The Memory Auction That Destroyed Us All Chapter 01

The Memory Auction That Destroyed Us All Chapter 01

My best friend Sophie died in a car crash, and I destroyed the evidence to protect the person who killed her.

Ethan got down on his knees and begged me to name the driver, to give Sophie the truth she deserved. I shut the door in his face.

When the other victims’ families showed up at my building, I called the police and reported them for trespassing.

Ten years passed.

Then someone grabbed me off the street and dragged me to an auction house to sell my memories to the highest bidder. Ethan, who’d built himself into someone untouchable while he was overseas, flew back the same night he heard.

He walked into that auction house and raised his hand.

The gavel came down. He paid thirty-seven million dollars for everything inside my head.

He straightened his jacket and slow-clapped, once. Fifteen people poured in from the sides of the room. I recognized every face. Families of the people who’d died that night.

The first man swung a canvas bag into my spine.

“Claire. You piece of garbage. You don’t deserve to breathe.”

The rest of them piled on. They shoved me off the examination platform and kicked me while I was down.

“You deserve everything coming to you. Why are you still alive?”

I lay there like a dog. An assistant hauled me up by the arm.

Ethan stood a few feet away. His eyes were full of hate. Of everyone in the world, only Sophie’s family hated me more than he did.

Which meant something, once. Once, we were the closest thing to family.

One car crash changed that. Police ruled it a hit-and-run, single vehicle at fault, driver fled the scene. The road hadn’t been opened to traffic yet. I was the only witness.

I sat in that interrogation room and answered every question the same way.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Eighteen questions. Eighteen times.

I became an accessory to a killer.

Ethan stepped in front of me and looked me over. His voice was flat.

“Claire. Do you actually want Sophie to die without justice?”

“Just tell me who it was. Tell me what you saw that night. We could still fix this.”

“But if you don’t talk, they’re going to insert the neural probes. Your memories go up on a screen for the whole world to watch. After that you’ll be brain-damaged. Finished. Everything you are, gone.”

“The extraction doesn’t leave room for secrets. The pain is going to force you back to that night whether you want to go or not. You still have a chance. Just say the name.”

His assistant held the extraction device, a set of thin metal probes about five inches long, like surgical needles. The technician was already pushing him to get it done.

I lifted my arm. The bone in it had cracked somewhere. I grabbed the hem of Ethan’s jacket.

“Don’t extract my memories. Ethan, please.”

“Don’t. I’m begging you.”

I was on my knees begging and I still wouldn’t give him a name.

Ethan stared at me like I was something he’d scraped off his shoe.

“You deserve this. Every single thing that happens to you tonight.”

“Fine. You won’t talk. Then we do it the direct way. We pull every memory you have. Every last one. I swore I’d give Sophie the truth and that’s what I’m going to do.”

He twisted my already-cracked arm until something gave. I barely registered the pain. I crawled to his feet.

“Ethan. The truth isn’t what you think you want to see.”

“Let Sophie go. Let yourself go. Just let it be over.”

The probe hit my temple before I finished the sentence.

The first needle went in. Five inches of metal, straight in. Ethan’s eyes were the color of an open wound.

“Not what I want to see? Right now the only thing I want is for you to pay for what happened to Sophie.”

“I wish it had been you in that crash instead of her.”

The second probe went into the other temple.

The current started. I screamed until my vision went white at the edges. It felt like something was cutting through the inside of my skull in long slow strokes. My whole body shook.

The families cheered.

“That’s how you treat an animal like her.”

“She’s lucky it’s this and not worse.”

“Is she trying to get sympathy now? Ethan, you know how she is. Think about the people who died. Don’t you dare go soft.”

That last one landed. Ethan’s jaw tightened and he crushed my chin in his hand hard enough that something cracked.

I screamed.

The screen behind me lit up. My first memory began to play.