Page 17 of Broken Princess
“Because I was brought here against my will, and I’m going to be auctioned off to a stranger in a few days.”
Eva clapped her hands together and grinned. “Oh, that’s what you meant! You’re so lucky!”
“Uhh… what?”
“You’re going to your new home!” she said. The others at the table looked equally excited. “I haven’t been so blessed yet. I’m not ready.”
I stared at her, eyes wide. This was even worse than I initially thought. “So the concept of being sold off sounds totally normal to you?”
She nodded, eyes feverishly bright. “You should be happy about it!” she replied. “We all love it here, of course, and it’s hard to imagine leaving our brothers and sisters, but being sent to serve just one master would be like a dream come true. You’re very fortunate that it’s happening so fast for you.”
I looked down at the table and gritted my teeth. Clearly, I wasn’t going to get any help from these people. They were completely brainwashed.
I picked up my toast and slowly chewed it, not knowing what to say anymore. The others started chattering about the food and the recent weather, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
Jamie came to fetch me about fifteen minutes later. “Say goodbye to your new friends,” he said, motioning for me to get up and follow him.
“We’ll see you later, Willow,” Eva said, flashing me a warm smile as I stood. “It was lovely to meet you.”
“You too,” I said flatly, pushing my chair in.
Jamie led me out of the room and back through the maze of halls on the ground floor. “Have an interesting chat?” he asked as he directed me down a stairwell to a dim basement level. No natural light could reach this far, so the way ahead was lit by flickering yellow bulbs in sconces on the gray walls.
“I guess you could call it interesting,” I said. “Although I’d probably use the term ‘fucked up’ instead.”
He smiled. “What makes you say that?”
“The kids and teenagers back there,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “They have no clue about the real world.”
“So?”
“So they’re the babies, aren’t they? The ones the Order buys from the parents who don’t want them?”
“Yes.”
“I always figured you probably sold them to rich couples who are desperate for children and can’t have any of their own,” I said. “But that’s not true, is it? You keep them here, train them, and eventually sell them off as sex slaves, don’t you?”
He patted me on the shoulder. “Look who’s using her brain again.”
“Well, excuse me for not immediately jumping to the conclusion that you’re running a black market sex slave auction house out here,” I snapped. “The majority of non-psychopaths like me would never even dream of—”
His hand cracked across my face in a slap as loud as a clap, snapping my head back with the force of the blow. I let out a startled gasp of pain and staggered backward, eyes watering as black dots covered my vision. I could feel his handprint blooming on my cheek already.
He smiled. “Oh, look. I finally figured out how to shut you up,” he said. Then he turned around again, his tall, powerful body casting an ominous shadow in the dim hall ahead. “Keep following me,” he called out.
He led me to the end of the hall and into a large windowless room lit by a singular bulb in the center of the low gray ceiling.
I could only describe the room as a cross between a bunker and a dungeon. On one side, there were three metal cages and several sets of ropes, chains, and manacles. Next to those were two medical tables with straps and stirrups. To the right, there were chairs, benches with drawers, and all sorts of strange contraptions; too many for me to take in with a single glance.
“Can you guess why I brought you down here?” Jamie asked, turning to me with one brow lifted.
I folded my arms. “I can only assume you’re going to try to break me like you broke the kids upstairs.”
He scoffed. “They haven’t been broken. There was nothing to break.”
“What?”
“They’ve been raised here from birth, remember?” he said. “That means they only learn what they need to, so they don’t know any better. They think everything they endure is perfectly normal. Most of them even look forward to it. That means there’s nothing to break. They’re the perfect slaves.”
