Chapter 8 · Hunt Night Starts Early

The screen above the emergency exit flickers. My face fills the frame, blown up to three times life size. Underneath in clinical white text: Lot #7 - Ivy Gray - Current Bid: 15,000.

I'm still holding the torn ledger page. The ink's smudged where my thumb pressed too hard. Cain Locke's name in Lila's handwriting.

Fifteen thousand학분 for one night of "high-end companionship." The bid counter ticks up. Seventeen thousand.

I didn't agree to this.

My wrist burns. The mark Cain left two days ago pulses in time with my heartbeat. I shove the page into my jacket pocket and start moving. The corridor splits three ways ahead. Left goes deeper into the market. Right loops back toward Lila's office where security's probably waiting. Straight leads to the lift platforms.

I go straight.

Behind me a door slams open. Voices. Not security uniforms—these ones are excited. Hunting voices.

"She went this way."

"Twenty thousand if we bring her in."

I don't look back. My boots hit concrete in a rhythm I learned last life: heel-toe, quiet, fast. Don't sprint. Sprinting makes noise and you can't sprint forever.

Another screen flashes as I pass. My face again.