POV: Sable
The funeral program was still in my hand when my uncle slammed the folder on the table.
I had not put it down yet. Mom's name was printed at the top in small black letters — Helen Thorne, Beloved Mother — and I was still holding it like if I let go, the last piece of her would disappear too. Dad's name was on a separate one. He died first. A car accident, they said. Mom followed three days later. The doctors called it shock. I called it heartbreak.
Two weeks. That is all it took for everything to vanish.
Marlowe did not wait for me to look up. He did not wait for me to stop crying or catch my breath or even sit down properly. He just walked into the kitchen of his cold, ugly house, dropped a glass of whiskey on the table hard enough to make it splash, and opened that folder like it was the most important thing in the world.
"I found you a husband," he said.
I stared at him. The words did not make sense at first — like he was speaking a different language. A husband. I was twenty-four. My parents had been dead for fourteen days. I still had dirt under my fingernails from helping dig the graves because we could not afford to pay anyone else.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
Marlowe took a long drink. His hand was steady. His eyes were not sad. They were sharp and bright, the way they always got when money was involved. I had seen that look before — every time a bill came, every time a debt collector called, every time he needed something from someone and did not care what it cost.
"A man. Rich. Older. He wants a young wife," Marlowe said, like he was reading a shopping list. "I already signed the papers."
The kitchen went silent. Even the old clock on the wall seemed to stop ticking.
"You signed what?" My voice came out small. Broken.
"The contract. It is done, Sable. Fifty thousand dollars." He said the number like it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. "The car comes tomorrow morning. You pack one bag."
I pushed back from the table so fast my chair scraped against the floor. "No. You cannot do this. I am not a thing you can sell—"
Marlowe slammed his fist down. The whiskey glass jumped. I flinched — I always flinched when he moved fast. He had taught me to do that a long time ago.
"Listen to me," he said, and his voice dropped low and cold. "You have nothing. No parents. No money. No home. This house is not yours — it is mine. And in two weeks, I am losing it too." He leaned forward. "So you can either get in that car tomorrow and live somewhere warm and safe with a rich man, or you can end up on the street with nothing. Those are your choices. Pick one."
I wanted to fight. I wanted to scream and throw things and run out the door. But where would I go? I had checked my bank account that morning. Forty-three dollars. Mom and Dad left nothing behind — just debts and a small life that fit inside two cardboard boxes.
Marlowe was right. I had nothing.
That was the worst part. Not that he sold me. But that he was right.
I did not cry that night. I thought I would, but the tears would not come. I just sat on the edge of my small bed and packed my one bag in silence. I put in three sets of clothes. Mom's old necklace — a simple silver chain with a tiny pendant shaped like a leaf. Dad's watch, which had stopped working years ago but I could not throw away. A photograph of the three of us taken at the beach when I was twelve. Mom was laughing. Dad was pretending to be scared of the waves. I was the happiest I had ever been.
I held the photo for a long time before I put it in the bag.
When I zipped it shut, I sat back and looked around my room. There was nothing else worth taking. Nothing else that was mine. I was twenty-four years old, and my entire life fit inside one small bag.
I did not sleep that night. I just sat there, waiting for morning, listening to Marlowe drink in the kitchen below. At some point, around three in the morning, I heard him on the phone. His voice was low, but I was right above the kitchen, and the walls were thin.
"Yeah, she does not know anything," Marlowe was saying. "She thinks she is just a regular girl. The pills worked perfectly — kept it locked down her whole life."
I frowned. Pills? What pills? He was talking about the vitamins. The green ones he had made me take every single day since I was seven years old. Every single day, without fail. If I ever forgot, he would get angry — angrier than I had ever seen him get about anything else.
"No, no, she will not cause problems," Marlowe continued. "She is quiet. Soft. She does not fight back. Trust me — she is exactly what your client wants."
My blood went cold.
I pressed my hand over my mouth to keep myself from making a sound. My heart was beating so fast it hurt.
Kept it locked down.
What did that mean? What had he been locking? What were those pills actually doing to me?
I looked down at my hands. The same hands I had looked at every single day of my life. Ordinary hands. Normal hands.
But Marlowe's voice kept playing in my head, over and over.
She thinks she is just a regular girl.
The way he said it — like it was a joke. Like there was something I did not know. Something big. Something he had been hiding from me my entire life.
I sat in the dark, and for the first time, I did not feel afraid of the man who was about to sell me to a stranger.
I felt afraid of myself.
Because whatever I was — whatever those pills had been hiding all these years — it was about to wake up.
And I had no idea what it would do when it did.