Prologue
Flame
Years ago…
I was cold. So cold. But I was always cold. The rough, freezing wood of my bedroom wall scraped along my back, along the bones that stuck out of my skin. I hadn’t eaten in… I couldn’t remember. I pressed my hands against my stomach. It kept making sounds, telling me it was hungry. But my poppa said I would be having no food. He wouldn’t feed the devil.
I was naked except for my underwear. My poppa said sinners like me didn’t wear clothes. He said that the evil inside my veins was warm enough. I didn’t want to be evil. I didn’t mean to be, but my poppa told me I was anyway. That’s why other kids didn’t want to play with me, because they saw the blackness in my damned soul.
I looked down at my arms and chest. They were covered in snake bite marks. I felt even colder as I thought of the snakes, of their teeth sinking into my flesh, commanded by Pastor Hughes to try to make me clean. But it wasn’t working. Nothing was working. I was too steeped in sin. Irredeemable, Poppa said. I didn’t know what irredeemable meant, but it sounded bad.
I closed my eyes, but all I saw was poppa earlier tonight, staggering toward me as I sat in the corner of my bedroom. I had no furniture in here. Poppa had removed my bed weeks ago, so I slept on the floor. I had no blankets, no pillow. He said I didn’t deserve them.
The door to my bedroom slammed open. I could smell the alcohol on my poppa’s breath from across the room. He took off his belt. I had only a second to curl into a ball before the leather cracked loudly across my back. I gritted my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut. I knew I deserved this because I was evil. Because I had flames running through my blood. But it still hurt me…
My poppa hit me until I couldn’t feel the pain. But I wanted the pain. I wanted the devil to leave me alone. Poppa grabbed my hair and pulled me to my feet. I didn’t cry out. The back of his hand sliced across my face, and I tasted blood. “Look at yourself,” he slurred, yanking on my hair until I looked up. I saw myself in the dirty mirror on the wall. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see my face. The devil’s face. “I said look, cunt!” my poppa screamed, and I opened my eyes.
Poppa smiled. I didn’t understand why. I didn’t understand why people smiled or why they frowned. I didn’t understand anything. People confused me. I didn’t know how to be around them or speak to them without scaring them away.
My poppa hated that about me most.
“Retard.” He squeezed my cheeks until the blood from his slap ran down my chin. I breathed out in relief. The escaping blood would help take away the flames. I needed to bleed to be saved.
Poppa reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen. Tipping back my head, he began to draw on my forehead. My eyes watered. When he’d finished with my forehead, he moved to my back, my chest, my arms, then he put his mouth to my ear. “Retard.” His harsh voice made me shake. He prodded the tip of his finger into the word on my head. “Motherfucking retard!”
I didn’t know what that word meant either. I knew it was bad. Some of the kids I used to try to play with would call me it. My poppa always called me it.
“Get in the corner of the room and don’t move,” Poppa ordered. I heard him leave the house, heard his footsteps on the gravel path outside. I wrapped my arms around my legs. “Go,” I whispered to the fire in my veins. “Just leave me. Make him love me again. Make the flames in my blood go away.”
God didn’t care for me. I was the devil’s child now. That’s what Pastor Hughes kept saying. I froze when I heard my mama in the living room singing. Mama had had another baby. I had a brother. Isaiah. I hadn’t seen him yet. Poppa hadn’t let me out of the room to meet him.
I listened as my mama sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” When she sang, I didn’t feel the flames in my blood. I didn’t feel the demons in my soul or the devil watching me.
I held my breath when Isaiah started to cry. Mama just kept singing, and he eventually stopped. My mama was kind. Poppa was bad to her too. I didn’t like it when he hurt her. But I didn’t know how to stop him.
I heard footsteps coming to my door. My heart beat faster. I thought it was Poppa coming home already. But when the door opened, I saw it was my mama. I scurried farther back into the corner. Poppa had told me I wasn’t allowed to touch anyone. That my touch was evil and would harm others.
I didn’t want to hurt my mama.
I didn’t want to hurt my baby brother.
“Baby…” Mama turned on the light. It hurt my eyes. I was used to the dark, not the light. Mama came closer. I saw my baby brother in her arms.
“No,” I shouted, shaking my head, as she reached out her hand. “You can’t touch me. Please…” Mama started crying. I didn’t want her to cry. She was too pretty to cry.
Mama pulled back her hand but sat on the floor in front of me. “Baby...” Mama pointed at the words on my body, and tears fell down her cheeks. It made my chest ache.
A teardrop fell from her face, and my baby brother moved in her arms. My eyes dropped to him. Mama smiled and pushed down the blanket so I could see him better. He was tiny. “Your baby brother,” she whispered. I checked his face. I didn’t know if he looked like me. I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want flames to run in his veins too. I didn’t want Poppa to hurt him, for Pastor Hughes to put snakes on him.
“Isaiah.” Mama shuffled closer.
“Don’t.” I pressed myself against the wall. Mama stopped, and when I knew she wasn’t coming closer, I looked at my brother again. He was watching me.
“He knows you,” Mama said.
I swallowed the strange lump that was in my throat. “He does?”
“Because you’re his big brother, Josiah. He knows you’ll always protect him.”
“I will?” I didn’t know how. I was bad.
“You’re not evil, baby,” Mama said. But it was because she didn’t understand what evil was. Poppa told me she didn’t. Suddenly, Isaiah lifted his hand, almost touching mine. I pulled my hand back. He was still looking at me. “He only wanted to hold your finger, baby. He wants to meet his big brother.”
“Hold… hold my finger?”
“Watch,” Mama said. She put her finger toward my brother, and he curled his hand around it. Mama smiled. “He only wants to say hello.”
“I can’t.” I tucked my hands under my legs. I wanted to hold his hand. But I couldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t make him a sinner like me.
“Baby,” my mama said.
“Promise me…” She looked down at Isaiah and kissed his cheek. I wanted her to kiss my cheek too. But she couldn’t. I wouldn’t le
t her. No one could ever kiss my cheek.
“Promise me you will always love your brother, Josiah. That you’ll always look after him. Protect him. It’s what big brothers do.”
“I promise.”
Mama started crying again. “One day, when you leave this place, take him with you. Keep him safe. And love him. Allow him to love you too. You both deserve it.”
I didn’t know why she was saying these things. My poppa would never let me leave.
“You’re not evil. You’re my precious little boy who just sees the world differently. It’s Poppa who doesn’t understand. You’re special and loved. So much, baby. Do you understand me? Do you believe me?” I nodded, but, really, I didn’t. “I love you. I will always love you, and Isaiah. Even when I’m not here. You are brothers, and brothers protect one another.” Mama looked down at Isaiah again. He was still holding her finger in his tiny hand. “And one day, when you feel brave, you might let him hold your finger too. You won’t hurt him, baby. I know you won’t.”
I wanted to be brave. I wanted to be brave for Mama. But I couldn’t touch him. I couldn’t hurt him. Maybe one day, when the flames were gone and the devil had left my soul, I would finally let him hold my finger.
Chapter One
Flame
Present day…
“I swear, she had fuck-all gag reflex. She kept going and going, taking all the anaconda down her throat.” Viking whistled as we walked into the clubhouse. “I blacked out. I swear I fucking blacked out when she gripped my balls in her fist and I exploded into her mouth.” He nudged AK. “Rudge had her next. Said he lost the ability to speak for ten minutes afterwards. Slut was that good.”
“Good to know, brother,” AK said, as he pushed open the door to church.
“I know, right? You and Flame here may have permanent blue balls now you’re all glued to your ball-and-chains, but not me. Y’all can live vicariously through me.”