Sold
739 Words
CHAPTER 2
Lorenzo
She was breathing when she shouldn’t have been.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Not the scars.
Not the glass.
Not the way the room leaned toward her like a congregation toward a sacrificial altar.
Her breath.
Slow. Controlled. Disciplined.
Most of them panic.
Most of them beg without sound, eyes screaming against the barrier, bodies betraying fear before their mouths ever could.
She didn’t.
She lay there like she had already accepted death—and decided it bored her.
I didn’t intend to bid.
I never do.
I attend these auctions to observe patterns, not to participate in them. Men reveal more about themselves when they think they’re choosing. Power is loud in places like this. Sloppy. Desperate to be seen.
She wasn’t power.
She was a deviation.
“Lot seventeen,” the handler announced.
Dead on paper.
Alive in front of me.
I watched the numbers rise without interest. They were meaningless. Currency always is when you have enough of it. What mattered was the mistake breathing under glass.
She twitched once.
Barely visible. Controlled. Like she’d caught herself reacting and punished her own body for it.
Good.
Awareness without chaos is rare.
I stepped closer.
The others felt it immediately. Silence rippled through the room—not respect, not fear. Recognition. The understanding that whatever happened next was no longer a discussion.
I rested my hand against the glass.
Cold. Solid. Absolute.
Her eyes moved then. Not fast. Not startled.
Intentional.
They met mine like she had been waiting for permission to look.
Interesting.
Most people flinch when they meet my gaze. Some lower their eyes. Others harden, try to turn defiance into armor.
She did neither.
She looked at me like a calculation.
That unsettled something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Curiosity.
“She’s awake,” someone muttered behind me.
I didn’t turn.
“An acceptable deviation,” I said quietly.
Because it was.
Because awareness changes the experiment.
The handler hesitated. I could hear it in his breathing. He knew the rules. He also knew when they no longer applied.
I felt her pulse through the glass when my thumb shifted. Fast. Strong. Controlled back into silence.
Alive.
The word settled in my mind with a weight I didn’t expect.
“I’ll take her.”
No amount.
No escalation.
Ownership doesn’t require numbers when everyone understands the outcome.
Sold.
The coffin disengaged with a mechanical sigh, like something exhaling for the first time. She stiffened beneath the glass—not in fear.
In preparation.
As they moved her, I followed at a distance. I didn’t need to be close to possess what was already mine. Distance sharpens awareness. Proximity dulls it.
She never looked away.
Even when the lights dimmed.
Even when the room swallowed her.
Good.
They brought her to the lower level. Private corridors. No cameras she could see. No windows. The kind of place where the world ends quietly.
When the coffin locked into place, I dismissed the others.
Alone.
At last.
I stepped into the red light spilling across the chamber. Up close, the details sharpened. The scars weren’t decorative. They were functional. Old injuries. Survived, not healed.
She wasn’t broken.
She was assembled incorrectly.
Her eyes tracked me as I circled the glass.
Still no begging.
Still no tears.
“You know what you are,” I said.
Her lips parted. No sound came out.
So.
She couldn’t speak.
Another deviation.
Most men would see weakness in that.
I saw efficiency.
“You are legally dead,” I continued. “No name. No past. No future that exists without my permission.”
Her breath fogged the glass for half a second.
She pressed her palm against it.
Not pleading.
Testing.
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth before I could stop it.
Dangerous.
“Don’t misunderstand,” I said softly. “This isn’t rescue.”
Her fingers curled slightly, condensation blooming under her skin.
I leaned in until my breath touched the glass opposite hers.
“This is possession.”
Something flickered in her eyes then.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Good.
Because monsters don’t frighten survivors.
They attract them.
And as the systems hummed around us, sealing her fate with quiet efficiency, one truth settled deep inside me heavy, unwelcome, undeniable:
I hadn’t bought a corpse.
I had bought a problem.
And problems, I’ve learned, have a way of becoming obsessions.
- Writer
