Jenny is dragged away by one man heaving her over his shoulder, Shawna is grabbed by another who carelessly throws her onto his shoulder as well. Shawna grunts when her stomach meets his shoulder bone.
“You son of a b***h, I’ll kill you! Let her go!” Jenny claws towards the man walking near her before pounding her elbows into the back of the man carrying her. He slings his arm upwards knocking the air out of Jenny. She lays head down staring at the ground, everything seems to move in slow motion. The ground passes by, somewhere out of the corner of her eye she sees Jasper bleeding out. He isn’t recovering from the blast.
Jenny falls into the back seat of a car across uncomfortable cushioning and closes her eyes. Life won and she had lost. She awakens to concrete floor, her hair clouding her vision suggest she’s suspended, she tugs her arms to feel the burning sensation of rope tied around her wrists. She picks her head up and sees Rico smiling, a coil whip unravels on the floor. Her first thought is Shawna. “Baby, where are you!” She shouts.
“Oh don’t worry Jenny, sis is just fine. In fact she’s about to enjoy the show.” Rico smiles revealing a missing tooth in the front of his mouth. Shawna tries to cry but her mouth is muffled by a man holding her in place, forcing her to watch just a few feet away.
“Rico, don’t do this! Not in front of her!” She tries to pull on the rope but her wrists shred layers of soft skin when she does.
“Oh no, it’s not that easy, Jenny. I treated you right and taught you the ropes, I had one rule. Don’t screw me over, what did you do? You bail out on me, you make me send my brother to your home and what happens? Your friend kills him.”
Rico gets close and crouches down. “My only family member is dead because of you. I’m not gonna kill you or her, but, she is gonna wish she was dead when I’m done. You hear me Shawna! A brother for a sister. How bout’ it?”
Shawna rips her head left and right, the man squeezes his rough fingers tighter across her moving lips. Her eyes pink with waterfalls forming over the mans knuckles.
Jenny droops and let’s gravity take its effect giving up. “Close your eyes, Shawna..”
Rico walks behind Jenny and rears back as the whip cracks the air with a loud pop. “Seems your boy liked leaving his mark, we about to be eye for an eye Jenny, you best believe that. And don’t worry, this is just the beginning. You’re gonna work that money off. You are my property now, and so is Shawna. You hearing me!”
The whip slices her back as she howls in pain to the sky. She looks up at the windows on the ceiling imagining Jasper dropping in, but it doesn’t happen. Another crack splits her lower back. Then another, and another. Shawna bawls, fighting the man to free his grip, she looks as her sister gives up just looking down to the floor. Each hit becoming harder with the floor spotting with red rain drops.
He had broken her, there was nothing more he could take. The rope is released as Jenny drops to the floor. Her back has more open wounds than skin left. Shivering she begins to go into shock. “Take them to separate vehicles, it’s time to get moving.” Rico walks off dropping the whip, covered in flakes of bloody skin it thuds on the floor. Shawna is taken outside as she uses her last bit of strength to yell her sisters name.
—
Dawn approaches just over the horizon, Jasper’s head now partially in tact begins to swarm with new veins spreading like a virus across his exposed muscle and tissue. Skin is the last piece to come pulling up from his throat crawling like a wet napkin connecting to his bushy head. Jasper opens his eyes coughing, rolling over into the dirt. Coagulated blood plops out onto a crawling insect. He mutters, “S**t I’m running out.”
He looks around and sees that he’s alone in a pit of dirt. “Jenny! Shawna! Where are you?”
He plants his dusted boots into the ground and stands up, his mind drizzles with lightness. His mentality was trying to catch up to his rebirth. He stumbles across the land yelling their names. His fading echo is the only response he receives. In the distance a paper flies across catching way across the dirt every so often. He runs over picking up the piece to see it’s the photograph Jenny had taken before.
The edges were frayed from years of sunlight and neglect, the center of it black and white but still visible of what it was and why it was worth risking her life to grab. Jasper folds it and stuffs it into his jeans. He cups his hands around his mouth and continues to shout scampering the ground in search of them. His stomach ties in a barrage of knots and twists, his throat tightens with dry skin with his saliva becoming scarce.
The idea that they were abducted begins to become a painful reality instead of a harsh thought. He leaps up landing on the edge of the crater and begins to run. Within minutes he’s at the charred apartment where Jenny once called home. Kicking the front door off, the bronze hinges fly away with wood dust and corroded screws.
“Jenny, Shawna! I’m here!” He runs throughout the apartment screaming their names, hoping to find anything. He begins to tear apart the room, something had to be there. Panicking and frantically crying he destroys the room. Nothing is there. He slides down a wall covering his face with his fist. He punches the floor and slams his fist against the wall. The lower floor stares up to him through the blackened edges of the drop out from before.
He rams his fist into the wall behind and feels something hard make contact with his hand. Scooting forward he turns around and kicks the wall apart with one swift motion. A book falls out onto the carpet, hidden from a loose piece of plaster. He dives into the entries reading word to word realizing it’s Jenny’s diary. From the time before where she was still innocent and wide eyed in the world, up to her counter with Rico.
She mentions a warehouse that Rico held his business at. Jasper drops the diary onto the floor and jumps out the window. He slams into the ground and coughs up more blood. He smears it across his arm and looks around. A women wearing a cherry wig and a blue tank top stands nearby flashing skin from her upper thigh under a denim skirt. A car with a black man sporting a fade leans out the window talking to her.
Jasper cracks his knuckles and heads over.
—
“So what’s good ma? How much for some head?” The man asks.
“Same price as a full round, cowboy. You ain’t getting a discount cause you want a certain slice of the cake, same price.” She responds.
“Oh come on girl, I just want a little s**k and blow I ain’t trying to try clean the fish tank. Cut me some slack.”
The h****r drops her cigarette. “Alright, you’re lucky it’s been a slow day. How about I- who the f**k?” She looks over startled as a man with his eyes narrowed walks up.
Jasper kicks the car with an extreme force, the bumper and hood collapse closing in to the trunk in a short burst. The man in it doesn’t have a chance to speak before his intestines are regurgitated out onto the windshield. His lower body is crumpled into the metal like origami forming into one. Blood leaks out of the half built car into the sewer grate.
Jasper grabs the girl by her throat raising her up into the air. “I’m gonna ask you once, where is Rico. If you’re selling a*s you heard of him. Where is he!”
She croaks her words but his grasp is too tight to make sense of her sentence. Jasper droops his eyes and drops her to the ground. The girl chokes and inhales in short sputters.
“I’m-I’m so sorry I-I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He stammers.
The girl coughs once more and looks over at the wreck of what was once a customer. “What the f**k! Help, help me! Someone!”
Jasper grabs her and puts his hand over her mouth, “Listen to me, please. I don’t mean harm. But you’ve heard of Rico right?”
The girl nods her head.
“Can you please tell me where he is? I promise you’ll never see me again if you do. I’m so sorry for hurting you, I’m in a state of distress.”
The h****r pulls his hand down. “The warehouse on 7th and Pine. Twelve blocks East from here.”
Jasper lets her go and backs away with his hands up showing he meant no harm. The girl looks over at the car and back at Jasper, she turns and runs away. Jasper begins to run down the cracked street heading towards the building. Coming up to it he thinks of no plan or ideas, all he can think of is getting the girls to safety no matter what happens to him. He pulls the door open and runs in the building.
He’s greeted to a completely abandoned warehouse, absolutely no trace of anyone there. No signs of any inhabitance. All except one thing left behind, a bloody coil in the center of the floor. Jasper drops to his knees wiping his eyes and picks up the whip. He sinks forward curling into his knees. “Jenny! Shawna!” His screams make the windows implode into rain of glass, the walls quiver from his anger.
Far away in a country ride, Jenny looks out the window laying on her side as the vehicle takes her and Shawna out of town. A man shoves a needle into her arm and pumps her up with drugs. “Just in case you think of bailing again, the withdraws will bring anyone back. Rico’s personal mix, I’ve seen girls commit suicide from going no more than two days without it cause they couldn’t cope.” He giggles and leans back into the seat.
Her pupils dilate, she pushes back into the seat as everything begins to swirl into a whirlwind of hallucinations. The excruciating pain from her back dissolves, before her mind turns to mush she whispers, “Jasper, please..save her.”