My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8) - Tillie Cole Page 0,51

trembling lips gaoled the confession I so desperately needed him to confide in me.

And he would not touch me. I looked down at my offending hand. The one that he could not bring himself to hold. I closed my eyes and felt them fill with tears. I felt his rough hand around my fingers, ghost-like, an eerie echo of the walls he had brought down on our love. I cast my mind back to our cabin when I had locked myself inside, refusing to let AK do what Flame had begged of him. Kill Flame. Once and for all to destroy the flames that tortured my husband’s soul. To silence the venomous voice of his father who, when Flame was but a child, told his son that he was evil, that demons had possessed his body. A father who should have loved and protected Flame. Who should have held his son close when Flame’s fears were laid bare to his ears, when his testimony and confession needed to be met with love and understanding, not denial, certainly not the emotional lashes of eternal damnation and sin.

I felt my tears slip down my cheek, felt my throat close with fear and dread. This time the sadness was for me. The world thought me brave for overcoming the horrors of my own past. But it was all due to Flame. He had been the one to save me. He was my sword when evil thoughts came to drag me down into the pits of despair. Flame was my protective shield when doubt and feelings of unworthiness began to take root in my heart, spreading like a cancer, countering any happiness I had found—and I had found it in abundance with Flame. More than I deserved.

Flame felt he was the weak one. The one who burdened me. But he was no burden. He was the richest of blessings. He was a solitary light in the smothering darkness. His flames were neither evil nor devil tainted. They were sharp bursts of redemption. Of hope. Flame was light. He was my warmth.

“Maddie?” I flickered my eyes open. Bella was standing at the bottom of the bed. She was chewing on her lip. She was obviously nervous. I quickly wiped my eyes. Bella came rushing to my side and took hold of my hand. It was the soothing touch of a beloved sister. But it was not the hand I craved, the touch I needed to feel, to breathe well again.

“I’ll go get your discharge papers, then we can get you on your way.” I had not even realized the nurse was still in the room. My hands and arms were now clear of wires. We were okay. My baby and I were okay. We had survived.

“Thank you,” I whispered, distractedly. The nurse left the room. I sat up, searching around the space. “Where is he?”

Bella glanced over her shoulder. I followed her gaze to see Rider standing silently in the corner. He was dressed in his doctor’s attire of matching green shirt and pants. Scrubs, he called them.

“I’ve searched the hospital, Madds. I can’t find him,” Rider confessed, disappointment lacing his voice. “We were told he went on business for the club. But we know Flame. He wouldn’t leave you for something that trivial. I called AK, Madds. He’s on it.”

My heart burst. I was not one to let my imagination run away with me. But I knew my husband. I knew the fragility of his heart and soul. The loose control he maintained over his mind. The thread of sanity he tried so hard, each day, to follow. His past was a visitor he could never rid himself of, lurking behind a closed door, relentlessly knocking, just waiting for the handle to turn so he could rush inside and take control of the residence.

The most terrifying thing was that I knew he could never leave me. For days he had remained by my side, unmoving, silent save for the cuts he sliced into his already-scarred flesh. Hospitals lit the ferocious fire he believed lived in his blood. The smells and noises reminded him of being strapped down on a narrow bed, unable to release the flames that tortured his soul as a young man. Yet another time in his life when Flame’s will was withheld from him. His father, his pastor, then the psychiatric hospital he ended up in had never understood him. Never sought to understand what plagued his soul, instead injecting him