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CHAPTER 42 — Taken

Author: Mercy V.
last update Last Updated: 2025-12-30 22:14:05

The gurney-blocked corridor was only the rehearsal.

The main act came later—after the lights, after Crowe’s voice wrapped around my name like a noose; after the cameras drank in every second of my “evaluation” and the donors learned the words *Lunaris vessel* with the same hungry cadence they used for *exclusive lot.*

They didn’t drug me. Valen held that line.

They didn’t cut me. Yet.

They measured, and they hummed, and they pretended this was neutral science.

Then they led me back out of the hall like a dangerous animal they’d just proven safe enough to sell.

From the outside, it probably looked like a win for them. Calm subject. No broken bones. No explosions.

Inside, every step rattled the bars in my head.

***

The exit route was never going to be through the front.

They sent me down a side corridor, cameras still quietly blinking red. The handler walked at my elbow, Voss a few paces behind, the same two enforcers bracketing us with rifles slung.

“Transport bay,” the handler said te
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