glass Walls-1a
899 Words
Opening: the car ride. Silence. Manhattan blurs past. Lysandra processes shock. Cassian watches her with unnerving focus
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**The car ride. Silence. Manhattan blurs past. Lysandra processes shock. Cassian watches her with unnerving focus.**
She could feel his eyes on her.
Not constantly. Not obviously. But in that way people notice when they're being studied—the weight of attention like heat on skin.
Lysandra kept her gaze fixed on the window. Streetlights strobed past in rhythmic flashes. Yellow cabs. Pedestrians. Normal people living normal Saturday nights. Going to bars. Restaurants. Home to apartments where they owned themselves.
Where she was going, she had no idea.
Well. That wasn't entirely true.
She was going to Cassian Vale's home.
She just didn't know what that meant yet.
The auction felt like a fever dream now. Had she really stood on a stage while strangers bid on her? Had someone actually paid *one million dollars* for six months of her time?
Had she actually agreed to this?
Her reflection in the car window looked like a stranger. Red dress. Professional makeup. Hair styled in waves that had taken the auction house stylist forty-five minutes to perfect.
She looked expensive.
Felt sold.
"You're quiet," Cassian said.
First words since they'd left the Montgomery Estate ten minutes ago.
Lysandra didn't look at him. "I don't know what to say."
"You could start with questions. I'm sure you have them."
*Where are we going? What do you want from me? Why did you pay so much? What did you mean about a sandwich five years ago? Are you going to hurt me? Use me? Destroy me?*
She settled on: "Where do you live?"
"Vale Tower. Midtown. We're almost there."
She knew the building. Everyone in Manhattan knew Vale Tower—sixty-eight floors of glass and steel and obscene wealth. It had been featured in *Architectural Digest*. The penthouse alone was worth over fifty million dollars.
Of course that's where they were going.
"You'll have your own room," he continued, tone conversational, like they were discussing weather. "Your own space. Privacy. I won't enter without permission."
"But you own me."
She said it flatly. Testing the words. Seeing how they felt.
They felt like ash.
"I bought your time," he corrected. "Not you. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
He didn't answer immediately. Just watched her with those storm-grey eyes that seemed to see through skin and bone straight to the panic underneath.
Finally: "Yes. And you'll learn it. Over the next six months."
Six months.
183 days.
4,392 hours.
She'd done the math obsessively over the past three weeks while waiting for tonight. Counted down the time like a prison sentence.
Because that's what this was.
A beautiful, expensive, voluntary prison sentence.
The car turned onto a wide avenue. Manhattan's Saturday night energy hummed around them—people everywhere, alive and loud and *free*.
Lysandra used to be one of them.
Now she was behind tinted windows. Separate. Other.
Property.
*No. Not property. Time. He bought your time.*
But time was all anyone had. Selling it felt the same as selling herself.
"Tell me about your sister," Cassian said.
Lysandra's head snapped toward him. "What?"
"Elara. Twenty-three years old. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Diagnosed fourteen months ago. Treated at Mercy General until insurance stopped covering experimental protocols three months ago. Transferred to St. Catherine's two weeks ago when you found private funding." He recited the facts like reading a report. "Tell me about her. Not the medical history. Her."
"How do you know all that?"
"I made it my business to know."
The casual admission sent ice down he
r spine.
"You investigated me."
"Thoroughly."
"That's—" She searched for the word. "Invasive."
"Yes."
No apology. No excuse. Just agreement.
Lysandra stared at him. "Why?"
"Because I don't make million-dollar investments without research."
*Investment.*
There was that word again.
She turned back to the window. "Elara is brilliant. Smarter than me. She was pre-med at Columbia. Neuroscience major. 4.0 GPA. She wanted to be a surgeon. Save lives." Past tense felt wrong. "Wants to be. Will be. After the treatment."
"You're close."
"She's all I have left."
"Your mother died four years ago. Car accident. You became Elara's legal guardian at nineteen. Dropped to part-time classes. Started working three jobs." Still reciting facts. Still making her life sound like a spreadsheet. "You've been taking care of her since."
"Yes."
"That's why you're here."
It wasn't a question, but Lysandra answered anyway. "Yes."
"You'd do anything for her."
"Yes."
"Including selling yourself at an auction."
The bluntness of it hit like a slap.
"Yes," Lysandra whispered.
Silence.
Then, quietly: "That kind of love is rare."
She looked at him. "Is it?"
"Most people love conditionally. Only when it's convenient. Safe. Easy." His expression was unreadable. "You love her enough to give up six months of your life. Your freedom. Your dignity. That's not conditional. That's absolute."
"You say that like it's admirable."
"It is."
"I say it's desperate."
"Also true." He leaned back, still watching her. "Desperation and love aren't mutually exclusive. Sometimes they're the same thing."
The car slowed.
Lysandra looked out the window.
**Vale Tower** rose before them like a glass mountain. Sleek. Modern. Intimidating in its perfection.
The driver pulled into an underground garage. Private entrance. Security gate. Everything designed to ke
ep the world out.
Or keep people in.
The car stopped.
- Writer
