Auction

They pin me back down, all those hands making movement impossible again.

"She's trouble," Silver Eyes smirks down at me. I get the impression he doesn't mind that so much.

"Listen to me, girl," Tattoo Face says very, very seriously. His voice comes in a gravelly growl that makes my stomach quiver, and his expression is so completely serious I suddenly feel the full effect of how much trouble I am in. "We are going to keep you safe, but if you act out, I'll have you thrashed. I have no time for an undisciplined female."

"You call this keeping me safe? Tying me up, dragging me around?"

While Tattoo Face speaks, Nordic Man is drawing my arms behind my back and securing them in place with the plastic straps. I scream my hatred and my fear and anger at them, but they all ignore me.

Tattoo Face starts telling the others what to do.

Silver Eyes and Pharaoh are stationed by the door. Gladiator picks me up over his shoulder and moves me to the corner of the room, then starts stacking furniture around me. I'm being barricaded in, and not a moment too soon, because the sheriff's guard have come to the aid of a corpse, and are apparently not going to heed Tattoo Face's wise advice.

There is chaos in the next room over. I can't see it, but I can hear it. The sounds of battle are much worse than the sounds of normal death. The kills are not as clean. There is screaming and gurgling and nastiness I wish I could close my ears to, but my hands are behind my back and I am forced to lie there and listen to men unleashing their brutality on other men until in the end there is silence.

Total silence.

I hear nothing.

There is a ringing in my ears, a panic that threatens to overwhelm me. I don't know who won that exchange. If it was the mercenaries, then they will be back for me. And if it was the sheriff's guard, then they will find me eventually and my fate will be worse.

I try to wriggle out of the bindings on my wrists, but they're impenetrable. It's going to take something sharp to snap them off. They left my legs untied, so I push up to my feet and start trying to climb over the barricade without my arms. It is awkward and ultimately, impossible.

"Stay there, girl!" It's Tattoo Face. He's back. The others are behind him. Nordic Man, Zen, Gladiator, Pharaoh, Cowboy, Mattias, and Elias return to me and pull the barricades away.

"Where is Silver Eyes?" The question slips out before I can bite it back. I don't want them thinking I care. There is no reason for me to care. I don't know them. They are nothing but more brutes in a long line of brutes who have sought to take advantage of me.

The question is followed by a chuckle as the man I asked after walks into the room behind them. He has washed his hands of blood, but it doesn't make him look clean, because it only means that the blood is gone from his hands. He wears sanguine gauntlets up his arms.

"Worried for me?" He flickers a wink, which makes me quiver.