Page 28 of Pageant

Him and me, sharing cups of coffee. I stare back, not saying anything.

Elyah tilts the bottle and pours the contents onto the ground, staring me right in the eyes. The water spatters at my feet. He drops a cereal bar and crushes it under his heel. Then he moves on.

I glance at the woman on my right. Olivia, the first one to tell me her name. She has tangled brown hair falling to her waist and she’s wearing a wrinkled sundress. In her hands is an unwrapped cereal bar, and there’s an anguished expression in her coppery eyes. She’s a fraction of a second away from offering me some of her food, and I look away quickly and give a tiny shake of my head.

While the other women eat and drink, I watch Konstantin. His features are dramatic and handsome, but there’s a sharklike expression in his crystalline, gray eyes. He stares at us like we’re merchandise, his gaze not meeting ours but landing on our breasts, our hips, our legs. Even when he looks into our faces, he’s searching for beauty. Perfection. Not humanity.

He called us little jewels. We’re being appraised for our worth.

Konstantin waits for the rustling of cereal bar wrappers to die away, and then he lifts his chin and speaks. His velvety, accented voice fills the dank room.

“How beautiful you all are. What a pleasure it is to welcome you here.”

Then he smiles, as if the irony of welcoming us to a place where we’ve been brought against our will has just occurred to him.

“My name is Konstantin, and we’re going to play a game. Like all games, there are rules, and there’s a winner. Only one winner.” His gaze sweeps along the row of women. “You want to be that winner.”

There’s a box sitting at his feet, and he leans down, picking it up and opening it. Something inside glitters and we all strain to see what it is.

Konstantin draws the object out, holding it flat on his palm. It’s a tiara, sparkling and pristine, set with pinkish, almond-shaped diamonds and clusters of hundreds more pale, precious stones.

“Fourteen million dollars’ worth of pink diamonds. Fit for a queen.” He lifts his gaze to us. “Or my wife. You will be judged on your beauty. Your poise. And above all, your strength. If you cry because we hurt you, we will hurt you more. Don’t try and manipulate us with your emotions. I have no mercy. My friends have no mercy.”

So that’s what he has planned. A sick, twisted version of a beauty pageant, only it’s our lives on the line, and I doubt these men care about our views on world peace.

Konstantin glances at Elyah and the other man, who have moved to flank him. “Do what I tell you to do, and what my friends Elyah and Kirill tell you to do, and you’ll keep your fingers and toes and all the blood inside your veins. Maybe some of you knew each other before, but now you don’t. You are not friends. You are competitors. If you try and help each other, you will be punished.”

I put up my hand.

Konstantin’s eyebrows creep up his forehead. With the air of a man humoring a child, he strolls over to me and looks me up and down. “Number Eleven. I’ve heard so much about you already.”

I bet he has.

“You have a question?”

“What happens to the women who lose?” I ask.

He leans down closer to me and smiles a cold, vicious smile. “What do you think happens to useless whores?”

Despair washes over me, and I wonder if there are other women in this room like me. Women who have been treated like property all their lives. Women who have broken away and found a few scraps of independence through modeling work, only to end up here, locked in this desolate cellar, face to face with a smiling psychopath.

It feels dangerous to say anything else, so I glance at Elyah, and back at Konstantin.

“You’re wondering when Elyah is going to kill you? He’s generously allowed you to compete, but you won’t win the pageant. I’m sorry.”

Over Konstantin’s shoulder, Elyah glares at me with pure venom. Watching me struggle without any hope of getting out of this is the first way he’s going to torture me.

“The longer you stay in the game, the longer you will survive. As soon as you’re out, I’ll hand you over to him.”

“And the other women?” I ask.

“What about them?”

“What’s going to happen to them?”

Konstantin frowns. “Why do you care?”

The idea of one human caring about another is so alien to him. “Please don’t hurt them. They’re not from our world. It’s not fair.”

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