My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8)(54)

It was several minutes before Zane spoke. “I’ve heard some about last time. About when Maddie managed to save him when he broke down before.” I had too. I’d never seen Flame break before. They’d found me when he’d been better. I’d heard rumors about it. Of course, Flame never spoke about it and I never asked Maddie. I thought It was in the past. I couldn’t have been more wrong. “He’d asked AK to kill him. His head had become so bad he’d asked Uncle AK to kill him. And he was going to, AK had promised Flame years before that if he ever broke, fully mentally broke…” Zane trailed off. I knew why. This could be that time. This could be the time Flame had gone to a place in his mind that he couldn’t return from.

This might be the time I lose my brother.

The room began to spin faster, the more whiskey I drank. Zane got a bottle too. I handed him a smoke. Took another bottle of Jack for me. “Saff has been having panic attacks,” Zane confessed about an hour. Every part of me froze.

“Why?”

“School,” he replied. I must have frowned. After that first day, she’d barely been there. Kept calling in sick, calling AK to come and get her after only a couple of periods. She fucking hid in the bleachers, skipping classes, Zane finding her curled up on the ground, crying. Shit. She’d been there less than me and that was saying something. “She ain’t ready yet,” he explained. “Being out in the world, being away from home… it’s fucking her up. I hear her sometimes. I hear her break in the middle of the night. She screams. She fucking can’t breathe. Phebe has to calm her down. She has to restrain her.” Zane drank more whiskey. I knew he spoke to Saffie at their cabin. They were like brother and sister. I knew he was protective of her.

“Then why the fuck is she still enrolled in school?” I asked. I hadn’t been there for her like I’d promised. I hadn’t been there to protect her. I was dropping out. I was never fucking going back.

Zane kept his head down, until he looked up at me and met my eyes. I felt my stomach fucking plummet. I knew, of course. Or I’d guessed it was because of me. Zane didn’t have to say fuck all about it. He knew that, deep down, I’d known. “She doesn’t trust anyone. Go near anyone. Talks to hardly anyone…”

But me.

My heart fucking raced. I had to push the image of her panicking from my mind, of her being fucking restrained by Phebe for her own safety. I just couldn’t see that shit right now. I couldn’t deal with any of this shit. Why was everyone so fucked up? Why had everything gone to shit?

Clearing my throat, I said, “Well she ain’t got to worry about it anymore. I’m not going back.” I felt Zane’s eyes boring into me. I turned to him. “I’m gonna apprentice with Tank, at the bike shop. He already agreed.” I was so fucking over school. What was the point of even going? Surrounded by a bunch of rich pricks, who knew nothing of living a hard fucking life. A bunch of cunts, who judged us on belonging to Hades. They could all eat shit. I didn’t even have enough credits to graduate at this point and I wasn’t repeating the year. Not a fucking chance. “She’ll be better at home. Tell her she never has to go back. I’m fucking out.” Before Zane said anything, I got up at went out the back of the barn to take a piss.

“Baby Flame!” Rudge emerged from behind a tree. When he walked toward me, I saw a club slut pulling down her dress behind him. She walked past. He ignored her. “Just got my dick sucked. Is there anything greater in life than that! Well apart from fucking pussy, obviously. Or maybe fucking a peach of an arse while the bitch screams, losing her fucking mind.”

Rudge sought out a tree stump nearby and bent down. Reaching into his cut, he pulled out a packet and poured some white powder onto the stump. He cut it into lines with a razor blade from his cut and snorted the coke with rolled up paper he happened to have in his pocket. “Whew! Fucking snow! My fucking best friend in the world!” He sniffed, rubbing his nostril with his hand and I saw his eyes fucking light up as the drug hit him. He handed me the rolled paper. “Want some?”

I wanted to get this fucking shit from my head. I wanted the people I’d killed to stop haunting me. Wanted Slash to stop haunting me, blaming me for his death. I wanted Flame to be okay. Wanted Saffie to stop breaking the fuck down, because she was trying to do good by me. She needn’t bother. I was fucking damned, there was no redemption.

“Yeah,” I said, and took the rolled-up paper out of his hand. Rudge cut the coke into lines for me and I snorted. The moment it hit me; numbness spread like wildfire throughout my body. All my pain and the agony plaguing my mind disappeared. Finally, I felt was fucking free. I closed my eyes and felt nothing. Sweet. Fuck. All. I’d never felt this fucking good in my entire life.

“Fucking good snow, eh mate?” Rudge said, smiling wide. I opened my eyes. “Here.” He handed me the packet. “Take it.” He also gave me the blade and rolled paper. “I got more where that came from.” He nodded to the packet. “You need more, I got you. That’s grade ‘A’ fucking cocaine, my friend. My dealer is the shit.”

“Thanks,” I said, and just breathed in fucking fresh air. My lungs had never breathed so good. No pain. No tight throat. Just sweet fucking air.

“So, baby Flame, what’s your preference?” Rudge asked. I frowned in confusion. What the fuck was he talking about? “You like sticking your wick in the pussy or arse of a club slut?” I shrugged my shoulders, too busy loving the ability to breathe right, to not be thinking about anything but this sweet fucking feeling rushing through my blood. Suddenly, Rudge got in my face and shouted, “No. Fucking. Way!” He grabbed my arms. “Mate, please tell me right fucking now that you’re not a virgin, that your dick has at least been sucked or wanked off. That you’ve t-bagged the shit out of some whore’s mouth?” My silence told him everything. Rudge slapped my cheeks with his palms. “Then pull it the fuck together, baby Flame. Tonight you’re handing in your V card. I’m gonna find you the filthiest, dirtiest slut to ride your pole all the fucking way to come-dump heaven.”