My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8) - Tillie Cole Page 0,30
me aim it at the first body I saw. Placing my finger on the trigger, I fired. The shot raced out into the quiet and still forest, echoing like thunder among the leaves. Sleeping birds and flying bats scattered, taking to the night sky like rockets. I kept firing. One by one the ghosts dropped to the ground, shot down for now. But they wouldn’t stay there. They’d come back. They always fucking came back.
I took down line after line of bloodied and dead-eyed men, until the last one had fallen just an inch from my feet. As he hit the ground, disappearing into the high grass and weeds that surrounded me, I felt Slash’s hand fall away. He’d be back though, haunting my fucking dreams, ordering me to make shit right in his name.
I didn’t know how to make anything right.
A noise from my left made me roll my head to that side. I was fucking tired, but I never slept. They all came back when I slept. What was I thinking? Awake or asleep, they were always there, building in numbers every week. They were a motherfucking army commanded by my guilt.
The sound of safeties being pulled thundered around me. “Fuck me, Ash!” I narrowed my eyes trying to work out who had spoken. I recognized the voice, but my slow and whiskey-fucked brain couldn’t think fast enough to remember. Three blurry figures came into view. AK was at the front. He always was, the famed sniper ready to rid the Hangmen of their enemies. But he hadn’t killed Diego, and Diego had killed Slash. It was dark and my eyesight was shit, but I knew Viking and Flame were behind him. The three of them were always together.
“Jacking off in the woods, mini Flame?” Viking said. When his face appeared from the darkness, he was smirking. Fucker was always smirking. AK dropped down beside me and yanked the gun from my hand.
“Give me that the fuck back!” I spat, and drunkenly fell on my side as I tried to grab it back.
“Fucked again, Ash?” AK asked tiredly and ran his hand down his face. “You get that some fuckers are messing with us, right? That we’re all keeping watch in case they’re more than pissants testing their luck against us?” I pushed myself into a sitting position and looked out into the trees. I wanted to tell AK and my brother about the men I’d shot in the grass, that Slash was somewhere close, fucking with my brain, but my mouth wouldn’t work. The darkness that was growing inside me smothered my lungs and brain like a fungus, fucking taking control of everything I was. It wasn’t letting go of me. It had me shackled, sinking its talons into my chest, poisoning me with uncontrollable rage.
“The bitches are losing their shit back in the cabins. Saffie is hiding in her room. She wasn’t great after coming home from school, and now she’s hunkered up under her desk believing people are coming for her.” My stomach coiled. She was the one person I never wanted to scare. The darkness began to dig into my bones, infecting the marrow. Everything inside me was becoming tinged with blackness. But I hung on to her face in my mind’s eye. I hung on to her with everything I had.
AK kneeled down beside me. He put his hand on my shoulder where Slash’s hand had recently been. “Listen, kid, I know you’re in a bad place. Fucking talk to me, let me help—” I shrugged off his hand. That was where Slash put his. Where the damn darkness touched me, placing its heavy hand on me, weighing me the fuck down. AK was better than that. I didn’t want him to catch the darkness. I wanted him to understand that, but I couldn’t find the words, couldn’t form the sentences on my tongue. When I met his eyes, I tried to appeal for his help. Instead, I saw him give up. I saw the tired look he gave me. Like he was fucking done.
Getting to his feet, he turned to Flame and Viking. “I’ll tell Madds and Phebe it was just Ash fucking around.” He nodded to Vike. “You tell Styx it was a false alarm and to hold back the fucking troops.” AK glanced at me over his shoulder. “Leave the kid out of it. No need to make the prez even more pissed at him. I’ll try and reason with