Souls Unfractured (Hades Hangmen, #3)(19)

I staggered across the ditch. I dropped one knife to the ground, and tightened my grip on the other.

“Fuck! Flame! No, brother. Stop. Talk to me. What the f*ck’s wrong? Talk to me!”

I lifted my head. AK… AK was there, he was talking to me, but the sound of the flames roaring were filling my ears, burning me from the inside. I watched his mouth as I lifted my knife and slashed it across my stomach. I hissed as I felt my flesh tear. I closed my eyes as I felt some of the flames leach away. But I needed more. I needed them all gone. I couldn’t live with the screams in my head anymore.

I slashed across my arm. I slashed across my chest. And the blood ran out. But the flames were still inside, I could feel them under my skin. The screams were still inside. His cries, his screams were still inside. Her screams. Her screams as he hurt her, as he beat her.

Tears ran down my cheeks as I thought of his little face. His little face screaming. His little hands reaching for me. But I couldn’t touch him. I was evil. I had the devil in my blood. I would hurt him. I would hurt him.

I registered movement. Red hair? Then I saw Vike. “Flame, stop. You’re gonna f*ckin’ kill yourself! I don’t wanna touch you, brother, but so help me God I will if you don’t f*cking stop.”

‘No,” I snarled and backed off, my blade held in front of me. Vike stopped. He watched as me I lifted my blade and slashed it across my abs.

But it wasn’t enough. They weren’t going away. None of it. My head was too full. It was all too full; my chest, my veins, my head… all too full.

A hand suddenly knocked my blade from hand. I reached forward, but an arm grabbed me from behind.

My body shook harder and harder as the arm curled around my throat. It squeezed and I roared. I fought like f*ck to shake free. But the hand was too strong. Another set of hands grabbed my arms. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t f*cking move! And now more hands were touching me. Touching my skin. Stopping the flames from getting the f*ck out.

“Get him in the f*cking truck! We’ll take the bikes and dump the stiffs. I’m calling in Smiler, we need more men out here. Fuck! Get him back to the compound before his psycho ass takes us all out!”

Black spots filled my eyes again as the arm around my neck blocked my breathing. The darkness was coming, I couldn’t f*cking stand the darkness.

“Fuck, Flame. What the f*ck is happening?” someone shouted, but I was going under. I could feel the blackness coming for me.

“What the hell went wrong, AK?”

“Fuck knows, but I think the day has arrived.”

“What day?”

“The day when Flame has f*cking snapped once and for all.”

“Shit!” a voice yelled.

Then the darkness came, but the flames?

The flames and the f*cking screams remained.





Chapter Seven


Maddie



Viking burst through the trees that led from his cabin up to Mae and Styx’s house and my heart began to race. Something had happened to Flame on his run. I knew it when he did not turn up at nightfall as we had planned. And whatever it was had taken him away from me for two days.

Two long days.

And his best friends AK and Viking had been missing too. My nerves were in shreds wondering what could have happened to him? And the way Viking had hurried, the way he had bolted into this cabin just now, had sent a shiver of fear down my spine.

Suddenly, raised voices sounded from the living room directly below.

It was Viking. I recognized his voice.

I approached the shut door. My hand hovered over the doorknob, but I just stared. Fear held me in its grip. But then Viking’s voice drifted up the stairs. His frantic voice… his distressed and upset voice.

Flame, I thought, he was here about Flame.

Moving on instinct, my hand landed on the doorknob and I slipped through the door, a cacophony of loud voices overwhelmed my senses.

Steeling my nerves, I slipped down the stairs. On the downstairs landing I slipped into the shadows. There I waited and I listened.

“He’s f*cking lost it this time, Styx. Fucking tapped out crazy. I don’t know what the f*ck to do. What’ll get through to him?”

I could see Viking pacing the room, Styx and Ky were sitting down listening to the running commentary from Viking’s mouth. The rest of the Hangmen looked on, confusion and apprehension etched on their features.

Viking, who looked tired and unkempt, was coated with dried blood on his shirt. He ran his hand through his messy long red hair. “He just flipped, real bad. And for two days he hasn’t calmed. Fuck!” Viking’s voice caught in his throat and a strangled moan slipped from his lips. “We had to touch him, restrain him. And I swore to my brother that would never happen. The way his eyes looked at me, like he couldn’t believe I’d betrayed him. FUCK!”

Ky sat forward. “Calm down, Vike. We need to f*cking think.”

Viking choked on a humorless laugh. “Calm down? You ain’t seen him, man. I think… I think this time we’ve lost him. I ain’t sure he’s gonna be right again. And I don’t know what set him off. I don’t know what he saw to push him over the edge. Yeah, there was a shooting, but the brother’s been in more shootouts than I can count. It was like he was seeing something in his f*cked up head. Seeing some memory in his head as f*cking real.”