Auction

"This is what you bought to breed, boys. This is the vessel that will carry your seed. She's ready for it, I promise you that. A wet little fuck toy ready for the taking."

These men can't want to see me handled by him this way. But they don't seem to object. The sheriff has every single man in his realm cuckolded. They bought me, but he is touching me. My father told me of how in the pre-Event times, people would go to restaurants, where they could order any food they want. What this sheriff is doing is like a waiter bringing food to the table, then eating it himself.

"Let's get this dress off. Show the men what they own."

I draw away and speak my first words. "They said nobody would touch me!"

"Get the dress off, girl." His eyes narrow to two angry slits. He is disgusting. Vile. I hate this man. I hate him for what he did to me. I hate him because his rescue was not a rescue at all. It was just opportunistic. I hate him because he frightens me, because he is cruel, and because I am not a person to him. I am meat and money and nothing more.

He reaches for the clasp of the dress—and I act.

He has forced my hand. I would never have done this if he had just left me alone. Even if he had allowed me the mercy of clothing all would have been well. But he tried to take the very last vestiges of my self-respect. He tried to turn me into a toy to be used at his command, and he has not earned that right.

I pull the vase shard from the inner fold. It is no longer merely a piece of broken ceramic. It has been wrapped with fabric cut from the bedsheets in the few minutes I had to myself. My father taught me how to craft knives from practically every substance there is. He taught me how to protect myself, how to survive. And he taught me how to kill.

The ceramic sweeps through the air and finds his throat.

It is over very, very quickly.

I have never taken a blade to a man before, but I know where the arteries are, and it is not so different from killing a wild pig. I know to follow the prey down and ensure that both sides are cut. I know how to take life quickly, cleanly, and without remorse. This is too harsh an existence to feel pity for those who must die.

The sheriff bleeds out in a matter of seconds, his body at my feet, his blood crimson like my dress. I am surrounded by a sanguine pool, holding the once pristine ceramic knife, now tainted with his blood.

I look up to the warriors who thought they bought my flesh. They will kill me now, but I am ready for death, and I will take more than one of them with me if I have to.

They stare at what was the sheriff. At me. And then at each other.

I am surrounded, not so much by anger or even shock, but by pure surprise.

The one in the center, the tallest one, comes toward me. He takes a single step. I draw back, the hem of my skirt dragging blood along with it.

"Stay back!"

I shriek the words, brandishing the blade. He doesn't even look at it. He looks at me. In his gaze, I am held. It is as though I am falling into deep brown eyes, touched with just enough light to make them gleam amber. There is a kindness and a strength in that hard face partially marked with angular tattoos that run along the lines of his jaw on the left side. There are scars too. He has been cut before. Survived before.