I walk out onto the stage, the bright lights blinding me as we line up across it like contestants in the Miss USA Pageant. 

Breathe. Just breathe. Apollo is going bid for you and you are going to be just fine. 

I haven’t been able to shake my paranoia from last night; no matter how many times I assure myself that everything will work out just as it’s supposed to, I can’t rid myself of the dread in the pit of my stomach.

We smile blandly out into audience, just as we were instructed to do that morning as we’d rehearsed for the big moment. Except as my eyes adjusted to the lighting and I could scan the audience, I saw Victor…but no Apollo? The seat next to him is empty. I scan the rest of the room, frantically trying to think of a reason why Victor and Apollo wouldn’t be sitting together and finding none and not finding him either and my eyes flick back to Victor, silently trying to ask him what is going on, tamping down the panic welling inside of me.

It’s going to be fine. He’s just a little late. Nothing more than that.

One of the women, Janey, gets auctioned off, and I watch in horrified fascination as she is claimed by a man older than my dad. We aren’t allowed to choose who picks us – that rather defeats the purpose of an auction – so whatever her thoughts were on being bought by a man who could be her father, she swallows them and follows him off stage.

The applause dies down, and then it’s my turn. My eyes are scanning the room – still no sign of Apollo. How? Where? They have me walk back and forth across the stage, pointing out my features as I go, making me feel for all the world like a brood mare. Who wants their stats read out like they’re a living version of a Barbie doll?

Then the bidding begins and Apollo isn’t here and quickly a man in the back dominates the bidding, jumping the bid upwards each time by $20,000 or $30,000, instead of by $5000 increments like everyone else. He’s doing it to prove that he’s willing to pay whatever price he has to, in order to buy me, and I know that his intimidation tactic is working because other people are quickly dropping out, not willing to pay outrageous prices for just one girl.

I try to see his face in the dark and I don’t know if it’s because it is dark or intimidating or my nerves but he looks scary as fuck to me. In the darkness of the warehouse, he looks like the devil and Al Capone all wrapped up into one. He’s probably going to buy me and kill me and chop me into pieces and shove me into his chest freezer and…

“Going once, going twice—” the auctioneer says.

“Stop!” Victor calls out, and a murmur flows through the crowd. He hurries up the aisle towards me, and I can’t breathe and my legs are shaking so hard I fear I’m going to fall down and make a fool out of myself and he jumps up on stage, placing his arm around me, holding me up.

Security is swarming the stage but Michael tells them to hold off. He probably doesn’t want to piss off a billionaire like Victor. All I know is, I can lean against Victor, meld into his side, and smell his delicious cologne and for just a moment, pretend that all will be well with the world.

“I want to buy this woman,” Victor declares, holding me tight against his side.

“Where is Apollo?” I ask him urgently under my breath.

“He’s still at JFK. He won’t get here in time,” Victor mutters quietly.

Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

And yet, despite the panic welling up in me at his words, I can’t help but think that it’s going to be okay.  Victor is the one I wanted anyway, and he’s here for me and surely, they will let him buy me, right? Right?

“Victor, you know you can’t buy her,” Michael says in a fake patient voice. “We’ve already gone over this.”

“But I love her.”

The words echo around the room, the gasps echoing too, and I fully let myself sink into him, boneless as a baby. “Really?” I ask, staring up at him.

“Really,” he says. “Always and forever.”

Except for us, it’s too late. It doesn’t matter. 

We are well and truly fucked.