What Are the Odds, Karma?

17

**Lydia's POV, also long A/N but has interesting info in it!**

"What is taking so long? We should be in there with them?" I leaned my head against the window as we sat in the car.

"We can't Lydia, it would be suspicious if we had showed up with no other girls around," Luce reminded me.

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat at the thought of them not being able to outbid the others. If he was even here to begin with!

"He has to be in there," I closed my eyes to keep the tears from falling.

A walkie-talkie clicked as Veronica picked it up, "yeah?"

"He's here, seventy-eight."

I felt the breath leave my lungs, at least we knew where he was.

"How much are prices running?"

"Some nearly fifty grand."

"What!" Veronica gasped.

"How much can we afford to spend?" I whispered as the guy left the radio on while seventy-seven was called.

"Twenty thousand dollars, can I get a twenty-five thousand?" The voice rang out as the prices continued to skyrocket.

We waited with bated breath as Spencer's number was called.

"Seventy-eight, Spencer."

There was a pause with just static on the other end before a voice said, "well this is interesting. This is the Spencer. I hope this isn't a setup."

"Shit," I breathed and closed my eyes as the price was called out.

"Starting bid will be fifty thousand."

"What!" we all screamed and covered our mouths in fear that someone may have heard us.

"How... how much are we able to spend?" I whispered in fear as the price was matched and rose up to three hundred thousand.

"Folks, I hope you understand who this is that you are bidding on. This man right here, may be torn up at the moment... but he has been busting these shindigs of ours for years. So it's time for us to pay it back and unleash it on him, hence the whippings on his back."

I felt my heart lurch, he had been whipped! What else had they done to him within the past fourteen hours?

"Luce," I gripped her hand as we waited for something else to sound on the radio.

"Sixty thousand!" a voice called as I tried to keep from screaming out in anger. How was this even possible!

"Start outbidding them, come on," Luce whispered and I prayed that they heard her on the walkie from the other end.

"Sixty thousand going once," the voice began as I trembled in fear. Had we gotten him? Or were we about to raise the price for Spencer.

"Sixty thousand going twice,"

The three of us held our breath as the walkie talkie shut off and no sound was heard.

"What... what's happening," I whispered as we tried to turn it on and off.

"The battery must have died."

"Are you serious?" Veronica whispered back while we waited for someone to return or try and contact us again. Surely they would realize that something had happened with our side of the communications.

"Seventy-" the voice cut off as I tried to readjust the device. Had they meant the price had jumped up to seventy thousand or they were on the next victim?