You don't know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

ღ

It wasn't supposed to happen this way, not like this, never like this. Not after all we went through, how hard we fought, how long we ran... I thought we'd escaped, I thought we'd proven those stuffy old library books wrong and that you could outrun your past. It turned out that those books were right, and they were sugarcoating it. I was hopeful, I had always been a dreamer, and I'd tried to make some of them come true, if not for me, then at least for my brother. But, only those at the top can afford to dream. I guess I deserve having reality punch me right in the face for that. It's all right, though.

I punch back.

Have you ever felt yourself turn numb? Completely numb, as if your senses have turned off and left you to face the world in gray static? That's how it feels when you're completely consumed by panic, the raw sort of panic that grips you by your bones. Panic's not the greatest asset when you're trying to fight for your life. It might be good for that burst of adrenaline, but it's such a brief strike that it wears off too quick.

I don't remember much of what happened—as I said, completely numb—when they first found us. I never even realized someone was stalking us, following our trail until they were ready to finish the job. It happened so fast, in a blur of color and shouting that left me feeling like the whole world had turned upside down on me. One second I was standing in an open clearing, ears pricked at the sound of leaves crunching. The next, my senses got filled with shouting and rough hands were grabbing at my arms.

I do remember screaming for my brother to run, and I tried to keep the bastards off him long enough for him to make an escape. There were just too many of them; all men, burly and hulking. I wasn't going to outmatch them, and I knew my brother wasn't going to outrun them, but we were sure as hell going to try. What else is there to do but to try? I'd tried for years to cover our tracks and keep ourselves off the radar. I'd tried to make sure we were safe, and it hadn't made a difference. We were sitting ducks that whole time…and I had promised I'd protect my brother. The men that came for us were wearing dirty clothes, neither peasant garb nor that pretty silk that the richer folks wore. A silver gleam hung around one man's throat; the guy that snatched me up by both my arms and pulled me close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath. I recognized the insignia on the man's necklace, and it was enough for me to gather the strength to kick him right in the groin.

I'm still bitter about the way he shoved my face into the dirt.

These men were catchers; those who hunted people down and sold them into the slave market. People who were out on the streets, pretty faces who stayed out too late and never made it home, and people like us. Two ragged, hideaway vagabonds with no family and nowhere to go. I must've gotten too cocky, too comfortable in the way we were living. I mean, you spend so long evading something awful and you start to believe you're immune to it, like you're indomitable. I wasn't feeling so unbreakable when a pair of strong, and rather angry, hands manhandled me into the back of a van. My head collided against one of the barred walls inside the bed of the van, and moments after, I saw them toss the crumpled form of my brother in alongside me. The sight of them treating him with such carelessness ripped the blanket of numbness off me, leaving my senses raw and sizzling.

"Let us out!" I screamed, lunging towards the door even when it slammed in my face. I pounded my fists against it, breaking the skin of my knuckles on the iron bars that protected the back door. Sweat dripped down my temple and into a cut I had on my cheek, and I only screamed louder. I don't doubt that I would have broken both my hands before the door ever gave way. The only thing standing in my way was the hand that snatched me by my shoulder and yanked me back, away from the door.

"Stop it!" my brother snapped, his hand tight on my shoulder, "you're going to hurt yourself even worse!"

I blinked away the grit from my eyes to focus on the swimming picture of his face, his round eyes were wide with concern and panic. I felt struck by the sight of how young he looked. His face had sharpened over the years as he started growing from the small, waifish boy I knew and into an adult. He was still but seventeen, and while that may be an adult to most, he would always be my little brother. Shame welled in my chest when I realized that I had scared him with my vicious display. He'd been through enough without my adding to it.

I bowed my head into my hands to cover my anguish. "How could I have been such an idiot?" I murmured, unable to stop myself from replaying the whole scene in my head. Had I been faster, stronger, had I noticed from the start that someone was tracking us, then we wouldn't be sitting in a roving cage on our way to a slave market. I'd doomed the only person I had left to protect. Some guardian I was, huh? "I'm so sorry, Alex. I'm so sorry," I said, but I knew I could spit all the apologies I wanted to and it wouldn't fix anything.

My brother gave me a shaky smile that tried to be reassuring. "Hey, we've been through worse. We can make it out of this, too." He gave my shoulder a squeeze. The brave face he was trying to put on melted my heart, and my heart didn't need any more to deal with. Of the two of us, Alex was the one who tended to keep his cool in the face of catastrophe. He was the only reason I'd kept my head over the years. I don't remember a time without him, after all. I was but a year older than he was. Even as children, he'd been the quieter kid, more interested in books than anything else. He took after our father, who was a reserved and taciturn man. I guess I took after our mother, but all I remember about her now was her voice. She used to sing to us, when we couldn't sleep or when we were afraid. I would kill to hear her, now.

I was six when my parents died, my brother was five. I don't remember how they died, but I remember spending the whole night alone. I huddled up in their bed and cradled my brother in a hug as we pretended neither of us were afraid of the dark. When morning came, it wasn't our parents who knocked on the door, but a pair of men dressed in blinding white who promised they would take care of us. I was only six years old, how I was I to know any better? I didn't know they were bad men. They dressed in white, they were calm, like any doctor. Doctors were supposed to be good people. We had no other family to take us in, no one was going to notice two scruffy children going missing, especially not two ibrida.

Ibrida were considered filthy, stupid, like animals. We were people born with animal characteristics both in appearance and senses, and we tended to stay together in large families, like packs. We stuck with our kind. My parents were on their own when they had children, though; my mother was a Lupus ibrida, wolf, and my father a Feles, cat. As I said earlier, I took after my mother, and my brother after our father. Ibrida were the ones most often sold into the slave market, regarded as pets by nobles and rich folks.

There were plenty of uses that people preyed on when it came to slavery. People got sold as servants, maids, entertainment, sometimes even food. Everyone knew the black market dealt in awful, heinous work, but as long as everyone benefited from it, they were happy to turn a blind eye. Powerful businesses often purchased people for labor; you didn't have to pay a servant, and when they outgrew their prime, you could recycle them. I tried not to think about the worst, but there was no "good" when it came down to it.

"Amaya?" I started when my brother said my name, his tentative voice almost overshadowed by the sound of tires driving over gravel. "You don't think that…you don't think they're taking us back there, do you?" he asked, wringing his hands.

I straightened up to lean my back against the bars in the van. I couldn't answer him in certainty, but I could give him a pretty good guess. "I doubt that. These men work for the slave run, Alex, they look nothing like the doctors did," I reassured. As pitiful as the good news was, I saw Alex's shoulders relax a fraction. Any minutia of good news was better than nothing, I suppose. I'd sworn to never allow either of us to go back to those laboratories. No matter how terrible this fate was, it would be better than what was in store for anyone at that facility.

My brother and I spent seven years, caged and at the mercy of reckless and painful experiments at the hands of people who never saw us as children. They didn't look at any of the people imprisoned there as anything other than subjects. I met the devil while trapped in that place, and for as long as I live, I will never forget his cold, intelligent, and vindictive eyes. I would sooner die than ever see any of them again. When I broke us out of that hellhole, I swore I would tear out the throat of any of them I ever saw again, with nothing but my teeth if I had to. I guess my word wasn't very good, looking at where I was, now.

The van came to a stop that made both Alex and I lurch forward, thrown off balance by the screeching halt. Instinctively, we reached out for one another, seeking out the only comfort we've ever known. From outside, I listened as muffled, gruff voices bantered back and forth, rounding the van to come to the backdoor. The handle jiggled as one of the catchers worked to unlock it, and as it started to open, a growl worked its way up my throat and I pushed Alex behind me. The doors flung open, revealing the gray brick wall of a towering building as well as a hulking man whom I didn't recognize as one of the catchers. He must've been a guard for the particular compound. He stepped inside the bed of the van, shaking the whole vehicle. A sleazy chuckle bled past his cracked lips when his eyes passed first over my brother, then over me. There was nothing in his eyes, it was like he was looking at two pieces of meat.

"What've we got here?" he asked, slapping his hands together with a booming clap. Behind me, I felt Alex flinch at the noise as it echoed in our small enclosure. "It looks like two fresh pieces of veal. What's the matter, did you get caught by the big bad slave catcher? Too stupid to cover your tracks?" The yokel threw his head back with a guffaw. Comedy must be hard to come by, in these parts.

"I don't think you have any room to talk about being stupid, Jumbo," Alex hissed out. I smirked at the noise the guard made—like a dying cat—and commended my brother's quick wit. My amusement was brief before it got snuffed out when the man lumbered forward, his thick arm outstretched to grab at Alex. Without a second thought, I was standing and driving my fist into the bastard's gut as hard as I could. Neither of us enjoyed it much; he let out a pained burst of air and my wrist cracked in protest. He stumbled back and I collapsed back onto the floor, cradling my hand, and lamenting how hard that guy was beneath his shirt. I thought he'd be soft, but there was a wall of muscle. "You bitch," he snarled, spittle flying from his mouth as he lunged and grabbed a handful of my hair.

From somewhere behind me, I heard my brother screaming. At least, I think I did. It might've been myself I was hearing, as I kicked and clawed at the man's hands, all while he dragged me out of the van and across the dirt.t. It was as if I were nothing but a sack of potatoes to him. He lost his grip on me once, but before I could pick myself up long enough to take advantage of his falter, he'd snatched me by the back of my shirt and swung me off the ground. My back and head slammed into the brick of the building, and in the split-second I was awake long enough to feel it, my entire body was a flash-bomb of pain.

I can hear someone screaming. It's that shrieky, frantic scream that children call to the heavens, the one when you know something is truly, terribly awry. A bout of breathless crying follows the screaming, as if the child has screamed all she can. Her lungs are too raw to do anything except gag on gut-wrenching sobs. I don't want to open my eyes, I believe I can go my whole life without seeing what's making a child emit such horrible sounds.

Slowly, as if I'm not even the one controlling my body, my eyes pry open to blinding white. Nothing but white surrounds me, and it takes me several seconds to realize that, in the sea of stark whiteness, there are people. Chained to a table is a little girl with wild red hair, her wrists are bloody and raw from the way she keeps yanking her wrists on them, struggling to tear herself free. A part of me wants to shout at her to stop, but I don't think she'll hear me. She's transfixed on something behind me, her little eyes blown wide and her face stricken with horror.

I have to turn. I have to turn around. My bones creak as I twist myself to look. A tiny little boy sits strapped to a chair, his skinny arms pinned straight. On either side of this fragile looking child, there are amorphous white beings, creatures that I can't seem to see any shape in, they simply…are. They're injecting a dark, viscous liquid into the boy's arm, and he's screaming, my god, is he screaming. I try to back away from his deafening shrieks, wracked with pain and confusion, but I'm glued to my spot. Why are they doing this? Is he sick, are they helping him? Why is he crying so much? From behind me, the girl's screaming has started again, louder this time. Why? What's happening to them, here? "Why are you doing this?!" I hear a voice shout, and it sounds like my own.

I hear someone moving, walking, and I whip around in time to see someone slap their hand across the little girl's face. Blood splatters from her mouth and onto me, flecking my face in warm, sticky droplets. This creature is one I can see. It's a man, with long dark hair and translucent skin. My stomach turns when I realize I can see his veins. It's like I'm watching a horrible scene unfold through the eyes of a character when the man starts to turn, too slow. It feels like I've stood here for hours before the curtain of his hair falls out of the way and he has turned to face me. His eyes are yellow, and they bore into me with cold, dangerous intent, as if he may kill me right there.

The girl is still screaming.

I woke up choking on a gasp. Startled by the jarring awakening, I bolted upright and felt immediate regret when my head exploded with pain. My back felt bruised and my legs scraped raw, but with a cautious touch to the back of my head, I determined that there was no bleeding, and that was all that mattered. I opened one eye with a dull groan, but everything around me was dim. I was still struggling to realign myself with consciousness when a sudden force collided into me, two strong arms crushing me into a hug before I could cry out in surprise. "I was so worried," a muffled voice muttered against my shoulder, "you were out for so long!"

Alex. Relief watered down my immediate panic and I wrapped my arms around him in a loose hug. "I'm all right," I croaked, my throat feeling like I'd swallowed gallons of sand. I pulled back and held him at arm's length to get a good look at him. He looked disheveled and exhausted, but other than a few shallow cuts and some dirt covering him, he appeared unharmed. I glanced down to find a splatter of blood staining his right sleeve, and my eyes widened with horror. "Alex, what happened? What's that from?" I asked, my voice cracking in protest. How long was I out? If they had hurt him, I swear—

"It isn't mine," Alex rushed to explain, holding up his hands to calm me. "I punched one of them in the nose." A few seconds passed after the explanation where we did nothing but stare at one another, before twin smiles spread over our faces. I reached up and ruffled his dark hair fondly, which earned a proud snicker from him.

"Atta kid," I praised, unable to quell my pleasure at the thought of Alex socking one of those assholes in their smug face. I held onto Alex's shoulder and pulled myself into a decent sitting position. My head throbbed in painful, rhythmic pulses, and I wanted to collapse back into a ball of self-pity, if only my pride would let me. Instead, it suggested I stand, and I managed. It might've been on shaky legs, but I managed. The cell was too dark to see well, but I took a few cautious steps forward until my fingertips touched a grimy wall. I moved to the side, keeping my palm pressed against the coarse surface of the wall, and hoping I would find a door handle. After a few seconds, I began to believe there was no exit at all, until I finally touched a crack in the wall. There were no handles, but it felt like a door, and it was the only bet I had. Reeling back, I lunged forward and slammed my shoulder against it.

I'm not known for having great ideas. I bounced right off it and collapsed onto the ground in a heap, now in more pain than I was before. I heard my brother hiss out a startled sound somewhere to the side. Well, at least I hadn't hit him while falling. "I don't think we're breaking out of this one," I slurred, dizzy.

"You idiot, it's like a prison cell. The door slides open," Alex snarked, "if only you'd thought to ask."

I exhaled a long sigh, staying right in my spot on the floor instead of listening to my wounded pride, for now. My pride seemed a little down on her luck, lately. "How long was I out?" I asked, my dull voice only carrying far enough for Alex to barely hear. I heard fabric rustling as he shrugged, as if I could see that.

"A couple of hours, at most. The guards tossed us into this room and no one's been around since. They did something to our arms, though." Alex reached out and touched my left wrist, where a slight sting made me wince. I pulled my arm away from him and cradled it, pressing around on my wrist to try to find what Alex was talking about. My fingertips pressed over a raised bump and I swore, banging my fist against the floor. Of all the fucking things.

"It's a tracker," I snarled. They injected it deep beneath the skin, making it dangerous and risky to remove without damaging tendons or nerves. It ensured that no slave could ever escape from the market. Once they got sold, their tracker was programmed for their owner's remote so that the owner could keep track of them. There was no getting away without someone knowing our every move, now.

"If you don't stop, you're going to hurt yourself, and you don't need any help with that." Alex reached over to take my hand in his, giving it a comforting squeeze. "Don't give up yet, okay?" he told me, "we've gotten this far, we can only keep going."

I closed my eyes, but I knew he couldn't see the moisture brimming in them with how dark it was, anyway. "Yeah," I cleared my throat, "yeah, you're right, we've survived everything else, we can figure something out." If my little brother could be strong, then I had to be, too.

From behind, I heard the telltale sound of creaking gears working. Both of us flinched when the door slid open with a giant swish, illuminating our modest cell with dusky light. So thrown off by the brightness, and still not quite put together after the ordeal of earlier, my reflexes were a bit too slow. An iron hand wrapped around my arm and yanked me upwards, dragging me up and out. I stumbled over my own legs and landed in a metal cage, where the frigid surface beneath my back made me hiss through my teeth.

"Get over here, you little waif," the guard snapped. Alex hissed in fury when the broad man took ahold of his hair and shoved him forward, right into the same cage I'd gracefully tumbled into seconds earlier.

"You're a lucky son of a bitch," Alex snapped as the guard slammed the cage door shut. There were several other cells lined up in the long corridor, and from inside some of them, I could hear wailing; some were furious, others sullen, all made my heart break. I could do nothing for any of them, just as I couldn't do anything either for myself or for Alex, who sat bristling at my side. "Where are you taking us?" he asked, only to get met with a sneer from the skeevy looking guard who was wheeling us towards god knows where. My stomach sunk so low that, had I had anything in me, I'd have thrown it up. Alex didn't bother talking anymore, but the silence wasn't as comforting as I wished it would've been.

My eyes fluttered shut once or twice, longing for sleep. One of those times ended up being a little longer than I'd intended, because the next thing I knew, the cage was jerking to a halt, making Alex crash into me. I winced at the impact, but hey, at least I was good for keeping him from crashing into the bars. I turned towards the guard, already with my heart in my throat and prepared for a fight. Only the worst conclusions came to my mind when the guard had brought us into this room alone. To see that the guard was walking away from the cage and leaving us alone left me with a bittersweet mix of comfort and suspicion. Before he could come back, I reached out for the door of the cage and wrapped my hands around the bars to give it a vicious shake, but it did little else than rattle the metal. Fuck, what was with everything being so indestructible around here, there had to be something that would give!

"Amaya," Alex nudged into my heaving side, "I think someone's coming." I stopped my tantrum for long enough to glance towards where my brother was looking. There was a polished wooden door, the only other entry aside from where the guard had wheeled us in. "They sound light," Alex mentioned, his ears twitching as he tried to deduce the sound. I narrowed my eyes, listening to the approaching footsteps as they neared the door. Light or not, that didn't mean anything to me. I'd seen people that were slight and willowy take out men the size of boulders. The doorknob to the room twisted, opening the door with a reluctant click.

I don't know what I was expecting, but two young, run-down looking women didn't meet those expectations. One was a bony, brunette woman who looked as if she had not slept in several moons. Her friend was plumper, filled in the places that made auction-goers clamber for a bid, with stringy blonde hair. Neither of them looked like they'd stay upright if a strong wind blew past, they looked so jittery. "Good evening," the brunette bowed her head, "you may call me Kei, and this is Jasmine. We…we are here to assist you."

I was too shocked by the sight to gather my wits, but Alex was not so sluggish to recover. "Where are we?" he asked, leaning closer to the bars, "what are they going to do with us?"

He sounded so worried, on the verge of losing the composure he'd clung to all night. I placed a hand on his back, even knowing it'd bring no solace. The brunette jumped and her friend grimaced, as if the words pained her. "Please," Alex whispered, pleading for answers that I wasn't even sure the poor girls had.

"This is a very popular compound, sir," Kei stuttered out, "it is well-known for good sales, some of the richest and noblest of people attend." She started to tug at the ends of her hair, and I winced to see her rip some strands out. "I'm sorry," Kei finished. The look she shared with her friend would've been impossible to miss.

I sat up on my knees, a fresh pulse of anger renewing my energy. How long would we have? Auctions with big reputations took pride in their work. They kept new slaves for several days, training them and preparing them before selling them, lest they run the risk of dissatisfaction. Auctioneers with that reputation were not so careless. "Why did he bring us in here?" I called, noticing the way the blonde lowered her head.

Without another word, the brunette hurried forward, her shoes clicking against the hard floor. I recoiled when she reached the cage and, with practiced fingers, unlocked it and pried the door open. "I'm sorry, my lady," she bowed her head to me, her face crumpled like that of someone truly apologetic. "We have to hurry, we have to get you both prepared for your new masters."

It didn't sink in at first. For one, blissful second, my entire world fell still; no movement, no sound, and no thoughts. My brain had rejected the information so harshly that it didn't register with me until my brother's hand shot and snatched my arm, his nails digging into my skin. When I glanced at him, he'd gone ashen. After that, the words sunk into my brain, and it hurt something fierce. "What did you say?" I asked, my voice a raspy whisper. Steadily, it rose into a vilified crescendo. "You said this was an auction! How could we—who could've…" My words started to jumble together like a baggy filled with mismatched scrabble pieces. The blonde kept her head lowered, but the brunette was more forward. Kei reached her hand for mine, implying I take it.

I'm ashamed to say I shoved her hand away. I'd rather stumble out of the damned thing myself than take help from anyone in that place, whether they were there by choice or by tragic circumstance. She flinched at my aggressive gesture, and a part of me wilted with pity. The poor girl, what had they done to her? Would I turn into her, flinching and unable to talk without stuttering every other time I opened my mouth?

Was that the road I was about to get dragged down?

"This is a unique selling house, it's open for p–private looking to certain buyers," she cut her eyes to the side, refusing to look me in the eye. She couldn't even look me in the eye. "There was a private showing earlier, one of the auctioneers led a couple of young masters through the house. They were looking to buy personal slaves, my lady, th–they happened upon your cell while it was open. Neither of you were awake yet, that's why it was open. I'm…I'm sorry," she whispered the apology so softly that I almost missed it, were I not hanging on her every word. My mind was reeling, aching, I felt like I was a tiny child lost somewhere, somewhere I would never find my way out of.

Personal slaves.

Pets. She wouldn't say it aloud, because people hated how it sounded, but it was the truth. Pets were for any personal service. They were considered different than slaves, that was why so many called them pets, or personal companions. They were kept closer to their master, at hand for whenever their master needed them, and for whatever that might be. Pets had a purpose more for entertainment, where slaves were more for work, but pets could often get bought for both services.

"After reading our available files, although hardly much, they chose the both of you. The auction master is finishing the paper work, we must get you ready."

"Who is it?" Alex asked, and I turned to face him for the first time since the news had slapped me in the face. The blonde woman was helping him out of the cage, her hand clasped in his as she steadied him. She never once spoke to answer him. Kei rested a hand on my back, then, startling me. When she started pushing me towards the door, my body could do nothing but walk in heavy, autopilot steps. What was I going to do? Lash out at this woman and hope she had the key to escape on her? I couldn't hurt the poor thing. She was just as much a victim as me.

The women led us out the door and into a hallway. There were a few doors that we passed, until she came to a stop in front of one that smelled of soap and citrus. I turned over my shoulder to watch as the silent, stone-faced blonde took my brother to a separate room. "Hurt him and it will be the last thing you do," I growled, mustering the last of my anger. Jasmine turned a bleak expression towards me, and the thought struck me that, maybe, she would be grateful.

The room was humid and sticky, with a bath centered in the middle. I'm ashamed to say that the sight of the bath filled me with longing, it'd been so long since I'd last bathed in warm water, I couldn't resist the seduction of a bath. The woman rolled the sleeves of her dress up and dipped her hands into the water, stirring a pinkish soap into it. I knelt beside her and gripped her arm as gently as I could manage, bringing her to snap her head towards me. "I demand to know," I murmured, "I deserve to know, who was it? Can you give me a name?" If I could have any warning, any idea of what I was getting tossed into so callously, I would beg for it. Who had bought me, purchased me out of a cage as if I weren't a person, but an animal?

A violent tremble jolted through Kei, forcing me to let go of her. She recoiled as if I'd burned her. She shook her head, fear and pity both welling in her eyes in the form of glistening tears. "Please," I pleaded, resting my hand on her knee. This wasn't a woman commanding a slave, this wasn't me trying to frighten her. This was an act of unity. I needed her, if only for this one thing. With a deep, shuddering breath, the woman relinquished what I wanted. I would've wished she'd take it back.

"Uchiha Sasuke, my lady."

I yanked my hand back and stumbled back, falling right on my ass. To her credit, Kei didn't try and approach me again, she stayed right where she was, eyes downcast to the steaming bathwater. I stared at her in disbelief, unable to comprehend the weight of what was happening. "That's impossible," I whispered, beginning to shake my head in denial. No, she was wrong, she had to be wrong, it must've been some sort of mistake. "What—he wouldn't have any need for it, he has to have people at his beck and call every minute, you have to be wrong!" I needed her to be wrong.

"I'm afraid I don't know anything beyond what I've told you," she glanced at me, and I knew she meant well, but the pity in her eyes made me want to scream. I didn't want pity, I didn't even want empathy, I wanted answers.

"There's no reason a noble would pick two scruffy kids fresh off the streets for a personal servant." I didn't know who I was trying to convince, Kei or myself, but neither of us seemed to believe it, anyway.

"He didn't choose both of you," she cut in, speaking so highly in anxiety that she almost sounded like she was squeaking.

"What?" I sat up, needing to grip the edge of the tub in order to stay balanced upright. "No, I won't allow anyone to separate us!" I couldn't bear that thought, not in a million years. Alex was all I had left. "You said we were both—"

"I did," she broke in, standing swiftly, "he came with his brother, the eldest Uchiha boy is who bought your brother."

My throat swelled shut, and words no longer came forth. Air didn't either, but the burning in my lungs got overshadowed by the feeling of my blood freezing into gelid ice. I sunk so deep into myself that I didn't bother to fight the woman as she started to unbutton my dingy, scrappy shirt, and I hardly heard her stressed pleas for me to allow her to get me ready. Ready. Ready.

I wasn't ready.

They were going to kill us. The Uchiha family were the most powerful noble family in the country, aristocratic and one of the few pure-blooded vampire clans. They controlled these cities, ruled the night with an iron fist. I'd heard talk from other, older people in the streets and camps that my brother and I had grown up in over the past few years. People who reviled the Uchiha, who feared them, and who respected them. Vampires often sought pets to use for blood slaves, or for other malicious terms of abuse. I had met one or two—none were noble, all were homeless, like I was. Malefactors who sneered down their noses at me.

Vampires were a superior race; the strongest, the fastest, the most agile, they were elite warriors and that made them the best allies. Most hailed from royal blood. Ibrida, people like me, Alex, and our parents, we were among the lowest. We were looked down on as dirty, unintelligent, people thought we were nothing but animals. Vampires and ibrida didn't mix. Men like the Uchiha brothers sought after elite slaves, high-priced and trained into perfection. Slaves like the ethereal harpies, or seductive sirens with their magics capped, but still every bit as capable of casting their spells of captivation.

People like Alex and me? We weren't made for that. We weren't made for a life like that. We were both too bellicose, too hardened, too full of enmity; sitting pretty wasn't in our blood. People like us were useful for few things, and of those things, none of them were good. They were going to kill us. And if they didn't? Well, we'd probably wish that they had.

The bathwater burned.

I've finally reached the OC stories to rewrite, wow, such cringe, much embarrassment, pls no.

I wrote this story in 2012, back when I was fourteen and…problematic. I aged up the characters from fourteen and sixteen to seventeen and eighteen, respectively. Sixteen is the age of consent where I'm from, so seventeen doesn't squick me, but if it does you, I suggest you don't read this for your own comfort. :)

I understand most people have an aversion to OC stories, especially involving romance. I've been there and done that when I first started writing them years ago. I've lost my shame and hesitance towards it, though, because honestly, they're fun? Like?

Amaya is my OC, there's art of her on my profile.

Alex is my best friend's OC, his profile is Sasuke Neko.

Warnings include: Rape in a later chapter that is not graphic, but the content can still be triggering; violence and content about general slavery/trafficking; this story will be told from three different points of view.