Chapter 1 #2
Like this is normal.
Like in an hour they won't be purchasing human beings.
Margaret stops us outside a set of double doors.
Through the crack, I can see a massive room transformed into a theater.
Rows of chairs face a raised platform.
Red velvet seats.
A podium stands center stage, empty for now, waiting.
The chairs are filling.
Men in tuxedos.
Some standing in clusters, drinks in hand.
Others already seated, programs in their laps.
Programs like this is a Broadway show.
I wonder if the program lists us.
Number fourteen: Eden Finch.
Tonight's performance: degradation and despair.
"Remember," Margaret says, looking at each of us in turn. Her eyes linger on number thirteen, who's still shaking. "This is a privilege. These men are offering you opportunities most girls would kill for. Room, board, security, luxury. All you have to do is be pleasant."
Pleasant. As if that's all slavery requires.
Number nine—a tall girl with dark skin and cornrows—lets out a sound that might be a laugh or might be a sob.
Margaret shoots her a warning look.
"Compose yourself," she hisses. "Or you'll be removed from the lineup."
Removed. Sent back. To wherever girls who can't compose themselves go.
Number nine goes still.
Margaret opens the doors, and we file into a smaller room off to the side—a holding area.
It's dimmer here.
Quieter.
Through another door, I can see the theater continuing to fill.
More men in tuxedos.
They look like they're attending the opera.
Distinguished, wealthy, powerful.
Some are young—thirties, forties.
Handsome in that carefully maintained way that comes from personal trainers and expensive skincare and probably cosmetic procedures I don't have names for.
Others are old enough to be grandfathers.
Silver hair. Liver spots on their hands.
One man is in a wheelchair, pushed by an attendant in matching formal wear.
All of them looking at us through the two-way glass like we're cuts of meat behind a butcher's window.
My skin crawls.
I force myself to breathe through my nose, slow and steady, the way I used to when Father Thomas would deliver his sermons about the wickedness of women.
Four counts in, hold, four counts out.
It kept me calm then, but it barely touches the panic now.
At the Sanctuary, I knew the rules.
Obey. Submit. Don't question.
The boundaries were clear, even if they were suffocating.
But here? I don't know the rules.
Don't know what happens after someone buys me.
Don't know if the man who wins my auction will be kind or cruel or something worse than either.
Don't know if I'll survive this with any part of myself intact.
"You'll go out one at a time," Margaret explains.
She's done this before. Many times, probably.
Her voice has the practiced cadence of someone reciting a familiar script.
"When your number is called, walk to center stage.
Stand there until the auctioneer finishes your introduction.
Then turn slowly—three-sixty degrees—so they can see all of you.
When bidding ends, wait for instruction.
Do not leave the stage until you're told. "
"What if no one bids?" number thirteen asks, her voice cracking.
It's the first time I've heard her speak.
Margaret's smile doesn't reach her eyes. "Everyone bids, dear. The question is only how much."
A man in a headset appears in the doorway.
Young, early twenties, wearing all black like a stagehand.
Which I suppose he is.
"We're ready," he says.
Margaret nods, smooths her already-smooth hair, and adjusts her already-perfect suit jacket.
The doors open.
Music swells—louder now, clearer.
A string quartet, definitely.
Playing something I don't recognize but that sounds expensive.
And the auction begins.
Number eight goes first.
I watch through the glass as she walks onto that stage with her head held high, defiant even in her fear.
Her dress is red.
Fitted.
Shows her curves.
She's beautiful in the way that makes men stupid.
The auctioneer—a woman in a severe black suit, hair pulled back in a bun so tight it must hurt—reads from a tablet.
"Lot eight. Twenty-one years old. Trained in classical dance. Fluent in three languages. Starting bid: fifty thousand dollars."
Paddles raise immediately.
Numbers are shouted.
The auctioneer's voice remains perfectly level as she calls out the bids, each one higher than the last.
"Sixty thousand."
"Seventy-five."
"One hundred thousand."
Within two minutes, she's sold for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars to a silver-haired man in the front row who looks like someone's kindly grandfather.
He smiles when he wins.
Actually smiles, like he's just bought a nice car instead of a human being.
Number eight is led off stage by another handler.
Gone. Just like that.
Number nine goes next.
She's composed herself.
Walks with grace despite the trembling I can see in her hands.
Her starting bid is seventy-five thousand.
She sells for two hundred thousand to a younger man—maybe forty—with dark hair and a bored expression.
Number ten. Number eleven. Number twelve.
Each one paraded.
Each one sold.
The amounts vary—some go for just over their starting bid, others spark bidding wars that drive the price into the millions.
A blonde girl with blue eyes goes for one point eight million.
The men in the audience seem especially excited about her.
I'm not paying attention to the numbers anymore.
I'm watching the men, studying their faces.
Some look bored.
Like they're at a charity auction for art they don't care about but attend because it's expected.
Others are excited.
Engaged.
Leaning forward in their seats.
A few are whispering to each other, pointing at the stage, making notes in their programs.
And some—some wear expressions I recognize from the Sanctuary.
The look of men who believe they have a God-given right to ownership.
Elder Jacob looked at me like that when he announced our engagement in front of the congregation.
Like I was already his.
Like my consent was irrelevant because he'd made the decision.
That's the look that terrifies me most.
Not the bored ones.
Not even the excited ones.
The ones who think they own you before they've even paid.
Number thirteen stumbles on her way to the stage.
Her legs give out.
A handler catches her, rights her, and pushes her forward.
She makes it to center stage and promptly bursts into tears.
Full, body-shaking sobs. The kind you can't stop even if you want to.
"Lot thirteen," the auctioneer says without inflection. "Nineteen years old. No special skills. Virgin. Starting bid: one hundred thousand dollars."
The crying doesn't stop. If anything, it gets worse.
The girl is sobbing so hard she can barely stand.
Her shoulders shake.
Her hands cover her face.
The audience shifts uncomfortably.
This isn't what they came for.
They want beautiful, compliant acquisitions.
Not sobbing teenagers who remind them this is actually human trafficking.
Only two paddles raise.
The bidding is perfunctory, almost embarrassing. Quick.
"One hundred and ten thousand."
"One hundred and twenty-five."
"One hundred and fifty thousand."
Silence.
"Going once. Going twice. Sold to bidder forty-one for one hundred and fifty thousand."
She sells for one hundred and fifty thousand—the lowest amount I've seen all night—to a man who doesn't even look at her when he wins.
Just raises his paddle, wins, and goes back to his phone.
They drag her off stage.
Literally drag her.
She's crying too hard to walk.
I wonder if she'll be punished for that.
For crying.
For making the buyers uncomfortable.
I wonder if I should cry too.
If making myself less appealing would drive my price down, make me less valuable, less wanted.
But it's too late now.
"Number fourteen."
My number.
Margaret touches my elbow.
Her fingers are cold through the thin fabric of my sleeve. "You're up."
I don't remember deciding to move, but suddenly I'm walking toward those double doors.
They open.
Blinding light hits me.
Stage lights, bright and hot and overwhelming.
I can't see past the stage, can't see the audience.
Can only see the podium and the auctioneer waiting.
One foot in front of the other.
The way I walked down the aisle at Sanctuary for Sunday services.
The way I walked to the kitchen every morning to help prepare breakfast for a hundred and fifty people.
The way I walked toward the woods the night I ran, not knowing what was ahead but knowing I couldn't stay.
My heart is pounding.
I can feel it in my throat, my wrists, my temples.
I can hear it in my ears, louder than the music, louder than the murmur of voices from the audience I still can't see.
The stage is bigger than it looked from backstage.
The walk to the center feels endless.
I reach the podium and stop where I'm supposed to stop.
The lights are hot on my skin.
I can feel sweat beginning to form at my temples, at the small of my back.
The white dress suddenly feels too tight, too heavy, too much.
"Lot fourteen," the auctioneer says, her voice amplified through speakers I can't see. "Twenty-three years old. Gold tier acquisition. Extensive domestic training. Virgin. No living family ties. Compliant temperament. Starting bid: one hundred thousand dollars."
Extensive domestic training.
That's one way to describe twenty-three years of cooking and cleaning and farming at the Sanctuary.
No living family ties.
My mother is dead.
My father might as well be.
He let them promise me to Elder Jacob without even asking what I wanted.
Compliant temperament— that’s the biggest lie of all.
The auctioneer pauses. "Turn, please."
Right. I'm supposed to turn.
To show myself. To let them see all of me.
I force my feet to move.
Start the slow rotation Margaret drilled into us.
Three-sixty degrees.
Let them see the back, the sides, the front again.
As I turn, my eyes adjust to the lights.
The audience comes into focus.
Rows of men in tuxedos.