MY GAZE DRIFTED over to the window. On the other side of that thick pane of glass were the most barbaric, heartless people alive. From where we sat, we had a panoramic view of the swelling crowd below and the front of the arena. Images from inside other cubes were still scrolling on the giant screen, making the Talents inside larger than life. A fresh wave of tears filled my eyes and ran silently down my cheeks, salty droplets dripping off my chin and onto the crimson dress. I’d almost forgotten I was wearing it.
James reached for my hand and laced our fingers together, giving it a reassuring squeeze.
“Not to worry. It’ll all be over soon,” he whispered.
Voice shaky, I asked, “Giving up on escape so easily?”
The feeble attempt at a joke was not even close to funny.
“You got a plan?” he asked, looking down at me. “Honestly, I’m all ears if you do.”
“No,” I admitted with a sigh, sitting back against the glass barrier. Not surprisingly, I immediately missed the comfort of being in his arms. “No matter how many times I input the variables, the result is always the same. Nearly every lock is biometric. Guards are crawling all over this place. Cameras in every corner. And even if we somehow managed to make it past all of that, our clothes mark us as prisoners. We’d never be able to blend in or get very far with this crowd of heathens.” I plucked at the silk bodice of my gown. “I can’t access my powers. Can you? I mean, maybe if we could…”
“Suppressant hasn’t worn off yet,” he admitted.
I began jiggling my foot impatiently, scouring the mental files I’d been compiling since I entered the Monroe’s house. If only we could locate even the smallest chink in the Poachers’ armor, anything we could exploit to break free.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the wallscreen over the stage go black. An instant later, a digital clock appeared, replacing the rotating images from inside the cubes. Evidently, the final countdown had begun. Ten minutes. Ten minutes before Talents went to the auction block.
James’s gruff voice interrupted my inner musings.
“That blighter will come back,” he said, referring to the Duke. “Earlier, in the study, he tried to play it cool, but he’s desperate. He wants you on his team very much. So does everybody else. With the precarious Treaty situation, Monroe knows that his business is on the verge of going under. Not just the Poaching side of it either.
“Those clubs he owns are practically staffed entirely by Chromes. They’ll all be forced into exile or hiding once the Treaty is overturned. The timing is no coincidence. Monroe is rounding up as many of our kind as possible before that happens. It will ensure he can pull off at least a couple more auctions once Chromes mostly disappear. Not to mention the exorbitant premiums that he’ll charge when he has the only ones left.”
“And he wants the biggest bang for his buck,” I said, catching on. “Which means he wants the Created.”
“Precisely. Even us ordinary Chromes will be worth a lot more, but your kind will line his pockets for years to come.” James paused and met my gaze. “UNITED wants the Created in containment, and Monroe knows that. He knows they’re out there, working hard to round you all up. I reckon he believes that with your help he can reach them before UNITED does. That bull about giving Chromes a better life….”
James emitted a hollow laugh, shaking his head as he continued.
“The Duke thinks if you buy in to that nonsense, you’ll sell it to your mates and they’ll all come willingly. Idiot.”
“She nearly had me for a minute,” I admitted quietly.
“Libby?” James guessed.
“Yeah. She’s good, James. I mean, she was in my head, planting that crap about a better life, burying it down deep. I…well, for like a second, I was a believer. Stupid. I should’ve known better. I do know better.” I shook my head, still mad at myself for allowing Libby to manipulate me so easily.
“Don’t beat yourself up. Libby is really good at what she does. For that matter, if she’s not careful, her dear old daddy will sell her, too.”
“You don’t honestly believe that?” I asked, aghast. “He wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t.”
Surely, the Duke wasn’t so coldhearted as to sell his own daughter.
James’s smile was sad, as if my naivety was cute. I scowled at him, but acknowledged the point.
“Right, I forgot. The Monroes aren’t exactly a warm and fuzzy family.”
“It’s not just the Monroes,” James said bitterly. “Most of the Poachers would sell their first-born for the right amount. Some for any amount.”
I bit my lip and looked away from James, remembering how his family had disowned him for being Talented. Betrayal like that had to cut deep. My heart broke for him all over again.
And like that, my revenge file became a little thicker. The Wellingtons. James’s parents. They’d be sorry for how they’d once treated their son, if I had any say in the matter. Such a heinous act couldn’t go unpunished.
“What happens now?” I asked, purposely changing the subject. “Do you remember? Is there an opportunity, any at all, where…I don’t know, where breaking out and getting away might even be possible?”
Hope of escaping was thin by this point, but I needed a way to occupy my mind. Sitting here, nothing to do but imagine one worst case scenario after another, would drive me crazier than the aunties from downstairs before Pint ever came back for me. Which might not be a bad thing, I reasoned. At least being crazy, my mind wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate just how shitty my new life was.
To my surprise, James flushed. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve said he looked ashamed. But what on earth he had to feel guilty over, I hadn’t a clue.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“What about after we’ve been sold? Do the individual buyers come up here to the cube to get us? Or are we taken to a holding area? How long will it be before the suppressant wears off?”
“I. Don’t. Know,” James repeated, agitated now.
Way to go, Kenly. Insensitive much? What next? Are you going to poke his bruises? Knee him below the belt?
James clearly didn’t want to talk about his previous imprisonment. Unfortunately, as much as I hated hounding him to relive such a horrific experience, it was of paramount importance. He alone had the data. Any information he provided would help me to concoct a plan. True, it would likely be a shoddy plan that was doomed to fail, but we needed something.
“I’m sorry, James. Honest,” I said quietly. “I don’t mean to upset you or trudge up ugly memories. It’s just…I’m…I’m not ready to give up and admit defeat. Sure, I want to. It would be a hell of a lot easier than clinging to some fantasy where I leave this place a free girl, only to have reality smack me in the face when I’m blindfolded and thrown into the back of some creeper’s hovercar.”
The note of hysteria that made my speech rapid and high-pitched was not lost on either of us.
“Kenly, love, calm down,” James soothed. Both of his hands were holding one of mine, squeezing with gentle pressure. “No one’s giving up, okay? You’re right. We need to come up with a plan, any at all.” He sighed warily. “I can’t tell you what happens next because I don’t know, not exactly anyhow.”
“What do you mean? Just tell me how it worked last time. I know you can’t say exactly how it will go today, but you’ve been through this before,” I said.
That shame I’d picked up on earlier returned.
“I have and I haven’t,” James said enigmatically.
“Um, okay….”
“I have been captured and imprisoned by the Monroes. I haven’t actually been sold at auction. Someone paid the Monroes for me before it came to that.”
It took exactly two seconds to recall every word of our conversations about his previous experience with the Poachers. Sure enough, James never actually said that he was auctioned. I’d just assumed that he knew everyone at the Circus of Wonders because the owner had bought him at an a
uction. And yet, when I’d asked him outright about working there, he’d said, “Or something.”
“Wait a sec. Who? Who paid? That had to have cost a lot, to bypass bidding,” I said. The thought that he was priceless slipped through my mind, but I wasn’t feeling particularly flippant right now and didn’t voice the sentiment.
James swallowed hard.
“Her name is Bryn. She works for another Poacher family as a tracker…someone who actually seeks out and locates the Chromes. The Duke agreed to a payoff in part because she offered him so much money, but also to prevent a feud. Mortified as he was over what I’d done to Jaylen, the Duke wasn’t keen on starting a war among the Poaching factions.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
A boulder seemed to settle in the pit of my stomach.
“All the Poaching groups have one thing in common—”
“They’re assholes,” I interjected.
I hadn’t meant to interrupt, but James’s deep chuckle made me glad that I had. If nothing else, the tension in the cube lessened slightly. And I really liked seeing him smile.
“Okay, two things,” James said with a wry smile. “The other one is a common ancestor. Anabel Monroe. Queen Anabel. Or, more precisely, her father. She wasn’t an only child; there were eight in all. Anabel was the eldest of Andrews’s seven daughters. And the only Chrome.
After she was sold, the rest of the children all worked in their father’s employ. When Andrew passed, they each began their own division of the family business. The current Poaching groups are all headed by a descendant of Andrew Monroe. The current Monroes are, of course, the descendants of Andrew’s only son. The others bear the names of the daughters’ husbands: the Dunkins, Huttons, Stokes, Edwards, Pickerings, and…um…the Wellingtons.”
I drew in a sharp breath.
I did not see that coming.
“Bryn Wellington is the eldest child—the only child, now—of the Wellington branch. She’s my older sister,” James hurried on with his story.
“Oh, God, James,” I breathed.
“Honestly, I don’t know why she did it,” James continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Bryn is just as embarrassed by me as my parents are. And honor is a foreign concept amongst the Wellington lot.
“There’s this constant power struggle between all of the descendants. It’s possible that she figured that the Monroes having me locked up made the Wellingtons look weak. And maybe taking me was a part of that, a play for advancement. Honestly, I have no idea. Whatever it is that made her come round, she paid for my freedom. Of course, she let me rot in that cell here for a month first.”
James shrugged. But the iron mask that shielded his true emotions from the world had fallen away, fallen completely, for the first time since we’d met.
“The terms of her agreement with the Duke were never made known to me,” James went on, the anguish he was feeling causing his voice to break. “One day I was locked away, the Monroes’ prisoner. The next, I woke up in an alleyway in the Slums. No one bothered uttering a word to me, just drugged and tossed. Only just last year, did I finally learn what Bryn had done.”
He paused, trying in vain to pull himself together.
“So, you see, I am one of them. I share blood with some of the most vile humans walking this earth. And I hate myself for it. For who I am.”
SEVERAL TIMES I opened my mouth to speak, closing it each time when I couldn’t find the right words. James stared at the glass wall without, I suspected, seeing anything that was actually in front of him.
My heart ached for James. I wanted to assure him that blood doesn’t make you who you are. Choices do. James should hate them, all of them. But not himself. Not ever. Parents were supposed to protect their children, not wrap them in a shiny bow and gift them to the enemy. I also wanted to tell him that his sister had probably done what she’d done out of love. That she’d probably defied their parents’ wishes by buying his freedom.
But what did I know? These family dynamics were so far from everything I knew. Who was I to postulate on events that had occurred a decade ago in a country where the rules were so different from my own?
I did the only thing I could think of. The thing that came so naturally already, it was astonishing. I leaned over and brushed my lips across his.
“I don’t hate you,” I murmured against his skin. “And you shouldn’t either.”
James’s intake of breath was audible and I felt him tense.
Was he already regretting whatever this thing was between us? Was he relieved when I’d finally moved away, not sure of how to tell me he was feeling smothered by me? Was I stepping out of bounds, too comfortable with the notion of us too fast? Should I wait for him to make the moves for a while? Is that how this works?
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why did you do that? What are you thinking?
I was thinking that he was attracted to me, just as I was attracted to him. I was thinking that he cared enough to comfort me when I was upset and I just wanted to return the favor. I was thinking—
James turned his head. His mouth was on mine, his hands cupping my chin and pulling me closer. I sank into the kiss, not thinking at all.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming. We will be starting in just a moment,” a perky voice boomed outside, reverberating within the cube.
We broke apart, breathless. I smiled shyly at him.
“I figured you would hate me if you ever found out,” James said carefully, looking startled that I might not.
Stunned silent, it took longer than it should have with my super brain to fully absorb what he was saying. James’s vulnerability was something I never would have expected, and I felt a powerful urge to protect that part of him, to reassure him.
“It’s not like being born to a bunch of a-holes is something you had any control over. You’ve chosen a new family. One that suits who you are. That’s all that matters. Besides, I have way more baggage than you do.”
James grinned and scooted even closer, the side of his body pressed against mine once again. I settled my head in to the crook of his neck, amazed again that it simply felt right.
“I like knowing you,” I whispered in his ear.
ON THE OTHER side of the glass wall, a woman’s face filled the wallscreen over the stage. Her features were severe, as if whittled by an expert craftsman. Her sleek ponytail hung to her waist, swinging back and forth as she walked across the gleaming stage. Painted pink lips stretched into a thin smile that was neither inviting nor genuine.
“The selection we have assembled for this evening’s auction is without equal. Our retrieval experts have traversed the globe to bring you only the finest specimens, including many rare gems from TOXIC’s private collection. I hope you have all had a chance to browse our display cases and are ready to bid.”
A roar went up from the crowd that turned my stomach and made my throat constrict. It was only then that I realized someone must have turned on a hidden speaker in our cell just as they began, so we could hear the crowd as well as the host.
“Our first piece is a wonderful find indeed,” the woman said, her light eyes devoid of emotion.
James’s hand found mine again and he brushed a kiss across my temple.
She raised her hand to the screen behind her.
I sucked in a shaky breath. “No. Please, no.”
Francie was on the wallscreen. Mascara ran down her cheeks and dripped in black splotches onto her décolletage. She wiped the tears with the back of a cuffed hand, trailing a smear of bright red across her jaw. At one point she had struggled hard enough against her restraints to draw blood. Tender pink skin was visible under her wrist cuffs. She reminded me of an abused animal, who longed for nothing more than to break free from the oppressors.
“You know her,” James guessed.
“We were at school together. Roommates. She was—” I had to clear my throat before I could continue, “—she is one of my best friends.”
“W
e have had quite a few pre-bids on this one,” the auctioneer said, and then rattled off a list of facts about Francie: height, weight, age, Talents, skills, the list went on. Somehow the Poachers had a complete dossier on my friend. It was terrifying how they could know so much.
When she got to country of origin, she paused for effect. The instant “America” left her lips, the crowd began murmuring frantically.
Bids were flashing on a ticker at the bottom of the wallscreen. The numbers climbed higher and more outrageous as the auctioneer doled out more information. Francie shook with silent sobs. I felt her pain as if it were mine own, a river of tears winding their way down my cheeks. How could all of this be real?
“Only two bidders remain in the contest. One of you will soon become the proud owner of this exceptional find. We will soon see which of you is willing to go high enough.”
By this point, the auctioneer sounded truly enthusiastic. Evidently, it took huge sums of money to ignite her personality.
“The current bid is 500,000 Globes to bidder 2641. Bidder 3519, do I have five and half? Marvelous. And six and a half from 2641. Now seven from 3519. Bid is back to you 2641. Brilliant, just brilliant. Seven and a half.” The auctioneer smiled expectantly at a specific point in the crowd. “Do I hear 800,000 Globes 3519?”
The image on screen shifted, zooming in on someone in the crowd.
I gasped.
Ernest. The camera was on Ernest Tate. He scratched the back of his neck, slightly above the tattoo, and seemed to contemplate his next move carefully. Ernest, like me, was a Higher Reasoning Talent, so I could only imagine the multitude of calculations occurring in his head at that very moment. Finally, Ernest shook his head, conceding to the other bidder.
“Then unless I have any further bids? No? Final call for bids on this item…,” the woman paused, clearly hoping someone else would jump in.
“Sold!” the auctioneer cried. “For 750,000 Globes to bidder 2641.”
With that, it was over. Francie’s fate was sealed.
So fast. It had all happened so fast.