Page 103 of Buried in Blood
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Damien
The lights shift.
Soft at first—dimmed just enough to make the stage the only place worth looking. Brooke walks forward, ghost-like, obedient, blank. She’s not trembling, not stiff. She’s floating. Like this moment has been playing in her head for weeks, and she’s just now stepping into it.
She’s dressed like perfection. White lace, black ribbon. Bruises on display, as ordered.
The host doesn’t waste time. “Lot Three,” he calls out, his voice echoing through the rec room like a sermon. “Young. Obedient. Trained. Exceptional performance under pressure.”
Brooke lowers her gaze.
The silence breaks.
“Twenty thousand.”
A voice from the third row. Nasally. Entitled. An easy start.
“Twenty-five,” someone counters near the aisle, a familiar bidder with a taste for blondes.
I relax into the booth’s leather seat, legs spread, arms draped over the backrest like a king watching the spoils of war. Harmony sits besideme, stone-faced, her hands folded neatly in her lap like she doesn’t feel the weight of what’s about to happen.
But I see it.
Her fingers are white at the knuckles.
“Thirty,” another man calls out.
“Thirty-five.”
My jaw tightens.
Too slow.
“Forty.”
Still dragging.
“Forty-five.”
I scan the room from above—dozens of suits, whispers and glances, thick cigars and heavy rings tapping the arms of their chairs. These are the buyers. The collectors. The ones who smile at violence like it’s art.
But something’s off. Half of them aren’t bidding.
They’re watching. Not the stage.
Me.
“Fifty,” a deeper voice echoes from the right side.
I shift forward. That voice—clean. Confident. Calm. And I don’t fucking recognize it.
“Fifty-five,” a second bidder bites back.
The auctioneer barely blinks. “Sixty.”
Harmony’s head tilts slightly, like she’s trying to hear better. I don’t let her speak. I don’t speak either.
