My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8)(35)

“Don’t move!” I shouted. My head dropped when she stopped, eyes wide. She looked scared of me. I didn’t want her to be scared of me. But she had to understand I could hurt her, even if I didn’t mean to. “Please… don’t touch me. I…” I choked on my words. I pushed through it. “I don’t want to hurt you. Not you. Not my Maddie…” I looked down to her stomach. She was still holding the bump with one hand. “Not the baby. I can’t hurt another baby.” I pictured a baby in my mind’s eye. It had greens eyes. It looked just like Maddie. “Our baby… I can’t hurt our baby like I hurt Isaiah.” There was water filling my eyes. “His chest rattled. He was too hot… then he died in my arms, he died…”

“Flame, look at me.” I lifted my eyes to Maddie. “You are not evil. The flames will not hurt me.”

“They have.” I said as I replayed the fire burning the clubhouse in my head. It trapped her in the clubhouse. The flames that haunted me had found her and tried to take her away from me.

“Flame…” Maddie whispered, and then she held out her hand. “I need you. I need my husband.” Her hand rubbed over her belly. “We both do. Don’t—” Tears fell down Maddie’s cheeks. No! I didn’t like her crying. The sight made a hole cave in my stomach. “Fight the flames, baby. You are my warrior. You can defeat them. You have done it before. You can do it again.”

“I can’t.” I lowered my head and Maddie tried to touch my head. I scurried back. “Please…” I begged. “Please don’t make me hurt you. Not you. Not my Maddie.” Maddie’s hand dropped. I watched her chest lift up and down. She was breathing. “I thought you were dead.” A wet drop from my eye landed on my chest. “I thought I had killed you both.”

“I am not leaving you,” Maddie stated, as she wiped her eyes. She was so beautiful. I remembered seeing her for the first time at the cult. I remembered her talking to me. And I remembered her putting her arms around my waist. She calmed the flames. I could breathe right for a moment—I hadn’t breathed right in years.

Maddie laid her head down on the pillow, facing me. She put her hand on the bed. I stared at her hand. I clenched mine into a fist. But I edged forward. I lifted my hand onto the bed and put it near her’s. It looked so little. Suddenly, I was tired, so fucking tired. I laid my head on the bed. Maddie was looking at me. Her bottom lip trembled. “I love you,” she said quietly.

I moved my little finger closer to her’s. But I didn’t touch it. “Your hand is soft. It’s always warm.”

“Your is too,” she said. Tears trickled over her nose and onto the pillow. “It is always warm.” Her breath shook when she inhaled. “It fits mine so perfectly.”

I looked up at her eyes. “I… I missed you.” I thought those were the right words to describe my feelings. “I felt a cave in my chest when you wouldn’t wake up. I felt a stabbing in my stomach when you didn’t move.” A lump blocked my throat. I pushed past it. The room shimmered. My eyes were full of water again. “I thought you’d died.”

“No,” Maddie said, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I thought I’d killed you, like Mama,” I confessed and remembered Mama on the bed, knife at her side. There was blood everywhere. “Like I killed… like I killed… Isaiah.” Maddie was shaking her head. “I hurt everyone. I don’t mean to, but I always do.”

“Flame, no. You don’t.” But I knew I did. I felt the flames. Maddie didn’t know how they felt. I heard the demons inside of me, telling me I was evil. Poppa had been right. Pastor Hughes had been right. I didn’t think the same as everyone else. I wasn’t like everyone else. I was darkness. I was picked by the devil to hurt people.

“I… I love you, Maddie.”

“Flame. I love you too. So much.” Maddie cried. “Look at me.” I did. “You will not, have not and could not hurt me.” She was wrong. Maddie was so good. She didn’t see the evil inside me, like my poppa had. He saw it, the snakes proved it.

“I’m so tired,” I rasped. I moved to the chair beside the bed and lay my head back on the mattress. Once again, I moved my hand closer to Maddie’s. I felt better being near.

“Sleep, baby,” Maddie said. Her voice was like the lullabies my mama used to sing.

My eyes began to close. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch the flames.”

“I promise,” Maddie said. I heard her gasp. When I opened my eyes to see why, she was staring at my arm. “Flame,” she whispered. “Your arm...” I felt the blade in my pocket Maddie hated knives so much. She didn’t like me cutting myself. It made her sad.

My Maddie was perfect. I’d never deserved her. I was slow, a fucking retard. I didn’t understand the world. I was a sinner and I had evil in my blood. My poppa saw it. Ash saw it too. But Maddie always saw something else in me. Something she loved. I never knew what that was. I wished I saw it too. “Sleep, my love,” Maddie hushed. My chest stopped aching so much when she smiled at me. I liked her smile. It made the flames go away for a while. Not forever, but enough to help me breathe. “Sleep. I am here with you.” I closed my eyes and felt Maddie’s warm breath on my cheek. But when I slept, all I saw was Maddie dead, in the flames… and I was holding her hand. My touch had killed her.