The Beta's Heart

Lyla

He'd found me! Again! I had to run and that's what I did. No direction, no thought of a plan. I just ran. Paul always found me and dragged me back. The beatings, the men, the constant fear for my life. I couldn't do it anymore. Dying was preferable to this.

I was running through some woods, I didn't even know where. I was barefoot with just a tattered, stained nightgown on. It kept getting snagged on the branches and brush I ran past tearing it even more. My face was bleeding from so many cuts from all the briars and branches that had dug into my skin the first time I'd fallen while running.

I could hear him behind me, screaming at his goons to find me. Screaming at me to get my ass back to him before he had to hurt me. Like he wasn't going to hurt me if I came back? Right. I just kept running.

He was going to kill me this time. I was positive of that. I knew he had that Goddamn gun with him. Bastard loved his guns. He loved threatening people with them like he was some sort of gangster.

They were getting closer. I could hear them crashing through the brush and broken underbrush behind me. I'm sure Paul would be pissed because he was getting his precious suit dirty, and his goons just liked to hurt people so either way, I was going to be feeling a lot of pain before the sun set.

Or I'd be dead.

Just as I was about to jump over a downed tree, a big hand grabbed my shoulder and slammed me onto the ground. It knocked the wind out of me and I started coughing weakly trying to curl my body into the fetal position to protect myself from the kicks Paul's two goons started giving me.

"Enough." Paul said calmly, and heckle and jeckle moved away from me. Fucking cowards. Paul crouched down to look at me, scratching his forehead with the barrel of his revolver.

"Lyla." He shook his head like he was sad. "You really thought I'd just let you walk out on me?"

I spit blood into his face. Fuck him. He was going to kill me anyway, so might as well get as many insults and hits in as I could. 

He chuckled and calmly pulled a handkerchief out of his inner pocket and wiped the blood off of his face. "You were my wife, Lyla. You should have just kept doing what you were told. If you had come home and just kept making me money, we wouldn't be here, would we?" He slapped my already bruised face. It stung, but honestly, I'd had worse. "Let's go." He grabbed my arm roughly and pulled me up. "I'm not done with you."

He slammed me into one of the trees behind him and slammed his fist into my face. I felt a crunch in my nose and knew he'd broken it. The second punch split my lip.

He threw me to the ground under the giant tree and started kicking me in the stomach, the ribs, the back; anywhere his shiny dress shoes could reach.

I used to fantasize about shoving those damn shoes down his throat so he could choke on them. He had deemed it  my job when we had married to polish his shoes. At first I thought I was being a loving wife, but then I realized what it actually symbolized. That I wasn't really his wife, just another of his trafficked girls. So I would polish his damn shoes and think of ways to kill him when I got the chance.

He hadn't really counted on what kind of woman I was when he'd married what he'd thought would be a good little girl that would take orders. I had a temper. I had a mouth. I didn't put up with shit like he wanted. He tried to beat it out of me but I still wouldn't keep my mouth shut.

When I'd found out about the girls and children he'd been trafficking I had confronted him and swore to go to the police. That had earned me not only a beating, that's when the men and films began. It was his way of bringing me to heel, as he'd once told me. But no matter how many times he made me do those awful things, I would plan and I would bide my time. I still had a mouth and that was what had gotten me here today.

I had refused to let his two goons hurt a girl they'd had the nerve to bring to my home. When they had started to manhandle the poor girl in front of me, while I was in my pajama's mind you because I was getting ready for bed, I had started screaming at them and calling them rapists and bastards. I had tried to get the girl away from them but Paul had come in after hearing me yelling and grabbed me by the throat. I had clawed at his arm trying to make him let go but before long I couldn't breathe and blackness had taken me. I had woken up in that damn windowless van they liked to use and I knew what was coming. So, when they slowed down a little going around a sharp curve, I had launched myself out of the side doors and ran off with them right behind me.

No more. I was done. Might as well get this death show going. I reached my right hand out and grabbed his balls. Both of them as hard as I could and twisted. He screamed in pain while I laughed and spit blood in his face. Oh, he was going to hurt too before I died. I continued to twist his boys with everything I had and his scream became even more high pitched. His two goons started forward but not before Paul raised his gun frantically and pointed it at my head.

And fired. Pain exploded in my head. I felt myself being thrown to the ground. I could hear Paul still screaming in pain about his balls. "Fucking bitch tore them!" He screeched. "Fucking bitch tore them! I know they're bleeding!'

Before I lost consciousness, I smiled.

I wish I'd twisted them off.