I think back to the bullet holes in the door. The gun in his waistband. “I suppose not.”
“So, how it works is, you can either put yourself down as an Angel—a prize—or you can elect to bid. But to be eligible to bid—to get access to ‘the list,’” she says, putting air quotes around those last two words, “you need to pay a hundred thou upfront.”
I make an unladylike snort. “What is that? A deposit? Does that money go to the… Angel?”
I feel weird even saying that word. And even weirder to be giving it genuine consideration. One hundred thousand dollars is life-changing. If that fee goes to the person offering themselves up?—
“I’m afraid not,” she says, shattering any inkling of hope in an instant. “That’s just the entry fee. What the bidders spend beyond that depends on the person who puts themselves up for auction—how many competitive bids they draw, how badlybidders want them, and what bidders think they can get out of the arrangement for the money they’re prepared to bid.”
My stomach drops.
“So, as an Angel, you could walk away with… nothing?”
“Or everything,” she says. “It depends who wants to buy.”
I swallow, my mind already racing ahead, thinking the unthinkable.
“How do they decide?” I ask, a little too ravenously. “Like, what they want? The bidders, I mean.”
“On the night of Fallen Angels, they watch,” Hallie replies with a shrug. “Allnight. If you’re up for auction, you wear a tag that marks you out as someone they can bid on. But the auction isn’t based entirely on looks. Each participant is allowed to lay down one condition—that’s all. And it has to be recorded on the list alongside your name. If you’re clever, you can word it in such a way that it encapsulates more than one thing you don’t want to do. But…”
Hallie looks away, her brow dipping. “…unfortunately, that’s what makes this game so much fun for the bidders. They like a challenge. They enjoy figuring out ways around the condition to still get what they want.”
A shudder crawls across my shoulder blades. “Like, how?”
“Well…” She chews on her bottom lip, nervously. “Just know that even a condition that stipulates ‘no bodily contact at all’ doesn’t guarantee you’ll get away from having sex. It may just mean toys are used—by and tobothparties.”
She arches a brow while I gulp at the visual.
Then I remember the conversation between Hallie and Vivienne.
“You were part of the Angels once, right?”
She turns back to me. “In theory, yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“It didn’t turn out quite as I’d expected,” she says quietly. “I got off lucky but I have a horrible feeling my bidder didn’t.”
I blink at her cryptic explanation. “But you’d do it again?”
“I might have no choice.”
The deep bass recedes as I look into her eyes. “Why? Are you okay?”
She looks beyond me to a spot on the wall and for a second I think I may have lost her, but then she speaks.
“For the last couple years, I’ve been followed.”
I frown. “Followed?”
She flicks her gaze timidly in my direction. “Yes. I don’t know who it is or what they want. I just know it’s the same person because it’s always the same shadow, keeping the same distance, wearing the same shoes that make the exact same sound on the sidewalk at night.”
“Oh my God,” I breathe out. “Have you been to the police?”
She shrugs. “Yes, but there’s nothing they can do without evidence.”
“They can’t use security footage?”
