and squishy, and the press of hard flooring against my feet has me sinking to the floor. I sort through my bodily functions, trying to find any evidence I’ve been compromised by the water, but find nothing. I’m still angry, still trembling, and still overly aware.
Water. It was just water.
I pull my knees up and wrap my arms around them. The floor is cold against my butt and thighs, but I barely feel it.
Another laugh slips out. One hundred thousand. I’m not worth that.
I press the back of my hand to my mouth, as if I can trap the next one trying to bubble out, but it’s no use. Another. Then another.
My shoulders shake. It’s ridiculous. It’s fiction come to life.
I burst out laughing, the sound absorbed by the padded walls rather than echoing off them.
My stomach folds in, empty and gurgling from the week’s worth of green juice, and my throat catches. The laughter doesn’t stop; it warps and splinters until the edge of my voice breaks. Icurl in on myself. The chuckles bleeding with ugly tears dripping from my lashes.
A mixture of cackles and sobs rips from me, and I’m grateful I have some time to collect myself before the man comes to?—
The door bursts open, and I startle, slipping as I struggle to push up. What the …
A tall, younger-looking man stands in the door, and he looks all around the room before letting out a sigh and focusing on me now standing.
