On My Wedding Day, They Tried to Leash Me Like Cattle

He stumbled back half a step, hand clamped over his face, stunned for a beat.

"You dared hit my son?"

The mother-in-law had climbed to her feet again somewhere in the chaos, and now she came charging over with an iron basin in her hands.

Inside it sloshed what looked like the blood drained from a slaughtered chicken, feathers still floating on the surface, the reek of it turning my stomach.

She flung the whole basin at the windshield. In an instant the world outside went red, blotted out.

The father-in-law jabbed a finger at me and roared.

"You put that leash on today, or next time this basin goes in your face."

Vivian had been shoved to the ground, both knees split open, blood running down her shins.

But she was up in a second, throwing herself against the car door, shielding me with her body, her voice breaking as she screamed at me.

"Lucy, don't get out. Lock the doors. Forget about me."

I seized my chance while Egbert was still reeling from the slap.

I grabbed Vivian's wrist and hauled her back into the rear seat with everything I had.

Then I yanked the door shut and slammed my hand down on the central lock, sealing us in.

Vivian slumped across the back seat, biting her lip so hard no sound came out, but her hand kept shaking where it gripped mine.

The doors were locked now. The car wasn't running, though, so the windows were still open a crack.

Egbert kicked the side of the car.

"Lucretia, open the door and we can still talk this out nicely."

When I said nothing, he wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and let out a cold laugh.

He turned, dug through the toolbox on a tractor by the roadside, and pulled out an emergency window-breaker hammer.

Then he set the point of it against the window glass.

"Lucretia, last chance. I'm only counting to three."

The tip of the hammer bit into the glass, and with just a light push he left a white mark on it.

Vivian clung to my arm, the back seat smeared with the blood off her knees.

Egbert stared at me with red-rimmed eyes, the hammer raised halfway into the air.

"So I give you face and you throw it back, is that it?"

"Today, right in front of the whole village, I'm making this rule stick!"

The mother-in-law rushed up to the window, a pair of big scissors clutched in her fist, jabbing them toward me.

"Come out now, or I'll cut this wedding dress of yours into rags."

"Send you through that door naked. Let's see where you hide your face after that."

The crowd of villagers kept growing, and the words set them cheering.

"Yeah, smash the glass already, strip her and drag her out."

"Let's all see just how precious this city woman really is."

Egbert took the hammer and tapped the glass once, testing, trying to scare me with it.

"One."

I cut him off, my voice cold. "Go on. Smash it."

He raised the hammer, made like he was going to swing, but twice he lifted it and twice it never came down.

His eyes darted, sliding over the Porsche emblem.

My father had rented this car, but to save face, Egbert had bragged to everyone that he'd booked the lead car himself.

The rental contract was in his name.

Smash one pane of glass and he'd owe at least fifty grand.

The cheapness bred into his bones, the poor man's stinginess, wouldn't let him bring it down.

"Useless," Vivian rasped from the back seat.

I said, coldly, "Egbert, this is unlawful imprisonment."

"If I call the police, your whole family goes away."

Egbert casually rested the hammer on the roof of the car, propped his hands on his hips, and laughed.

"Call the police?"

He gestured at the barren hills all around.

"There isn't a single cell tower in this village. That little spinning circle on your phone can spin till tomorrow and nothing's going out."

"On my turf, even a dragon has to lie down and behave."