My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8)(19)

I nodded once, my stomach tightening at that potential truth. “I need to shower.”

Maddie left me alone and I closed my eyes. I breathed slowly until the rising anger was tamed. Saffie… fucking Saffie at school. I couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t imagine seeing her walking down the hall, all that blond hair and perfect eyes and lips. I knew if anyone even looked at her wrong, I’d end up getting expelled. No one fucked with her. Just the thought of it had my hands curled into fists and my body braced to tear assholes apart.

*****

I’d had classes all morning and hadn’t seen Saffie once. It was lunchtime now. I thought maybe she’d changed her mind and stayed at home. Zane told me he would watch out for her as he had classes close to her this morning. I hadn’t heard from him either.

Putting a smoke between my lips, I lit up as I reached the deserted bleachers. No fucker came here but for me and Zane. I ducked under the metal frame, moving behind a steel post and then stopped dead. Saffie was sitting on the other side of the post, eating a sandwich, head bowed like always. Her brown eyes lifted when she heard me. I gritted my teeth as I saw her, the sight of her stunning face slamming into my stomach with the force of a metal bar. She looked different. At least, her clothes did. She was wearing jeans and a pink sweatshirt. Her blond hair was back in some kind of fancy fucking braid. I’d never seen her in anything except for a dress and with her long hair down. Her cheeks suddenly burned bright red and she dropped her eyes again. I’d been fucking staring at her, a fucking mute as I studied how she looked.

Inhaling my smoke, I edged closer and cleared my throat. “You doing good?” I wasn’t used to speaking to Saffie.

Saffie’s eyes lifted. I swear I’d never seen lashes that fucking long or that dark before. She nodded but stayed silent. I wanted to hear her voice again. I moved closer and dropped to the ground close to where she was sitting. She looked kind of pale. The cuffs of her sweatshirt covered half her hands, like she was trying to disappear. And her eyes… they were wide like a deer’s caught in headlights. My stomach fucking caved in in sympathy. She looked petrified. What the fuck was she thinking coming here to school? I didn’t want to ask her that though. I didn’t want to make her feel like a fucking failure. I knew what that felt like. I wouldn’t bring her down in that way.

I thought I felt her gaze on mine as I stared out across the football field. I cleared my throat from the fucking shivers climbing up my spine. “Where’s Zane?”

I turned to Saffie. I couldn’t get over how different she looked. Those jeans. Those fucking jeans on her perfect legs. “He got detention,” she whispered, and my muscles tensed in an instant.

“Why? Was someone fucking with you?”

Saffie’s eyes widened. I guessed she’d never heard me speak this way. Like some overprotective fucking psycho. “No, Zane, he…” Saffie stared down at her hands. Her voice was as quiet as a damn mouse. It was still the best damn sound I’d ever heard. I wanted to hear more. But she was hesitating. Her gaze flitted around the bleachers and football field like someone would come and attack her at any second. I could tell she hated being here. Fucking hated being anywhere but in her home with her mama. “He is struggling,” she finally said. Zane and Saffie were siblings in a way. Zane was AK’s nephew, but I knew my friend saw him more as his old man. Saffie was Phebe’s kid. Z and Saff saw each other a lot. I was fucking jealous. In that moment I fucking envied Zane. He got to see Saffie every fucking day. See her blond hair and bright fucking eyes.

Then her words circled my brain… He is struggling…

I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I knew how to fucking breathe. The fucking innate skill seemed to have jumped ship the minute Slash took the bullet meant for me. It was karma, I supposed. I was trying to breathe in air that should never have been mine to inhale.

And Zane… I knew he was fucked up too. Slash, me and Zane were best friends. He’d been there too that fucking day. And he’d been right beside me, firing bullets into the fuckers that killed our brother. I’d been so caught up in my fucking head that I hadn’t thought much of Zane. I knew he’d been fucking around in school. I wondered if he had the same anger I had. The same guilt that kept him awake at night. The fucking nightmares that haunted him whether he was awake or asleep.

I smoked the rest of my cigarette and flicked it to the ground when it was done. I rested my head back against the post and closed my eyes. Saffie didn’t say anything else. I wanted to ask her if she was really okay, but I had no right asking that of anyone else when I was fucking falling apart myself. I felt her body’s closeness, could smell her vanilla scent. Sweet—just like her. That was enough. I could protect her when she was beside me.

I concentrated on her body heat wrapping around me. It was like she was warmer or some shit than everyone else I’d ever met. She wasn’t even sitting right beside me and I felt her heat as much as I would the fire from an open furnace. I was cold. I was always fucking cold these days. She was the fucking sun. I couldn’t explain it more than that. My body just seemed to know she was there.

I sighed, holding my breath when I began to feel calmer. My eyes snapped open and I looked across to her. She’d been watching me. The minute our eyes met, her cheeks burst with redness and she ducked her head. My stomach tightened just looking at that blush… and there was no sign of my anger. I closed my eyes, keeping my face turned toward her and I breathed. I fucking breathed, not feeling like there was an iron cage around my lungs. I was tired. So tired. Like this, with Saffie beside me, I could sleep. I didn’t know why it was different around her, but I wasn’t going to question it. My head ached all the fucking time. Right now, it was as if I’d just taken ten Advil.