My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8) - Tillie Cole Page 0,117
saw Isaiah in my arms.
I felt the flames in my blood heat. But Beatrix would be immune to my flames. She was part of me. The flames wouldn’t hurt her. I sang, I fucking sang and sang until her eyes shut. I immediately stopped, pulse racing. But her breathing didn’t stop. Her chest raised up and down and her breathing didn’t stop. I heard a soft cry from the doorway. Maddie… Maddie was standing in a towel, watching us. Her hand was over her mouth and tears ran down her cheeks. But she was smiling. She was smiling her happy smile. Her eyes were back to being bright.
“She’s still breathing,” I said and stared down at Beatrix. Heat exploded in my chest and ran through my veins. But it wasn’t the old flames. It didn’t feel like those flames. They didn’t hurt me. They made me feel warm. They made me feel good. They had never felt like this before.
Maddie came and sat beside me on the bed. She laid her head on my arm. “You sang,” she whispered. “You sang to our daughter.”
“It made her stop crying.”
“I know,” she said, and a sob slipped from her throat.
“I don’t want to put her down,” I said. I liked her in my arms. She was safe in my arms. No one would get her in my arms.
“Then don’t,” Maddie said. “I am perfectly content to sit here with you both all night.” I nodded and kept watching Beatrix breathe. She looked like Maddie. I held a little Maddie in my arms.
“Maddie…” I said. Maddie wrapped her arm around my arm. “I think I love her.” I felt Maddie’s tears on my skin. But I knew she wasn’t sad. These were her happy tears. I recognized them now. “I think I love her,” I said again, holding her closer to my chest.
Maddie kissed my arm, and gently laid her hand on Beatrix’s stomach. “I think you do too, baby,” she whispered, and I knew she was happy about it. “I think you do too.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ash
“Ash, you fuck that slut last night?” I laughed at Bull’s question. I finished changing the oil on the Harley I was working on.
“None of your fucking business.” I winked at Bull.
“Shit, kid,” Tank said opposite me, lifting his head above the Chopper’s saddle he was refitting. “Just watch out for STDs yeah. That whore looked riddled with shit and the last thing you want is your dick falling off in the shower because you were too liquored up to wrap up.”
I laughed again and dried the oil off my hands with the rag I kept beside me. I turned, and my fucking fake smile slipped from my face. My fucking skin itched and I needed a hit. I needed a fucking hit so bad I couldn’t fucking focus.
“Ash!” Zane came through the garage doors. Get your shit together. I turned to Zane and walked toward him, grabbing a can of soda from the fridge. I knocked it back, just trying to stop my head from wandering, from everyone knowing something was wrong. Zane pulled out a chair and sat down. “The cabin’s almost done. AK reckons we’ll be in it by the weekend.”
I nodded. Good. I needed to get out of Flame and Maddie’s place. Beatrix was there now. I couldn’t be bringing my shit into the house around her. I was fucked up. I wasn’t gonna endanger my niece. I’d be better in the cabin with Beau and Zane. “Your aunt good with you moving out?” I asked Zane, hoping I sounded normal.
“She cried, but said it was time.” Zane shrugged, looking just like AK. “Graduated High School early, finally living on my own. Just gotta get patched in, and life will be fucking sweet.”
“Ash! You’re off the clock. Get the fuck outta here!” Tank bellowed across the garage. “And Zane, if you’re gonna keep coming around here this much, I’m gonna put your lazy ass to work.”
“Do it,” he said. “I’ve been working on bikes for years. I know my shit.” It was true. He knew more about bikes than me, but AK made him graduate before letting him do it as a profession. Now that was done, he could do what the fuck he wanted. But I didn’t want my best friend working here. I saw him watching me sometimes, in suspicion. Zane knew me too well. He would know soon enough if I didn’t get my fucking twitching sorted. If I didn’t