Page 106 of The Vagabond

My captor’s gaze sweeps the room.

“You’re only complicit if you talk,” he says. Calm. Dead calm. “And none of you are stupid enough to talk. Are you?”

Silence. The bleeding man’s body twitches once, then stops. Mr Cufflinks wipes at his face with a trembling hand. He looks like he’s going to be sick. The other two men are trembling—silent in a way that screams. You can see it in their eyes: that dawning realization that this isn’t an auction anymore. It’s a massacre in the making. They’re already calculating—measuring exits, weighing their odds like rats in a burning maze, wondering who dies first and how long they can stay out of the fire.

I stay still. My skin is tacky with blood. I feel it drying in streaks across my cheekbones and collarbone, sticky in my hair, crusted into my lips. It drips from my eyelashes. My lips are stained. I can’t taste anything but blood and death. And all I can think is:this is it.There’s no cavalry. No miracle. There’s only this basement… and the monsters inside it.

My captor holsters his gun and claps his hands once.

“Well, now that thedisruptionis handled, let’s get on with the show, shall we?”

The men look at each other, then slowly nod. What choice do they have? They’re in too deep now.

He removes paper and pens from an inside pocket of his coat and proceeds to pass them around until every man has a set.

“Gentlemen, write your bid. Highest wins this beauty.”

They step forward one at a time, scribbling down their bidwith shaking hands. Mr cufflinks glances at me once, as though considering what he was about to write. Twitchy hesitates, then scrawls his bid quickly and folds the paper in half. He hands it to my captor. The tall, skinny man folds his bid like origami, crisp and careful.

My captor collects the slips, unfolds them one by one, and hums to himself, clearly satisfied.

“Very nice. Very competitive.” He pauses at the last one. “And we have a winner.”

He turns to Mr Cufflinks.

“Congratulations. You’ve just purchased yourself a rare little masterpiece. Once payment is confirmed, I’ll arrange for her delivery to your location of choice. Clean. Quiet.”

I guess doorstep service comes standard when you’re being sold like cargo.

The winner smiles, tight and victorious. He shakes hands with the other men like this is a charity auction and not the sale of a living, breathing girl. My captor thanks each of them for their time as if he’s hosting a dinner party. Then he turns to me. Leans in. His breath ghosts over my ear. I can smell the gunpowder still clinging to his clothes.

“You’re going to make me a very rich man, sweetheart.”

I flinch, my stomach hollowing out beneath me. My blood runs cold.

They leave one by one, their footsteps growing quieter, smaller, until they vanish completely.

But the horror doesn’t. It clings to me like a second skin—thick and suffocating. Now I’m drenched in the blood of two different men. Zack, from when I bit his ear off. And that monster, Mr Thickneck, when his blood sprayed all over me.

My captor isn’t gone long. He climbs the stairs with the others, murmuring something low. Then, either he hands them off to someone else or lets them find their own way out—I can’ttell. But seconds later, I hear him again. Heavy footsteps thudding against the rickety metal stairs. Slow. Measured. Like he wants to kill me with anticipation.

He crouches in front of me, eyes gleaming with pride and greed.

“You’ve got no idea how much they were willing to pay for you,” he says, voice smooth as oil. “You’re a work of art, Maxine. A masterpiece of suffering wrapped in a pretty little package. They couldn’t throw their money at me fast enough.”

I don’t blink. I want him to see the hatred in my eyes. I want it to brand him.

He grins wider. “You fetched me a pretty little penny. And you didn’t even have to step on stage for it.”

“I hope you choke on every cent,” I spit. “I hope the money rots in your gut before they slit it open.”

His smile doesn’t falter. “Feisty. I like that. Makes you more valuable.”

“Fuck you!” I hiss.

He leans closer, breath ghosting over the blood drying on my cheek. “Who knows?” He whispers. “Maybe I’ll let you do that before I ship you off to your new Master.”

I slam my head forward. Catch him off guard. The crack of bone against bone rings in my ears. He reels back with a grunt, hand flying to his nose. Fucking idiot, did he not see what I did to Zack’s ear?

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