His name was Andrew Keith, though even that felt distant—like something belonging to another life. Late twenties, tall, with neither an athletic nor overly large build— but a middle. His hair, once clipped neat, had grown into shaggy, dark, uneven curls that hung across his forehead and ended at his shoulders. A bruise shadowed his left cheekbone like a fingerprint he couldn’t scrub off.

Andrew woke slowly, as if dragging himself up through black water. His breath hitched before his eyes even opened. The first thing he felt was the cold metal biting into his wrists. Cuffs. Tight. Too tight.

Then he felt the pole behind him, rigid against his spine.

The room around him came into focus in broken pieces.

Concrete floor. Bright light. A smell—cleaner, metal, and something faintly sweet beneath it all. A heavy door bolted from the outside.

Panic crawled up his throat. His heartbeat hammered unevenly.

He didn’t remember getting here. He didn’t remember much of anything after—

A voice. A woman’s voice. Disembodied, echoing over speakers. Calling out numbers. Bids. His bids.

Something about “payment.” Something about “obedience potential.”

He swallowed. No. No, that couldn’t have been real. Those places didn’t exist—auctions, selling people, that was horror-movie shit. Something from the darker corners of the internet.

But the cuffs on his wrists were real. The cold air was real. The ache in his head was real.

And somewhere in this place, behind that door or behind the walls, was the woman he had only heard so far—soft-spoken, calm, controlled. The one who had bought him.

He tugged on the cuffs, metal scraping against metal.

“Hello?” His voice cracked. “Shit—Is someone there? What—what the hell is this?”

His pulse drummed in his ears. Nothing answered yet.

But he knew someone was listening.