Chapter 4

Isabelle returned later, after most of the guests had left. She was pushing a metal cart. On it was a high-pressure hose and a large canister marked "STERILIZATION AGENT." A malicious, victorious grin was plastered on her face.

"Time for a little cleaning," she said sweetly. "We can't have our prize looking all bloody and scratched up for the big day, can we?"

I backed away, pressing myself against the far wall of the pool. A hoarse, pleading sound escaped my throat. I knew this wasn't about cleaning. This was about cruelty.

Aris followed her in. He glanced at the equipment on the cart and frowned slightly, but it wasn't a frown of concern for me. It was the frown of a scientist worried about an uncontrolled variable. He didn't even ask what was in the canister. He just stood there, watching, a silent accomplice to my torture.

Isabelle picked up the nozzle of the hose. "Don't worry," she cooed at me. "This will be quick."

She pulled the trigger. A powerful jet of water slammed into me, knocking the air from my lungs. It felt like being hit by a solid object. Before I could recover, she switched to the sterilization agent. A clear, viscous liquid mixed with the water, and the moment it touched my skin, it burned. It was an agony beyond anything I had ever felt, a thousand hot needles stabbing into me all at once.

A piercing scream tore from my throat. I thrashed wildly in the shallow water, trying to escape the searing pain, but there was nowhere to go. The chemical clung to me, burning my skin, my scales, my eyes.

"Oh, you clumsy thing!" Isabelle said to the technician she'd brought with her. "You've got the pressure too high!" She was smiling as she said it, a wide, ecstatic smile of pure sadism. "Just hold on, little pet," she called to me. "It'll be over soon."

Through a haze of pain, my blurry eyes searched for Aris. I needed him to stop this. I needed to see a flicker of the man I once knew. But he wasn't looking at me. He had his back turned to the pool. He was looking down at a tablet in his hands, his brow furrowed in concentration as he studied the data streaming from the sensors in my tank. My heart rate, my stress levels, my agony-it was all just numbers on a screen to him. I was an experiment, and my screams were just data points.

The burning finally stopped. I was left trembling in the water, my body a map of raw, red burns. The world was a dull, throbbing ache.

Later that night, long after Isabelle had gone, Aris came back. He was carrying a tray. On it was a syringe filled with a pale gold liquid. A sedative.

"You're too agitated, Lyra," he said, his voice trying for a calm, clinical tone. "Your stress levels are dangerously high. This will help you rest before the auction."

He was going to drug me, to make me docile and compliant for my new owner.

As a mechanical arm lowered into the tank to restrain me, I found a last reserve of strength. I weakly thrashed, trying to get away from it, but I was too weak. The arm clamped onto me, holding me still.

Aris approached with the needle. He looked into my eyes, and for a moment, just a moment, he hesitated. His hand paused almost imperceptibly. He saw the last spark of fight in me, the last flicker of the soul he was methodically destroying.

Then, his expression hardened. His resolve returned, cold and absolute. He pushed the needle into my arm and depressed the plunger. As the drug flooded my system, I felt the last light inside me go out. My pupils dilated, and the world dissolved into a gray fog. The last thing I saw was his face, focused and emotionless, like a technician performing a routine procedure.

He checked the data on his tablet one more time. "Vitals stabilizing," he murmured to himself. He let out a soft sigh of relief. Without a single glance at my silent, motionless form sinking to the bottom of the pool, he turned and walked quickly out of the room.

My consciousness faded. In the encroaching darkness, my mind drifted. I was back on that sunny beach, the day I first saw him. He was smiling at me. And I, filled with a foolish, innocent love, was smiling back. It was a mistake. My very first mistake.