Jilani Corsetti is a seventeen-year-old trying to live as freely as she can. Having an unfortunate upbringing full of pain, fear, and hate, she wishes to move forward and actually enjoy life. With her trustworthy friend, Joseph, and his uncles, Jila...
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JILANI
Her breath escaped her as the kick met her previous aching bruise with deadly accuracy. No matter how she tried to stop them, tears slipped past her lids, forcing her to show some reaction in hopes she would get herself out of this situation and heal. However, her body and tears would have to bear a while longer. She wouldn't be getting out of this situation any time soon.
Her aunt and James weren't in a good mood today and hadn't been in the past week. The ten-year-old had been in and out of sleep, not voluntarily but because her body couldn't take any more pain and passed out in its futile attempt to keep her safe. It had a contradictory effect though because it only made James beat her harder until she woke up again. Sometimes she did, sometimes she didn't.
From what she had gathered from her aunt's screaming in Italian and English and James' harsher physical punishment, Jilani knew the deal they had with those bad guys they used to get drug money from had fallen out. Inwardly, Jilani was glad. Being raped, beaten, and tortured tirelessly was not something she was personally fond of.
However, now that meant she would get the brunt of the pain from her original abusers. She reckoned it would be this way until they found some other way to get the money or until they finally killed her. Her aunt made it clear that Jilani's only use was to get her and her husband drug money. As long as she remained with her legs open and body vulnerable, she could live.
Jilani often questioned if such a thing could even be considered living.
In any case, a small part of Jilani wondered what would become of her now that her usefulness had run out. Her parents could still use her as a slave for them, cooking and cleaning in the demeaning way that she did. James' favorite game was to beat her and then force her to clean up the blood. For every time she added the mess, such as a singular drop of blood, he'd beat her again. It'd go on and on until he either passed out drunk and high or she passed out and he couldn't wake her up.
While she wasn't looking to live the rest of her life that way either, Jilani figured as another kick hit her skull that she wouldn't mind dying at this moment. The men and women who'd come and play with her had often threatened to kill her, enjoying having Jilani walk that fine line between life and death. Of course, her parents never actually let her die because then those people would have no reason to keep paying them drug money. She laughed in her mind when she saw her aunt panicking when a guy laid into her too hard. It was the only time she ever cared about Jilani's well-being.
Jilani could feel herself slipping into sleep now, her little body tiring easily. It was such a novel thing; she had been abused for all of her life, couldn't she have built up stamina by now?
Her aunt's scream in Italian in which she proclaimed she would send Jilani's body back to her father in pieces was the last thing the little girl heard before she passed out completely.
