Page 99 of Voracious

Her chin drops and she gives me her full attention. My fingers tighten around her hand as fear works through me and it coats my voice.

“You can’t put yourself in danger, okay? I know you’re angry, youwillkill everyone, and I won’t stop you. But you do not do anything that will risk your life.”

Sparing a glance at the road, I look to her as we make our way through the dark city streets.

She’s not pissed, and her voice is softer as she asks, “Do you want to know a secret?”

I bring her knuckles to my lips and hold them there as I nod. Her voice lowers with innocence despite the dark thoughts.

“I’m invincible and I can’t die, so you don’t have to be worried.”

I don’t know where I find calm from, but I slowly pull off to the side of the road as Val’s annoying voice is in my ear. “The fucker turned the mic’s off.”

I hold her chin and turn her to face me, ignoring everyone else as my heart batters against my ribs.

“There will never be a day I don’t worry about you because you will always be here. I wish you were invincible, I’d probably still be terrified, but you’re not. So, you do not put yourself in fucking danger because if anything happens to you I won’t know what the fuck to do.”

She nods but I don’t trust it. I can’t see her eyes with the contacts in, and there’s a sinking in my gut telling me it’s going to end and to run. But my weakness is in her, and she speaks softly with her lie.

“I promise I’ll be okay. Can we find Nina now?”

I nod and press my lips to her knuckles, so the mask isn’t moved. The sinking intensifies as I start driving again, the closer we get to the building that’s playing host to the sickening auction the worse it becomes. Yet my hellion is excited, and she starts humming to herself louder than she ever has before.

THIRTY-NINE

Ana

Iwish one of these sick fucks would be brave enough to take off their mask. Being locked in our own rooms makes it harder to differentiate who is who on the outside world unless they were to dress the exact same. Dima doesn’t let me off his knee and he controls his breathing as I block out the images in front of me.

Each pod is equipped with everything they could need to hurt someone. Ropes, bandages, plastic, knives. The panel of glass in front of us has a film on it that distorts everything unless I’m staring straight ahead at the lit up podium made of steel.

I get another glimpse of them as the sick fuckers come back to their rooms after they’ve completed their inspections like they’re not placing their bids on children. Sick cunts. I hope they get maggots in their genitals. That’s a good torture idea, it would stink but I don’t think Dima would like to watch it.

The light above the door blinks, showing this category’s auction is coming to an end and I keep my chin tucked to my chest as I watch the blurry image of the doors surrounding the podium in a circle close one by one. Nina isn’t here but everyonewas talking to each other about the special item. That’s what they call people – items. Not a human being, an item.

A hand squeezes my thigh, making me get out of my head. But Dima doesn’t say anything with our eavesdroppers present. Val and Tali are idiots to think I can’t handle doing this when I’ve been watching this stuff since I was a child. I didn’t have cartoons, it was horror-movie-level material labelled as porn. The bottom half of Dima’s face is exposed, and he shifts so his lips can press against my nape. It’s virtually soundless but Val and Tali hiss over each other.

“I heard that, you pervert.”

“Take your dirty lips off my sister.”

Air brushes my neck before Dima ignores them and does it again.

If I grew up with them as my brothers I’d have been sheltered, no one would have ever touched me. It’s nice now only because I’ve lived a different life, but it would have been annoying. The normal life I imagined of having parents would still have been a dream, or I’d still be a crazy person who kills people, but at least I didn’t have to grow up with Vlad telling me what to do. It’s only been a few years of him annoying me and I don’t know how Val has put up with it. I would have made a pact with him to kill the eldest Vartanov.

My stomach settles a little when the announcer moves onto the next category. It’s fucked up that the best part of the change is the fact these sex slaves aren’t children. Adult minds still can’t cope with this shit but there’s something more insidious about people lusting after a small body. Craving the ultimate vulnerability that only comes with age.I don’t let anything outside of the room fully sink into my senses as I remember what Dima wanted me to promise. I’ll break it if I focus on the people fucking while watching other people in pain and my hands itch to kill someone.

Vlad must be letting Val and Tali watch the screen now because they both fall silent. They don’t know the three categories before this one were children; pregnant women being lead out not knowing their unborn baby was going to be ripped from them and it’s sad that they were cradling their bellies when the bids were for the very thing they were trying to protect. My chest aches, tallying how many lives are going to be altered. Doing the same with the bids has my blood boiling. People aren’t a fucking business, everyone deserves to be left alone.

I can rationalize everything. Drugs, fine it’s a choice. It destroys lives but there’s no one literally holding a gun to someone’s head. Murder, acceptable. Robbery, go wild. The list goes on, but this is different. It’s wanting to own a person then force them to become subhuman. People treat their toilets with more respect than they will these living, breathing people.My stomach burns, remembering the punishments from the first time I questioned everything. I have a name now, family, I know things, and I know this is wrong. I might be wrong too, but this is worse than me because I can tell it’s wrong. That thought is the only thing that allows me to live with all the bad things I’ve done.

The distorted voice filters through the speakers in the room and the burning increases, flowing through my veins, as I work out who it is. The way Rowan would end words in a specific manner gives him away as the sick cunt gives his instructions and the lights go off then flicker back on to reveal the person he’s using in his sick game.

“The next round of bids won’t be to buy a product, but an experience. All bids will be accepted. You will have fifteen minutes to collect, and you will be called up in descending order.”

Dima sucks in a sharp breath and his fingers tighten around my knees.I can’t touch him with the cameras in the room and let my hands fall further so my knuckles brush his hands.

His whisper isn’t for me or for our eavesdroppers as he holds his breath. “This is fucked up.”

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