Ruthless Bargain

Amelia.

 The bookstore always smelled like old papers and something close to peace, or rather freedom. It was the one place that felt like mine even though it was not.

 The store was someone else's, the books, the shelves and the paycheck at the end of the week was barely enough to call my own. But still, staying in the bookstore everyday made me forget for a little while that I had no problem waiting for me at home.

 Iris turned the key in the lock and rattled it once again to make sure it was properly held. ''Okay,'' she announced, smiling, dropping the keys into her bag with a satisfying clink. ''That is done. Another day of surviving minimum wage.'' She flipped her hair dramatically in a whim.

 I smiled, pulling my jacket to cover my arms due to the cold. Velmoor at this hour was cold air and distant traffic. ''You say that every night.'' She fell in step beside me, her black wavy hair swaying at her back. ''Because every night, it is true.'' She looped her arms into mine, the small half moon pendant she wore catching the light as she moved. ''You know what? I did the math again today.'' ''Irissss.'' I dragged the last part dramatically. ''Just hear me out.'' She whined in her little voice, her warm grey eyes bright.'' ''If we both keep saving the way we are right now then by next year.....next year, Amelia, we could have enough for an apartment. A real one, with two bedrooms and a kitchen that doesn't have your aunt in it.'' I laughed softly, imagining a life like that. ''Two bedrooms,'' I repeated, tasting the words on my tongue. ''Two bedrooms.'' She affirmed. ''One for you, one for me. You can put as many books as you want in your room. We split the rent, the groceries and most importantly....the freedom.'' I looked at her for a moment. The word freedom settling somewhere in my chest. ''You've been thinking about this all day, huh?'', I said. ''I think about it every day.'' She said simply. Her fate was just like mine. Living with people who didn't care the least how you were coping or how you were being treated. ''Don't you?'', she asked softly. I didn't respond immediately, just stared at the street lamps ahead. ''Every day,'' I said quietly. ''Every single day.'' Iris squeezed my arm. We kept walking in silence like that and that was one thing about Iris, she never made silence awkward or feel like it needed to be fixed. We arrived at the junction and Iris stopped. She always did. Her direction was to the left and two blocks away while I had to go through the right, longer and darker, ending at the house on the far end. A place I had never been able to call home. ''Same time tomorrow,'' she said. ''Same time tomorrow.'' I agreed. She pulled me into a quick tight hug, one that always felt like comfort and the next minute she was gone, her black hair disappearing around the corner. I stood there for a second longer than I needed to. then I turned right, and walked home. . The lights were on when I got home, I could see them through the window panes. I muttered my silent pep talks, my heart beating faster than normal. And that was how I felt every single day returning home, fear, not knowing what would happen again today. I pushed the door open and stepped in. The first thing I saw was my uncle. Mateo Alvarez sat on the armchair by the far wall and the sight of him made me halt in my steps. There was dried blood that trickled from his left temple and down to his chin. His left eye, swollen and half shut. His shirt crumpled. I had never seen him look this miserable. ''Uncle Mateo-'' I started, stepping closer. ''Don't,'' My aunt's voice cut through the room like a sharp blade. I turned. My Aunt, Auntie Rita, stood by the kitchen doorway, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression carved in the unpleasant one she always reserved for me. ' ''Don't'' she repeated. ''Don't walk in here like you don't know. Like you are not the reason he came back looking like this.'' I blinked, trying to process her words. ''I don't...what are you talking about? I just left work and I don't know what..'' ''Shut the fuck up.'' her voice thundered across the room. ''Everything.'' She breathed out, her chest heaving. ''Everything that happens in this house always ties back to you. You being here alone is bad luck.'' I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. There was no point in explaining myself, there was never a point in this house, especially not with Auntie Rita. By the window, my cousin Natalie, sat on a couch, chronically unbothered by what was going on since it didn't affect her directly. She had one foot folded beneath the other, scrolling through her phone and her jaw moving in slow frantic rhythm around a piece of gum. She didn't look up, not even once. I turned back to my uncle and his gaze was already on mine. ''Uncle Mateo,'' I said, carefully approaching him. ''What happened to you?'' He was quiet for a moment, his gaze still holding mine. Then he straightened gently on the chair he sat on, his bones clearly in pain. ''You are leaving this house,'' he said. ''By morning.'' My world stopped. Time stilled, while I tried to process the magnitude of his words. The words landed like a blow to me. I stared at him, maybe for a reason or an explanation. ''What?'' ''You heard me.'' ''I-'' I shook my head slowly. ''I don't understand. Leaving to go where? And what are you talking about?'' ''You have been sold.'' His words sounded rehearsed, flat. ''To cover a debt I owe. By morning, you would go to the man I owe. That's all you need to know.'' The room went very quiet. I could hear Natalie's consistent chewing of gum, the faint sound of traffic outside. I could hear my own heartbeat, which had clearly become very loud and fast. ''Sold.'' I tasted his words and it felt foreign, like a different world. ''You sold me.'' ''it is done.'' He said flatly. I got on my knees instantly, tears gushing down my cheeks in streams. ''Uncle Mateo, I have a life. I have a job...I....I have dreams....I have.....I'm trying to....you just cannot.'' The words refused to make sense. ''Please don't do this. You can't do this to me.'' I begged. He looked at me for a long moment. Then he stood up quietly, and walked out of the room. No words. No explanations. Just the faint sound of his footsteps and the click of his bedroom door. I broke down, crying hard on the floor, hitting my chest rapidly. I saw my Aunt move towards me in hurried strides and before I could react, I felt it, before the sound came. Her sharp, open palm cracking against my left cheeks so hard my head snapped sideways. I barely had time to process before the second one came, harder on the other cheek and the sting spread so fast across my face like fire. I pressed my hand so hard to my face, protecting myself. ''Whore!'' her voice close enough, loud and vicious. Every venom of hatred she had for me echoed in her voice, laced beneath her words. ''Useless, ungrateful orphan.'' She spat on me. ''You think you have dreams? You think you have a future? You have nothing. You never had anything. You came into this house with nothing and you will leave with nothing. Go and do what you do best, be a slave to whichever man will take you.'' She stepped back. Natalie glanced at us and focused on her phone again. I sat still on the floor. I didn't want to fall apart in her presence or give her the satisfaction that her action had an effect on me. I stood up and walked past her, down the hallway and into the small room that had been mine for years. The one with the thin matress and the small bookshelf. I sat at the edge of the bed, the night stretching long and heavy in front of me. A knock interrupted me far into the end of the night. The door opened and my Aunt walked in, two heavy bags of laundry in her hands. She dropped them on the floor, hissed a long sigh and exited the room like a ghost. I checked the time on my phone and it was already past midnight. I did the laundry without a word. Nobody brought me food. I did not ask for any either. Asking never worked for me in this house, it only gave them an opportunity to remind me of my place. I worked through the laundry in the small utility room across the kitchen while my mind was somewhere else entirely. Sold. The words kept circling, kept coming back. An apartment. With Iris. Two bedrooms, a kitchen and a door with a lock that I had keys to. After that, school because I was deprived of it and it was one thing no one could take back. And then a business, something small and bookish and my own creation. That was the plan. That was the only plan I had ever had. I wrung out the last piece of fabric, my hands cold from the water. Then a thought came, slowly, quietly. What if this was the escape route? I let it sit there without chasing it away. Because the truth that I had been pressing down for long was that I had no future in this house. So leaving was coming either ways. I dried my hands slowly, and then another thought came. But what if he was worse? That thought came quieter than the first one, harder to argue with. A man who accepted a human as bargain for a dent. A man like that, with that kind of money and in a city like velmoor.....What did his house look like? What did he look like? What if I was walking out of one cage and straight into another that was simply larger and better furnished? I walked back to my room with that thought in mind, lay down on the thin mattress without eating and let sleep evade me. By the time the first pale of morning sunlight came, I had made up my mind. . . My uncle was in the kitchen when I found him, a cup of coffee in front of him, untouched. He looked worse in the morning light. His bruise had deepened overnight, purpling at his temple and he sat with the careful stillness of a man whose ribs were complaining. I stood in the doorway. ''I'll go.'' I said. He looked up. ''But I have conditions,'' my voice was steady, hiding every hint of nervousness. ''I am not going there as a property or a slave. I will draw up a contact marriage, one that has terms. If he agrees to them, I will go and if he does not, you find another way to pay your debt.'' My uncle stared at me for a long time. Then wordlessly, he reached for his phone. He dialled and on the second ring the line connected. I listened to him tell the man, Mr. Cross that I had agreed and a car should be sent. That was it. No turning back. My uncle hung up before turning to me. ''it's arranged. The car would be here in an hour.'' He said simply. I nodded once, before disappearing back to my room. I changed into the only clean thing I could find. A faded blue jeans and a plain white shirt, I folded the envelope of money I had saved into my already packed bag, tucked three of my favourite books and sat at the edge of the bed, looking at the small space that had once never felt like mine. I did not say goodbye to Auntie Rita. I did not say goodbye to Natalie. When a knock came at my door, I picked up my bag, walked through the house without looking back and stepped outside. A black car waited at the curb. Long, sleek, black and expensive. A driver stood beside it in a dark suit, his expression professionally blank. He opened the door without a word. I slid in. The door closed behind me with a soft thud. I sat on the cool leather seats in silence, my bag in my lap and my hands folded over it. The car moved smoothly, passing the street I had walked every day for the past years and into the traffic of velmoor. My heart was beating too hard, I could feel it in my throat, in my fingertips, in the spaces between my ribs. I had a contract in my bag. One I had spent all night drafting. I would present them to him the moment I walked through his door. I would not arrive frightened, or at least let him see it. I had survived Auntie Rita for years. I could survive one meeting. The car turned into a different part of Velmoor. Taller trees, taller buildings, cleaner and more deliberate. I exhaled slowly. And then pep talked myself. "You have done harder things than this. You have done harder things Amelia, and still here. You can survive this." The car slowed and through the windshield, a building came into view. Glass, stone and impossible height. One that made you feel small before you even stepped inside. My heart slammed again, hard against my ribs. The driver turned off the engine, walked out and opened the door for me quietly. My feet landed on the concrete floor and the moment I had feared was right before my eyes. I was going to walk through that door and come face to face with the man who owned me now. The door opened and our eyes met. His gaze swept across me from head to toe and the first thing I heard was a scoff.