Chapter Three

I didn’t have a chance to see who had purchased me.

I was ushered off stage and taken to the holding pen with the other prisoners, each of them wearing the same shapeless black dress, their faces stained with tears as they stood behind chicken-wire like animals ready for slaughter.

The door closed behind me; the only light was a dim bulb overhead.

Startled cries rang out, and my questions were immediately answered when the sigil on my arm began to sting and change color from black to angry red.

What does red mean ?

I squinted, searching for my fellow inmates and their marks, finding various colors I didn’t understand. Yellow. Green and even pink. The sigils no longer looked like burns but vibrant tattoos.

I knelt down, hugging my knees as I found a space in the corner of the human pen—it hit me then.

I was out of prison.

I was in the Red City.

Someone had bought me.

Since my mom had died and I’d gone into care, I’d been a ward of the state. My whole adult life.

I’d found my foster family dead the week before I turned eighteen. I’d spent my birthday behind bars and then became property of the state once again.

That was me: property.

I was used to it.

I didn’t like it, but I could acclimatize. Property had rules. Keep quiet. Eyes down. I just needed to learn the rules for demons.

I was so hungry that I’d stopped feeling the sensation entirely—my rumbling stomach replaced by nausea. Shivering, even with the dank humidity of the basement cage, as my body succumbed to exhaustion.

I coasted, head pressed against the chicken-wire with my eyes closed, half awake and half in a dream.

It would have been lights off at the prison by now, and the roar of female inmates in the night was noticeably absent—aside from the criers. Sniffling to themselves as they rocked.

Voices. The cage opened. Everyone shifted positions. One by one, the girls were given to their buyers. I barely paid attention until I heard the word “... Flock ...”

I opened one eye, noticing the two people in the doorway for the first time. The announcer, human with his expensive suit and nervous hand wringing, and the demon.

I’d never seen a demon up close, not really. Though the room was dim, I could make out his shape, though his features were in shadow.

He was tall . Taller than the doorframe and almost to the ceiling. Over six feet, probably closer to seven. His frame was willowy, his waist tapered, and his clothes well-fitting. A suit of some kind, but older than I’d ever seen on a living person—and I’d spent a lot of time in court rooms with attorneys.

His hair stuck out in several places, entirely at odds with his serene stillness. As the two men approached, I realized he had black feathers in his hair—a strange blue-black that shimmered like an oil slick.

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he studied me, stepping forward until the light revealed his entirely black eyes. No hint of white at all.

Though he had no iris, the demon studied me, tilting his head to the side, his expression bored.

“She is mute. Not deaf?” The demon asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

The MC’s eyes darted over to me and back to the demon. “Mute.” He agreed.

“And what of her crimes? Her history?” The demon fixed his gaze on mine, and I gave up the pretense of sleep and met his eyes. “Her name?”

“Mandy Peck.” The announcer stated proudly. “I managed to find her. Last minute add-on.”

My name was Madeleine Speck . He’d pulled someone else’s files.

I thought back to Mr. Jingle and the name mix-up.

Too late to fix it now.

“Armed robbery. Second-degree murder.” The MC continued. “Killed the clerk.”

I rolled my eyes.

The demon found that very interesting.

The announcer stepped forward, unlocking the cage door. He didn’t step through but wiggled his fingers at me like a stray dog.

“Come here.” The human demanded with a hiss. “Time to go.”

I arched a brow but did as he said, scooting forward and standing on shaky legs.

“Do the rest of your Flock know about the purchase?” The announcer stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I was surprised to see you at all, Stolas. I know you don’t have two credits to rub together.”

“You know all my secrets, don’t you, Malcolm?” Stolas pressed his lips together.

The announcer, Malcolm, paled. “I meant no offense.”

I reached the door and pressed my hand to the wire as I took a shaky breath. Walking through the cage had stolen the last of my energy.

The demon regarded me, unblinking.

“She isn’t defective.” Malcolm bristled. “She’s probably just tired.”

“Hmm.” Stolas’s lip pursed.

He turned on his heel, marching to the door. The tails of his jacket fluttered like the wings of an ornery raven as he left, expecting me to follow.

Every Friday night, the rec room television at Sandy Village was tuned to Discovery, and the Real Housewives of the Red City was aired to the captive audience of inmates who devoured reality television like candy.

Most people would never see a demon, let alone speak to one. Demons lived in the Red Cities. Part of the treaty between Hell and the Human Realities when the barriers between our worlds broke down for a time.

The Real Housewives of the Red City followed several women who’d married demons. Incubi, Leviathan, or Baphomet demons. There were often strange miscommunications between spouses about things like Valentine’s day—when one of the wives expected chocolate, but her husband Graglox sacrificed a goat in her honor instead.

That was the extent of my knowledge of demons, though I’d done research after my mother had been killed—hoping to find answers.

I had no idea what kind of demon Stolas was. What Sin did he belong to, or if he had any magic?

From what I knew of demons, they acquired and hoarded wealth. They liked shiny things.

But the announcer's words struck a chord. What did demons consider poor? Stolas had bought me. I’d assumed he had money. I wasn’t a gold digger, but a girl needed to eat.

I shuffled after Stolas, but once we reached the second hallway in the labyrinth of the auction house, he grew annoyed with me—clicking his tongue and huffing.

I couldn’t go faster, but I couldn’t tell him to suck it either. That would involve speaking. Instead, I kept my face clear of emotion and continued my torturous gait—even though I wanted nothing more than to curl up on the concrete floor and sleep.

We reached a set of double doors, and the breath left my lungs as Stolas wrapped his arms around my middle and heaved me from the ground. My stomach pressed into the harsh bones of his shoulder as he slung me over in a fireman’s hold.

I slapped his back in protest, but the blow had no force.

“This is faster.” He explained without sympathy.

It might have been faster to be carried, but there was no dignity in it.

Though, what would a demon know about that? I was a purchase like a television on layaway. I wasn’t a person to him.

My lip curled, and I couldn't lift my head up. My dark hair fell in my face, knotted from the forced shower and lack of comb and conditioner.

My stomach hurt as I jostled in his hold. The building gave way to a parking garage, the walls opening to show the night sky, polluted with a rainbow of lights from the city. Each section seemed to favor a specific color, sliced like an apple.

Rows and rows of sports cars in obnoxious colors lined the garage. Low to the ground, with blacked-out windows.

Stolas kept walking until we came to the end of the row—stopping in front of an SUV that wouldn’t have been out of place on a school pick-up line.

He pulled the key from his pocket, somehow managing my weight on his shoulder as if I were an oddly shaped rucksack.

My black skirt had ridden up. My skin was covered in gooseflesh.

It had been years since I had been around a man in years without a cattle prod on their belt.

There were no rules with demons. Nothing to stop Stolas from doing what he wanted—that thought kept rearing its ugly head like a prairie dog.

Stolas interrupted my fugue, lowering me to the ground before he unlocked the car and opened the door for me.

I didn’t say thank you, mainly because I didn’t speak, and I didn’t know if demons spoke ASL—instead, I gave a robotic nod and slipped into the passenger seat in silence.

Stolas looked entirely out of place behind the wheel of the ancient mom-mobile. Based on his clothing choices, I would have guessed he didn’t know how to drive at all.

As we pulled away, I rested my forehead against the glass, leaving the auction house behind.

Though Stolas didn’t seem like the kind of person... man ...demon...to avoid awkward silences, it wasn’t long until he began to speak. Gesturing to the pink streetlights as we glided through the city.

“There are several sectors in the Red City. Each one belongs to a Sin, or rather, a Circle.” Stolas kept his eyes on the road. “Pink is Lust. The Seventh Circle. Incubi, succubae, and the like. Each human's sigil marking takes on the color of the magic used to bind them.”

I rubbed my thumb over the red tattoo, trying to think of a sin associated with red. I’d have guessed Lust, but it wasn’t that.

Wrath, maybe?

Stolas didn’t strike me as the angry type. He seemed level-headed. Eerily calm, like a bird of prey watching the ground for his next meal.

“Green is Envy. The Fourth Circle. And so on and so forth.” He continued, his voice a bored drawl. “Most demons have no issues crossing into different sectors, but humans don’t generally like to leave their neighborhoods. From what I have observed.”

I pressed my lips together. Though Stolas clearly didn’t think much of a human’s desire to stay close to home, I understood it. Protection. Safety.

Portland had skyscrapers, but nothing like this. Wall-to-wall glass and steel stretching into the sky. No wonder the wall surrounding the city had been so tall—to hide the modern utopia the demons had stolen from humanity.

We drove several blocks, and the street lights changed colors twice. Purple, and then yellow.

Pride and Sloth, Stolas explained.

Though I would have guessed, given enough time. Pride was entirely mirrored and had nightclubs with lines around the block. Sloth was teeming with people lying on the street, ignored as others walked over them as if they weren’t there.

The glitz and glam dissolved. We stopped at a rail crossing, and flashing red lights strobed through the windscreen of the SUV. Stolas drove over the tracks in silence.

No skyscrapers, the change so abrupt it was jarring. Squat warehouses with graffiti and broken windows. Boxy apartment buildings and red bricks faded with years of grime. Cracked roads. No street signs or traffic lights. No cars on the road, save for a few parked haphazardly on the sidewalk. Their paint faded and peeling from the sun. Their windscreens were covered with protective fabric.

“This is the human district of the Red City,” Stolas explained.

My brow pinched. Why had he brought me here ? Was it to show me where he’d throw me if I didn’t live up to his ideal?

A swarm of bees churned my stomach and vibrated against the inside of my skin. I took a shaky breath, but it did little to calm me. My arms and legs felt too far away.

Stolas pulled down a narrow street, parking behind a dumpster. He opened the door for me, and I debated running, though I knew I wouldn’t get far.

Nerves and hunger caught up to me, and the moment I stood up, my mouth filled with bile.

The demon cursed as I hunched over and retched onto the floor of the alley. Vomiting yellow saliva onto the filthy ground. I wiped my mouth with the back of my wrist, closing my eyes.

“This way.” Stolas put his hand on my back.

My heart leaped to my throat, and I jumped a foot in the air. I hadn’t heard him move.

I couldn’t tell, but the demon seemed to be almost... Comforting me?

I straightened my spine, my fingernails bit into my palms as I clenched my fists and allowed the demon to lead me to my new home.