Their traded family

19. Chosen

Alana's P.O.V

We'd been standing in line for so long that I didn't care whether or not I had to be punished for it later, I shifted on my feet, trying to remove the ache from at least one of them.

Didi wasn't here, for better or worse, so she couldn't tell me to stop moving. We were separated into two long lines across the slaves' floor of the building, covering the entire downstairs area of the house of nightmares. One line was for those who had been r***d, and the other was for those who had been left untouched.

The first one was much, much longer, and my sister was in it.

They'd dragged us from sleep this morning, not that any of us slept much, or deeply, and had ordered us slaves to get in these lines that we must then keep still and ordered, or else.

It was always or else, though. No matter how much we tried, no matter what we did, there were always consequences, sometimes for no reason at all other than that we'd been unfortunate enough to be kidnapped into surviving here.

I was terrified like every other time I had to stand in a similar formation. Terrified beyond what was my daily normal, that was, but this time, I had a horrible feeling in my gut that I couldn't quite shake. One that was usually not present.

They were picking out the slaves for the next auction. Picking which of us they would send to their deaths, or keep in our current grave.

My line, the one of those who hadn't yet been brutalised, was to be picked through first since we cost more. Before I came here, I wouldn't have ever referred to wolves and their worths with money. Before I came here, I didn't know that that was even possible, that any of this - of the slavery, the amounts of blood one could lose before they died, the hunger, the pain - was possible. But I'd been only five then, and I was thirteen now.

I didn't remember much from my childhood beside the most obvious things, but I did remember what Edward was like as a teenager, and that's, I supposed, what I was now. His teenager years looked nothing like this, and neither did his friends'.

Neither did Danika's, though I tried to think about her as little as possible. Her absence hurt even more than her death.

My heart raced as one of the males shoved a slave from the front of the line toward the hands of his companion, the second male grinning as the girl stumbled straight into his chest, right into his awaiting arms. I inhaled sharply, the sound muffled by the slave's cries.

I looked away.

But turning my gaze to the left instead of the right did not show me anything better. Nowhere I could look would be better, I knew that much after however many years I'd spent in this nightmare house, and yet a foolish part of me always searched for that something better.

Everyone was trying to keep still, to keep quiet, but many were failing. Most of the others in the line were new here, and they hadn't yet grasped the rules as well as those of us who had been here longer. They were just as broken, though. That's what they called us, anyway, beside useless, waste of space, dirt, and whatever else they came up with.

Tears were falling down some of the girls' cheeks, silently dripping onto the cold floor beneath their bare feet. Tremors shook girls and boys alike - there were no females and males among us slaves, not after they murdered our wolves.

I turned my gaze away, straight ahead this time, and willed it to lose focus, to transfer me to my safe space. That consisted of a garden with lots of flowers. They were all in various shapes and colours, and some were even squares. If I would be safe only in my fantasies, then they might as well be as wild as possible.

I thought of that garden as the monsters continued to examine those before me. I thought of the paths the flowers and bushes wove, thought of how it could resemble a maze, if I wanted it to. I thought of all the bugs that would be crawling on the ground or sleeping in a flower. I thought of the sun and how warm it used to be on my skin, of what it would be like to feel it again.

But I didn't want it to be like this. I didn't want to feel the sun by being sold off to a monster worse than the ones I currently lived with.

Today, and every other morning before an auction, my safe space, that little piece of heaven I had created just for myself, was not enough. It wasn't enough to keep me from curling and uncurling my toes, nor was it enough to stop my heart from thumping loud enough for every monster to hear.

Mama had told me that if I prayed hard enough, if I wanted what I prayed for hard enough, that the Goddess would grant it. That if I kept my heart kind, she would save me from everything. So, I'd prayed ever since she and dada died.

It hasn't worked so far.

No amount of prayers and kind-heartedness was enough to bring Didi's perfect speech back, no time spent on praying was enough to bring mama and dada back from wherever she'd taken them, and nothing had stopped the monsters from breaking my sister because of me.

At some point, my prayers became empty pleas that not even I believed in, and at another, I stopped them all together. The days before auctions, however, I prayed with every ounce of my heart, and so far, it had been enough. I sincerely hoped that it would be enough today, too.

My gaze finally lost focus as I stared straight ahead, and prayed. For what felt like eternity, I prayed and tried to focus enough to walk through my little garden.

Until they were on the slave right beside me.

I held my breath, my lungs screaming for me to let go, to release the scream in my throat, to not forget how to breathe, but I couldn't. I couldn't focus on anything but my feet, on my toes - curling and uncurling - on the smell of the male's awful perfume wafting through my nose.

Panic seized me, as well as I'd done to fight it off, crushing my heart in its grip until I could see my chest rise and fall with each beat.

I couldn't breathe. Everything around me was spinning, spinning...

"Alana Finley, that one." I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think as I heard my name, and my knees began to shake and wobble, and the smell, the smell of the perfume had gotten closer, more intense, and the two males were in front of me, and I. Couldn't. Breathe.

"Lift your head!" One of them commanded, the voice so harsh it cut through me like a knife. He took a step closer until the front of his shoe was pressed against my toes, raised just slightly enough not to have them crushed. My body forgot how to obey.

My stomach roiled, its contents slashing around my insides until bile was rising in my throat and I couldn't, I couldn't-

"Lift your f*****g head before I break your neck!" And then his shoes were on my toes, squishing them against the floor. My body obeyed, snapped out of its panic at last, and I lifted my head.

Inspections were the only times we were allowed to look the males in the eyes, but I didn't want to. I hated their eyes. They were full of hate and cruelty that I never wanted to acquire but couldn't help but feel like I was as I was forced to stare into their depths.

This monster's eyes were so brown, they were almost black, but the colour didn't matter when all I could see in them was that awful cruelty, the desire to cause me as much pain as possible before I broke.

Tears rolled down my face. Tears I knew that Didi would be punished for. They knew, the monsters knew that it hurt far more when they made me watch them hurt her. I'd gotten used to desensitising to pain, something she never quite learned. My older sister could manage not to cry most of the times, but she never could hide her pain, could never escape from it like I could, and although she didn't talk to me much anymore, she still loved me. Somehow.

I steeled my spine as the first monster's hand reached for my face, my stomach's acid racing up my throat until it was all I could do not to let it out on him; and die for it. His meaty, calloused fingers grazed my sunken cheeks, cheeks that the newer slaves did not yet have, my chin, ran his thumb down my lips until he lifted the upper one to check on my teeth. His touch traveled downward, to my neck, where he made a point of squeezing in that one spot that I couldn't remember why Dani had warned me against letting anyone touch. It then lingered on my body, as did both of their eyes.

I couldn't stop the full body shiver that overtook my body, embarrassment lighting up my cheeks as the males made a joke about how eager I was for their touch.

"Your time has come, b***h," the one holding the files, the one whose hands had not been upon me just now, grinned wickedly. It took a moment for his words to register, and when they did, by the time they did, I was already dragged forward, stumbling into the pile of trembling slaves.

Chosen slaves.

I was chosen.

No, no, no!

"No, please!" I cried. I didn't care whether they hit or kick, or touched me so long as I could stay with my sister. They wouldn't chose her, not when Edward, the biggest monster of them all, liked to remind her that he'd killed his mate, and for that she must suffer a thousand times over by his hands only. He'd never let another monster have her, and I'd be all alone. "Please, I'll do anything to stay!" I continued to beg, trying to get back in line.

Everyone had gone silent. Unlike before, however, this silence was deafening, ringing. Or maybe it was to my ears only? The slaves had began to hold their breaths, not even their chests rising and falling, gone utterly still.

I met my sister's gaze, tears falling down her face at the rate of a waterfall. She was shaking hard enough to topple over at any moment, her lips wobbling until her teeth beat against each other, breaking the roaring silence.

"Ali," she mouthed, but didn't dare make an actual sound.

My cheek and knees stung as one of the males slapped me across the face, and my legs finally gave out. I hadn't given up, though, and one slap was no longer enough to keep me quiet.

"Please, please!" His hand was on my neck this time, squeezing, his thumb against that same spot, and suddenly I remembered what Dani used to say about those certain arteries that if severed, could kill a wolf in seconds.

Or something like that, anyway. It didn't matter when his thumb was pressing into it.

"Dude," the second male stepped forward, "don't. We need her as clean as possible for tonight. A new scar and the Lord will skin us alive." The male released me and I fell to the ground, panting for air as it all hit me.

I couldn't stop them. They'd decided to take me, to sell me, and there was nothing I could do to change their minds. I tried to meet my sister's eyes again, to commit them to memory before I would never see them again, but she was lost, covered by the row in front of her, and I was still on the floor and too weak to stand as they dragged me toward the other chosen ones.

There was only one hope left for me - to not be bought. If I was...

A/N

Hi, Treasures! Make sure you join my F-a-c-e-b-o-o-k group Teddy's Treasures for extra content and discussions! How are you all holding up? I know these chapters are rough, and although I can tell you it will very much be worth it to keep reading, I stand by the fact that your mental health matters, and if you need me to tell you in which chapter the flashbacks end, I will without question!