Chapter 2

The next morning, the cage swung open.

Two of the guards hauled me out and threw a white dress into my arms.

"Put it on."

They shoved me into the bathroom.

The mirror was smeared with grime, showing nothing but a pale face.

I raised my hands to straighten the dress, and the old scar on the inside of my wrist slipped into view.

"Hiding what?"

Maggie Baxter clicked in on her heels and yanked my sleeve back.

She glanced at the scar, then, unbothered, pulled the fabric back over it.

"Whatever Jay asks later, you answer."

I watched her in the mirror.

"You're part of this too, Maggie?"

"Part of what? Bringing you out to clear your head. Didn't you agree to that yourself?"

Maggie smiled and smoothed my hair for me.

"Clearing my head means locking me in a cage?"

The smile vanished from her face.

"Joanna, don't put it so ugly."

"Phin owes money. We had to find a way. My family raised you all this time. There has to be some return on that."

When she finished, she fixed my collar again.

"So be smart later. Don't make me teach you a second time."

Nearly three hundred people filled the auction hall.

Jayden Weiss stood on the stage with a microphone, reading out my age, my school, my family situation.

"Twenty-two. College student. Both parents dead."

"No one will come looking."

The moment I stepped into the lights, a guard clamped down on my shoulders.

The next second, the big screen lit up.

On it, I was clutching my mother's funeral portrait, crying until I collapsed, guests scrambling around me to carry me into a car.

It was the security footage from my parents' funeral.

Phineas walked up onto the stage and took the microphone to prove to everyone that I was weak, that I wouldn't fight back.

Maggie sat in the front row, smiling along.

The crowd watched the worst day of my life like it was entertainment laid on for them.

A major buyer came up, gripped my chin, and looked me over from side to side.

I turned my head away, and Phineas immediately pressed the back of my head down.

"Don't move."

He pulled out my student ID and held it up with both hands.

The buyer gave it a glance, asked a few questions, then nodded, satisfied.

"Nice enough face."

"Perfect to hand over to Mr. Stephens as an apology."

At the words "Mr. Stephens," my heart lurched hard.

But Jayden gave me no chance to ask. He had them take me straight off the stage and bring on the next group of girls.

As I passed the corner backstage, a few threads of smoke drifted over.

Jayden was leaning against the wall, talking to someone.

"Mr. Stephens has gotten stranger and stranger these past few years."

"It's because he never found her. Three whole years. He's practically torn through the entire Southeast."

The other man dropped his voice.

"No idea what that woman's got, keeping Finn Stephens searching this long."

I stopped dead.

Finn Stephens.

It really was him.

I'd thought that after three years, he would have given up long ago.

But he'd been looking for me this whole time.

"What's the holdup?"

Phineas grabbed my arm and dragged me deep into the corridor.

"You'd better behave. It'll save you some suffering."

I didn't struggle anymore.

But the heartbeat I'd kept quiet for three years turned frantic again over that one name.

Once, seeing Finn Stephens again was the thing I feared most.

Now he'd become the only person on this ship who might save me.