My chest pangs and shame gathers like icy rain to slither down my back. This boy is braver than I can ever hope to be.
“Stay in the middle,” the boy says, tugging me along. “They won’t be able to reach you.”
For the first time, I squint ahead of the boy and see where the bulk of the noise is coming from. The cattle run leads us up a ramp and onto an elevated stage. A bright spotlight casts a cold glow over a barely clothed girl shaking at its center.
To the stage’s front, a crowd is gathered. Unlike the shouting, jeering creatures on either side of the cattle run, this other crowd is mostly silent save for the occasional call of numbers and a monotone voice speaking so fast I can hardly understand him.
After a moment of silence, as we come to the base of the ramp leading upward onto the stage, the man who’s been speaking a million miles a minute calls out, “Sold!”
The Diablim girl with the dark hair and red-tinted eyes on stage begins to sob as a man with a barbed tail and tiny horns atop his head steps up onto the stage to claim her.
I tear my hand away from the Nephilim boy and turn to run in the opposite direction.
Hell, no.
The boy grips my hand again, stopping me before I can flee. I try to rip my hand away, but he points harshly to the other end of the run.
There, smiling wickedly through two slats of metal is the female Diablim, a metal rod in her hand. Electricity sparks and dances at its tip.
That’s no stun gun.
It’s a cattle prod. One of Ford’s favorite toys.
There is nowhere to run.
I analyze every corner of the stage as I let the boy pull me up the ramp and into a narrow waiting platform beside another barred door.
He leans back and whispers. “Don’t try to run, okay? If you aren’t very powerful, they’ll kill you for sport.”
I read the dual meaning in his words, understanding that I am not worth anything here. I’m not just not very powerful. I have no power at all. And the second they realize that I’m as good as dead.
The door swings open, and the boy is jerked through, his hand slipping from mine.
My pulse thunders in my ears.
Not fifteen feet away, the boy stands, his small hands fisted at his sides and his face pinched. He does not look afraid. He looks resigned. Accepting.
It makes me sick.
“A healer!” the fast-speaking man announces. “Let’s start the bidding at two-thousand, shall we?”
The first number is called and then a second rises to join it, and the auction begins.
Breathless, I grip the bars, watching in horror as the Diablim fight over who gets to own this sweet, sweet boy. What will they do with him? How long will he survive?
When the final bid is placed at fifteen-thousand and no one offers another, a hammer is knocked loudly against solid wood.
“Sold!” the auctioneer calls into the mumbling crowd.
The boy is taken a second later. Each of his arms held tightly between two older women with dark hair as they escort him away. He goes without a fight, casting one last look in my direction before he vanishes into the crowd.
Despite the smirking Diablim women jeering over him, he grins. I can tell it’s meant to encourage me, and my throat burns.
The barred door creaks open, and I’m not ready.
I’m not ready.
I can’t do this.
The near uncontrollable urge to run washes over me, but I stifle it, remembering what the boy said.
They’ll kill you for sport.
Will they kill me anyway when they figure out I’m not what they think I am?
Is a natural born human worth anything at all in Elisium?
Before I can make a decision one way or the other to attempt to flee, a hot hand curls around my upper arm and throws me forward. I stagger into the spotlight, blinking to try to see through the column of dust-filled light.
My knees want to buckle, but I keep them steady, lifting my chin like the boy did, trying to emulate his bravery.
I may not be able to run yet, but once I am bought—away from this market—maybe then I will get my chance.
I find the safe place in my mind, the one I go to when Ford’s punishments get to be so much that I can’t stand them. I retreat there, to the numb place, shutting off the fear. Dulling the pain.
One, two, three.
At three, nothing can hurt me.
When I get to three, the walls will be erect, and I will be safe.
It’s a coping mechanism I developed when I was about the same age as the boy who was sold before me.
Count to three. At one, let the fear in. Feel it. Accept it.
At two, take a deep breath.
When you get to three, blow out that breath and all the fear and pain with it. Shut it off. It doesn’t exist. It’s gone. You can’t feel it. Not even if you try.
This time, when I opened my eyes, I straighten my spine and watch the crowd, not with terror, but with dull interest.
It’s hard to see them through the haze of dusty light, but as my eyes adjust, I can make out their faces well enough. If I am right, there aren’t just Diablim in this crowd but Nephilim, too. No angels, though.
Supposedly they were the only ones with the feathery wings portrayed in artworks of old.
“A low-level Diablim, fresh from the other side of The Hinge!” The auctioneer announces in a decidedly less excited tone than the one he used to announce the Nephilim boy. “But a pretty one,” he adds with the wink of a milky-white eye as he turns to smirk at me. His long, crooked nose twitches with the curl of his thin lips and makes his deep wrinkles strain. He shrugs. “Well, if you can get past the eyes…”
Instinctively, I drop my head and shield my reflective eyes from view.
Whispers fill the space at his words, and I resist the impulse to fall back into the cloying grasp of panic. Stand straighter instead.
“Shall we start the bidding at a thousand?”
“One thousand!” A round-faced Diablim calls, appraising me as though he is doubting my worth of even that paltry amount.
These Diablim can buy a life. Buy a living being for as little as a thousand dollars.
They call the cities where Diablim live the Fallen Cities for a reason. Human law doesn’t stretch beyond their borders. It’s anarchy. Chaos. A place where the strong and wealthy thrive and the poor and weak starve…or apparently, are sold off to the highest bidder.
There are seven of them. Seven cities that’ve fallen to the Diablim since Lucifer walked the earth for three days and three nights before I was ever born. Only seven in all the world.
I am just the unfortunate soul who happens to live next door to one of them. Why can’t Ford have lived in Russia or Japan or even Madagascar? There are no Fallen Cities in those places. None at all.
“Four thousand!” Someone calls out, and I strain to see his face in the dim beyond the column of light. When I do, I wish I hadn’t bothered trying.
He is utterly grotesque, with a face half burned, whole chunks of his nose, lips, and cheek charred black or missing entirely. It takes me a second to realize the shimmering ripple in the air surrounding him is from heat. His heat. He hasn’t been burned, the Diablim is burning just beneath the surface of the mottled, broken flesh.
A salamander? I am not sure what they look like, but I know they have the ability to wield fire and heat. He could be one of them.
I stiffen when no one counters his offer, pressing my arms hard to my sides to keep them from shaking. Hold my breath. Please, I think. Please not him.