Sold

"Keep in line, toppers! Keep in line if you know what's good for you!"

The primary jailor shouted out his orders gleefully, looking out at the crowd as he did so and gauging the level of their approval. Juri looked out at them as well, but not in search of their approval.

She looked at them with frank disbelief, her already exhausted mind threatening to give out completely under the weight of this new abomination.

"It's not possible," she whispered to herself, crossing her arms over her breasts in a pitiful attempt at modesty, "none of this is possible."

"Quiet!" The man beside her hissed, "You want to wind up like that sad sack over there?"

He made the slightest jerk of his head in Adam's direction. Adam was the only one of the prisoners not lined up and on display. He was being held up roughly between two of their strange captors, his head sagging to one side.

Adam was crying and muttering to himself, but he was doing it softly. She was looking at a truly broken man, and she had no desire to wind up like him. She shut her mouth tight, making a mental note to thank the man she recognized but did not know.

That was, if she ever got the chance, a possibility that was becoming increasingly unlikely all of the time.

"Here they are, folks! All of them are ready and waiting for the right price! All of 'em healthy, all of them ready to do their part. Nothing but the finest at McKendry's auction house, I've said it before, and I'll say it again!"

Juri's attention, along with most of the prisoners on the stage, snapped to the front right of the stage. She had been too busy to notice the gaudy podium resting there when first thrust out into this fresh hell, but there was no way of missing it now.

Behind it stood a very round man, who was so short he was hardly able to see over the edge of his pulpit. He had a thick cockney accent that belonged in a Dickens adaptation and great tufts of white hair floating about his head.

They were floating, of course, because they were underwater; the auctioneer and every last one of them was underwater, and whether or not it was strictly possible, it was true.

A small crowd was gathered on the floor of the ocean before the McKendry stage, most of them talking loudly and several of them appraising the merchandise. Juri saw an impossibly tall, terribly thin creature looking her up and down and she shuddered.

The male was the exact opposite of the auctioneer in shape, like something straight out of a children's rhyme. She would probably have laughed if not for the sudden, brutal understanding of what was going on here.

There was an auction taking place, and she was one of the items for sale. She was being sold, along with everyone who had managed to survive the ship's sinking.

Her mother's voice rang in her head, sing-song in the way Juri had always hated, telling her that she was now out of the frying pan and into the fire. If ever a saying had been truer, Juri didn't know when.

"Step right up, dear lady. Step right up to the fine ladies and gents can see you more clearly," McKendry crooned, turning his large girth to face the patrons of his auction.

He leered at them, and Juri started violently. His teeth; his teeth didn't even look real. They could have come straight out of the campiest vampire movie ever made, and she wouldn't have been surprised.

Most of them were normal, if a little yellowed, but his incisors were long and too pointed to be human. Her mind screamed that the alternative was an impossibility, but that was a road she couldn't exactly go down.

If she opened that particular box she would be forced to confront the massive elephant in the room; mainly, how in the world it was that they were all standing on the bottom of the ocean as if it were dry land.

Juri couldn't do that. She couldn't allow herself to do that, no matter how strongly her mind was pulled in that direction. Instead, she concentrated on the auctioneer's eyes, which contained none of the smiles that were plastered on his false face.

She followed the line of his gaze, hoping against hope it was not her he was calling to. When she saw who it was, her knees went weak, and it was all she could do not to fall to the ground.

"Selene," she whispered. Her throat tightened dangerously around the world. She felt the angry eyes of her neighbor on her and shut her mouth tightly, if not for her safety then for his.

He was standing close to her, and it made him think he would be found guilty by association and punished accordingly. Juri couldn't stand the idea of witnessing another beating,

Especially one that would be her fault. Selene didn't look in her direction. She didn't look in any direction at all but continued shuffling towards the end of the platform so that all of the prospective buyers could get a good look.

She wasn't fortunate enough to be wearing a bra, and her breasts jutted out on display. Then Juri thought back to the only other time she had seen those breasts when she had happened upon the two of them amid their passion.

All of her feelings of jealousy and loss seemed so silly to her now, so meaningless. She would have done anything in the world to go back in time and take them back.

The fact that she couldn't do so only served to make her current sorrow more profound. There was no trace of that feisty, sensuous friend now. Selene moved like the victim of a lobotomy, a woman who remained herself face alone.

She didn't even attempt to cover herself. Either she didn't notice the leering stares, and crude comments, or she didn't care. Maybe she was beyond caring. If that was true, Juri almost envied her friend.

"Alright, we're going to start the bidding now. Do I hear five hundred? Five hundred to the gent in the back, five hundred! Do I hear five-fifty? Five fifty, moving right along!"

McKendry's voice rang out over the crowd, the speed with which it moved mesmerizing.

Selene was bought and taken by the most hideous-looking creature Juri had ever seen, a man that so loosely resembled a human there was no way of convincing herself that he was one.

There was no last look and no chance to say goodbye. Selene was hauled off, and the next prisoner was led up for the slaughter. By the time it was her turn, Juri was entirely numb.

Some of it was the cold of the ocean water surrounding her, but that wasn't all of it; not even close to all. She was about to be sold, and after that, her life would no longer be her own.

"Look at this pretty young thing!" McKendry bellowed.

Turning towards her so that his eyes could roam up and down the length of her body appreciatively. It made her want to vomit, and she felt her gorge begin to rise. It was her deeply inlaid stubbornness that kept her from actually getting sick.

Instead, she tilted her head up in defiance. She listened as the price on her head skyrocketed, only wincing when the gavel came down. Never in her life had she heard a sound full of such finality.

"Sold, to the fine gentleman in the black! Come and claim her, sir, she's yours now, after all. Now! Moving right along!"

McKendry was already onto the next, Juri's purpose in his mind already come and gone. A rough, disturbingly warm hand landed on the back of her neck and shoved her forward. It was so sudden that she tripped, then tumbled over the edge of the stage.

Too surprised to even cry out. She had no idea what falling on her ass was going to feel like underwater, but she wasn't keen to find out. All of her ideas of physics and anything else relating to science had gone out the window speedily and never to return.

For the moment, they also remained untested. She did not hit the ground. Instead, she landed firmly in the arms of a man who stood directly beneath the lip of the platform.

"Oh God, thank you!" She said breathlessly. She regretted saying it immediately afterward.

Whoever's arms she was currently lounging in was someone who was attending the live auction of actual human beings.

Catching a damsel in distress didn't get a guy off for an offense that egregious, especially when he was one of the ones perpetuating the distress.

"Do not thank me. It does me no good. Are you able to walk?"

Her questionable rescuer responded coldly. He set her down before waiting for her to answer and she almost lost her balance and fell despite his intervention.

Juri wasn't the slickest woman alive, but she wasn't normally this clumsy, either. Something about being under all of that weight of water was making it difficult for her to move properly.

With time Juri was sure she would get used to it, that she would adjust, but the idea of it was horrifying. The idea that she could be planning an adjustment to this new state of her life was horrifying.

"I asked you a question, topper," the strange man before her asked, his voice almost bored despite the severity of his words.

There was that name again, topper. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Why did these freaks keep calling her a topper? Another piece of a puzzle the entirety of which she had not been allowed to see, and all the while the man's eyes bored into her, demanding a response.

She didn't need to be told that he was not the kind of man to trifle with; for one thing, she had gotten a good look at his teeth when he last spoke. She was dealing with another vampire, and this time it was up close and personal.

"Yes, I'm alright to walk. As long as it isn't very far. I seem to be having a bit of trouble," she answered, for the moment properly subdued. The man, a vampire, her internal voice reminded her mercilessly, nodded but did not smile. She got the impression he wasn't the kind of guy who smiled often.

"The walk is not far. Only to my coach. Will you come willingly or must I use the chain?"