The flames ignited in my veins. My blood felt more like pure gasoline under my skin the closer Styx got to Ash. I breathed harder, faster, as Styx came to a stop in front of him. The prez was a fucking unit before my brother. Ash wasn’t small, but he wasn’t as big as Styx… yet. Fucker would be one day. He was as tall as me. When he filled out, he’d be a threat to anyone that dared fuck with him.
Styx held out his hand. Ash glared at Styx, right into his eyes, but then he pushed off the wall and yanked off his cut. He handed it to Styx, and then stormed past the prez. He met my eyes as he passed but slammed out of the door without saying anything.
“We gonna have trouble with the cops over this?” Tank pointed at the picture of the dead Mexicans that was still on the table.
Styx shook his head. “Nah. Paid the sheriff off. He was glad they were gone. He knew it was an easy payout, coming to us for hush money.” Styx threw Ash’s prospect cut on the table and sat back down. He looked at me. “He needs to cut this shit out,” Styx said. “I’ve only been fucking easy on him because he’s your brother and he lost his best friend. But if he keeps pushing me…”
AK cleared his throat. “He likes to kill, Flame. That’ll serve him well in this club, but he’s being too fucking reckless, leaving trails. If he’s caught by cops that ain’t on our payroll, he could serve serious fucking time. Destroy his damn life.”
I looked around the table. They were all looking at me. I didn’t want them all fucking looking at me. I hated people watching me.
AK turned to Styx. “I’ll speak to Ash. Keep a better eye on him.” He turned back to me. “He needs to calm the fuck down, brother. I get that he lost Slash, but the kid’s only eighteen. He’s fucking spiraling. He’ll wind up dead if he fucks with the wrong people.” A pain, like I was being shot, swept through my stomach. Ash couldn’t die. He was my brother. I didn’t always understand him. But he was family. Him and Maddie, and AK and Vike, the club. But I didn’t know how to make him better. Maddie always knew the answer to everything, but even she didn’t know this one.
“Fucker’s a mini Flame,” Viking said. “Morphing into you by the day.” Viking nodded at Tank. “Nice job on those flame tatts, by the way. Ash’s sleeves are looking sick.” Tank saluted at Viking.
I glared down at the table. I didn’t want Ash to be like me. I was fucked up. A damn retard. Ash was better than me, smarter, wasn’t slow or stupid. I didn’t want him to be a psycho with flames in his blood, one of the devil’s own.
Styx slammed down the gavel. My brothers left the table, but I stayed in my seat. I didn’t know how to save Ash. I didn’t know how to fucking save myself. I hadn’t saved my mama. I hadn’t saved Isaiah. Not long ago, I wanted to die too. Begged AK to end it, when the fire in my body began to destroy me. Maddie had saved me. But Ash didn’t have a Maddie. He didn’t have anyone to calm the flames, to fight the demons in his soul. He was alone.
Maybe he needed a Maddie of his own.
“Flame?” I lifted my head. AK stood beside me. “I’ll drive us to the hospital in one of the club’s trucks.” He flicked his head in the direction of the door. “Phebe’s been there with Lilah since she went in. I’m picking her up. When you leave, take the truck Zane drove. The kid is coming back with me. Him and me need to have us some real fucking words.”
I followed AK to the truck. When we pulled out of the compound, we saw Styx up ahead. “He’s picking up Mae, and meeting Ky and the kids,” AK said. But I didn’t fucking care. I still felt that stabbing feeling in my stomach. Shit was making me feel sick. I couldn’t get Ash out of my mind. Or his face, as he looked at me then slammed out of the room. Why did he look at me? Did he want something from me? Did he want me to say something? Should I have gone after him? He didn’t want me. He didn’t want to talk to me in the hallway before church. He never wanted to talk to me. He didn’t even talk to Maddie anymore, and he’d always spoken to her.
“I don’t know how the fuck to make him right again,” I blurted. I couldn’t fucking sit still—there was too much shit in my brain, too much fog I couldn’t break through, so many questions and thoughts that my head fucking ached. I couldn’t get out of the damn fog. It never really cleared, but some days it was thicker and darker than others. Some days I got lost. Today, I was fucking lost.
I didn’t mean to do it, but my hand dropped to my wrist. I felt the scars on my arms under my fingertips, all the thousands of slashes I’d given myself over the years. I felt the steel of the knife in my pocket burning in my jeans. I closed my eyes when I felt the flames in my veins licking higher, smothering the cold blood that was rushing too fast, trying to run away. I couldn’t fucking take it. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I dug in my nails into my flesh, to stop the flames, to sate the fire. I hissed at the sharp slash of pain. The scars beneath my fingers began to throb as if they had their own heartbeat, pushing the blood underneath them to the surface, letting it escape. I remembered how the knife felt as it sank into my skin. The steel allowed the blood to escape, to cool the fuck down, the fucking pleasure it brought—
“Flame.” AK’s hard voice made me lift my head. “Talk to me. Do you feel the flames again?” I blinked, and then stared at the road ahead. The grey asphalt blurred my tired eyes. Fuck! I needed to get to the hospital. I needed Maddie. I needed her right the fuck now. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. My skin felt like it was burning. I needed Maddie to touch me and make it go away. But she wasn’t here, so I dropped my hands and sank my nails further into my skin. My cock twitched at the immediate rush of addictive pain. Pain felt good. I hadn’t felt this in so fucking long. I’d forgotten how it felt to release the evil that lived inside me. “Flame!” AK barked. “Talk to me, brother.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. If you feel the flames, remember how it feels to have my fingers on your skin, chasing them away. You never have to cut yourself again, baby. My touch will keep them away. Just think of my touch, and the fire will extinguish.
Maddie… feel Maddie’s fingers. I did. I remembered us lying on the bed, her hand running up my arm, her green eyes watching mine. Then she’d smile, and any flames that tried to escape went back to sleep.
Maddie made the devil’s fire sleep.
“Flame!” AK was shouting now.
“How do you know if someone is lying?” I asked without looking at him, noticing a drop of blood on my arm from where my nail had broken through the flesh.
“What? Who do you think is lying?”
I pictured Maddie’s touch, but all I saw was her face. Her pale face, her pale lips, hearing her throw up in the bathroom. “She said she’s okay. Feeling better. But she still looks sick.” I turned my head toward AK. He was watching me while keeping an eye on the road. “But she said she was better. Maddie doesn’t lie to me. Ever.” I shook my head. “But she’s still so pale.”
“Madds doesn’t lie, brother. If she says she’s feeling better, believe her. People get sick. Flu, viruses, but they get better when it’s run its course. Maddie will get those kinds of things too. But she’ll get better.”
I inhaled a deep breath, but something in my chest felt tight—just plain fucking wrong. Like there was a huge fucking boulder suffocating my lungs and crushing my heart.
“About Ash…” AK said, and my hands curled into fists. They began to shake. “We need to think of a way to help the kid deal with everything that’s happened.” AK turned off the radio. “Has he even been going to school?”
“He leaves on a morning. Maddie makes sure he leaves. He drives the truck there.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s going, brother. He graduates soon. That little fucker will throw everything away.” AK ran his hand over his stubble. “I’ll sort it. Make sure he attends. Saffie’s starting school next week. I want Ash watching out for her. Never thought she’d ever go. You know how shy she is. But the little bitch has said she wants to. Phebe is worried sick. But she’ll cope better if Ash and Zane are there wa
tching out for her.” AK shrugged. “She knows Ash some. Little fucker can get his ass back to school and make sure no mean bitches give her trouble.”
When we arrived at the hospital, we parked next to Styx and walked inside. “Assholes. Think they’d never seen cuts before,” AK said, gesturing with his chin around the entrance of the hospital. People must have been watching. I didn’t give a fuck. I never noticed other people anyway.
And I hated hospitals. The stink. The sounds. My skin broke out in cold sweats at the memory of being strapped to a hospital bed and injected with shit that made the flames in my veins worse. Doctors and nurses who kept me pinned down while demons fucking ripped me apart inside, drugging me with shit that took my screams away but not the flames.
“Flame.” I switched my attention to AK, who was standing in an open elevator with Styx. “Get in. Maddie’s just up here.” Maddie. Maddie would make everything better. Clear the fog in my brain and my lungs, that didn’t want to breathe. I’d touch her hand, and everything would calm down.
I rocked on my feet as the elevator climbed high. I saw Styx signing something to AK, but I only focused on the lights telling me how far we were from the floor were Maddie was. When the door opened, I burst through into the hallway. “This way.” AK pointed. I followed him and Styx to a desk, and we were let into another hallway.
“There’s Zane,” AK said.
Zane got to his feet and held out his hands. “Ash texted me, Uncle. I can explain—”
“Not the fuck now,” AK spat. “I’m gonna meet these kids of Ky and Lilah’s, and then take you and Phebe home.” He pointed a finger at Zane’s face. “Then we’re gonna have a talk, kid. A real fucking long talk.” Zane nodded and pushed his hands deeper into his pockets, dropping his head.
“Zane! I’m thirsty! Papa told me you had to take me to get a soda and some snacks.” Grace—Ky and Lilah’s kid—stood beside Zane, looking up at him. She pulled on his arm, taking his hand from his pocket. “Let’s go! I ain’t got all day!” Grace yanked on Zane’s hand and dragged him down the hallway, out of sight.
“That kid will be a fucking ball-buster one day.” AK shook his head. “Takes after her old man. Right now, Zane deserves her smart mouth bossing him around. Little shit.”
The double doors in front of us opened and Ky walked out. Styx moved first, smiling at his VP, and hugged him. AK hugged him too. Ky nodded at me. “Flame.”
“Well?” AK asked.
“Two healthy kids.” Ky pushed his hands through his long blond hair. “Azrael and Talitha. Li named them both. Some biblical shit.” He shrugged. “Don’t fucking care. After seeing her cut open to get them out, but so fucking strong, smiling through it all, she could have named the kids Cuntface and Shithead if she’d wanted to and I wouldn’t have cared.” AK and Styx laughed. But my eyes were fixed on the small glass windows of the double doors. I moved closer when I saw Maddie’s purple dress pass by. She was in that room.
AK and Ky talked behind me, but I didn’t listen to their words, it was all white noise. My feet ground to a halt as I looked through the window to see Lilah on the bed, Phebe and Bella on chairs beside her. Bella was holding Charon. Mae held one of the babies… and Maddie held the other. My chest tightened so fucking hard that I fought to breathe. Seeing Maddie was meant to make my breathing better. But seeing her like this… it was worse. So much fucking worse. Maddie was holding a baby. My Maddie, staring down at a kid wrapped in a blue blanket… and she was talking to it. Fucking smiling, smiling so big that I couldn’t take my eyes off her glowing face.
Maddie was holding a baby. I’d only ever held one baby… My skin burned, it fucking set on fire at the memories that were trying to break through the fog in my head. I focused on Maddie. On her beautiful, perfect face and how it would make everything better if she just looked my way.
Then Maddie’s lips started to move. I couldn’t hear her through the thick wooden doors, but I knew she was singing. I knew what her voice sounded like. And I knew what she’d be singing. “This Little Light of Mine…”
My palms flattened on the doors and I read her lips as she sang. Watched her small body sway with the baby in her arms. My throat began to close. I remembered Maddie’s picture from her sketchbook. Not the one of us holding each other, the one that had made me want to touch her when I’d never wanted to touch anyone else. The one with her holding a baby, me beside her.
But I couldn’t ever hold a baby. We couldn’t ever have one of our own. Maddie knew that. My touch killed babies. Isaiah… I remembered Isaiah in my arms, red and screaming in the cellar. Then I remembered holding him, his cries stopping and his breathing turning strange.
His chest rattled. I’d counted his breaths. One… He’d sounded bad, real fucking bad. I’d counted two to eleven… then the breathing stopped. His skin color changed on eleven… He never reached twelve. He never fucking reached twelve.
My eyes snapped back to Maddie in that room. My hands were shaking and sweat dripped down my neck. Maddie’s skin color was funny too. Just like Isaiah’s had been. Was she as sick as he had been? “Maddie,” I whispered. Maddie turned her head at something Lilah said. I stared down at my hands. They were shaking so fucking bad that I clenched my fists to try to make them stop. But they didn’t. Then I froze. Was my touch making her sick? Was it me who was hurting her? Finally? I backed away from the window and slumped on the nearest seat. But I kept staring at my hands. Trying to see if they looked different. If the devil had somehow made me eviler, more damned, so I would hurt Maddie.
“Flame? You good?” AK asked from across the hall, where he stood beside Styx and Ky. I automatically nodded, but I kept staring at my hands, waiting for a sign that the evil was stronger than ever, watching my veins to see if they would change color. I squeezed my eyes shut and let Maddie’s singing voice invade my head. Her soft voice always kept me calm.
Immediately, I could breathe some.
I tried to tell myself that my touch couldn’t be hurting her. But then I pictured her with the baby. I couldn’t hold babies. I hurt them. I’d killed my brother. My poppa had told me so. I’d killed my mama too. Maddie said I didn’t, but now she was sick. Ash was going bad. The devil was dragging him down to hell with me. We had the same blood. The same flames in our souls…
I kept focusing on Maddie’s singing voice in my head. She’d be with me soon. She’d make everything better. She always made it better.
And she’d chase away the devil and his flames.
Chapter Two
Maddie
“Azrael, you are beyond perfect.” I gently leaned over the bed to place him back in Lilah’s arms. My sister was smiling as I handed him over. I saw her flinch, but even the pain from her caesarean could not steal her joyful shine. I stared at my sister in awe. Lilah was always beautiful, but I did not think I had ever seen her look as perfect as she did now.
I took a seat beside Mae, who was holding Talitha. I ran my finger down Talitha’s rosy cheek. A fissure of nerves travelled down my spine as she moved under my touch. Nerves mixed with an excitement I could barely contain. As I sat back in my seat, Bella slipped her hand into mine. “Have you told him yet, sister?”
The excitement I felt morphed into stark fear. The smile I was wearing from staring at two such beautiful babies vanished. I bit my lip in instant trepidation. “No. I have yet to summon the courage.”
Bella’s hand squeezed mine in reassurance. “He will be able tell soon enough.” Naturally, my free hand fell over my stomach. The flowing material of my purple dress quickly molded around the slight bump that had started to form. My little precious bump. Flame had yet to realize it was there. But he knew I had been sick in some way. I had told him it was simply a stomach virus. I saw what it was doing to him. I saw the worry on his face and the haunted look in his eyes. I had not been honest with him. But I feared I could not without causing him pain. I never wanted to cause him pain, he had suffered too much in his lif
e.
“I dare not tell him,” I whispered. The room fell silent. When I looked up, all of my sisters were watching me—Bella, Sia, Phebe, Lilah, and Mae—sorrow and empathy etched on their faces. I withdrew my hand from Bella’s and ran it over my stomach, cradling our baby who was growing inside. “He has many demons, as you know. But…” I quieted. I would not divulge my husband’s horrific experiences as a child. That was between him and me. I would never break that sacred trust.
“He fears being a father. I know this. For reasons I will not share, having a baby… it will be a major trigger for him, possibly the biggest he could face. One I am not sure he can cope with at any time, but especially of late.” I thought of his fingers tracing his scars, his nails digging into his wrist as we sat by the fire. I was not even sure if he knew he was doing it, but I had noticed. I was neither naïve nor stupid. I may not have had an education or an upbringing that challenged women to think beyond our strict faith. But I knew the demons both Flame and I lived with had merely been abated by our union, not exorcized. Love was a powerful remedy, but it was not a cure for some scars. They ran too deep. They were incurable. We had simply learned to live with our demons harnessed, sharing when the burden of dire thoughts became too great. I did not think Flame had understood why he was beginning to show old behaviors.
I believed it was because of Ash. I knew Flame was worried about his brother—as I was—but he did not know how to express it or even acknowledge it. When on top of Ash’s erratic behavior—his silence, or worse still, his cruel words—he had caught me being sick for a while now, I’d seen the haunted look he’d once permanently worn flash in his black gaze. As days had turned into weeks the haunted look was present more than not. And I knew telling him of our baby would not make things better. I knew in my heart and soul that it would make him spiral into a panic; one I was not sure I could save him from. It was the deepest and most jagged scar he bore on his battered heart. I was terrified what would happen when it was torn asunder.