My Maddie (Hades Hangmen 8)

“Rider, you protect them. Zane, you watch them all too. Patrol and get some fucking guns from the armory.” Styx hands were moving so fast I could barely fucking read them.

“Let’s go!” Ky shouted. Maddie moved to the back room, Rider and Zane following behind her. I wanted to run after her, fucking keep her beside me. I could protect her more if she was beside me. Nothing would happen to her if she was protected by me.

“Flame, she’s safe. Let’s get this done with.” AK waited for me by the doors with Vike. We ran out of the clubhouse. I jumped in the truck and followed the bikes down to the barn. I saw the flames climbing high through the trees. Orange flames. My blood rushed faster the closer we got to the flames. The fire fucking called to me, the devil calling to the demon in my soul. I gripped the steering wheel.

“No,” I said to the fucking devil inside me. “Go the fuck away!” I jumped out of the truck and ran, following the path to the barn. I stopped beside Vike and AK. The rest of my brothers were already there.

“What. The. Fuck?” Vike said. The flames cut across the dirt in a wide circle, crawling on the ground like a snake. The circle reeked of burning gasoline. Then, in the center of a circle, was a woman tied on an upside down on a wooden cross. A dead, naked woman with her torso split open, all her organs gone from inside her. And her mouth… her mouth was sewn shut with thick black stitches.

“Well. That ain’t something you see every day,” Ky said and walked closer. “What the fuck’s this sign?” He looked to Tanner and Beau. “Some Klan shit?”

Tanner shook his head. “Ain’t Klan.”

“It’s a pentagram,” Samson said. Solomon was beside him, nodding, arms crossed over his chest.

“Sign of the devil,” Solomon added.

My breathing became faster as I stared at the symbol on fire. It smelled of gasoline too. The fire hissed as the flames roared higher. The devil… the snakes… the flames… it was the fucking devil. My poppa warned me of this. Fire. Evil was coming. I knew it was coming. Death and pain and fucking flames.

Ky bent down near the fire. “There’s her heart.” Ky pointed to the center of the symbol. The bitch’s heart was sitting in the middle, blood dripping onto the small patch of grass untouched by fire. Beau arrived with buckets of sand. He tossed the sand onto the fire, putting it out. The second it was extinguished I felt myself take a deep breath. But my arms began to itch, my feet began to pace. I could still feel him near. Feel the fucking devil near. Turning over my arm, I sank my nails into my flesh until I felt my nail break through to my vein. I hissed as the blood began to trickle down my skin, rolling over my palm. I fisted my hand and breathed as my dick grew hard.

Styx moved closer to the bitch who was tied to the upturned cross. She was tied down. Just like I had been tied down by Pastor Hughes and bitten by snakes. My skin twitched as I remembered them slithering over my skin. As they crawled all over my body, sinking their teeth into my flesh—the devil recognizing me as his own.

Styx lifted his hands. “Samson, Solomon, Beau. Take the perimeter. Check for any signs of the fuckers who left this.” The three of them jumped on their bikes and took off. Styx stood up and crossed his arms across his chest. Ky flicked his chin at Ash. “When did you see it?”

“Just before I came to y’all. I was walking through the woods and saw the flames.” Ash turned his head to me. I didn’t know why he was looking at me. We hadn’t spoken since that night in the woods.

“You never saw who left it?” Ky asked. Ash shook his head.

“The goats’ heads. The fucking blood. Now this?” Tank bent down at the cross, at the bitch hanging, hole on her stomach. “The heart in the pentagram. Her fucking stitched-up mouth. What the fuck?” Tank ran his hand over his shank scar. “Devil-fucking-worshippers? That who we fucking dealing with now?” My pulse started firing faster. Devil-worshippers. I had demons in my blood.

“Or fuckers pretending they are,” AK said. “Don’t think we get many legit devil-worshippers around these parts.”

Styx began to sign. “Cut her the fuck down and burn the body. Not having this shit on our land. We need to patrol. We need to find the assholes who brought this to our door.” Styx smirked. “And we need to teach them a fucking lesson.”

“The wrath of the fucking Hangmen Mute, ladies and gentlemen!” Vike started clapping. I couldn’t take my eyes off the bitch hanging on the cross. Off her eyes, wide open in death. Off her mouth, forced shut. Off the black lines around her, where the flames had destroyed the grass. I sank my nails into my arm, over and over again. Had they come for her with snakes too? Had they bitten her too?

AK and Tank started cutting the bitch down. Her body slumped to the ground. Her eyes were looking up at me. Death. Fucking death was staring right at me. The fire in my blood started climbing, getting hotter and hotter, needing to be released.

When I looked at the bitch on the ground, all I could see was my mama. My mama covered in blood, a knife beside her. Then in her place I saw Maddie… I growled low in my throat when I saw Maddie staring back at me from the ground. Except her stomach wasn’t cut open, it was round with the baby. But she was dead. Her body was still and white. Fucking dead. The baby too. Fucking—

“Flames!” Bull’s voice cut into my mind and I snapped my head up.

Brothers started moving when AK shouted, “The clubhouse!” Over the trees I saw fire rolling toward the sky, smoke plunging into the air.

“No!” I screamed and ran to my truck. My fucking pulse set off into a sprint as I dived into the driver’s seat. I pulled out onto the dirt road, the back wheels sliding on the grass. “Maddie!” I roared into the truck’s cabin, as I followed my brothers’ bikes up to the clubhouse. The closer we got the more I saw the flames. “Maddie! MADDIE!” They were everywhere. Fucking flames. Flames climbing higher and higher, fucking eating the wooden parts of the clubhouse. Jumping from the truck I ran out the front. “MADDIE!” I heard coughing. The bitches were rushing to the tree line of the woods, Rider and Zane leading the way. I searched over them all. Watched AK, Styx, Ky, Tank and Bull find their bitches. Sia ran out of the building, Hush and Cowboy running forward to catch her. Tanner was with Lita near his truck. The kids were all there—the babies, Grace, Saffie—

“Maddie!” I turned my head to Mae. She was looking around too.

“Maddie! Where’s Maddie?” she said, panicked. “Maddie?” Mae shouted, eyes wide. “Maddie! MADDIE!”

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t fucking breathe! No. No. NO! “MADDIE!” I roared. “MADDIE!”

“Fuck!” Rider hissed.

I didn’t fucking wait. I ran into the building. As the door opened, the fire and heat crashed over me, the handle scalded my hand. I didn’t fucking care. Maddie. I had to get Maddie. I heard voices shouting my name from behind me. She couldn’t die. She couldn’t fucking die! Fire was everywhere. I ran down the hallway, toward the back room. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t fucking there! I didn’t feel the flames on my skin. They were already in my blood. “MADDIE!” I screamed, coughing as the smoke burrowed into my lungs. “MADDIE!” I ran forward. There were so many flames.

“Flame!” I heard a voice near me. But I had to get through the fire. Maddie was somewhere in here. She couldn’t die. I hit my head with my fist when I tried to fucking think. “FLAME!” A hand came on my arm and pulled me round. Ash. It was Ash. “Not down there!” he said, his arm covering his mouth from smoke.

He dragged me back by my arm. I threw him off. I needed to find Maddie. I needed Maddie! “There!” Ash shouted. He pointed to the back of the hallway.

My heart thundered when I saw a body on the floor. “MADDIE!” I ran. I fucking ran as fast I could, through the flames and smoke. I dropped to my knees. Maddie was on the floor. She was on the fucking floor!

“We need to get her out, Flame! Move!” Ash shouted. I lifted Maddie in my arms. She weighed nothing. I tried to look at her face. The flames stung my eyes. H

er face was smudged with lines of black smoke. But I saw her eyes were shut.

“No!” I rasped and felt my fucking heart start to crack. I ran. I ran as the roof started falling around us. Ash ran in front of me, slamming his shoulder into the exit door that was shut before us. It burst open and he ran through. I followed, just as a gigantic crash sounded behind us. People ran around us. “Get the fuck back! GET THE FUCK BACK!” I screamed as I dropped to my knees and lowered Maddie to the ground. My throat closed, but a loud scream ripped from my throat when she didn’t move. “Maddie,” I whispered and gently pushed back her hair from her head. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “Maddie!” I said and sat back on my heels. “Wake up. Maddie, wake up.” I leaned over her. I put my hand on her chin and turned her head to me. “Open your eyes. Please… Maddie… open your eyes…” But she didn’t. Something started happening inside me. The flames that were in my blood started breaking free from the walls of my veins. As I stared at Maddie on the ground, I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I felt the flames flooding through my flesh and bones, running under my skin and taking control.

I lifted Maddie into my arms and rocked her. “Maddie…” She wasn’t walking up. Her skin was pale under the black smoke on her face, and she wasn’t waking up. A drop of water landed on her cheek, cutting a track through the smoke smudges. Another one fell. I looked up to see where it was from. I felt water on my cheek. Me. It was from me. My chest ached so much I couldn’t breathe. As I stared down at Maddie, I thought I was dying. The pain in my heart was so much that I couldn’t fucking move.

“Flame.” AK dropped down beside me. I heard sirens in the background, but I couldn’t let go of Maddie. I’d killed her. The flames… I froze. I looked at the flames behind me, the fire. The flames had killed her. They had come for her. Come for the baby. She was dead. They were both dead. “Let Rider look at her.” AK was speaking to me.