Page 4 of Run

“He’s going to hurt her for real. Look at the slices in her skin. She’s bleeding and he hasn’t stopped to check on her.” I say, feeling myself becoming concerned for the little thing bent over the bench, her hands flexing and relaxing between each whipping.

Concern, it’s a new feeling for me. I never worry about the pain that my playthings are in. In fact, I revel in it. I beat mercilessly, and I fuck without abandon. I kill with no remorse, and I dispose of bodies like they’re trash, because that’s what they are to me when I’m done with them. But standing here, looking through the glass, hearing her screams that at first sounded like music, I’m getting angry at how they have morphed into something that pulls at the organ that barely beats in my chest.

The single moment that I look away to peer back at Samantha brings a shrill yelp from the room in front of me, then the sound of utter agony. Whipping my head back around, I look into the fancy playroom, seeing the precious creature slumped over, her head hung low, her body slack. Her mouth is now open in a silent scream, and her legs dangle lifelessly. The poor thing gave her last to the man wielding the thin wooden implement, and he’s raising his arm again.

Anger, no, not anger, rage bubbles up in me. She’s unconscious, and he’s about to hit her again. My nerves twitch, my hands clenching into fists at my sides, and my mind battles with my body. I know better than to storm in there, it’s not professional, nor like me, but I can’t stand here and watch it anymore.

“Where are you going?” Samantha barks out as I push her off me and reach for the knob of the door.

“Where the fuck do you think?” I snap at her, grabbing the knob so hard that my knuckles turn white, and it creaks in my grasp, but doesn’t turn.

“H, Don’t do it.” She calls out to me as I thrust my shoulder into the door, breaking the lock with one solid hit. “H!”

Ignoring the head mistress behind me as she stomps her booted foot on the carpet floor, I throw the door open and storm into the room.

“What the fuck?” The man behind the white mask yelps out as I cross the threshold and lunge at him.

The cane in his hand whips out towards me in a reflex that’s just sealed his fate. He may be a tough guy whipping a small woman, but to turn that thing on me, that’s a mistake. I don’t care that I barged in and startled him. He should be more aware of his surroundings. A good dominant always has his eyes and ears open, ready for anything, to protect the submissive before himself.

Catching the thin rod in my hand, I grab it tightly and pull, making him stumble forward towards me. His feet trip amongst themselves, and he lands against my chest with a surprised “oomph”, his mask sliding up onto his forehead, revealing his face to me.

He's a regular here, and I recognize him immediately. The scar across his cheek from an altercation with another member about a year ago brings back the memories of the night I watched him take blow after blow from the other man’s fists after he threw inappropriate words at the guy’s pet. This dude is a menace, and now he’s gone too far.

The girl hanging lifelessly over the bench may not be mine, but she’s no one else’s either, and there is no one here to make sure she’s safe from assholes like him. I may not be the knight in shining armor type, but something in the precious little thing has awoken a monster in me that hasn’t reared his ugly head since the night I laid hands on my father for what he did to my mother.

“You think it’s fun to hurt her? To make her bleed? To beat her unconscious?” I snarl in his ear as I wrap my arm around his head, holding him to my chest so tightly that even with his arms swinging and his feet pushing into the floor for leverage, he has nowhere to go.

The cane rattles as it hits the hardwood floor and rolls away, now becoming nothing more than a stick instead of an implement of torture. He growls and thrashes, bucking against me, the bulge in his tailored jeans rubbing against me as he fights uselessly for his release.

“Fuck man, let me go.” He grunts, smacking at me, his hand reaching for my mask.

“You don’t want to do that.” I say calmly as he struggles harder.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not going to like who you find.”

Chapter Three

“And who the fuck are you?”

“Shhh.” I shush him, sliding my arm down his head to the crook of his neck, wrapping it tighter around him, hearing the rattling of his strangled breath.

One hard squeeze and his fight is over, his body slumping against me like a sack of bricks. His hand falls from my face, his middle finger catching on the edge of my mask, pulling it down slightly, baring part of my face to his unconscious and vacant eyes.

“Oh, how I wish you would have seen me now. The fear of your realization would be so nice.” I say as I drop his immobilized form to my feet like a bag of trash, because that’s what he is now.

He’s nothing but a pile of denim and leather on the cold, unforgiving floor, and I kick him once in the abdomen for good measure. When he wakes up, I want the first thing he feels to be pain delivered to him while he was out, just like he has done to the little flower he’s defiled with his cane. The next thing he will experience is the terror of me looking down at him before I begin my handiwork.

For now though, the most important thing is to get the object of my new found fascination unbound from the sawhorse and recovered in my arms, where she belongs.

Fuck, H, what the hell are you doing?

I’m not a caregiver, except with my Magnolia. I don’t fawn over women, I don’t feel for them, and I sure as fuck don’t provide aftercare after my own vicious usage of them. Why I’m wanting to hold her, to pet her sweaty hair, to kiss her tears is beyond me. It just feels like the right thing to do.

“Huh. The right thing.” I say to myself as I quickly unfasten the leather straps around her thighs that have kept her from falling to the floor.

My fingertips brush against her soft flesh, and the man in me moans a wounded sound at how succulent it feels against their callused surfaces. It’s like touching fine silk, all smooth and perfect, until I stroke up her leg, and I feel the first welted line from her torture. The puckered skin, all red and heated makes me feel the same, hot and angry.

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