Page 50 of Auctioned

This doesn’t make any sense. None of this does.

“What are you talking?—”

Topher pushes my chin so I’m back to facing the crowd. “Shut the hell up.”

The glimmer of hope I’ve been holding on to is snuffed out. I’m no less angry, though.

“Fifteen.” An older man with a hint of an Italian accent raises his hand from the front row.

His brown eyes are narrowed. His round face is clean-shaven. His short hair is dark with gray streaks.

My stomach lurches when he shifts his leering gaze from Baylor to me, licking his lips.

Oh no. Oh no. If someone outbids him, he’s coming for me.

There’s nothing right about this man. There’s an aura surrounding him that makes me feel the most awful things.

I’m going to destroy you. Either one of you.

If he gets us…

If he takes us…

Escape plans will be a faraway dream.

Either Baylor or I might survive, but we won’t be living.

That’s how dark he looks. How evil he seems.

He wants me to see it.

Final offer,he mouths to me.

I’m going to be sick.

A deep, cleansing breath.

The world’s still spinning.

James. I hate him. Every cell in my body loathes and is repulsed by him. Despises his infuriating touch. The things he does to me.

I have to find his icy-blue eyes anyway. They’re my only escape. The only way I can tap into my anger again, to cast away my fear.

I break eye contact with the devil before me, ignoring Topher’s deranged whispered praise of:You’re going to make me so proud.

But he isn’t there.

I search the crowd. Every available space of this shithole.

No blue eyes. No terrifying shadow in the back of the room.

He’s gone.

James is gone.

10

JAMES

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