Chapter One

Arrya 

The cold seeped into my body and made my teeth clatter of its own free will, the whimpering noises and the foul air in the prison cell the only thing making me realize I hadn't somehow slipped into hell.

Of course my own portion of hell would be cold. My luck never seemed to speak up for me.

Three nights, I had been stuck here for three nights due to my negligence and deadbeat of a stepfather. 

I knew it had been three nights because I had counted through the rotation of food the men guarding my cell had brought me. Well, I wouldn't call the scraps they had tossed my way food. The two morsels of bread and the pinch of cheese only seemed to aggravate my stomach the more whenever I chowed it down but it was sustenance so I had no choice. It's not as if I had any better when I was living with my stepfather, I thought bitterly to myself as a piece of moonlight shone into my cell illuminating the grime covered walls a bit.

I had no knowledge of where I was. Since I had been brought here, it had only been silence with the occasional heavy footsteps of the guard bringing my meal but nothing else. I had been carried in with a sack over my head and thrown on the hard stone floors that had dislocated a hip bone. I had sobbed on my first night here, I had cried my heart out because of the events that had led to me getting here. 

I was supposed to have escaped, to have fled this godforsaken city to a place where I could start over and put my past behind me. But I had somehow ended up here, in a cold, dark cell with no idea what was going to happen to me next. I was deep in thought when a stone clanged on the iron bars of my cell and my body snapped to attention. What was that?

"Psst", someone whispered, the voice sounding hoarse from screaming. "Is someone there?"

My eyes widened at the sound, the fact that there were other cells down here not occurring to me in the slightest. I had been aloof for three days that I hadn't noticed the possibility of other people being in the cell with me. That wasn't possible. 

"Psst", the voice came again and I realized I hadn't replied.

"Who are you?", I replied, shocked that my voice came out strong.

"Great. So someone's here. I'm not alone", the voice responded, great relief coating her every letter. It was a female voice and she hadn't responded to my question.

"Who are you?", I asked again. "Do you have any idea why we're down here?", I added, hoping to get some clarity.

"I owed some bad guys a huge amount of debt and I was going home from my late night shift yesterday when I felt a sack go over my head".

"Next thing I know, I was in this dark and dangy cell", the girl explained. She sounded like a girl. Someone just like me.

"What's your name? What did you do?", the girl added, her voice no longer a whisper. 

"My father owed a debt apparently", I answered, avoiding the question of my name. I wasn't in the mood to get familiar with anyone. "Do you think there are others like us here"?

"I have no idea, sugardrop", the girl replied and ran a stone through the iron bars in her cell erupting in a disordered sound that made me grit my teeth. I hated noisemakers. 

"I think there's other cells but not…", the girl shut up as heavy footsteps sounded closer. It wasn't the usual time they brought meals. Were they bringing another person down here? My curiosity piqued as a light came into view and a guard stopped in front of my cell holding a torch and pointing the white beam on my face, making me squint. There was a stern expression on his face like he had somewhere better to be.

He wore a long sleeve collared blue shirt insude a suit. His black hair was swiped back from his face in whatever gel product was trending. He looked like a police officer that wasn't on duty. But police officers on the wrong side of law. That was how it was in this city. 

The guard took out a key and unlocked my cell. The lock falling to the ground with a clang that echoed through the place.

"You", the man said in a gruff voice, using the torch to point at me. "Get out". 

"Me?", I whispered, wondering what was going on. I couldn't look at the girl that had been talking to me because there was a stone wall dividing our cells. 

I looked back at the man, my eyes spying the gun peeking out from behind his jacket and swallowed the growing fear budding in my throat.

"Of course, you. Get the fuck out of there. I don't have all day", the man said harshly.

I bit my lip to keep back a retort so I didn't have the dangerous end of that gun pointed at me. I stood up on shaky legs, my mind going to different places in panic. Where was he taking me? To finally end my worthless life? I got out of the cell trying to hold myself together as I stepped in front of the man holding the torch and felt the cold mouth of the gun pressed into my back. Goosebumps lined up my arms and I prayed to whatever was watching us in the skies that my death was quick and painless. 

I knew this moment would come. It had been all I could think about since I was brought here three nights ago. And now it was finally here and I was wishing that I had another life to live.

"Don't even think of trying anything funny. Now move", the man whispered in my ear and I jumped from the coldness of his breath. Or was it the cold of the cell that had gotten to me? When had he gotten so close to me?

"Hey! What about me?!", the girl from the other cell called out. 

The man laughed gruesomely and I shivered as he replied, "We have different plans for you". Fuck, this man was going to put a damn bullet through my head.

With the mouth of the gun, the man shoved me and propelled me to start walking. I was so scared that I stumbled and fell and got hit with the butt of the gun in retaliation. 

"Get up you wench", the man shouted, raising his hand to bring down the gun again for the second time. The back of my head was throbbing from the first impact and I was trying my hardest not to cry as I scrambled to get up. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of seeing my tears. 

"Now, move", he bit out, spittle flying from his mouth and landing on my shoulders. I looked down at my dirt covered hands and the jeans I was wearing to escape this city. How the coin flipped, I thought in mockery. To ever believe that something good could come out of my life. I must have been overly delusional. 

We got to a heavy door and the man used his left hand to open it with a crank, his right hand still pressed the gun to my back. The door opened to reveal a flight of stairs and the man shoved me to begin walking. We walked up the flight of stairs in silence and I was taking note of my environment in case I needed to run. With each landing, there was a door until we came to a final door which was pushed open to reveal the night sky. 

I breathed a sigh of relief as I took in the night air. The cell had been underground and it didn't take a soothsayer to know each of those doors led to different cells. Just where the fuck was I?

"Move", the command came from behind me and I moved on command, my legs shaking with each step I took to my death. I scanned my surroundings, the whole place looking like an enclosed maze, trees, shrubbery, even flowers. Whoever had done the landscape of whatever this place was really worked for his money. There was no single person in sight but I knew if I even so much as tried to escape, a bullet would make its way to me and it wouldn't be from the gun pressed behind my back.

We walked a short distance before I spotted another building, a little different from the one we just came from. The house I had just exited was like a little bungalow but with a flight of stairs going down. This one was a grand house complete with pillars and all the entreaties of royalty. And there was still no single person in sight. Was he going to end my life here? 

We entered the house and stepped into a magnificent hall, the lights startling my eyes and making me flinch from its intensity. I doubted the owners paid electricity tax if not they wouldn't have left all their lights on with no one in sight. A grand staircase swept up from the middle of the hall but the man at my back didn't lead me up the steps. He led me to a door down the hall and pushed me into the dark room. My heart skipped in triples when his torchlight came on again and he pulled back a set of heavy curtains to reveal double steel doors. 

I watched in shock, trying to process what was going on as he tapped lightly on the door and a man dressed up as a professional killer stepped out, a large gun in his hand.

"I've brought the last of the girls for the auction", my captor said to the mysterious man who nodded and opened the steel door, signaling for us to go in. 

Auction? So this was my fate. I was to be sold