I spent the night locked in a gilded bedroom that felt more like a coffin, staring at walls covered in silk wallpaper the color of old blood.
My mind raced through every escape route and found none. The windows don't open—I checked them all twice, running my fingers along the seams, looking for any weakness, any latch, any crack I could exploit.
The door only unlocks from the outside. I pressed my ear against it for hours, listening for footsteps, for voices, for any hint of what was coming. Nothing but silence.
I barely slept, maybe an hour or two of fitful dozing before the nightmares jolted me awake.
I barely ate the food they brought me—some kind of pasta that probably cost more than my weekly grocery budget, growing cold and congealed on the tray.
The maid who delivered it wouldn't meet my eyes, wouldn't answer my questions, just set down the tray and left like I was already a ghost.
I just sat on the edge of a bed softer than anything I've ever owned and waited for the nightmare to continue.
Now the door opens and a woman I don't recognize steps inside. She carries a crimson silk dress draped over her arm, laying it across the bed without ceremony.
"Put this on," she says flatly.
"Who are you?" I demand. "Where am I? What is this place?"
"Questions won't help you now." She nods toward the dress. "Ten minutes. I suggest you use them wisely."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then they'll dress you themselves."
She looks at me with eyes that have seen this a hundred times before—girls like me, scared and defiant and ultimately powerless.
"Your choice. But I'd recommend cooperation. It goes easier that way."
I want to refuse. Want to tear the fabric to shreds and claw her eyes out when she returns. But I've had all night to think, and I've learned something in those long dark hours.
Defiance without strategy is just noise. Screaming and fighting didn't save me yesterday. It won't save me tonight. I need to be smarter. I need to survive long enough to find another way.
So I step into the dress, hating how perfectly it fits, how it hugs every curve like it was made specifically for my body.
The silk is cool against my skin, expensive in a way I've never experienced—the kind of fabric that whispers when you move.
The woman returns exactly ten minutes later, not a second more or less. Her eyes sweep over me once, clinical, assessing, like a butcher examining a cut of meat.
"You clean up well," she says. "Follow me."
Before I can ask anything, she's walking, and I have no choice but to follow.
She leads me through silent corridors I've never seen before, past paintings worth more than my family's house, past marble statues and gilded mirrors and chandeliers dripping with crystals.
This place is a palace. A prison dressed in luxury.
We stop before a set of heavy double doors. Dark wood carved with patterns I can't quite make out in the dim light—figures intertwined, bodies twisted together in ways that make my stomach turn.
"Good luck," she says, and pushes the doors open.
Beyond them lies a pitch-black room, the darkness so complete it feels solid. Tangible. Like walking into a void that could swallow me whole.
One spotlight cuts through the emptiness, illuminating a low circular podium in the center.
My stomach drops straight through the floor.
"Go," she says. "They're waiting."
I walk forward because there's nowhere else to go. My heels click against stone, echoing in the silence, announcing my arrival to whatever monsters lurk in the shadows. Each step feels like walking toward my own execution.
I climb onto the podium.
The light pins me like a butterfly under glass, hot and blinding, and I can't see anything beyond its edge. But I can hear them.
Dozens of people lounging in the shadows, their faces invisible, their presence heavy in the air. Leather creaking as they shift in their seats. Ice clinking in glasses.
The scratch of a match, the flare of flame, the glow of cigars like predator eyes in the dark.
Someone laughs softly, and the sound makes my skin crawl. The air smells like smoke and expensive cologne and something predatory.
"Lot number seven," a voice announces from somewhere in the darkness, smooth and practiced, like he's done this a thousand times.
"Gianna Rossi. Twenty-two years old. Certified virgin. Excellent health, no prior attachments. Bidding starts at one hundred thousand."
The bidding begins.
"One-fifty from Table 3."
"Two hundred from Table 7."
"Three-fifty from Table 12." A man's voice, amused, dripping with entitlement. "She looks like she scratches. I like that."
Laughter ripples through the darkness. My hands curl into fists at my sides.
"Half a million from Table 7."
"Five-fifty from Table 3. Turn her around. I want to see what I'm buying."
I don't move. I refuse to spin like a music box dancer for these animals.
"Six hundred from Table 12."
"Seven-fifty from Table 7."
"Nine hundred from Table 3."
The numbers climb higher and higher, each one a slap, a reminder that I'm nothing but flesh with a price tag. Something inside me cracks. Then shatters completely.
My rage finally snaps the leash.
"Stop!" My scream echoes off stone, silencing everything. The bidding dies. The murmurs cease. Even the ice stops clinking. "I'm not property! I'm not for sale!"
Dead silence. Cigars freeze mid-glow.
I keep going, voice raw and shaking, tears burning in my eyes but refusing to fall.
"You want me? Then show your faces! Look me in the eye and tell me what you're going to do to me! Or are you too ashamed of what you are? Cowards, all of you! Hiding in the dark like the monsters you are!"
Three heartbeats of nothing.
Then chairs shift somewhere in the shadows. Three silhouettes rise—tall, broad, moving together with the kind of coordination that speaks of years of practice.
I can't see their faces, can't make out any features, just the outlines of their bodies against the faint glow of exit signs.
They exchange one long, unreadable look between them. Some silent communication I can't decipher.
And then, without a word, without a glance in my direction, they turn and walk out.
Murmurs ripple through the darkness. I can't make out the words, but I can hear the surprise. The confusion. The irritation.
"One million from Table 7," someone calls out. "Final bid."
Silence. No one counters. No one speaks.
"Sold to Table 7!" the auctioneer announces, his voice cracking slightly. "Congratulations on your new purchase."
The spotlight dies.
I stand alone in the darkness, chest heaving, heart pounding against my ribs like a caged bird trying to break free. I don't know who bought me. Don't know if my outburst made things better or infinitely worse.
All I know is that I belong to someone now. And I have no idea who they are or what they're going to do with me.