Chapter 24 Neve
Neve
A door opened. Harsh light spilled out.
Hands shoved me forward.
I stumbled, barefoot, half-blind from smoke and panic, and hit the room like a dropped object. My shoulder clipped the wall. Pain shot down my arm. Someone laughed behind me—short, ugly—and the door hammered shut with a final, metal-on-metal sound.
The lock turned.
Thick. Absolute.
I swallowed hard and forced myself upright.
The room had a low ceiling and the air was stale. Even the scent of disinfectant couldn’t cover up the terror soaked into the walls. There were no windows. Just a strip light buzzing overhead, which made made skin look sickly and bruises look worse.
I wasn’t alone.
There were women on the floor. Against the walls.
On thin, stained mattresses that looked like they were hand me downs from hell.
Some of the girls stared at nothing. Some stared at me.
One girl was sitting with her knees hugged to her chest, rocking back and forth, chanting something I couldn’t decipher.
My heart thudded. My throat tasted like blood and metal.
I moved one step, then another, slow—like the room might punish me for taking space.
A woman with blonde hair cut jagged at her chin lifted her eyes. She looked older than me. Or maybe she just looked… that used. Her face was bruised along one cheekbone, yellowing like it had been there a while.
“Are you new?” she asked.
Her voice was flat, like she’d learned not to waste emotion on useless things.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
The girl next to her—dark-skinned, with shrewd eyes and a split lip—snorted quietly. “They always come in looking like they just swallowed a grenade.”
I forced words through my throat. “Where am I?”
The blonde’s mouth twitched once. “Holding.”
“For what?” I already knew, but hearing it out loud felt like handing a weapon to someone else.
The dark-haired girl answered. “For sale.”
My stomach turned over. I pressed my palm to the wall to steady myself. The concrete was cold and damp.
The girl rocking in the corner spoke without looking up.
“They sell you,” she revealed, “and then they take you back.”
Silence dropped hard.
I stared at her. “Take you back?”
The rocking slowed. She lifted her head just enough for me to see her eyes—they were too old for her face. “Like a dress. Like a return.”
My pulse hammered. “Why would someone return—”
The dark-haired girl cut me off. “Because they can.”
She shifted on the mattress, wincing like her body was one giant bruise.
“Because the men who buy you don’t want the inconvenience after.
Or because you don’t do what they want fast enough.
Or because you fight. Or because you’re sick.
Or because their wife caught a whiff and now suddenly he’s a family man again. ”
The blonde’s jaw tightened. “Or because they’re done.”
Done.
I dragged in a breath. It shook. “What happens when they’re… done?”
No one spoke for a second.
Then the blonde said, very quietly, “Depends.”
I didn’t like that answer.
I stepped closer, even though my body screamed at me not to. “Tell me.”
The blonde’s eyes flicked up. She studied me like she was deciding whether I could handle the truth. Then she sighed, slow and tired.
“Some girls get sold again. If there’s demand.”
The dark-haired girl gave a humorless laugh. “There’s always demand.”
The blonde kept going. “If you look okay. If you can still… pass.”
“Pass what?” My voice snapped. I didn’t mean it to, but the panic under my ribs had claws.
The dark-haired girl leaned forward. “Pass inspection.”
My skin crawled. “Inspection?”
She pointed to the corner, where a small metal cabinet sat against the wall. It looked innocent until I noticed the locks.
“Doc comes through. Not a real one. But he’s got gloves and a clipboard so they call it medical. They check for infections. They check for bruises that look too noticeable. They check… everything.”
The rocking girl whispered, “They weigh you.”
The blonde nodded. “They mark your file.”
My throat tightened. “File?”
The dark-haired girl’s gaze narrowed. “They’ve got your face, your height, your weight, your age if you’re lucky enough to have one they can prove. They list what you ‘are.’”
Her mouth twisted around the word.
“Obedient. Defiant. Quiet. Loud. Virgin—if they think it’ll sell. Fertile—if they’re into that. Exotic. Mild. Wild. ‘Trainable.’”
My stomach lurched. I tasted bile. I swallowed it down until my throat burned.
The blonde watched me with cold patience. “You don’t get to be a person in here. You’re inventory.”
“And what happens if you don’t… sell?”
The dark-haired girl’s face hardened. “You sell. One way or another.”
The rocking girl finally looked at me properly. Her eyes were wet but empty at the same time.
“When you reach your use-by date, they get rid of you.”
The words made my skin go ice-cold.
“Get rid of you how?” My voice came out rough.
The blonde exhaled through her nose like she hated even having to say it. “Sometimes they move you down the chain. Cheaper buyers. Dirtier rooms. Men who don’t pay for privacy because they don’t care who hears you scream.”
The dark-haired girl added, “Sometimes they drug you and drop you somewhere so you look like you ran away. So the cops call you a junkie and stop looking.”
The rocking girl’s fingers dug into her own arms. “Sometimes you don’t leave.”
The strip light buzzed overhead, and suddenly it felt louder than it should’ve been. Like the building itself was listening.
I stared at them, trying to make my brain accept it. It wouldn’t. It kept bouncing off the truth like a ball off a wall, refusing to stick.
“Have you been… here before?” I asked, voice low.
The blonde’s eyes didn’t move. “Three times.”
My chest tightened.
The dark-haired girl shrugged, like it was a weather report. “Five.”
My stomach turned. “How are you still—”
“Alive?” the dark-haired girl finished, and something cruel flickered in her eyes. “Luck. And learning.”
The blonde lifted her chin toward me. “You’re not like the others.”
I stiffened. “You don’t know me.”
“I know that look,” she said. “The one that says you’d rather die than let them break you.”
The dark-haired girl’s lips twitched. “That’s cute.”
I glared. “It’s not cute.”
“No,” she agreed.
I didn’t understand.
She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “The ones who fight get made into examples. The handlers can’t have trouble. Trouble makes the product look risky.”
Product.
My hands clenched so hard my nails bit skin. “I’m not a product.”
The blonde’s gaze softened a fraction, like she pitied me for still believing that mattered. “In here, you are.”
The rocking girl whispered, “Don’t say that too loud.”
I stared at her. “Why?”
Her mouth trembled. “Because they like when you say no. It’s a game to them. They want to hear you beg to be a person again.”
My chest tightened until I couldn’t breathe properly.
I forced air in through my nose. Slow. Controlled. I couldn’t fall apart. Not here. Not in front of them. Not where someone could use my pain against me.
I crouched near the wall, keeping my back to it. Keeping my eyes on the door.
“What are your names?” I asked, because I needed something real in my mouth. Something human.
The blonde hesitated, like her name was a luxury she wasn’t sure she was allowed to spend.
“Lena,” she finally revealed.
The dark-haired girl looked me dead in the eye. “Amara.”
The rocking girl’s lips moved. No sound. Then, barely, “Cici.”
I nodded once, like I was storing them somewhere safe.
“And you?” Amara asked. “What do they call you?”
I swallowed. “Neve.”
Lena’s eyes flicked over my bruises again, then to my throat, like she was checking what kind of damage I’d carry into the next room.
I stared at the door. At the lock. At the simple, brutal fact that it didn’t matter how smart I was if I couldn’t get out of the box.
“What do you do when they come in?” I asked, forcing my voice to stay steady.
Amara’s eyes narrowed. “You mean when they pick?”
I nodded.
Lena’s expression went hard. “You watch their hands.”
“That’s it?” My voice cracked despite me.
Amara’s mouth curled. “You watch their hands. You watch their eyes. You don’t drink anything you didn’t see poured. You don’t eat unless you have to.”
Cici’s whisper cut through. “You don’t cry.”
I looked at her. “Why?”
She blinked slowly. “Because they like it.”
Something inside me—something wounded and furious—twisted.
“Is there any way out?” I asked.
Amara laughed once. Shrill. Bitter. “There’s always a way out.”
Hope flared stupidly in my chest.
Then she finished, “Most of them just end you.”
My hope died like a candle in water.
A sound hit the hallway outside—boots, heavy and deliberate.
All three women stiffened at once.
Lena’s hand moved, subtle, toward the mattress—like she was checking for something hidden underneath. Amara’s shoulders squared. Cici’s rocking stopped.
My pulse spiked.
The footsteps paused outside our door.
Someone tested the handle.
The lock held.
For now.
Amara looked at me, voice low. “You want to survive, Neve?”
My throat tightened. I nodded once.
She leaned in, close enough that only I could hear.
“You don’t survive by being wanted,” she whispered. “You survive by being impossible to own.”
The footsteps moved away. But the threat remained.
We sat in the stale air, listening to the building breathe, waiting for the moment the door opened again.