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Without realizing what I was doing until the grip on my arm tightened, I began quietly singing. All the lights stopped blinking, and another hiss came from the man beside me.
“Bitch,” he said on a breath, “stop.”
Just before I dropped my head and squeezed my eyes shut, a light to my left came on and didn’t turn off.
Chapter 3
Day 1 The Auction
Lucas
Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I waited for the auction to begin, but despite the fact that I couldn’t see any of the other bidders and they couldn’t see me, I kept a calm front of indifference.
I glanced around the box of a room I would stay in throughout the process and took note of everything. It was small, but clearly no expense had been spared. The chair was more comfortable than some beds I’d slept on, and I considered sleeping through the first few girls as I rubbed at my eyes.
No, I couldn’t. I knew if I fell asleep now I probably wouldn’t wake up until this entire thing was over, and then I wouldn’t have anything to show for a second round. My mentor told me it would be unacceptable if I came home empty-handed again, and frustrating him wasn’t something I could afford.
I changed the music channel in my room until I found one to settle on, then continued looking around the room. There was a mini-coffee station, a fridge filled with water and energy drinks, and a phone with a menu next to it, but I didn’t feel like I could eat now. On the other side of the room, closest to the window, were a basket of lotions and a jeweled box of Kleenex.
I rolled my eyes and drummed my fingers against the desk.
My phone chimed, and I glanced at a text from my mentor reminding me not to choose the first girl.
I nodded to myself and dropped my phone on the desk before resuming my anxious drumming. My fingers paused briefly when the door to the viewing room opened but continued as I reminded myself to be patient.
“The first girls are never worth it,” my mentor always told me. “They’re the ones the sellers know will bring in the most money, so they put them up first.”
I would wait.
I dropped my head into my other hand and rubbed at a headache forming from lack of sleep. I was starting to think about that coffee maker again when the lights on my built-in desk screen went wild.
I straightened in the chair and watched in surprise for a few seconds as the bids poured in. Not once had they come in that fast during my visit six months before.
My head jerked up when the bid for her rose faster than expected, and my mouth slowly fell open.
Despite her small build, she stood tall and fearless, although I had no doubt she was anything but. I moved around my desk toward the window and let my eyes roam over her.
Her blonde hair was long, falling to her waist. Her legs were slender, and now that I was staring at them, I could see they were shaking. My gaze snapped up, and I noticed her jaw was too.
The man holding on to the girl released her to step in front of her, and although I had been turning to go back to my chair, I couldn’t move. I needed to see this girl.
The man pushed the robe from her body, and immediately the girl thrashed against whatever was binding her hands. Gone was the bravado; in its place was trembling and fear.
She looked to be in her mid-twenties—just a few years younger than me, as most of the girls here today would be—and so completely pure I had no doubts that every man here was drooling at the thought of having her.
I glanced away from her long enough to see rooms light up with bids. When I looked back, I wished I hadn’t. The blindfold was gone from her eyes, and now all I could do was stare at her face.
Her body bent and it looked like she cried out—and for some irrational reason, I wanted to go to her. I wanted to protect her from what she was seeing. And that was something I couldn’t allow to happen. Not there, not ever.
I forced myself to turn away from her and clenched my hands into fists over and over again as I went back to my chair.
I had seen dozens of faces from a room like the one I was in. Not one of them had pulled any kind of reaction from me. They weren’t supposed to.
“And she didn’t either,” I mumbled as I loosened my tie, trying to play it off as some side effect from my lack of sleep.
My eyes stayed focused on the sc
reen as bids continued to come in, so I saw the second they halted. I stared at the screen, confused. There hadn’t been two or three bidders going back and forth over her, and it hadn’t slowed to a stop. There had been at least ten or more men bidding . . . and then nothing.
