His fingers brushed my cheek—light, deliberate, wrong.Testing how far he could go.The touch sent a shiver up my spine.
“Already damaged,” he muttered, like he was annoyed by it.“What a waste.”
My skin crawled.Every instinct in me screamed to bite, kick, tear—but all I could do was sway in the ropes, exposed and useless.
I lifted my chin anyway, pain ripping through my shoulders.
“Get your hands off me, bastardo.”
His mouth twisted into something ugly.
“You keep running that mouth, little girl…” He leaned in just enough that I could smell his breath.“…and someone at the auction will make sure you learn how to shut it.”
His fingers slid briefly to my chest, palming one breast, then the other.I kicked out viciously, until I was spinning erratically, making it hard for him to touch me again.
He stepped back, disgust twisting his face.If he tried again, I would make it costly.
He turned and walked out.
The lock clicked.Heavy.Final.
Silence rushed in like a tide.
My body throbbed everywhere at once—ribs, jaw, wrists, lungs.Blood coated my tongue.My stomach twisted, nausea burning low and intense.I pulled against the restraints, testing every knot, every tie, every inch of give, even though it made the ropes bite deeper into my skin.
I wasn’t done.
I’d survived worse than this.And I would survive this too.
21
Atlas
Iwent back to the market the next morning.
Not because I wanted to.Because I had nowhere else to start.
Neve’s trail had died in her house—with her blood on the floor and furniture overturned, a door hanging open like a mouth frozen mid-scream.There was no body.And the only witness worth listening to couldn’t give me much.
All I had was silence and the crawling certainty that she’d been taken by men who made a profession out of making people disappear.
But someone always knew something.And I knew exactly who that someone might be.
The market was half-awake when I arrived.
Vendors yawned through their setups.Tents snapped open like tired wings.Crates thumped onto wood as brooms scraped stone in lazy, rhythmic swipes.
They were the normal morning sounds expected of a market.
The tent I was looking for was already open.
Purple fabric hung heavy, swallowing light instead of letting it through.Silver beads framed the entrance, clinking in a soft, unsettling rhythm.Incense curled from a burner near the doorway, sweet enough to sting the back of my throat like a truth I wasn’t ready to hear.
The tarot card reader.
She sat at a low round table, shuffling cards without looking at her hands.Her fingers moved with old familiarity, like she wasn’t reading the future—just rearranging what she already knew.
Her dark eyes lifted the moment my shadow crossed her threshold.