Chapter 3 3.Human

Methis Delis POV

That afternoon after I saw my contract to be sold, I spent a huge chunk of the afternoon crying my eyes out in my room. Muttering curses for my stepmother for throwing me away. It might have been temporary, but it was going to hurt nonetheless. She was not going to be able to see her father for the entirety of her stay, neither was she going to be able to speak with her friends or do all the fun stuffs she used to do. Now she was stuck in a contract. She had to honour the clauses stipulated in the contract. After weeping my eyes out, I heard my stepmother scream my name from downstairs. There was no time to start up a fight with her. She had already won and had made a sizeable amount of money doing so.

Once I was downstairs, my stepmother comprehended me with repulsive stares. "Why is your eyes red?" She asked.

"Nothing." I replied.

"You are going to chase away these people looking like this. Go up and brush up."

"Don't worry. I'm his wife am I not? After he takes me every morning do you expect my hair to be all perfect and my face made up?"

My stepmother closed the gap between us. She was much bigger than I was. "Don't give me that attitude girl."

I hissed and walked back up the stairs, on my way she grabbed me by my arms and spun me around, raising her hand to hit me but stopped halfway after catching a smile in the corner of my lips. She was thinking the same thing. They might return me if they see me with a black eye or traces of physical abuse. She let me go and I went back upstairs, fixing my hair and redoing my dress just in time.

My stepmother must have planned it all out well. The contract required the man to provide me with clothing so as I left the house in my stepmother's car with just a few things small enough to fit in one backpack, the camping story was even more believable.

We pulled into a public garage and we exited the car. There were a few other cars in the garage but one stood out. A black one, immaculate in its appearance and fancy too. The body was so black it shone and reflected and outside it stood a man in a black coat. He had a black cap on that partly concealed his face. As I and my stepmother drew closer, he took off the cap and welcomed us with a creepy smile. I froze but my stepmother nudged me on.

"Get in the car," she whispered to me. "You better be good."

"Yeah?" I whispered back. "Says the person who sells her own daughter." I said, making reference to the first time we met when she introduced herself as my 'mother.'

Unsurprisingly, she had a comeback. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not as if I gave birth to you so shut up and be good."

I got in the car. I tried not to show my reluctance. If I had one chance to take this all back and make it like this never happened, I would be more than glad to take that chance even if it involves me having to fight a bear.

My stepmother and my new husband exchanged words outside the car. She was smiling but he wasn't. Clearly, she was trying to get a raise or something or an extra bonus for bringing her to such healthy state. That woman would do anything for money, I thought. It burned me that they were haggling over my price as if I was an object, as if I was worthless. It made me feel hopeless.

So much for being special, mum. I felt more stupid now thinking of my mum's words. It was something that used to give me pride but now it ridicled me. What was I thinking believing it anyway? A bloody stupid moon appears during my birth and I'm suddenly special. Well, maybe I was in an awful way. Because there aren't a lot of teenagers my age who get sold out by their stepmother.

My husband gets in the car. He clicks his teeth and jokes: "That woman sure loves money" before driving off.

I don't laugh at the joke.

We spend some time in the car and it is eerily quiet. The car has a leather smell like it was brand new. Not much in the car that was able to give away how long it has been used. My husband does not say a word. He just keeps his eye trained on the road, not turning to the side for a split second to apprehend me.

Maybe he was expecting me to talk first. To ask questions. If so, he was wasting his time and there was no way on earth I was going to strike up a conversation with the person who bought me from my father through my stepmother.

It was not until we got to the sign that bid us farewell from our town did I realized that I might be actually doing another thing I haven't done in my life - go far from home. It was bad enough to think of going alone or with a friend but now I was going with a complete stranger who in a few hours or so, would claim me on the bed as his own, defiling the body I had kept for 18 years. Another thought came to my mind. What if this man was trafficking me? It made sense that way. Meet a greedy woman who only cares about money, offer her money for a girl and resell the girl for a higher price. Surely, younger girls just reaching their most attractive stage who are virgins were hard to find and they ought to pay the most.

Now I felt like I had to start a conversation. I needed to know where they were taking me.

"Where are we heading?" I asked.

"Home," he replied as quickly as I had asked.

"Isn't that where we are leaving?" I lost my confidence and my voice began to crack. "Why did you buy me?"

"There is a purpose more than what you might think. You aren't ready for it now."

"I am." I insisted. "I know I am. I can tell."

The man just turns to me and smiles the same creepy smile. I shivered a little.

"What kind of man doesn't tell his wife anything?" I sum up the courage to ask.

"The kind that doesn't have one." Was his reply.

I turned to him confused. "What do you mean? You bought me to wife, didn't you?"

"I didn't," He said. "The alpha did."

"Your boss?" I asked.

"You could put it that way."

The man must have felt the tension because he then slowed down and faced me occasionally. "Look, I don't know what your mother said to you about us but we aren't like that. We are good people and we will welcome you."

Weirdly enough, it worked. I calmed myself a little and began to focus on enjoying the ride. "She's not my mother," I said. "She is my stepmother."

"What happened to your mother?" He asked. His questions did not come off cold but caring.

"Dead," I replied.

"I'm so sorry, kid."

With that we drove smoothly until we got to a riverside and booked a ferret to the other side.