My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8) - Tillie Cole Page 0,36
sit next to Rider. “For you, M’lady,” he offered to Ruth. Ruth took the wine off him. Her eyes were narrowed and her eyebrows were pulled down. I didn’t know if she was happy, but when people frowned it usually meant they weren’t.
“Rider will kill him,” Tank said. Ky’s daughter suddenly started crying and my body immediately fucking tensed. The crying sliced into my brain like a bullet, like torture. It echoed off the fucking bar’s walls. My hands started shaking. I closed my eyes to get my shit together. But the darkness took me to the cellar. Maddie’s hand tightened in mine. I held on, trying to push the memory away—
“Quick!” The sound of Ash’s voice made my eyes snap open and sit forward. I wrapped my arm around Maddie’s chest, keeping her close. “Y’all need to come to the barn. Fucking now!”
Styx was on his feet, signing. “What?” AK voiced the Prez’s words, as Ky handed his kid to Bella.
“There’s fire. Fucking fire and a bitch… a dead bitch strung up. You have to see it.” Ash started shaking his head. I started breathing fast. Fire. There was fire.
Ky moved next to Prez, reading his instructions aloud. “Mae, get the women in the back room and lock yourselves in.” Mae got to her feet, carrying Charon, and led the bitches into the back room. I held onto Maddie. She wasn’t going anywhere without me.
“Flame?” Maddie said and stood up.
“Flame, you’re fucking coming with us,” Ky ordered. I wasn’t letting Maddie fucking go. “Flame! Get Maddie to the fucking back room! You’re needed!”
“I will be okay,” Maddie said. “You must go.”
“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