006

Celine woke up slowly, and the first thing she noticed was how loud it was, she tried opening her eyes but it was dark. Her head swam and she felt nauseous like she had been drinking, but she hadn’t been…

The memories poured into her head like a waterfall, her frenzied decision to leave Moonstone after finding out about Noah’s shameless infidelity, lodging in a hotel, and drinking the complimentary drink offered… had the drink been spiked? Where was she? What was going on?

The noise outside was too loud for her to make any sense of it and as she couldn’t see, she tried moving around to figure out what was going on. She had been conscious for a few minutes now but she was still as confused as the first time she woke up.

Celine tried moving her arms but it was held above her head, and the tell-tale jingle of heavy chains let her know why that was the case. She felt her blood grow cold, why was she chained upright? The coldness of the floor under her bare feet let her know that either she was standing on a metal platform or she was in a metal box, it might explain the strange darkness.

Her eyes widened in consternation when she felt the chains sway, the platform under her feet moving. At the bottom part of the cage she was in, light flickered in, letting her know that there was some sort of cloth thrown over the cage, keeping her in the dark.

It came to a stop with a jolt, nearly making her lose her footing. Celine clenched her fists which were held up by thick metal cuffs, feeling the chafe in her wrist as more sensations in her body came back to her.

“… beautiful, delicate, and useful in many ways…”

Celine could finally make out some words, her head turning in the direction of the voice which seemed to be right beside her, her confusion blooming.

“…with a bid starting at ten thousand!” The voice shouted enthusiastically, the resounding noise of a gavel hitting wood deafening.

Celine was suddenly blinded when the drape thrown over the cage she was in was pulled off, wincing and squinting from the change of going from a dim darkness to being directly under a powerful stage light.

She ducked her head and closed her eyes tightly, trying to convince herself that she was misunderstanding what was going on. She was stopped by a wooden cane on her jaw which lifted her head up, the cane was used to tilt her head from side to side as if to show her off.

“Ten thousand? Anyone for ten thousand?”

Celine kept her eyes tightly shut, facing the terrible realization that she was being auctioned off. How did things come to this point? Why would anyone want to sell her off?

When there was a brief stretch of silence after the auctioneer’s words, she let out a faint sigh, of course, no one would buy her. She had literally been cheered when she left her pack, no one wanted her. Celine reassured herself with that, no one would buy her and they would be forced to let her go when they realized that she was worth nothing…

“Fifteen!”

“Sixteen!”

“Nineteen!”

Voices from various parts of the hall started to come alive with bids, their cards going up one after the other.

“One hundred thousand,” A laid-back voice spoke up, he didn’t bother raising his voice like the others but it silenced everyone else.

Celine’s eyes flew open for the first time, panic in her crystal blue eyes as she looked at the crowd. She couldn’t see the person who had placed such a high bid on her because the hall was dimmed, and she was under a powerful spotlight on the stage. So all she could see was guests sitting around tables but she couldn’t make any of them out, Celine couldn’t decide if this was a good thing or not.

The auctioneer was the first to break out of the spell that the high bidder had put everyone in, clearing his throat. “R-Right, going at one hundred thousand-”

“Five hundred,” Another powerful voice spoke up and Celine felt her knees buckle.

What was going on? This wasn’t right… No one should want her, so why was…

The auctioneer didn’t take a break this time, the excitement in his voice palpable as the bid only climbed higher and higher.

Celine could pick out three main people who were doing the bidding, leaving the others in the dust. She could kind of differentiate them by their voices and she really wished she could match a face to their voices, she wanted to see the kind of people who thought it was wise to spend this much money on someone like her.

The bidding reached a fever pitch, and the auctioneer was barely able to keep up. “Seven million? Going for seven million?”

The voice that Celine recognized as the first to push up the bidding spoke up, “Twenty-five million.” Just like every other time, his voice remained laid-back although he was mentioning amounts of money that Celine had never seen before.

“Twenty-five million!” The auctioneer repeated with emphasis on every syllable, sounding more shocked than the gasping crowd and a stunned Celine. “Going for Twenty-five million? Going! Going! Sold!”

The sound of the gavel hitting the podium as the auctioneer announced that she was sold off, signaled another bout of darkness as the drape was thrown over the cage again and it was dragged off the stage.

Celine’s heartbeat had hiccups, the realization that she had just been sold off like some piece of commodity sinking in. A very expensive commodity but one all the same. Was this even legal? Could she just be sold like that?

The drapes were pulled off again but this time there was someone standing in front of the cage fiddling with the locks. It was a scarred Beta that she had never seen before, he studied her intently as he unlocked the cage, interest in his muddy brown eyes.