Free Razing Grace: Razing Grace Part 1 by Amo Jones

as I’m about to pull it open, his hand finds my arm and a surge of electrical current rushes from him to me. That spark has been there since the first time he laid his dead, emotionless eyes on me. Only, it’s never touched me the way it is right now.
    “I need you to promise me you won’t try to run when they take you from here.”
    “What?” I question, and just when I’m about to ask him more questions, the door is yanked open in front of my face and he pushes me forward into the same dark room from last night, the same stage and podium. Chills break out over my skin. It’s empty. The same spotlight emits directly in front, blinding me instantly. I raise my hand to cover my forehead as my legs slowly inch forward and down toward the end of the stage. I squint my eyes in a poor attempt at trying to focus on the setting and environment, but I fail miserably. A loudspeaker beeps before a woman’s voice huskily comes through and sends shivers down my spine.
    “Next we have Millie Hart…” she begins, and I pause, thinking over what she just said. Next? As in there was someone before me?
    “She comes all in one piece with her virginity intact. Bidding starts at 500,000.”
    I swallow down the bile that has begun to rise up my throat, but my shoulders slack in defeat and my head hangs. I keep my eyes pinned to the floor. When an echoing “beep” sounds out, I raise my head to find a single red light flash above one of the mirrored window booths. I swing around, my eyes racing around the room. I notice that there are lights pressed into the wall of each booth. Spinning around slowly, I count ten mirrored windows. I count ten booths.
    Another red light illuminates from a different booth and the voice over the speakers comes through again, “800,000 . ”
    Another beep pierces through the silent room and another tear drops from my eye.
    Beep.
    “One Million.”
    Beep.
    “One point five.”
    Beep.
    Her voice dies out.
    My breathing shallows, and the pulsing of my blood rushing through one single vein in my body pounds through my ears. I lose myself in my thoughts, the cold empty walls inside my brain comforting me. The front doors that sit below the booths swing open as both Tripp and Viking walk directly towards me. My heart hasn’t just broken; my soul has shattered too. Every inch of who I was and what I stood for has been drawn out of me until I’m nothing but a shell. I’m merely a form of bones, organs, and blood which is being contained by skin. I have nothing. I feel nothing. Arms wrap around my waist as they guide me down the steps and towards the front of the stage. Once we’re walking down the bright corridor, I look up at Tripp. His finely chiseled jaw line is peeking out from under the mask and I scan the intricate tattoos that are inked into his skin.
    “What happened?” I ask.
    He keeps his head focused to the front. “You were just sold.”
    “To whom?” I probe.
    He pauses and I see his jaw clenching from beneath the rim of his mask. “Japanese.”
    My breathing picks up to an erratic rate as the final wall in my mind shuts.
    Kurr walked down into the lab where a small baby was crying. He pushed open the doors and found Courtney fiddling around with syringes and Bunsen burners while her foot furiously rocked the carriage back and forth.
    “Why is he in here? Why haven’t you got one of the staff to mind him?”
    “What?” Courtney spat. “Like how you minded my other son?”
    Kurr chuckled, pushing his hand into his pocket before throwing his other up to her neck. He clenched down on it roughly until her air pipe cracked under his touch. “I told you, you play nice here and the kid will live.” Courtney jerked her face out of Kurr’s grip, tired of his controlling ways but knowing she had no way to escape him. She was bound here for good if she wanted her son to live. Beast. Beast looked so much like Luce. When she looked down at the baby she had in the carriage, the baby her and