My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8)(8)

AK and Ky talked behind me, but I didn’t listen to their words, it was all white noise. My feet ground to a halt as I looked through the window to see Lilah on the bed, Phebe and Bella on chairs beside her. Bella was holding Charon. Mae held one of the babies… and Maddie held the other. My chest tightened so fucking hard that I fought to breathe. Seeing Maddie was meant to make my breathing better. But seeing her like this… it was worse. So much fucking worse. Maddie was holding a baby. My Maddie, staring down at a kid wrapped in a blue blanket… and she was talking to it. Fucking smiling, smiling so big that I couldn’t take my eyes off her glowing face.

Maddie was holding a baby. I’d only ever held one baby… My skin burned, it fucking set on fire at the memories that were trying to break through the fog in my head. I focused on Maddie. On her beautiful, perfect face and how it would make everything better if she just looked my way.

Then Maddie’s lips started to move. I couldn’t hear her through the thick wooden doors, but I knew she was singing. I knew what her voice sounded like. And I knew what she’d be singing. “This Little Light of Mine…”

My palms flattened on the doors and I read her lips as she sang. Watched her small body sway with the baby in her arms. My throat began to close. I remembered Maddie’s picture from her sketchbook. Not the one of us holding each other, the one that had made me want to touch her when I’d never wanted to touch anyone else. The one with her holding a baby, me beside her.

But I couldn’t ever hold a baby. We couldn’t ever have one of our own. Maddie knew that. My touch killed babies. Isaiah… I remembered Isaiah in my arms, red and screaming in the cellar. Then I remembered holding him, his cries stopping and his breathing turning strange.

His chest rattled. I’d counted his breaths. One… He’d sounded bad, real fucking bad. I’d counted two to eleven… then the breathing stopped. His skin color changed on eleven… He never reached twelve. He never fucking reached twelve.

My eyes snapped back to Maddie in that room. My hands were shaking and sweat dripped down my neck. Maddie’s skin color was funny too. Just like Isaiah’s had been. Was she as sick as he had been? “Maddie,” I whispered. Maddie turned her head at something Lilah said. I stared down at my hands. They were shaking so fucking bad that I clenched my fists to try to make them stop. But they didn’t. Then I froze. Was my touch making her sick? Was it me who was hurting her? Finally? I backed away from the window and slumped on the nearest seat. But I kept staring at my hands. Trying to see if they looked different. If the devil had somehow made me eviler, more damned, so I would hurt Maddie.

“Flame? You good?” AK asked from across the hall, where he stood beside Styx and Ky. I automatically nodded, but I kept staring at my hands, waiting for a sign that the evil was stronger than ever, watching my veins to see if they would change color. I squeezed my eyes shut and let Maddie’s singing voice invade my head. Her soft voice always kept me calm.

Immediately, I could breathe some.

I tried to tell myself that my touch couldn’t be hurting her. But then I pictured her with the baby. I couldn’t hold babies. I hurt them. I’d killed my brother. My poppa had told me so. I’d killed my mama too. Maddie said I didn’t, but now she was sick. Ash was going bad. The devil was dragging him down to hell with me. We had the same blood. The same flames in our souls…

I kept focusing on Maddie’s singing voice in my head. She’d be with me soon. She’d make everything better. She always made it better.

And she’d chase away the devil and his flames.





Chapter Two


Maddie



“Azrael, you are beyond perfect.” I gently leaned over the bed to place him back in Lilah’s arms. My sister was smiling as I handed him over. I saw her flinch, but even the pain from her caesarean could not steal her joyful shine. I stared at my sister in awe. Lilah was always beautiful, but I did not think I had ever seen her look as perfect as she did now.

I took a seat beside Mae, who was holding Talitha. I ran my finger down Talitha’s rosy cheek. A fissure of nerves travelled down my spine as she moved under my touch. Nerves mixed with an excitement I could barely contain. As I sat back in my seat, Bella slipped her hand into mine. “Have you told him yet, sister?”

The excitement I felt morphed into stark fear. The smile I was wearing from staring at two such beautiful babies vanished. I bit my lip in instant trepidation. “No. I have yet to summon the courage.”

Bella’s hand squeezed mine in reassurance. “He will be able tell soon enough.” Naturally, my free hand fell over my stomach. The flowing material of my purple dress quickly molded around the slight bump that had started to form. My little precious bump. Flame had yet to realize it was there. But he knew I had been sick in some way. I had told him it was simply a stomach virus. I saw what it was doing to him. I saw the worry on his face and the haunted look in his eyes. I had not been honest with him. But I feared I could not without causing him pain. I never wanted to cause him pain, he had suffered too much in his life.

“I dare not tell him,” I whispered. The room fell silent. When I looked up, all of my sisters were watching me—Bella, Sia, Phebe, Lilah, and Mae—sorrow and empathy etched on their faces. I withdrew my hand from Bella’s and ran it over my stomach, cradling our baby who was growing inside. “He has many demons, as you know. But…” I quieted. I would not divulge my husband’s horrific experiences as a child. That was between him and me. I would never break that sacred trust.