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Chapter 20
Jasmine
Jasmine swallowed. The burn of the alcohol was dulled by the numbness that consumed her. She turned her face towards the dim sky. Even the moon was hiding tonight. Seventeen years had gone by since the incident, and this day hadn’t gotten any easier. Happy birthday to me.
“How could you leave us?” Jasmine swiped the tears that fell without permission. Grief and sadness threatened to swallow her whole. She’d kept them behind a locked door for so long—unable to afford to let them out, to feel them. They would drag her to the deepest darkest depths of the ocean and drown her. She couldn’t fall apart. Jasmine had Zoey to think of. Zoey needed a mother who wouldn’t check out. A mother who would protect her.
“How could a mother leave her child with a monster?” Her voice broke. I would never do that to Zoey.
She took another swig of the moonshine, her head spinning. Sticky, hot anger roiled from the depths of hell in her soul. The cool breeze wrapped around her like sickly, cold, dead fingers everywhere all at once. Goose bumps coasted over her flesh. She slapped the air, spilling the bottle. Shooting to her feet, she shivered. A million invisible bugs crawled over her skin as the scent of stale cigarette smoke and his acrid breath assaulted her.
“It’s not real. It’s not real,” she cried, wrapping her arms around herself.
The memory crashed over her like a rogue wave, unforgiving and overpowering. The tang of his salty release as she choked, bile rising in her throat. Her stepfather’s grunts as he forced himself deeper, cutting off her oxygen. The gasp from the doorway as her mother’s shocked and horrified face locked on to them.
“Shut the fucking door, Marie,” her stepfather growled.
Her mother hesitated only a moment. Jasmine pleaded with her eyes. Please help me.
Marie dropped her gaze and left. And that violation felt worse than any other she’d endured at the hands of her stepfather. That was the moment her body shut down, locking away anything tender and childlike. That was the day she realized she was truly alone and no one would save her.
“It’s time you earned your keep. Dirty little whore. This is all you’re good for,” her stepfather said, over and over and over until she started believing him somewhere along the way.
Four hours later, Bently found their mother hanging in the basement. Her final abandonment.
It was my fault. I killed her.
Jasmine gasped for oxygen. She stumbled down the stairs, falling to the ground as her stomach emptied onto the sand.
She wiped her mouth with a shaky hand and looked up towards the inn. The only place that was truly safe and untainted by her past. A light flicked on. Atlas.
Her chest ached, pain lashing it. The physical torment was agonizing. The weight of shame crushed her chest. The anger at herself, the situation, her mother, and her stepfather made her skin burn hot. She needed relief—no matter how temporary. An escape. And to punish herself the only way she knew how.
Jasmine stumbled into the inn, making her way up to her bathroom where she brushed her teeth. She glanced at the reflection staring back at her with glazed eyes. She didn’t even recognize herself. Jasmine tucked her wild black hair behind her ear.
You’re only good for one thing anyways.
She washed her tear-stained face, removing the evidence. Only the cruelest men liked to fuck girls with tears, and Atlas wasn’t one of them.
Jasmine inhaled a shaky breath to steady herself as she walked out of her room and across the hall. Her heart raced. Each beat reminded her that, despite herself, she was alive. She was trapped in a living hell that had chosen to break out from the door she kept it locked behind tonight. Needing to escape this fresh pain from old wounds, she took another deep breath and knocked. There was no turning back. Atlas could take her where she needed to go: a break from reality and the punishment that she craved more than anything else. She truly was depraved, just like her stepfather had said.
The door opened, light shining into the dark hallway, casting Atlas’s face in shadows. He was a silhouette edged in hope. Everything she could never have. The ultimate torture.
“Jasmine?” The worry in his voice sent her over the edge.
She didn’t need him to care for her; she needed him to use her.
Crashing her mouth onto his, she kissed him like the world was ending—and for her, it was. He hesitated, frozen in the doorway. She slicked her hands over his chest. He gripped the back of her head and pulled her into the room, slamming the door closed behind her. His kiss was all-consuming, lust branding her with each flick of his tongue. She slid her palm over his cock through his pajama bottoms.
He jerked away, wrenching out of her arms. His chest heaved, his eyes dark. “You taste like that shitty moonshine. What’s going on?” he rasped.
“You don’t want me again?”
His brows scrunched up. What had she said?
“Again? Honey, you’re not making any sense.”
She reached out, tracing his jawline. “Just tonight. Help me forget.”
