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  “Yes, well, you can see how that might have been confusing for us, sir,” said Benny. “We sell humans as goods here. But you’re telling me that isn’t what you wanted?”

  “No,” said the other man. “That is not what I want! What on Earth would I want to purchase a human for? I am looking for a shop that sells things that humans enjoy. I know someone who collects funny, human knick-knacks, stuff from before the war.”

  “Ah,” said Benny. “Yes, of course, sir. Well, if you want to purchase stuff that humans like, we have a whole room full of things that were, uh, left behind by the humans who we’ve, uh, sold in the past. In fact, it’s just through this door here.”

  Amelia heard the key once again being slipped into the lock. She took a few steps back and looked around for a weapon.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why weren’t you looking for a weapon or a way out!

  The door opened at the same moment she picked up the heavy lamp that Benny used for light while performing the removal of her ID tag.

  She held the thing above her head and stared back at fourth at the two men. “Stay back.”

  Benny started to laugh. “This one is from our latest shipment of goods. She’s a little feisty, but that can be a selling point.” He elbowed the weird looking man next to him and winked. “For the right buyer.”

  “Let me go, and nobody gets hurt.” Again, Amelia’s demands only served to amuse Benny. The other man wasn’t laughing though. He was eyeing her, curiously, and slowly walking further into the room. Once he came into the light, she noticed his skin, which she originally thought was just very tan, was actually more of an orange-terracotta color, like the sands of a far off desert she’d once seen a picture of. “I’m serious.” She raised the lamp even higher and challenged the stranger with her eyes. “Don’t come any closer.”

  “She’s not going to do anything.” Benny dropped his voice and gave Amelia a mean look. “Are you, love? No, you’re not going to because it would be a really bad idea to piss me off just before I’m to decide which shifter to sell you to. We’ve got a few coming by today, some of them are friendlier than others, so if you just play nice, I will make sure you end up in good hands.”

  “You’re not going to sell me to anyone!” Amelia put some heat in her voice, from the fire which was burning in her belly. The will to survive.

  The shifter was still watching her. The corners of his mouth curved, slightly upwards. He wasn’t as tall as Benny, but he looked healthier. He was muscular, but not so much so that it looked unnatural, and he had long, thick black hair that tied in a single braid down the back.

  “How much do you want for her?” asked the shifter, keeping his eyes on Amelia.

  Benny gawked. “But I thought you said––”

  “I asked,” repeated the shifter. “How much do you want for her?”

  The fire inside her slowly started to die, as Amelia realized there might not be a way out of this. Before, she thought she might have had a chance, if she just had to slip past Benny. But now, if this shifter wants her, she’d have to get past both of them, and there was no way that was going to happen.

  “Please,” Amelia changed her tactics. “Don’t do this.” She was looking at the shifter, not Benny, seeing this man as the more reasonable of the two, if only by a miniscule amount. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this. I was just walking home and this psycho grabbed me, drugged me, and threw me in a cage!”

  She expected that revelation to evoke some sort of response from the shifter, but his face remained stoic.

  “I’ll take her,” he said, and turned to face Benny. “Take this.” He started to unknot the skinny leather bracelet that was wrapped around his wrist. There was a single precious gem at the center of the bracelet –– a large sapphire –– which was probably worth more money than Amelia would make in her lifetime. “It should be more than enough to cover the cost.”

  Benny greedily grabbed at the bracelet, held it above his head, and squinted at the gem. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said. “You can take her now.”

  The shifter reached out for Amelia’s arm, but she jerked out of the way. “Don’t touch me.” She was still holding the lamp. Her arm was starting to get really tired. “I’m not going with you.”

  He gave her a serious look, like he was trying to tell her something with his eyes. “Just come with me and there won’t be any trouble. Hurry now, I have places I need to be.” He raised his eyebrows, almost pleading with her.

  Amelia felt an unexpected sensation melt through and snuff out the few embers that were left burning inside her. She put the lamp down slowly, not breaking eye contact with the shifter, and let him wrap his hand around her wrist, which he did gently.

  She trusted him. But why?

  They made their way past Benny and out into the hallway. He was leading her towards the front door of the disgusting, dilapidated house where the snatchers apparently hold their captives. Suddenly, it occurred to her that maybe the shifter had done something to her, he was a supernatural after all. She’d never heard of a shifter having any powers beyond the obvious ones which came with their shifts, but it could be possible. A mage and a shifter could have gotten together and had a sort of hybrid baby.

  As they neared the door, the morning sun was streaming through a nearby window and fell upon Amelia’s face. In that moment, she decided it didn’t matter one way or another if she was under some sort of spell, her priority right now was to get the hell out of that house, whatever means necessary.

  The shifter opened the door, let go of her wrist, and gestured for her to go first. “After you.”

  Without stopping to look at what was ahead, Amelia bolted through the door. The sunlight was bright in her eyes, and she was temporarily blinded. The first few steps into her escape, she felt the ground beneath her feet, then suddenly there was nothing and she was falling.

  A moment later, she hit the hard, dirt floor of the house’s front lawn. Which, maybe at one time, was equipped with fresh, green grass, but all of that had since died and it was now just dirt and weeds. The wind was knocked out of her, and her head began to spin. She was only now beginning to understand just how stupid a plan that was. First of all, she should have been smart enough to realize that there was a front porch on the house, and that she should have looked for a set of stairs before bounding off into the sunrise. Second of all, over the last twenty-four hours, she had been drugged, cut open, and given no food; how far did she honestly think she was going to get in her current state?

  “Need a hand?”

  Amelia rolled over onto her back, wincing and trying to bring air back into her lungs. The shifter was standing over her, smiling, and holding out a helping hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet with ease.

  He let go of her arm. Putting her hands on her legs and leaning over, Amelia tried to blink away the blurriness in her eyes and figure out what to do next. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.” She spat on the ground, having accidentally gotten some dirt in her mouth from falling face first into the Earth.

  “Can I drive you home?” he asked, nodding towards a car parked in the driveway of the house.

  “It’s not far,” said Amelia, looking at the surrounding houses and recognizing the neighborhood. “I can probably walk.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I figured you wouldn’t want to be walking around this neighborhood with so little clothing and no ID tag, but hey, what do I know?” He smiled at her, a gesture she did not return.

  Shaking her head she said, “Hang on a second, I don’t understand. You’re just letting me go?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I meant what I said back there. I have no interest in purchasing a human.”

  “But… then why did you? Buy me, I mean.”

  “I didn’t buy you to have you,” said the shifter. “I just felt bad for you.”

  Usually, Amelia didn’t like pity, but in this case, she felt it wa
s warranted. Who wouldn’t pity a girl in her situation, besides maybe the men responsible for putting her in that situation to begin with?

  “Still,” she said. “That seems like a lot of money to waste helping someone you don’t know.” She felt the wind on her bare skin, and crossed her arms over her chest and tried not to think about how vulnerable she felt. “If you think I’m going to be able to pay you back, I’m sorry to break it to you, but I haven’t got a penny to my name. If it’s favors or repayment you’re looking for, you better go save one of the girls snatched from West Eight.”

  The shifter shrugged. “I’m not worried about repayment. I will be seeing that bracelet soon enough.” He took off the coat he was wearing, which was oversized even on him, and handed it to Amelia. Underneath he wasn’t wearing a shirt and his pants hung low on his waist. “Here, you can wear this.”

  “Thanks.” Amelia put the coat on and zipped it up. It must’ve looked like a baggy, trash bag of a dress, but at least she was covered. “What do you mean you’ll be seeing it?”

  “The moment I figured out what they were doing there, I called some of my friends in the District Eight police department. They should be here to bust them any minute. They’ll set the other women free. Hopefully I’ll be able to find that little family heirloom in some evidence bag in the next few days. As for not knowing each other, my name is Eldan.” Once again, he stuck his hand out.

  Amelia cautiously shook it. “I’m Amelia.”

  “It’s wonderful to meet you,” he said. “Now how about that ride home? Or, if you’d like, we could stop for a bite to eat. You look like you could use a decent meal… No offense.”

  Amelia laughed softly and kicked some dirt around with her bare foot. “I am pretty hungry… and it’s not like there’s going to be any food at my house. But I don’t have any shoes and I don’t think any decent restaurant will let me in looking like this.”

  “We’ll go to my house,” Eldan suggested. “My cook can make you anything you want. And we can see if there isn’t something for you to wear. I can also call my doctor and have him meet us there, he can take a look at your arm.” He looked at her bandaged bicep, which was once again bleeding.

  Amelia wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about this offer. The whole situation struck her as a little fishy. And, she wasn’t entirely convinced that he hadn’t somehow put a spell on her or did some sort of shifter mind control thing. She remembers hearing rumors as a kid that they could do that. Her stomach, however, was completely convinced. It had stopped growling earlier that morning and had settled into a dull ache. At the mention of having someone cook whatever she wanted, Amelia’s brain jumped right to a gooey, crispy grilled cheese sandwich, and she knew there was no turning back after that.

  “Sure, okay,” she said. “That sounds fine.”

  They walked over to his car, which was nice looking, though nothing too special. Although, in District Eight, owning a car in general was an achievement. Most people walked everywhere or used public transportation, seeing as the entire span of the district, from the furthest point West to the furthest point East, was only five miles. He opened the front seat door for her and she slid inside the leather bucket seat. Amelia could count how many times she’d been inside a car on one hand, and being used to sitting on buses, she completely forgot about the safety belt option available. When Eldan got into his seat, pulled the nylon straps over his chest and waist and buckled himself in, Amelia watched and did the same.

  “This is uncomfortable,” she said, tugging at the strap which crossed over her chest, between her breasts. “I can’t believe you wear these all the time.”

  “It’s safer that way,” said Eldan. “Where I’m from, there are a lot more people on the road, and therefore, a lot more accidents. The seat belts are maybe over cautious in a city like this, where no one drives, but I feel better having it on.” He put the key in the ignition and started the car.

  “Where are you from?” asked Amelia. They pulled out of the driveway and onto the main road. “Another district?”

  “No, actually,” said Eldan. “I’m from a region outside of the districts. We call it Meldania. It was colonized by my people long before the war, which we were not a part of.”

  “Your people didn’t fight in the war?” Amelia frowned. “I thought every shifter group fought. And… well…”

  “What is it?” he said. “I can tell there is more you’d like to say.”

  She hesitated for a moment longer, but seeing that Eldan was smiling at her, Amelia decided it was probably safe to say what was on her mind. “It’s just that I’ve heard horror stories about the war… many of which have to do with what the dragon shifters did.”

  “That wasn’t us. We are a peaceful people. The stories you’ve heard are likely about our cousins, another group of dragon shifters called the draaks.” He was quiet for a moment. He leaned back in his seat and relaxed his grip on the wheel. “We never saw the point in joining the war –– there was nothing for us to gain. We had everything we needed already, and we aren’t fans of needless violence.”

  “Are there any humans living in Meldania?”

  Eldan nodded. “A few human families live there, but they are fairly recent citizens. They’ve been living in Meldania for ten or fifteen years maybe. Some humans ended up escaping the war zones you now call districts and finding their way to us. I was just a kid then, but I remember how excited my dad was to meet the humans and hear all their stories about human culture before the war.”

  “Is he the one that collects human items?” Eldan didn’t answer immediately, prompting Amelia to stop staring out the window and look at him. He was facing forward, but even from his profile, she could tell he was upset. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, but didn’t offer any more information.

  “So you’re taking me out of Eight?” she said. “Can’t you get in trouble for that? I don’t even have an ID tag, which is definitely going to raise some red flags when we get to the border checkpoint.”

  “I know some people there too,” said Eldan.

  “You have all the connections it seems,” said Amelia. “I guess it’s true what they say, money really does open any door.”

  Eldan smiled. “I hadn’t heard that one.”

  They drove in silence for the rest of the way. Amelia felt exhaustion begin to wash over her, waves of sleep lapping at her, trying to pull her further into the ocean of sleep, underneath the surface of consciousness. She resisted at first, but was quickly overcome. The blood loss and lack of food was really starting to take its toll, and it felt so good to let her eyes close and allow the movement of the car lull her.

  She thought she heard someone, possibly Eldan, say something like, “We’ll be there soon,” just as she was slipping into slumber, but it might have been a dream.

  We’ll be there soon, her subconscious repeated. We’ll be there soon.

  4

  Welcome to Meldania

  Amelia often experienced the same dream. It always began the exact same way, in the house she grew up in, surrounded by her brothers and sisters. It was always nighttime, late, long after her parents had left for whatever party or, as they would refer to it “grown up thing,” they had going that night, and Amelia would be left in charge. Even though she wasn’t the oldest, it was clear to everyone in the family, early on, that she was the most responsible.

  The dream was ripped from a real memory Amelia had from when she was just nine years old. Victoria was over, and she and Amelia had just managed to get the triplets in bed, in the room all seven kids had to share. She and her friend crawled up to the top bunk of one of the three sets of bunk beds crammed into the tiny bedroom, and they flipped through a book Victoria’s mom had kept from before the war. It was a picture book for kids called Learning Our Bodies, and inside there were crudely drawn depictions of naked men and women. The two girls were giggling to one another, pointing out p
arts of the anatomy and trying to sound out the funny names.

  In reality, the two girls had giggled too loudly and woke up everyone else, which brought their fun to an abrupt stop. But in her dream, nobody woke up. Amelia didn’t have any responsibilities and she and Victoria had a pile of picture books and toys all to themselves. They could read and play all they wanted, and Amelia’s dad never came home drunk, stumbling over furniture and getting into arguments with the empty fridge. Instead, they were just kids. In this dreamworld, Amelia was just a kid, and more importantly, she was happy.

  It was her favorite dream, and she always hated to wake up from it.

  This morning, however, she wasn’t torn from her dream by the aggressive beeping of her alarm. Rather, she drifted out of slumber alongside the smell of fresh coffee and the sensation of warm sunshine on her cheek.

  Amelia opened her eyes to find that she was in a bed that wasn’t hers, in a room that she didn’t recognize. At first, her foggy brain thought she must’ve been in Victoria’s apartment. She forgot, for a brief, peaceful moment, all about the past two days, and was staring cheerily out the window by the bed, outside of which was flying a perky bluebird. The moment lasted right up until the point that she rolled over on her other side and startling, hot pain began to shoot down her arm and throughout her whole side-body.

  Sitting up and gasping, Amelia remembered.

  She tried to grab the wounded arm through the harsh fabric of Eldan’s coat, which she was still wearing. She pulled open the neck and looked down at the rest of her body, making sure she was still wearing her underwear. She was.

  She slipped out from under the silky sheets and saw that on the bedside table sat a pot of coffee, a mug, and a note. She opened the small, folded piece of paper and read:

  Amelia,

  You fell asleep in the car. I brought you inside my house and put you in the guest room. Assuming you get up this morning (Saturday morning), then you have been sleeping since early yesterday morning. Here is some coffee. My doctor has agreed to see you whenever you want, if you want. His number is on the kitchen counter. I will be home tonight. Feel free to stay. The house staff will provide you with anything you may need.