Outlaw's Promise(10)

The men in suits grabbed my arms and walked me off the stage and down the hallway to the rear door. Both had the build of football players and bulges under their jackets I was pretty sure were guns. Who the hell was this guy, that he had professional bodyguards?

A biker held the rear door open for us, almost bowing his head in respect as we passed. A big, black car was waiting for us in the darkness, its shining paint reflecting the bar’s neon sign. The rear windows were privacy glass, so I couldn’t see who was inside, but something about it scared the shit out of me. I knew, on an instinctual level, that if I went inside that car, my life would be changed forever.

“No,” I said in a strangled voice.

The men ignored me and kept walking.

“No!” I said again, digging my heels into the ground.

They lifted me into the air and carried me the rest of the way. Then the car door was opening and….

The man was normal from the neck down. Average body, smart suit, polished shoes. He could have been any businessman from anywhere in America.

But his face….

They say even babies recognize faces, that humans are hardwired to see eyes and mouths: that’s why we see faces in clouds. But when it came to Volos’s face, that same internal wiring made my brain lock up. His face was...wrong.

He wasn’t scarred. His face had been twisted and distorted, as if the flesh had melted and then hardened again. I couldn’t stand to look at him but I couldn’t look away.

The men pushed me onto the rear seat next to him and slammed the door. In the sudden silence, I could hear my own panting. I wanted to throw open the door and run but I was frozen with fear.

Volos leaned towards me and I saw that he was wearing a mask. That didn’t ease my fear…in some ways, it made it worse. What sort of man chooses a mask like that to conceal his identity?

All I could see of his real face were two tiny points of reflection where his eyes looked through slits. But they were enough to tell me that he was looking at me, his gaze running from the top of my head all the way down to my feet and then slowly back again. The parts of me he’d looked at immediately felt tainted. This wasn’t just lust. He wanted me the way a spoiled child wants a toy.

He leaned closer and I shrank back against the car door. The hideous mask filled my vision, almost brushing my face. I went rigid, barely daring to breathe. I couldn’t see his mouth but somehow I knew he was smiling. He liked that I was scared.#p#分页标题#e#

Then he lowered himself back into his seat and knocked twice on the window. Instantly, the door swung open.

“Fifty thousand,” said Volos. His voice was a shock: so...normal. He could have been the guy who served you your latte or your boss at work.

The two men in suits nodded, grabbed my arms and hauled me out of the car. That’s when it sunk in that Volos was going to buy me. I had no idea what women sold for, but surely I couldn’t be worth fifty thousand dollars. I didn’t feel like I was anything special. That meant that Volos would outbid everyone else...and then he’d own me.

“Don’t worry,” said Volos as I stared at him in terror. “I’m going to take very good care of you.” And then the men were dragging me back into the bar.

Inside, the hush had changed to bad-tempered grumbling. They all knew that they’d likely be outbid, now that Volos had shown up. My insides went cold. How often does Volos do this? How many women has he bought?!

“We’ll start the bidding at two thousand,” Hay told the crowd.

As soon as the bids began to flow, it became real in my mind. I really was going to be sold. All I could hope was that I’d be bought by someone kind, maybe one of the two men I’d smiled at.

But as the bidding rose past ten thousand, the first of the two shook his head. When we hit twenty thousand, the other ruefully sighed and dropped out, too.

When they hit twenty-five thousand, the bidding slowed down. Hay glanced at my step-dad as if annoyed: I guessed that he was in for a percentage of my final sale price. “Come on, you fuckers,” he yelled at the crowd. “Let’s get it going!” But the bids began to peter out.

Hay snarled and grabbed the top of my dress, wrapping his thick fingers around the delicate beading at the neckline. Then, with one tug of his arm, he wrenched it down. I screamed as the stitching started to rip and a few buttons popped off—No! I tried to break free, desperate, but the blond biker grabbed my arms from behind. It wasn’t just the thought of being exposed: the dress was one of the only things I still had from my mom.

Another wrench and both shoulder straps gave way. The dress fell to my feet and the crowd came alive, whooping and roaring, as I stood there in just my bra and panties.