Forever?
Something sharp and bitter rises in my chest.
Love me forever?
Ihada pack. One who swore they’d love me until their dying breath. One that touched my neck with reverence and whispered sweet promises with each kiss.
And then they threw me away like a stray they were sick of feeding.
My jaw clenches, and the smile on Angelica’s face twists, like she knows exactly what I’m thinking—and she’s amused by it.
“If there’s nothing else…” Angelica pulls up the edge of her sleeve and checks the sleek, expensive watch gleaming onher wrist. Her glossy lips purse. “I need to go,” she says, almost to herself.
The urge to claw this woman’s eyes out hits me hard, and my hands curl into fists. “No,” I whisper, my whole body going tense. “You can’t do this.”
Angelica’s sharp gaze narrows on my face, and her smile grows. “Oh, sweetheart,” her voice is stripped of all heat, almost bored. “We already have.”
But before I can say anything—before I can spit or scream or beg—there’s a sting in my arm. A sudden, brutal pinch.
I look down and see a syringe, still embedded in my bicep.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Rage cuts through me as it’s yanked out, and I stumble.
“No—” I manage, barely a breath. “Wait?—”
But the world is already tilting sideways. Angelica’s face blurs, spinning, like the last image of a nightmare before you wake up screaming.
Except I’m not waking up.
I’m falling.
The last thing I hear before the black takes me is her voice—soft, smug, and satisfied. ”They’ll love her pretty face at the auction.”
Where Am I?
Skyla
The first thingI see is light. It’s harsh and white, glaring down from somewhere high above me. It pulses through the thin skin of my eyelids, stabbing into the soft places behind my eyes.
Voices drift around me, and I try to move, but I can't. My limbs are too heavy, and my brain feels like it's sloshing in syrup. A distant awareness flickers in the back of my mind—I’m naked. But the thought floats away before I can hold on to it, washed out by the bigger question clawing through the fog.
Where am I?
My head tilts to the side, and I feel the surface beneath me: hard and unyielding. Cold. Not a bed. Maybe metal? Or plastic. Something built for function, not comfort.
Is this…a hospital?
There’s a weight pressing against my lower belly. A hand.
Confusion flickers through me—slow and muffled.Someone adjusts my knees so they’re pressed tightly together. My joints are stiff like my legs have been pried open for ages. A sheet is draped over my lower half, but my chest is still exposed.
I should be scared.
Or panicked.
But my senses are returning too slow.
