His Darkness, Her Safety

Chapter 2: Grace

I finish pleasuring John and he finally lets go of his tight grip on my hair. He lets out a loud grunt as he finishes and I can still hear the faint sound of Lake's cartoons in the other room.

"I need to put Lake to bed," I say, standing up from my position on my knees. "It's getting late."

"But I'm not done with you yet."

I ignore him, not caring what he did to me at this point. All I could think of was taking care of Lake and making sure he could have the most normal childhood possible.

Walking out into the living room, John grabs me by the neck and pushes my face into the bedroom doorframe. My forehead hits the edge of the frame and before I can feel pain, blood is dripping onto the floor.

"Mommy!" I hear Lake scream, his voice full of terror.

John releases his grip on my neck and goes straight towards Lake. He grabs him by his shirt and pulls him up off the couch. "Your mommy is fine," he growls.

"Don't touch him!" I scream, running back into the bedroom to grab the shotgun in the drawer.

Behind me, I hear Lake start to cry. I pull the drawer completely out of the dresser, digging through clothes to get to the gun.

Before I can find it, John is yanking me away and throwing me into the floor. He gets on top of me, his strong 250 pounds crushing me. He puts his hand on the back of my head, pushing my face into the floor.

Eventually he calms down and gets off of me. I try to push myself up off the ground and he kicks me back down.

"I'm going out tonight. I'll see you tomorrow," he grunts. "And don't fuck up this badly again."

He walks out, slamming the door. Lake runs to me, tears streaming down his cheeks. "Mommy! Are you okay?"

"I'm okay. Don't worry about mommy. I'm going to be fine," I reassure him.

I use all of my strength to stand up. I take a few deep breaths, trying to keep my cool. "We're going to stay with your uncle Aaron tonight."

Lake smiles and I can't help but smile as well. Seeing him happy is all that matters to me right now. "Let's go pack your stuff."

*********

Fortunately, Aaron is home. He is usually traveling. I knock on the door to his apartment as Lake's tiny hand grips tightly on to mine.