Claimed: Faction 3: The Isa Fae Collection

by Heather Hambel Curley

  ****

  They unceremoniously shoved me into a paddock. To one side was a trough, filled with what looked like some kind of corn and bean mush. People were huddled at the other side. There were no blankets or bed pallets; no water. No heat.

  And then I saw my sister.

  I dragged myself over to her, cupping her face with my hands. “Soleil. It’s me.”

  “I know.” Her mouth barely moved.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  She didn’t say anything; she just nodded. I lifted her hair up and examined her back—like mine, a circle was burned into her flesh. As I put her hair back in place, she squirmed; I could see her thighs streaked with blood.

  I pulled her shift down her legs and brushed her hair back from her face. “They did more than just examine you, didn’t they?”

  She nodded.

  “We should have listened to you, Wren.”

  I looked up. In the next paddock, separated from us by steel bars, was Tone. He had his back to me, but even from where I crouched, I could see an X branded into the flesh. His shoulders were slumped.

  “We didn’t know, Tone—I didn’t know.” I shook my head, shakily drawing in a breath. What did the circles mean verses the Xs? Deep down, I knew it was the worser side of bad; we were all damned here. Just in different ways.

  Tone’s voice was low. He said, “He took us for fools. And he was right.”

  I looked over at the other people in my paddock. It was a mixture of men and women, maybe ten of us total, and they all had the same, shellshocked expression I knew was etched on my face. I said, to no one in particular, “Do you know where we are?”

  “It’s a faction.” A man my age straightened up, wincing in pain as his back scraped across the stone wall. “It’s parallel from earth.”

  I frowned. “What, like a different dimension.”

  “Exactly like that.” Another girl—she seemed somewhat familiar to me, like maybe I’d once crossed paths with her in the hallways of my high school—spoke up. “That train they loaded us on brought us here. Took us right out of our world and into theirs.”

  The paddock door swung open again and a shirtless, battered man was thrown in.

  Avi.

  I scrambled forward and threw my arms around him, bursting into fresh tears. “Oh my god, are you okay. Avi? Avi say something.”

  “We’d have been better off dying on the boardwalk like Peter.” He struggled up into a sitting position, roughly pressing his lips to mine. “This is a faction; it’s the world of the damned.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I learned about in my undergraduate degree; of worlds split from ours by some kind of shift in the astrological planes. This is the third faction. It’s a frozen hell, they sapped of energy and heat. Their people were massacred by war; they’re ruled by a dictatorship.”

  “It’s true.” The first man spoke again, leaning as far forward as his chains would let him. “Watch the guards work, they all have bracelets fused to their wrists. That’s how their energy is monitored; the more they do to us, the more energy credits they earn.”

  I dabbed at a gash on Avi’s face with my shift, gently blotting away the blood. His eye was swollen shut and his chest mottled with bruises. I said, “But who are they.”

  A voice behind me whispered the words so softly, so weakly, that I almost didn’t hear her. It was Soleil. “It’s the fae.”

  I looked at Avi. That was a load of shit. Fae—fairies—weren’t real. None of this could be real; maybe I’d fallen on the boardwalk and hit my head. Maybe this was some kind of radiation sickness; maybe I’d died during the attack on Vale.

  But this couldn’t be happening.

  Avi pulled me close, pressing his lips to my temple. “I’m still going to protect you, Little Bird. We’ll get through this; we’ll still be together.”

  The paddock door swung open. A man dressed in a while apron white slacks walked in; wrenching me away from Avi. “Play time is over, pets. It’s time for you to earn your keep.”

  Nineteen

  I was brought to a room decorated in deep blue and dark wood; the cabinetry and the hardwood floorboards all were the same, rich mahogany. It had an antiseptic and antiquated feel to it, comfort replaced by fear over tools and scalpels and probes neatly lined up on silver platters.

  I’d been here before. Not physically, but in my mind, I’d seen this. The vivisected woman on the wall. The tanks and gauges, the articulated chair in the center of the room. I knew I’d be here—I’d seen it.

  The aproned man dragged me to the chair and shoved me down, quickly strapping a piece of leather across my lap. Two assistants stepped out of the next room and belted my wrists and ankles in the same manner. As they fastened a strap around my throat and waist, the man in the apron consulted a stack of papers attached to a clipboard. “Female, age twenty. Five foot five inches and approximately one hundred ten pounds, recovered from the Yellowstone region with three others: two males and one female. Of note, the other female is her biological sister.”

  The assistants stepped back.

  “Subject 1,452.” He made a notation on the clipboard. “Suitable for breeding, sexually mature. She—“

  The lights in the room flickered. The glow from the lamps grew abnormally bright and then, almost as fast, fizzled out. The room fell dark.

  “For God’s sake, someone check the generator.” The man slapped the clipboard on a dark wood pedestal and shoved one of the assistants to the door. “It’s no matter. It’s fine; they aren’t paying to see them. You, check the generator. And you, adjust the chair. I’ll bring him in.”

  My pulse throbbed in my neck, panic radiated down my ribcage and across my chest. Was this what happened to Soleil? I didn’t want anymore of this, I didn’t want to be degraded and violated and hurt anymore. Heat licked my hands, but the way they’d bound me to the chair, my palms were facing down. My powers were mute.

  The assistant turned a crank on the chair. Gradually, it tilted back and adjusted so that I was laying down. In the dim light, I couldn’t see what he was doing—or if it was even a he—but after stepping away from me for a minute, he returned.

  He pried open my mouth; he jammed in a leather strap, quickly securing it with hooks at the base of the chair’s headrest.

  And then, he left.

  I tried to swallow, but the gag more or less made me choke on my own spit. This was rape; this was wrong.

  The door opened again, only long enough for a heavyset man to walk in. As the door swung shut behind him, I heard a lock slide into place. Jesus Christ.

  The lights burned back on and I saw him. His was old enough to be my father, with a pointy noise and wide, full lipped mouth like a carp. He rubbed his fat, clammy hands together and, beneath his linen shirt, I thought I saw a faint, reddish glow.

  He lumbered over to me and, leaning over my chair, ran his bloated, wet finger down my throat. “Aren’t you a pretty little girl? Gods, this will be pleasurable as well as restoring. Damned better be for the price I paid for you, little girl.”

  I wanted to throw up. I wanted to squeeze my legs together and burst out of my restraints; to throw him back against the wall and run as far away from this place as possible.

  He leaned further other me and pressed his palms to my throat. He wasn’t choking me, he wasn’t squeezing me or trying to mount me. All he was doing was pushing his sweaty skin against mine and breathing heavily.

  And then he frowned. “What the hell?”

  He straightened up and yanked his sleeve back, fidgeting with a chain around his wrist. A stone in the center glowed red. He glared at me and again leaned over, cupping his hands around my neck. “Useless bitch, do what you’re supposed to.”

  I held my breath. What was I supposed to do? Did this fat hog actually not know how to have sex with someone? Or, was this his fetish and he just couldn’t get it up?

  His cheeks turned pink and, after a momen
t, his whole face turned red. He shoved away from me and waddled back over to the door, pounding on it with his fist. “I need someone here immediately. Assistance. Assistance!”

  The locked clicked in the door and it swung open; the aproned man peered in. “Is she giving you trouble, sir? We have her belted down.”

  “She is the problem. I can’t source from her.” He waved his hand in my direction. “You’d damned well better give me my gold back. I won’t pay for this useless slab of meat. I don’t know what she is, but I can’t source from her. She’s a waste.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes. His tantrum was almost comical—like he had room calling someone else a slab of meat.

  The aproned man walked to my chair, turning the crank until I was in a more upright position. He pressed his palm to my throat.

  I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen, but it appeared nothing did. At least, not what they wanted to happen.

  But instead of begin upset like the fat man, his lips spread into a broad, toothy smile. He leaned close to me; with each word he spoke, he sprayed me with spittle. I know what you are, you little vamp. You’re a witch.”

  I stared at him.

  He stood upright and turned to the fat man. “I think the price just went up.”

  ****

  They threw me back into the paddock with my sister, Avi, and the other survivors. Days bled into nights; gradually the other people with us were cycled out, probably to the blue and dark brown room. Sometimes they came back, sometimes they didn’t.

  I lost count of how many times they took Avi. Every time he came back, he’d curl up in a fetal position and sleep for hours. When he’d wake up, blood trickling from his ears and nose, I’d feed him—if there was food—and hold him until he regained his strength. He’d kiss my forehead, he’d promise he’d protect me.

  But, Soleil and I were never again taken out of the room.

  Finally, shortly after Avi was dragged out of the paddock for another session, a man neatly dressed in black trousers and a black jacket opened the door. He said, “You two. The witches. You’re coming with me.”

  It wasn’t like we had a choice. Even so, even though we were standing to follow him, assistance rushed in and clipped chains to our iron collars. We were dragged forward, we were yanked out and into blinding brilliance.

  The outside was cold and dead; the air so bitter than my exhale froze into billowing white clouds. We were herded into a separate building from where we were restrained; it wasn’t even the room where the fat man tried to ‘source’ from. This place was different. It was cleaner, warmer almost; with plush carpets and high backed wooden chairs.

  Soleil and I were thrown onto a platform in the front of the room. The chains around our necks were threaded around our wrists; we were anchored in place by an iron hook secured in the platform. Our shift dresses were tugged down.

  Three other women and two men were dragged in behind us. They were similarly secured and stripped; as soon as they were in place, people filed into the room. The high backed chairs filled up. I counted them once. Twice. Fifteen seats. Fifteen men and one woman. They made her stand.

  I looked at the ground, staring down at my bound feet. They were all ogling us. Judging and staring, they made marks on slips of paper. I wanted to die; I wanted the ground to swallow me up and consume me.

  There were seven of us on the platform. I was numb; physically. Emotionally.

  “Wren.”

  The man next to me was bleeding, he sounded like the very effort to say my name exhausted him. Even with the swollen face and bloodied lips; even with raw skin where leather straps had rubbed his flesh away, I knew that voice. Avi.

  “I’m okay.” I choked back a sob. “We’re going to be okay.”

  “I let you down.” Blood trickled out of his mouth. “I was supposed to save you.”

  “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

  He chuckled and then winced; he was favoring the left side of his ribcage. “I don’t think we’re going to make it out of this one the same way.”

  Before I could respond, the uniformed man who had dragged us to the platform stood in front of the group. He raised his hands up, commanding silence from those seated in front of us. “Today, we have a selection of both witches and humans, suitable for sourcing, breeding, or labor. The standard rules apply: payment in gold before leaving the auction house. There are no credit refunds and no negotiating if your purchase doesn’t source the way you want. Sales are final.”

  An equally well dressed man scampered in front of the platform; he shoved a paper card into the the man’s hand and leaned close. They whispered back and forth for several moments; the first man loudly cleared his throat. “My apologies, Sobik, by all means. Take your woman.”

  A man in the back stood and, for a moment, spoke quietly to his wife—the only other woman in the room. I couldn’t make anything that they were saying, but he seemed annoyed. She was persistent, motioning wildly at the platform.”

  “Sobik,” the man—the auctioneer, I figured—sighed with great exaggeration. “You need to decide so we can get the bidding started. We can’t hold up sales for these other kind folks just because you can’t decide.”

  “Why does he get to go first?” A heavy, lavishly dressed man in the front row turned, craning around as far as he could to glare at the couple in the back. “We all have money. We all have agendas. What’s the meaning of this?”

  “An accident, I assure you. Sobik purchased a girl this morning; a sweet young import from Earth’s European isles, but…well, tragedy befell her before they even left the premises. We don’t give refunds, but we when the mistake was ours, we correct our errors.”

  A chuckle rippled through the crowd. I wasn’t sure what that meant—and I really didn’t want to know.

  “Very well.” Sobik cocked his head to the platform. “My wife fancies the lad on the end, we’ll take him.”

  Avi. No…

  “Ah, but Sobik, your credit was for a young witch. He’s not.” The auctioneer shuffled through his cards. “Human male, twenty-eight; six foot two and one hundred ninety-five pounds—“

  “Not worth the argument, I assure.”

  The crowed laughed again and, before I had time to say anything, an assistant released the hook beneath Avi. He tumbled off the platform.

  My eyes filled with tears. This wasn’t happening; I was losing him. I wanted to cry out, to bellow the pain and terror and loneliness right out of my body. But I was terrified of moving. I was scared to draw attention to myself.

  They hauled him out of the room and, no sooner was the door closed, did the auctioneer speak again. “Human witch, female; eighteen earth years and five foot one.”

  My heart sunk in my chest. Soleil.

  The man in the front who’d complained about Sobik pulled a heavy looking purse out of his interior coat pocket, “Lets just get to the point, Biggs, I’ll bid two thousand gold pieces for her. Throw in the black haired waif next to her and I’ll make it three.”

  Across the room, a pale man dressed in blue silk jumped out of his seat. “You can’t buy two at once, you bastard. You bought four earlier today—leave some for the rest of us.”

  “I can’t help it if I’m more successive than you, Ewain, I do what I must.” He sighed, running his hand through his greasy hair. “Two thousand on the little blonde.”

  The man in blue silk retorted, “Twenty-five hundred.”

  “I’ll bid three thousand.”

  “Thirty-three hundred.”

  “Biggs, he doesn’t have thirty-three hundred. Make the prick sit down.”

  The man in silk stamped his foot on the ground, making a strange little grunting noise in his throat. “You can’t have all the witches, Goron, for fuck’s sake. Leave some for the rest of us.”

  “Four thousand gold pieces for the blonde.” Goron stood up, dropping the purse of gold into Bigg’s hand. “No one will outbid me.”

  Biggs shrugged, handing off th
e purse to his assistant. “Take her away.”

  My sister didn’t even look at me. She waited until the assistant released her collar and then let Goron lead her away. Her shift was still on the platform; she let him parade her through the crowd naked. She’d given up.

  A man in the front row was staring at me. He was dressed differently then most of the men in the crowd, with rumpled, well worn trousers and a long frock-coat. He didn’t seem like he exactly belonged, like he was a more outdated version of the pompous bidders.

  I glanced at him. He wasn’t ogling me like some other the others were. He was looking; he was clearly thinking.

  Ewain threw his arms up in the air, distracting me from the man in the front row. “How many of this lot are witches? I’ll wait for the next if there aren’t anymore. I’m not taking a human back to the estate with me—I came for a witch and I’m leaving with one.”

  Biggs sighed dramatically and consulted his stack of cards. “Number 1,452, the raven-haired one on the end. And this one here, the red head. Number 1,533. Both witches, but the one on the end is younger. Twenty earth years. This one’s twenty-four.”

  Ewain sighed. “Thirty-two hundred for the raven-haired witch.”

  The rumpled man in the front stood up, holding a leather pouch out. “Thirty-eight hundred for the raven-haired girl. Number 1,452.”

  “Christ, Coulthurst.” Ewain crossed his arms in front of his chest and smirked. “What does someone like you need with a witch?”

  Someone in the back jeered. “I didn’t even know the bastard had thirty-eight gold pieces left to his name.

  I looked back at the man who bid on me, this Coulthurst. His eyes were downcast, the wrinkles creasing his brow and forehead seemed to deepen. He spoke, “She’s a gift. For my son.”

  The room fell silent.

  Biggs held his hand out to him. “Sold.”

  Twenty

  The restraints above me loosened and I stumbled forward, almost falling face first off the platform. Biggs’s assistant unlocked my wrists and ankles; he steadied me and then shoved me into the waiting man’s arms. “Sales are final.”