Page 1 of Veiled Vows

1

JASMINE

“Name?”

Smelly Brute, as I’ve decided to name him, sinks his fat fingers into my jaw and pulls me forward, forcing strain on my arms as the twine binding my wrists to the pipe above my head tightens. His eerily bright blue eyes dart back and forth across my face as if something about my features can grant him the answer he’s looking for, because I certainly can’t say it.

I’m too scared. Fear grips me like the unwelcome bite of frost on a cold winter’s morning, locking my joints into place and making my tongue feel so fat and swollen that all attempts to speak have become nothing but whimpers.

Growing up, my mother warned me about these kinds of situations.“Your father is a dangerous man, Jasmine. And dangerous men attract dangerous people.”

Everything she ever taught me fled from my mind the moment I was snatched from the school grounds by men posing as maintenance workers. Oddly, my first thought when the bag went over my head, and strong arms wrestled me to the ground was that the school principal was going to be in so much shit fornot thoroughly checking who was allowed on school property. Once I thought about it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even now, dangling from a pipe with twine slicing into my wrists and my toes barely touching the ground, all I can think about is the principal.

Did she not run a background check? Did she not take one look at this rotund man with his pencil-thin mustache, fat arms, and eyes so blue that they almost look white, and think it was maybe not a great idea to have him around a bunch of teenagers? Could she not sense the threatening aura pouring from this man? Is she really so blind?

I would make a better principal than her. I’d make sure that anyone who walked onto the grounds of my school didn’t make it past the gate without me knowing every detail of their last ten years walking this?—

“Hey, bitch!” A sharp, swift slap to my cheek knocks me out of my spiraling mental distraction, and I’m dragged right back to the cold, damp room that’s become my prison cell. “I asked your fucking name, and you better tell me or I’m going to pry open that pretty mouth of yours and rip out your teeth one by one, then make you spell out your fucking name with them, understand?!”

He tightens his grasp on my jaw, shoving my cheeks against my teeth until the pain is too great and my mouth opens with a wet gasp. Before I can snap it shut, he shoves the barrel of his handgun between my teeth. It slides so deep into my mouth that I gag and my whole body recoils with such force that my toes briefly lift from the ground.

It tastes disgusting. Metal and copper, like how I imagine an exhaust pipe would taste.

“Leave her alone!” The girl to my left, bound in a similar position to me, yells out suddenly, and she twists back and forth as if there’s anything she can do to help us. Why would she callout to try and help me? Her uniform is different from mine, so we don’t even attend the same school, yet she draws attention to herself as if there’s anything good that can come of it.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Smelly Brute snarls, thrusting the gun an inch deeper into my mouth. The metal sight scrapes against the roof of my mouth and tears flood my eyes, leaking down my cheeks with every flutter of my eyes as I fight the urge to gag again. Any more and I’m certain I’ll throw up.

One of the other girls did and they took her away. She never came back.

His bright eyes lock back onto me as one of the other guards, a man I’ve dubbed Skinny, punches the girl next to me so hard in her stomach that her eyes almost bulge right out of her head. Once he starts punching her, he doesn’t stop. I’m forced to watch in horror as he beats her like she’s nothing more than a punching bag, until tears are streaming down her cheeks and she gasps for air that doesn’t seem to make it into her lungs. The last punch sends her swinging backward, her legs fall limp, and her head flops down against her chest.

Is she dead?! Did he kill her?!

Am I next?

“Eyes over here, beautiful.” Smelly Brute snaps his tongue against his teeth and forces me to look at him. “That will be you in a second if you don’t answer my fucking question, alright? Or I’ll shove this gun so far up your cunt you’ll be spitting bullets for a week.”

He removes the gun and I cough violently, scarcely able to drag in enough air to calm my racing heart. It beats so fast that it’s a blur, and I’m scared it’s not beating at all. Maybe I died. Maybe this is hell.

“Name,” he barks, wiping his saliva-covered gun against my neck.

“J-J-Jasmine,” I croak out weakly while my jaw trembles uncontrollably.

“Jasmine what?”

“F-F-F?—”

“Fuh, fuh, fuh,” he mocks with a cold laugh. “Speak up!”

“F-Falzone!” My surname bursts out of me, and I curl my hands so tightly that my nails dig into my palms. This new pain is a brief distraction from the agony throbbing in my wrists from the twine that cuts into my skin from supporting the majority of my body weight. “M-My name is Jasmine Falzone.”

“Age?”

“F-Fifteen.”

“Mother’s name?”

“Uh … B-Bianca?”

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