it,” I command the auctioneer. “Call it now, and we can leave.”
The auctioneer puts his hands up, though I’m not pointing my gun at him. “Sold?” he squeaks uncertainly.
The masked man that holds Katherine upright pulls her down off the platform, heading toward a back room with her trailing limply. I gesture for Denis to go get her, excitement welling up in my chest.
Everyone is on tenterhooks, watching my every movement, guns at the ready. But I’m not concerned with any of them.
No, I’m concerned with my new purchase, who Denis rips away from her guard. As he leads her over to me, I realize just how small she is beside my enforcer. She can’t be much more than five feet tall.
They reach the spot where I’m standing, and I look at her wide, desperate eyes, her blonde hair, her hands knotted in her white dress. It’s all much more than I dreamt of. More real, more vivid.
I cock my head and give her a considering glance. “You belong to me. I am your master now.”
There is a faraway echo of terror in those big blue eyes, but whatever drug she’s been given prevents her fear from rising to the surface.
Not for long, though. When I get her back to my compound, there will be no substances, nothing between us. Nothing to stop her from feeling the kind of terror that Anna felt in her last hours.
I feel like I should warn her, let her know what sort of master I will be. I dig in my pocket for my switchblade, popping its shining blade open.
Her eyes fill with a distinct note of fear as I brandish it, stepping closer to her. I grab her by the shoulder, enjoying her pathetic attempts to struggle. Denis steps forward and grabs both of her hands, pulling them behind her back.
I look her right in the eyes as I slowly slice the letter A into her collarbone, about an inch by a half an inch. I get hard when she lets out a plaintive wail. My fingers shake with pent-up excitement as her blood trickles out over my knife.
Nothing has ever felt so good, I swear.
“This is to remind you that you belong to me,” I tell her, wiping the blood off of my blade on her perfect white dress, right on her right breast. The blood spreads and seeps immediately, which is very satisfying.
I turn on my heel, ready to go. I look at Denis. “All right. Put the bag over her head, and we can go. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Then I make my way out of the airplane hangar, ripping my face mask off and tossing it to the ground.
4
Katherine
I have a vague memory of being injected with tranquilizer a few times. I remember being awake enough to recognize a plane and a car. I know that the man that taunted me after he bought me was nearby that whole time.
I see him in my mind. His strange grey eyes and his dark brow, his large frame and black clothing, the dark stubble on his cheeks. His skin isn’t the same tone as mine… it was more olive in complexion. When he spoke, his English was accented…
But I was too far gone from the drugs to determine any more than that.
I wake again, coming fully into consciousness, and I look up at a royal blue ceiling. I groan to myself, leaning up to look down at my body. Gone is the dress that I wore at the auction. In its place is a deep, blood red sleeveless shift dress.
My fingertips accidentally brush a spot on my collarbone and even that slight touch stings. Carefully, I pull my dress away from my skin, peering down at a smoothly bandaged spot about an inch by an inch. It’s then that I remember his expression when he dug his knife into my flesh, the glee I saw in his eyes when he marked me forever.
Even though I am careful not to disturb the spot further, I have to struggle against the tears that prick my eyes. What kind of monster just outright mutilates another human being?
To my utter humiliation, my panties and bra are gone too. I feel naked, knowing that someone looked at my completely nude body while I was unconscious.
My shoulder throbs, reminding me of that moment back at the auction, when he showed me who he was by carving something into my flesh. I lift my hand to touch the spot that he marred with his knife. A gentle clanking draws my attention to my wrist, where I find a finely wrought handcuff attached to a delicate-looking gold chain.
I tug on the chain and find that I’m tethered to some place behind the bed. I have enough chain to move around the room, but not enough to go anywhere outside the room.
This is… bizarre. Where exactly am I? I know it’s the daytime, but I have no other clues.
Then I think about where my family is, and it all sort of hits me at once.
Gone, that’s where my family is. They’ve left me, intentionally. I’m not the kid from Home Alone, I’m Liam Neeson’s daughter in the movie Taken.
Worse, I’ve been sold.
Just what am I supposed to do with that information? As tears start to well in my eyes, I can’t help but see the events of the last few days play out in my head.
Tony’s expression when he betrayed me to the cops.
The cop’s face when he hauled me out from underneath the desk.
The horrible misery that I faced when I woke up in my cell at the auction house.
And him. The man who bought me. His eyes… the cruelty and derision I saw there gave me chills.
I roll onto my side, my tears escaping onto the grey fabric under my body. What could I have done to drive my family to sell me? Sobbing, I think of Tony’s warning.
Did Dad really sell me because he was running out of money? Could I really be worth so little to them?
Don’t they love me?
Snot runs from my nose, and I wipe at it with a corner of my shift dress. I let my tears overwhelm me for a little while, crying until I feel completely hollow inside.
No one comes to the dark wood door at the sound of my tears; there isn’t anyone here that is very interested in whether or not I am comfortable, I know that for sure.
I blink a few times, looking at the large bed I am in. There are no sheets or blankets, just a soft grey cover over the entire thing. The room itself is pretty large, with no decoration except a window seat built into a bay window. There is no cushion, and the window has no drapes or dressing.
I scoot myself off the bed, standing on my wobbly legs. The floors are all dark wood, smooth and cool against the pads of my bare feet. I go to the door first, but find it locked.
Unsurprising, I guess. After all, I am chained up. It’s not like I could leave if I found the door open.
Next, I explore the other side of the room, going to the window seat. The window is thick double-paned glass, and it doesn’t open. Outside the window is shockingly picturesque; I’m high up, overlooking a small orchard in full bloom. Behind that is a crumbling brick wall, with lush greenery and mountainous terrain. Everywhere that I can see in the distance is just hills upon hills, jungles on top of jungles.
Wherever I am, I am definitely not in New Orleans anymore.
That brings on another crying jag, even though I still feel empty from earlier. This one isn’t quite so energetic, more just weeping quietly while staring out the window.
Though I’m distraught, I realize that I’m hungry. I’m not really sure what to do about that. I try to remember my last real meal, and I can only think of the morning that Tony sold me. We stopped at McDonald’s that morning, went through the drive-through.
I