Tongue (Ruthless Kings MC #8) - K.L. Savage Page 0,92
fire pokers leaning against the mantle.
“What are you doing? Tongue. Don’t do anything crazy,” Tool says.
“Do you know who you are talking to?” Bullseye asks him.
I grab a few logs from the box and throw them in the fireplace, grab a match from the shell of a grenade that is a makeshift vase and strike it. Soaking the logs with lighter fluid, I toss the match and watch the flames whoosh and heat, nearly burning my skin. I grab the fire poker and shove it in the fire, letting the iron turn from black to scorching red.
“Put down the poker,” Skirt and Poodle corral me with Tool and Bullseye flanking their sides. “Don’t do anything crazy. We will find her. We will bring her home.”
“I deserve this.” It takes some maneuvering, but I dip my head under the strap of the sling and take it off, my arm falling limp to my side. Next, I rip my shirt off and throw it in the fire.
“No, you don’t. You’re human, Tongue. You’re human,” Braveheart says from the doorway, coming in from watching the gate. “Look at me,” he says gently. “Tongue, you’re human. I think you need to hear that. Look at me.”
I rip my eyes away from the bright glowing orange at the tip of the fire poker, smelling the smoke taunting me for my punishment, and give Braveheart my undivided attention. Nothing he says will change my mind. I deserve the pain. I always have. It’s why my Uncle burned me. Reaper cuts to inflict pain, but that won’t do anything to me. I’ll only enjoy it.
Fire, heat, getting burnt.
That’s where my fear and pain lives.
He holds out his hands, something people do when they are talking someone down from the ledge. Nothing can be done for me. What does Daphne see in me?
I’m not someone a kind person bets on for the future. I wreck them.
“Tongue, you’re human.”
“You keep saying that—”
“Because I don’t think anyone has ever told you,” Braveheart, the skinny new member says. “I think,” he licks his lips, staring at the poker. “I think you were raised to be an animal. You were abused. You are trained to be a certain way. It’s how you’re programmed but guess what, man? You aren’t a killing machine. You. Are. Human. You’re allowed to feel what you’re feeling. You’re allowed and it’s okay.”
“It isn’t okay. She’s in danger. I should have been more for her.”
“How can you be more? You’re obviously everything you need to be for her, or she wouldn’t love you. She loves the human, Tongue.” He pounds his chest with his fist, right above his heart. “That part of you that you keep hidden from us or the part that maybe you didn’t know existed because of her. We are human at the end of the day, and I think you’ve felt a lot of those things that make us vulnerable, that makes us…”
“Human,” Poodle finishes.
“Right,” Braveheart says.
“Human,” I mutter, a concept I haven’t thought of before. I know I still need punishment, if not for what has happened to Daphne, for what has happened to Sarah. I fall to my knees and turn around, giving them my back. “Punish me, anyway.”
“Tongue.”
“Please, Tool. Someone do it.” I slide the poker across the floor and Bullseye picks it up before it can burn the wooden slabs.
“No,” Bullseye says. “Daphne needs you at your best. If after you want punishment, I’ll be the one to do it. I promise,” Bullseye states.
“You swear?” I ask him, but he has no time to answer because Reaper is pounding down the hallway.
“Alright. Let’s ride. We have Tongue’s special lady to rescue, then I think I remember something about a wedding?” When he comes into the main room, he sees me on the floor, kneeling and then eyes the poker in Bullseye’s hand. “I’m not going to ask. No time. We need to go. Seer has saved the day again. Also, Tongue, he says to look out for a gift and that you’d know what it is when you see it.”
“Daphne,” I get to my feet and dig into my pocket for the keys to my bike, but Braveheart takes them from me.
“You aren’t driving with your arm like that. We will take my Ford Raptor.”
“Come on, his little lady might not be able to save herself.”
I bet she could, but if she can’t, I’m going to get her out of there.