Souls Unfractured (Hades Hangmen, #3)(50)

But it was their hands, their calloused rough hands skirting over my flesh that I could not stand. Their fingers palming my breasts, their fingers scraping over my folds, stabbing inside.

“Maddie?” Flame’s low graveled voice cut through my thoughts. When I looked up, he was sitting before the fire, his large body hunched over, as though he was broken, as though his fear was as intense as mine.

And my heart broke at the unfairness. The unfairness of us two, so fearful of what nightmares the deliberate touch of another might evoke.

“I… I am finding the thought of touching... fearful,” I whispered. Flame’s shoulders sagged even more.

“Me too,” he admitted, so quietly that I nearly did not hear him.

Inhaling a deep breath, I walked over and sat before him. The heat from the fire immediately warmed my skin.

Under the heat, I moved to lay on my side, my hand flat to the floor just in front of my face. But my eyes never left Flame, and he was watching me the entire time, his head tilted slightly, as if in wonder.

I remained silent, the crackling of the burning of wood the only sound, until Flame moved his large body and laid before me too. His hand flattened to the floor, resting mere inches from mine. But our gazes were locked.

Feeling my heart dance in my chest, I asked, “Are you scared?”

Flame’s jaw clenched and he nodded his head. “Yeah,” he rasped out. “I’m f*cking scared I’ll hurt you.” He released a pent up breath, adding, “But I want to know what you feel like. I want to know what your hand feels like on mine. Like your picture.” His eyes dropped and he said, “I can’t get that f*cking picture from my head.”

My fingers curled and straightened, carefully replacing themselves back on the wooden floor. And feeling I needed to talk, I said, “Except from you,” I inhaled, fighting my nerves to keep on going, “I have only been touched by men who wanted to hurt me.” Flame stiffened, and by the quick rising and falling of his broad chest, I knew he was getting angry. “Every night that I sleep, I feel them touching me. I wake in a cold sweat, my nightdress drenched because I relive what they did to me. I feel the pain, I feel their unwanted intimate touches, the burns, the lashes… the blinding pain.” My throat clogged with a heavy lump. But I forced it back down, to say quietly, “But I want it to stop. And I do not know how. I see Mae and Lilah with Styx and Ky, and I see that they have found a way. Through love, they have found a way.”

Staring at my hand, I inched my fingers closer to Flame’s, feeling the heavy tension rolling off him in waves. I studied my little finger, so close to his, and added, “And I want to replace their touch with yours. I want to wake up with your arm around my waist, keeping me safe.”

“Maddie,” Flame groaned, but it was pained and regretful. “I don’t know if—”

“But I shall settle for your fingers wrapped in mine. I would be content to awaken knowing you were holding me in some small way.”

Flame’s eyes were darting from side to side, lost in thought. I shuffled my body closer until our faces were mere inches apart. I could feel Flame’s quick warm breath ghosting my cheek. I fought back the urge to back away. “I do not know who comes for you each night. And I do not know what he did to you. But I believe…” I shook my head, fighting the dark pit that was forming in my heart, “but I believe it is similar to what was done to me. And I believe that with my touch, maybe he might fade from your world too.”

Flame sucked in a sharp breath and he closed his eyes, clearly fighting something in his head. When they opened, water filled his gaze and he said, “He called me a retard. Because…” he breathed deep, “because I didn’t see things like everyone else.” I froze, listening intently to him speak. He continued. “I know I’m different. I knew he hated me because I was different. Other kids would laugh at me. They would laugh at something I said or something I did. And every time that happened it would upset me, because I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. And then I’d be punished. Over and over again, I’d be punished. So I stopped speaking to anyone, because I didn’t want them to laugh. I didn’t want to be punished. But that made him madder. He got mad when I spoke, but then he got mad when I didn’t. I sat on my own playing with my toys and it made him mad. But the other kids wouldn’t play with me, because I was me.”

My heart squeezed and I fought back tears, listening to what he went through as a child. A sheen of sweat broke out on his face. “He got angrier and angrier with me, until one day, I heard why I was different. Because I had evil in my soul and flames running in my blood.” Flame shook his head. “I tried to get them out to show him I was trying. I tried to get them out so he wouldn’t hate me anymore, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get them out.”

“Flame…” I whispered as tears ran down my cheeks.

“So he took me to Pastor Hughes. And Pastor Hughes brought the snakes. They held me down and snakes slithered on my skin. They needed to see if I was evil.”

I fought for breath. I did not understand. “Snakes? They put snakes on you?” I asked.

“Snakes are the manifestation of the devil, Pastor Hughes would say. If they bit you, it was because you were a sinner.” Flame’s eyes glazed over, and his skin jumped. “And they bit me. They hurt me. They felt the flames in my blood. They were drawn to the evil in my blood.”