Chapter 2 - Elle #2
Some men, whom the women referred to as “handlers,” came. They inspected their teeth, inspected their bodies, talked about their qualities as though they were merchandise.
Elle immediately put everything together. They were getting ready to be sold. Chills ran up her spine.
She'd tried to escape twice. The first time she had gotten to a door before a handler had caught her, and banged her against a wall hard enough to bruise. The second time, she never even made it out of the cage properly before she was caught and her wrists were tied.
Earlier in the morning, they came for her. They carried her out of the cage, dragged her into a shower, made her put on a dress that had obviously been used by other victims.
Then they'd brought her here. To this warehouse. To this stage. To this auction, where they were bidding on human women like furniture.
For the past hour, Elle had remained backstage, watching other women being sold. Seeing the buyers scrutinize them cold-bloodedly. Watching handlers drag the sold women away to fates Elle didn't want to imagine.
And all she could think was that she'd survived everything. The pack's cruelty. Banishment. Homelessness. Poverty. She had managed to build a life worth living.
And here it was over now, on this stage, and soon to be sold to the highest bidder. It was unfair.
“And now,” the auctioneer said, drawing Elle back to the present, “our last offering of the evening.”
This was it, then.
Elle lifted her head and looked at the audience. She would not even give them the pleasure of watching her break. She wouldn't cower or cry or beg.
“See this one,” the auctioneer continued. “Beautiful curves. A gem. The ideal addition to any set.”
Elle narrowed her eyes, wishing she could spit in his face. But she stayed silent. That wouldn't help. She could only hope to survive and wish to get a chance to make an escape in the future.
“Bid starts at ten thousand.”
Someone called out a higher number. Elle didn't catch it. Her heart was beating too loud, and her breath came out in short spurts despite her efforts to keep calm.
Another voice. Another bid.
The price climbed. Elle felt sick.
Then there was a deep voice that sounded dreadfully familiar.
“Fifty thousand.”
No. No, it couldn't be.
Elle's eyes searched the crowd, looking for the person behind that voice. It could not be. Fate couldn't be that cruel.
There. In the back row. A figure standing while everyone else sat.
Dark blond hair. Broad shoulders. Even from a distance, Elle could feel the intensity of his stare.
Silas Weston.
Her past bully. Her brother's best friend. The man who treated her so vilely, she had spent the last eight years trying to forget him.
He was here. At this auction. Bidding on her.
This realization washed over her like a tidal wave. Shock and disbelief coursed through her veins.
He was one of them. He was one of the monsters who purchased human women.
Silas Weston, the golden boy of the pack, was here, buying slaves.
This new piece of information shouldn’t hurt after eight years. It shouldn't have mattered. But it did.
Someone else bid. Elle could barely hear through the ringing in her ears.
“A hundred thousand,” Silas countered.
The warehouse fell silent.
Something within Elle died as she stared at him from across the room. Whatever little hope she had of him, to believe that he could have been redeemed—the small part of her that hung on to who he was before he started to torment her—broke.
“Sold,” the auctioneer said.
No. No, no, no.
Silas moved toward the stage. As he got closer, Elle wanted to run away. She felt like doing anything but standing here and waiting for him to claim what he had bought. But one of the handlers took her down the stage to meet him.
Elle could see that he had not changed much. He was still devastatingly handsome, and he radiated the same confidence that drew people to him.
And he was still the same person who had ruined her life.
“Hello, Elle,” he said quietly.
Her throat tightened with eight years of suppressed pain and grief. But underneath that was a warmth in her heart that had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her body, which had now apparently decided that it was time to register a pull that she had never known before.
It was not the old girlhood pangs for someone she had wished to look at her with love. It was something else. Something that was more than memory.
She crushed it immediately. Adrenaline, she told herself. Shock. Her body was acting weird. She had been locked in a cage for a couple of days, and now she had just been sold at an auction, so her brain was short-circuiting. Elle kept her chin up and glared at him.
“You,” she breathed.
The single word carried everything she couldn't say. Every wound he'd inflicted. The first year in the human world where she cried herself to sleep. All those moments she had strived to survive as he lived comfortably.
And here he was, showing that he was the monster she had always thought he was.
She wasn't only surprised by the fact that someone had bid for her at this auction.
It was the fact that the one who bought her was the same person who had arranged her exile and ruined her life.