Feel My Pain (Curse Bound 1)

Roach stilled. “Wait. You wanted to piss on their graves? This is their tomb.”

He looked around at the broken furniture, the dumped trash bags, and the walls that had been licked by fire. He unzipped his fly.

Zane didn’t say a word, but followed his lead, crushing glass under the thick soles of his boots until he stood shoulder to shoulder with Roach and, with a low exhale, opened his pants.

“Let’s just let this all out.”

Roach nodded and aimed the stream of piss at a boot that had been nibbled on by rats. He didn’t care whose it was. “I hope you were in so much pain. I hope you knew you were dying,” he whispered, imagining all eight faces.

Next to him, Zane took a deep breath, staring at someone’s tag graffitied on the wall. “We will both forget you. Because you’re dirt. You don’t matter anymore. We’ll dance on your ashes,” he said, exhaling when he started to relieve himself.

His gaze captured Roach’s, and they both leaned in for a kiss at the same time.

Chapter 28 – Zane

Finding Mad Madge was no chore at all. While everyone in town knew about her, her neighbors in the trailer park pointed Zane and Reed straight to her. Located on the outskirts of the settlement and smaller in size than most of the other dwellings, Madge’s mobile home was covered with pink siding and surrounded by a whole swarm of plastic flamingos and garden gnomes, which had been covered by a layer of fresh snow.

Even at night, in the faint glow of a nearby lamp, the scene looked like a theatre set rather than something that could exist in the real world, but the faint stink of trash confirmed that they weren’t dreaming.

Zane’s gaze trailed to Reed’s neck. The rope had left an angry imprint of its fibre twist and had taken off skin as Reed wrestled himself free of its grip by some unnatural physical feat. The marks on Zane’s own body ached, reminding him that Reed had almost slipped from his hands. He pledged in his heart that he’d never let that happen again. That he’d be the most tender, most attentive partner Reed could ever dream of, and that he’d never drag him down.

Dingo’s familiar barking came from inside the trailer as soon as Zane knocked on the pink door, and Madge’s voice, raspy yet sweet, was next.

“Who is it?”

Zane swallowed, and his legs softened under him as he realized she couldn’t remember him by name. “It’s uh… I’m the guy you got to the hospital two years ago? You know, when the MC clubhouse burnt down?”

She opened the door, and Dingo ran past Zane, straight at Reed, eager to lick his hand as if it were made of ham. “Can I help you?” Madge pushed her star-shaped glasses up her nose. Did she ever take those off?

“We need to talk to you, Madge. It’s important,” Reed said. “Karla, you know, the medium, she told us you sell amulets.”

Madge’s wrinkled lips stretched into a smile. “Ah! Yes, yes, come in, come, I’ll show you,” she said, backing into her tiny kingdom in a sweat suit made of pink velour

Her home was a hoard of other people’s trash. Piles of clothes and boxes of everything from books to old electronics filled the space so tightly only a narrow passage allowed them to move between the kitchenette and Madge’s bed. Dingo had his own bit of territory—a large pillow tucked under a foldable table stacked with plastic boxes full of small items.

The collected goods reached all the way to the ceiling, threatening to create an avalanche that smelled of floral air freshener and mints.

Dingo woofed and crawled into his tiny dog house, and Madge sat on her single bed, leaning back against a mountain of plushies and pillows, Zane stood over her, unsure how to proceed.

Reed stepped closer, the tip of his boot poking Zane’s heel in the cramped space. “Listen Madge, we don’t want your amulets. We know what you did, and… we don’t even need you to take the curse off, we just have to understand the magic behind it. Did you cast the spell ‘cause the club didn’t want your moonshine?”

She frowned at them, silent for a while. “Magic… hmm… I do sell magic.”

Reed groaned and ran his hand down his face, pushing closer so he and Zane filled the entirety of the floor space by the bed. “I mean the real deal, Madge. What did you do to us that night?”

“The thing where he cuts himself, and I bleed too. That was you, right?” Zane joined in, staring at her face, which expressed very little thanks to the sunglasses.

“Is that some kind of metaphor I’m supposed to understand?” she asked and opened a purple container, which contained necklaces made of plastic beads. “I can sell you an amulet, so you don’t bleed.”