Page 7 of Bought for Blood

Not for this. Whatever’s coming is going to need strength. Save it.

She keeps pacing. But she saves it.

They dry me, and then it’s a third room.

There’s a rug on the floor. A real one, laid over the concrete. I step onto it, and the warmth comes up through my soles before I can stop it. I have to lock my knees to stay standing.

Two lamps instead of the ceiling tubes. A folding screen with birds painted on it. A chair with a cushion. A rack of dresses along one wall, and I reach out and take the gray silk between two fingers before anyone can hand it to me. It’s cool and light, the smooth texture so different from the rough cloth I’ve been wearing.

What the hell is this place?

I stand there and try to figure it out while a woman bustles at the rack. Nobody does this with stock they’re bleeding out in a ward. You don’t wash what you’re going to waste. We’re being shown to someone who matters.

The dressing woman is older, quick, a pincushion strapped to her wrist. “Arms up,” she says, flapping her hands upward, and I lift my arms before she can lift them for me. The silk comes down over my head. She circles me, pinning and tucking, keeping up a light, busy patter the whole time. “There. Stand straight. Pretty. The dove-gray is good with the blonde.”

“What happens tonight?” I ask her.

She pats my shoulder and keeps talking past me, words I can’t follow fast enough to catch.

The dress fits by the second adjustment, which means someone gave her my measurements. Which means someone took my measurements. I think of every medical check they ever put me under for, and I stop the thought there.

The dress has no sleeves. Nobody’s pretending about the rune cuffs.

She combs my hair out, loose down my back, and pins one side. She tilts her head at me, moves the pin an inch, and nods.

“Very nice,” she says. Her hands are gentle as she arranges a wave over my shoulder to my chest. “A touch of mascara to bring out the blue. Your lips are naturally pink. You’re lucky.”

My hands stay against the silk. I don’t feel lucky.

I’m being prepared.

Livestock gets prepared. Sacrifices get prepared. I don’t want to know which one I am.

The holding corridor is on the other side of the painted screen, and there are eleven of us in it.

All women tonight. All in silk. Gray, green, wine-dark, white. Cleaned and combed, standing along the wall in our bare feet.

Eleven of us.

So who buys eleven women? Nobody does. Somebody buys one or two. The rest go back.

I stand very still while that lands. Going back is the good outcome. After a year in here, I know exactly what that means.

Whatever’s out there is worse.

The new girl is beside me, shaking so hard her earrings tick. They gave her earrings. A month, I guessed for her, back when they brought her in. I think that was optimistic.

Standing here listening to her earrings tick faster, I drop it to a week, and I hate that I can judge her at a glance. I hate more that I’m probably right.

“Breathe,” I say, barely moving my mouth. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth.”

“I can’t—”

“You can. You’re doing it now.”

Her breath evens a little. The earrings slow.

Near the end of the row—flame red.