My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8) - Tillie Cole Page 0,47

in to what the devil wanted. “Flame, look at me, baby.” I did, but my vision was blurred. “Baby, what is it?”

“I can’t touch you,” I said. “The flames…” Some fucking evil voice in my head was telling me to touch her. It had to be the demons. They wanted me to touch Maddie. To finish off what they had started.

“Flame, listen to me.” Maddie tried to move on the bed. She winced.

“Don’t move!” I shouted. My head dropped when she stopped, eyes wide. She looked scared of me. I didn’t want her to be scared of me. But she had to understand I could hurt her, even if I didn’t mean to. “Please… don’t touch me. I…” I choked on my words. I pushed through it. “I don’t want to hurt you. Not you. Not my Maddie…” I looked down to her stomach. She was still holding the bump with one hand. “Not the baby. I can’t hurt another baby.” I pictured a baby in my mind’s eye. It had greens eyes. It looked just like Maddie. “Our baby… I can’t hurt our baby like I hurt Isaiah.” There was water filling my eyes. “His chest rattled. He was too hot… then he died in my arms, he died…”

“Flame, look at me.” I lifted my eyes to Maddie. “You are not evil. The flames will not hurt me.”

“They have.” I said as I replayed the fire burning the clubhouse in my head. It trapped her in the clubhouse. The flames that haunted me had found her and tried to take her away from me.

“Flame…” Maddie whispered, and then she held out her hand. “I need you. I need my husband.” Her hand rubbed over her belly. “We both do. Don’t—” Tears fell down Maddie’s cheeks. No! I didn’t like her crying. The sight made a hole cave in my stomach. “Fight the flames, baby. You are my warrior. You can defeat them. You have done it before. You can do it again.”

“I can’t.” I lowered my head and Maddie tried to touch my head. I scurried back. “Please…” I begged. “Please don’t make me hurt you. Not you. Not my Maddie.” Maddie’s hand dropped. I watched her chest lift up and down. She was breathing. “I thought you were dead.” A wet drop from my eye landed on my chest. “I thought I had killed you both.”

“I am not leaving you,” Maddie stated, as she wiped her eyes. She was so beautiful. I remembered seeing her for the first time at the cult. I remembered her talking to me. And I remembered her putting her arms around my waist. She calmed the flames. I could breathe right for a moment—I hadn’t breathed right in years.

Maddie laid her head down on the pillow, facing me. She put her hand on the bed. I stared at her hand. I clenched mine into a fist. But I edged forward. I lifted my hand onto the bed and put it near her’s. It looked so little. Suddenly, I was tired, so fucking tired. I laid my head on the bed. Maddie was looking at me. Her bottom lip trembled. “I love you,” she said quietly.

I moved my little finger closer to her’s. But I didn’t touch it. “Your hand is soft. It’s always warm.”

“Your is too,” she said. Tears trickled over her nose and onto the pillow. “It is always warm.” Her breath shook when she inhaled. “It fits mine so perfectly.”

I looked up at her eyes. “I… I missed you.” I thought those were the right words to describe my feelings. “I felt a cave in my chest when you wouldn’t wake up. I felt a stabbing in my stomach when you didn’t move.” A lump blocked my throat. I pushed past it. The room shimmered. My eyes were full of water again. “I thought you’d died.”

“No,” Maddie said, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I thought I’d killed you, like Mama,” I confessed and remembered Mama on the bed, knife at her side. There was blood everywhere. “Like I killed… like I killed… Isaiah.” Maddie was shaking her head. “I hurt everyone. I don’t mean to, but I always do.”

“Flame, no. You don’t.” But I knew I did. I felt the flames. Maddie didn’t know how they felt. I heard the demons inside of me, telling me I was evil. Poppa had been right. Pastor Hughes had been right. I didn’t think the same as everyone else. I wasn’t like everyone else. I was