Page 72 of Locked in Wonderland

I gritted my teeth and held my ground despite the collar biting painfully into my neck.

The second man pulled something small, black, and rectangular out of his pocket. A remote. He smiled before pressing the button, my confusion melting away as every pain receptor in my body ignited with a white fire that had me dropping to my knees and wanting to throw up.

Electric collar. They’d put a goddamn electric collar on me.

I wasn’t a dog.

Dogs got treated better.

I was something lower.

“Don’t ruin his makeup,” the blonde complained. She crouched beside me and dabbed away the string of drool hanging from my mouth before patting my lips dry.

“Are you going to cooperate?” the man with the remote asked. He turned it around so I could see the dial. “Or do we need to give you a bit more juice?” He tapped the side of it. “See this. We’ve got it set on low power.” He gave the dial a quarter turn to take it halfway. “Want to find out what this setting feels like?”

“Or…” the other man said, giving the chain an impatient tug, “we can stop fucking around and get you on stage without disrupting the schedule.”

Stage.

Schedule.

Auction.

The words looped in my head as I struggled to my feet. This time, when he pulled on the chain, I capitulated. Anything to avoid the agony again. He led me down yet another corridor—Wonderland had entirely too many corridors—while the man with the remote brought up the rear, close enough to intervene if I stepped out of line.

A voice drifted toward us. “Come on, ladies and gentlemen. I know you can do better than that. She’s young. Think of how many years of use you can get out of her. Surely, you can do better than five hundred. Do I hear six hundred? Five-fifty? Okay, I can work with that. Six hundred. We got there eventually. Maybe don’t make me twist your arm next time.”

A pause.

“Sold for six hundred.”

Remote-control man shoved me to my knees when we reached the wings of the stage. I glared at him with as much hatred as I could muster.

He laughed. “Yeah, keep doing that. They’ll love it.”

I turned toward the stage. A young man stood under the lights, his outfit identical to mine. His makeup gave me a horrible sense of what I must look like. He didn’t look any older than nineteen. The way he stood didn’t help. Shoulders drawn in. Head lowered. Tears streaming unchecked down his face.

The auctioneer—a thin blond man in a red velvet suit who didn’t look that old himself—kept one hand on his shoulder, using it to turn him back to face the audience whenever he tried to hide.

“Prime meat,” the auctioneer announced brightly.

My stomach twisted.

“Barely used.”

The casualness of it was the worst part. Like he was selling a car. Watching the bidding would have been bad enough on its own. Knowing I was next, and that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, made it ten times worse.

There was knowing Wonderland wasn’t a good place, and then there was this. People being sold like livestock. How did this happen in the twenty-first century?

The man sold for a thousand coins. I had no idea what that translated to in real money. Maybe it was a fortune. Maybe it was a pittance. I guess it didn’t really matter when the result was the same. He was still crying when they led him offstage to whatever fate awaited him. I wished there were something I could do to help him, but I wasn’t in any better position than he was.

Then it was my turn.

The chain jerked. I stumbled forward, one man shoving me out beneath the lights. They were painfully bright. So bright it took my eyes several seconds to adjust. From the wings, I’d only heard the indistinct murmur of voices beneath the auctioneer’s endless patter. Now I could finally see them.

A sea of faces. Men and women.

They sat at round tables with drinks in front of them, acting as if they attended a glamorous awards ceremony instead of… this.