them out there when Flame ain’t thinking straight!”
Smiler rolled to his feet, his long dark hair soiled by the mud from the ground and spilt blood. Smiling, he licked the blood pouring from his lip. “Mmm,” Smiler said to AK, “Fucking love the taste of blood.” AK went to attack him again, but Viking held him back. Then, the words AK had spoken began to filter into my mind.
“Them?” I half-queried, half-stated, my voice cutting through the silence. “You said them.” My pulse increased in pace. AK looked to me, catching his breath. His shoulders sagged. My eyes roved over the table. I closed them when realization dawned. “Asher,” I whispered. “Asher and Flame.” It suddenly felt as though a fist had grabbed my lungs and squeezed hard. They were my family: Flame, Asher, me and our baby. They were my family. And we were rapidly falling apart.
I marched to Smiler. I ignored the smug look on his face and issued a simple demand, “Where are they?” Smiler pushed his long brown hair from his face. “They are my family!” I stated curtly. “If you know where they are, you must tell us!”
Smiler pulled a piece of paper from his cut and walked around me to Styx. “Directions for the fire-starting fuckers. Camped out ‘bout four hours away.” He turned back to me. “Gave your man a head start. They fucked with you, with his property. You nearly died.” Smiler’s arrogant demeanor slowly faded, raw pain began to pulse through in its place. Then his eyes focused on my hands, which unconsciously cradled my stomach. “You nearly died, Maddie. So did your kid. Flame was a fucking mess. He deserves to have his revenge.” Blood dripped from Smiler’s lip to the ground. He did not seem to care. Like Asher, Smiler did not care about much since Slash died. “Some of us don’t get a chance at the revenge we’re owed. But your man did. I had to give him the kills.” My heart sank. That was where Flame and Asher had gone. They had gone to kill the men who had started the fire in the clubhouse. The fire that had almost killed us.
Flame…
I wanted to shout at Smiler. I wanted to scream at him, to tell him he was foolish for sending my husband and Asher into mortal danger. But the expression of sheer agony on his face encouraged me to maintain my silence. I walked to stand before Styx. “I am coming.” I somehow found the strength to stop my lip from trembling. “He… Flame is breaking down again.” Voicing the words out loud somehow seemed to cut deeper than keeping them to myself. All I saw were Flame’s black eyes in my mind, the yearning on his face to hold my hand, but his steadfast refusal to do so. “I fear he will be difficult to reason with, when you find him. But he will listen to me. He will come back to me. I know he will.”
Though there was a part of me that worried I was wrong. A traitorous part, which tried to convince me this time was it. This kind of darkness was what Flame could not return from. I tried to push it aside. He would come back to me. He had to. I could entertain no other outcome.
Styx’s gaze never moved from mine.
“It’s true, Prez,” Viking said, coming to stand beside me, flanking my side. “If Flame’s gone again, in his head, it ain’t us he’s gonna need. Y’all remember last time. AK nearly ended him. On Flame’s fucking demand. It was only Madds that could bring him back.”
AK stood on my other side. “We’ll take her in the van. She’s right. She has to come. We’ll protect her.” AK pointed at Viking, then looked at me. “You’re his old lady. We’re his best friends, the motherfucking Psycho Trio. Nothing will happen to you. We got you.” My torn heart healed a fraction at those words. At the conviction in AK and Viking’s eyes.
“Maddie, your baby,” Mae said from the porch.
“We are both fine,” I replied. Mae nodded, giving me a small whisper of a smile. “And I will never do anything to endanger them. Any of us.”
Styx looked out over the trees beyond his cabin. When he stood, he towered over me. Raising his hands, he signed. Ky spoke for him. “You come. You stay in the van with AK and Vike. You don’t come out until we tell you.