“Cloe? Cloe are you okay? Cloe?”

“Mr. Rogers?” I asked as I rubbed my eyes. I noticed we were in some sort of dark area. I put my hands up and felt a shock suddenly as I touched a bar. I let out a yelp.

“Shh. Be careful. I want you to stay strong no matter what. When you get a chance, you must take it and escape back to the academy. Make sure you give them this.” He pulled out a small leaf from his pocket and blew it over towards my cage. I glanced down and picked it up. It felt warm from being in his pocket. “Don’t lose it. It was created the last of my energy.” I looked at both sides of it and noticed nothing special about the leaf. “Cloe, keep it hidden.” He muttered as he collapsed on his knees. I nodded before we were interrupted by a sudden bright light that emerged from behind a curtain. I could hear mumbles from a crowd that was in front of us. They all wore masks to hide who they really were.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for this hour we have these two special Matches up on the stage from MUA. They will be our last till next time sadly, so if you didn’t have a chance on the last auction, it’s not to late now. To my right we have a Green Match user who loves to create and play with dangerous plants and to my left is a Black Match user who has shown us very good Green Match skills. If you want to learn what other match skill she could be hiding, you must bid and see yourself.” The man laughed as he stood in front of both Mr. Rogers and I cages. I glanced over towards Mr. Rogers and hoped he had some sort of idea to get us both out of this situation. I noticed though he had no emotion anymore. He looked as though he had given up.

“This isn’t happening…” I muttered to myself, “What kind of sick people are these people?” I could hear mumbling coming from the audience. I touched the bars again which created a jolt of electricity that stung. I yelped and pulled my hand away from the bars. I stared for a second at the people in front of me. I could here a few of them snicker when I was stung. I grabbed hold of the bars, which began to spark violently, “You are all a bunch of cowards!” I yelled as the lights above popped and I fell backwards. I tried to catch my breath and gain control of my abilities again from my own rage. I noticed my hands still had small sparks coming from them and were burned from the bars.

“My my my. Looks like someone did not care to be in the spot light.” The man walked over towards my cage and lowered the mic, “Watch what you say,” he whispered, “You aren’t the only one we captured. It wouldn’t hurt us to kill one of the younger children from earlier.” He calmly turned around back towards the crowd. I didn’t move or saying anything. “Well, I do apologies but at least we can add that now she is a Yellow Match user along with having a bit of Green Match user’s abilities also. The bidding may get a little interesting when we finally move to her.” The man laughed and then pointed back at Mr. Rogers, “But for now, we are still going to start the bid with the Green Match user first. Starting bid is at 300 million.”

“350!”

“355!” The crowd began to quickly raise paddles as Mr. Rogers price slowly went up. I glanced over at him again to see he was just staring at the ground.

“Mr. Rogers…”I mumbled as suddenly the man in front of me caught my attention.

“Sold, to number 67.” I tensed up as I watched the man walk over to Mr. Rogers cage and whispered something which caused him to fall to his knees. He didn’t look up at all. The man smiled over towards me as the lights above were fixed and turned back on, which blinded me. “Now for the second item up, we have a young Black Match User. We will start the bidding out at 100 million.”

“110.”

“150.”

“They are all animals,” I thought as I heard them call out bids, “How could they do this to anyone. To think that we were being sold. To think that Sasha went through this earlier.” My fists tighten, “How dare they.” I felt my teeth begin to grind together as I slowly looked down at the ground, “I can’t do anything though. If I do, Sasha and the others could get hurt but…” I looked over at Mr. Rogers, “I wonder if he is thinking the same things right now.”

“Sold, to number 54.” The man interrupted my thoughts and walked towards my cage then, “As I have already announced, please pay as soon as possible but, you will not be able to pick up your purchase till the end of the day.” The curtains began to shut, and the man took a few steps forward and vanished in front of them along with the light.

“Mr. Rogers, what do we do?” I asked as I glanced over in the direction of him. There was no response, “Mr. Rogers…”  

“Shut up.” A flash light clicked on and was shinned upon me. I couldn’t see the person behind it but could tell it was another man, “I’m going to open the cage and if you give me any issues, I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

He opened my cage and stepped back. I slowly got out and looked over at Mr. Rogers cage. Only a little of it shinned in the light, “What about…”

“I said shut up.” I felt a swift hand go across my face and fell to the ground. My cheek felt as though it was on fire now. I touched it gently and then looked up, “Get up and hold your hands out.” The man demanded. I did as he said and felt a metal cuffs go around my wrists. He tightened them to the point I could feel it digging into my skin. I opened my mouth to say something but as I opened it I watched his eyes dig into me and decided not to say anything. “Follow me.” I followed close behind him as we went through a small door off to the side. As he opened the door, I noticed we were in a warehouse. I glanced around to see cages stacked around the room. I noticed a few people inside a few of them but, I could also hear some animal noises echo through the warehouse.

“Cloe!” The voice echoed, and I looked around. I looked around and couldn’t pick up which direction the cry came from.

I looked down at my hands and began to spark flames. I watched as the fire engulfed my hands, causing the metal cuffs to melt off. The man turned around and took a step closer to me, “You don’t want to start this childish behavior.” He warned.

I played with the fire that engulfed my hands for a moment and glared at him, “You’re about to regret what you guys are doing here.” The flames began to crawl up my arms, “You don’t know who you are messing with.” I lunged quickly at him.

The man chuckled and grabbed my arm quickly, “We had our targets from your school picked out in advance and had a small-time period to collect you. Do you really think we were unprepared? A chance to take matches from one of the most exclusive schools, we couldn’t miss.” He quickly lifted my arm and I found myself on the floor the next moment. The flame around my arms vanished as I gasped for air. The man put his shoe on top of my chest, “You see, a few of us that are part of this whole deal going on here are also Black Match Users. Don’t get to high and mighty.” I saw his fist light up from flames which lite up his face. His smile went ear to ear as though he was waiting for me to try and fight back. His fist swung quickly almost as though it vanished.