Page 98 of For a Price

They’re discussing me as if I can’t hear them. I’m just athingto be on display for them.

Panic swells inside me.

It’s like a balloon inflating with air that I can’t begin to get control of. It grows until it’s crushing me from within, like I can’t possibly last another second without exploding. My breathing stalls as black spots appear before my eyes.

“Please…” I mutter. “I… think… I’m having…”

“Then it’s settled,” says the third man in a gruff voice. “She will go to auction. They can bid on her and decide a price. Tonight.”

“Take her away.”

Before Diana can seize hold of me, I scramble to my feet and rush toward the table. My hands fist the front of the second man’s shirt and I burst into tears and pleas.

“Please… where’s Roman? I need to speak to Roman! I need to?—”

SMACK!

Fiery pain erupts across my cheek, so intense my eyes instantly water.

The man has slapped me across the face like it’s nothing. I’m so shocked, struck silent, that when Diana wrenches me away a second time I can only gape wide-eyed at the panel of men. Their faces are cold and emotionless, their air indifferent.

No amount of tears or begging will change their perception.

They simply… don’t care.

They’d called me aproduct.

In their eyes, I’m just a thing to be sold…

Diana wrestles me away. I’m thrown into the hallway outside so roughly that I crash into the wall. Her fingers dig into my curls and she yanks hard to drag me with her.

“You stupid girl,” she growls. “Don’t you ever do that again or I’ll give you something even worse to cry about.”

We turn down several more hallways.

It takes me a while to deduce where we’re going. We’re returning to the same dark room I woke up in.

The cell.

The door scrapes open and she shoves me inside.

“Rest,” she says. “You’ve got a long night ahead of you.”

I’ve never been a big crier, yet the tears won’t stop coming in the new reality I’ve found myself in. Some time later, the cell door flies open and two henchmen file inside to collect me. I’m dragged despite my protests—and more electro shocks jolting through me—to some kind of dressing room.

Vanity tables and mirrors fill up the space. Clothing racks. Makeup and beauty tools.

One of the men pushes me down into a chair and orders me to stay put. What happens next is two hours of some of the worst haircare treatment I’ve ever had.

The stylist who attempts to do my hair clearly has no idea what she’s doing. My kinky curl pattern confuses her as she first dyes my hair from the lavender purple I’ve proudly rocked to some drab chocolate brown. My curls are left limp and over processed as she wedges a comb into my thick hair and wrestles it through.

My scalp stings in protest. “That’s not how you detangle my hair! I can do it.”

“Shut up!” she snarls, striking me over the head with the comb.

Anger rushes me and I half-rise out of my chair until my gaze settles on the mirror. The henchmen stand behind us by the door, cattle prods in hand.

The sense of powerlessness is depressing.

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