by Tillie Cole
I heard the quiet sound of Mae rushing to Styx, whispering something I could not hear, but I had one intention, and one intention only.
The smell of oil and leather hit me first, then something I could not make out, something distinctly Flame. Now only a hairsbreadth away from Flame, my eyes to the ground, a silence had descended on the group.
Clasping my hands together to maintain my composure, I lifted my head. This close, I realized I had missed him with a devastating intensity. I realized, that not once had I felt this safe since he had been gone.
Flame swallowed hard and watched me. My heart fluttered when I admitted to myself that I liked the way he watched me. I liked that, when I was near, the pained expression he always wore fell away.
Steeling my fraying nerves, I whispered, “Thank you.” I inhaled a quick breath to steady my shaking voice, dropped my eyes from his penetrating stare, and added, “Thank you. Thank you for saving my life.”
The heavy silence felt as though it was choking me. I could hear the breeze, the night birds in the trees, and then I heard a quick exhale of breath. Raising my eyes again, I saw Flame’s lips part, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.
Gritting his teeth, his inked gums reading ‘PAIN’ came into full view. Flame edged forward until his close presence stole my composure. I blinked in rapid succession trying to brace for what he may do.
Flame’s heavy muscles tensed. His hand began to rise. My body became rigid, thinking he was going to touch me. My instinct was to pull away, to step back and refuse contact. But as I looked upon his tired face, I could not help but keep still.
Flame’s hand trembled as he tried to reach for my face, but as it hovered only inches away it stopped, hanging suspended in the air. Flame’s eyes glassed over. Then with a pent up exhale, he withdrew his hand and stumbled back.
Whipping my head to my right, Mae was staring at me, her mouth parted in shock. Styx was glaring, eyes narrowed. My skin instantly set on fire, my cheeks blazing with embarrassment.
Stepping back, I headed toward the cabin, desperate to escape the attention. Mae rushed beside me. Just as I was about to gain the sanctuary of the house, I heard, “Maddie…” whispered in a guttural, sad voice.
I immediately halted. I glanced over my shoulder to see Flame standing a few steps before his brothers. He looked at me with such sorrowful eyes that I feared my heart would crack right down the center.
There was such longing in his expression, as though he was desperate for me to say something. Anything.
Forcing a smile, I tucked my hair behind my ear, and whispered, “Good night, Flame. I… I am happy you have returned.” In my head I added, “to me,” but that would never be said aloud.
Chapter Three
Flame
I watched her go until the door of the Prez’s cabin clicked shut. I didn’t move. I just stared at the wooden door, feeling a huge fucking pit in my stomach.
Lifting my hand, I looked down at my rigid fingers. They looked just like everyone else’s, but they didn’t work the same. Because other people could touch someone else. They could’ve put their hand on her face after she’d said thank you. They could’ve felt her skin. They could’ve maybe made her feel better.
But then the frustration filled my heart, and I thought, Your touch is poison. You’ll hurt her.
Bending my fingers, I curled them into a fist and heat boiled my blood. I hated it: I hated that I couldn’t touch her. I hated that when she looked up at me with those green eyes, I couldn’t fucking speak.
I didn’t know how to speak to her. I just knew I couldn’t. Because I was wrong in the head. Because I wasn’t like everyone else. Because people said I was a fucking freak. All my life they’d told me I was born wrong.
“Flame?” Turning my head, AK and Viking were stood beside Prez. Styx nudged his head at me. Vike then glanced to Styx and back at me. “Come here, brother.”
Glancing at the shut door one more time, I dropped my head and walked back to Prez. Styx watched me the whole way, my lips moving as I counted my steps under my breath. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…”
I reached Styx at eight. Nine, ten, eleven… On eleven I looked up. My head twitched under his hard glare. Curling my fingers into my palm, my nails dug into flesh, enjoying the sharp bite.
Styx shook his head and signed, “Don’t know what the fuck that was all about with Madds, not sure I want to.” He looked up to AK and Vike, but my eyes never left him. Turning back to me, he signed, “I get you have some fucked up obsession with her, that’s your friggin’ deal. But if, or when, you hurt her, you hurt Mae; and that shit ain’t gonna fly.”
My teeth ground so hard you could hear it out loud. Shaking my head, I hissed, “I’ll never hurt Maddie. Never.”
Styx didn’t say shit for a while, then nodded his head, backing up toward his cabin. My eyes followed him all the way, when he signed, “Glad to have you back, brother. Wasn’t the same with you gone. Life was pretty fucking tame.”
I relaxed my hands. Styx entered his cabin, leaving me stood with Vike and AK.
AK ran his hand down his face. “Let’s head home.”
But I didn’t want to leave. I needed to stand outside of Maddie’s window. I needed to keep her safe.
AK got in my line of sight. “Tomorrow, brother. Start your guard shit up again tomorrow. You’re dead on your feet right now. You need food and you need sleep. You’ve lost a lotta weight. You’ve got huge fucking black Glad bags under your tapped strung out eyes. You’re not fucking thinking straight.”
I shook my head, about to tell them to get the fuck gone, when Vike joined AK. “Flame, it’s happening. Don’t fucking fight us on this, brother. We ain’t slept much since you’ve been gone, one of us always watching you in that damn sick house in case you woke and went fucking apeshit at being tied down. So just give us a fucking break, yeah? Just for one fucking night.”
I wanted to fight. I wanted to tell them to fuck off and leave me with Maddie. My head twitched under his gaze, but I eventually nodded.
Vike’s shoulders relaxed, and he began walking toward the trees that led to our cabins. AK followed behind. I fell into step. But just as I was about to break the cover of trees, something made me look back.
Maddie.
Maddie sat at her window, watching me leave. My feet came to a stop. She was on her knees, her hand pressed to the glass. My heart slammed against my rib cage. When she smiled at me my hands relaxed at my sides, and for a minute, the pounding in my fucking head stopped. The twitching stopped. And the feeling that something was crawling under my skin, stopped.
“Flame?” AK called from within the trees. But I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want this feeling to leave me. I didn’t want to leave her. I just wanted to be near her.
I fucking just needed to be close.
Maddie, hearing AK shout from the bottom of the hill, sank down to sit on the window ledge. Her green eyes dulled and the hand on the glass moved to give me a small wave.
I didn’t move.
She didn’t move.
AK came back through the trees.
My brother came to my side and my body tensed at his closeness. I heard him sigh. I saw Maddie tilt her head as she observed us. “Flame. You need to come the fuck home. Leave the little one alone tonight.”
AK waited in silence. Then Maddie’s expression changed, and bowing her head, she withdrew from the window.
“She’s going to sleep, Flame.”
When she didn’t come back to the window, I turned and followed AK down to our cabins. When I got to our small clearing, Vike was outside his cabin firing up the grill.
“Take a seat, I got steaks grilling and beer chilling.”
I walked over to Vike and took my usual seat. AK sat opposite. Reaching into the cooler, Viking handed a beer to AK and me. I cracked the top with my teeth and took a long pull. Nothing was said as Viking flipped the steaks, AK picking at the label o
f his beer. Then putting the steaks on a plate, Viking handed one to me.
I shook my head. Viking pushed it in front of my face. “Take it, brother. You’ve lost a hell of a lotta weight.” I took the plate, but my eyes looked to the woods. I knew she was up there. I wondered if she was asleep? I wondered what she looked like asleep? I wanted to watch her sleep.
A cough sounded from Viking. When I looked toward him, both he and AK had their attentions fixed on me. I shifted on the seat and asked, “What?”
Viking stuffed a chunk of his bloody his steak into his mouth, but AK didn’t move. I glared back, my legs beginning to twitch, the flames inside beginning to ignite at his scrutiny.
“What?” I snapped again.
Vike looked at AK and shrugged. Steeling his expression, AK flicked his chin, and asked, “Why the little one, brother?”
My bouncing legs stopped dead. All my muscles tightened.
AK sat forward. “Why save the little one? Why guard her room? I’m trying to fucking understand it all.” He glanced to Viking who was now downing his beer, and looking back to me, added, “You want her? Is that it?”
I didn’t say anything and my jaw clamped shut. I dropped my eyes, my head twitching at this conversation, then I found my head turning, looking toward the trees again.
“Is it because she touched you?”
As the question was asked, my head whipped to AK. My hands fisted as I remembered Maddie wrapping her arms around my waist after I’d killed that cunt, Moses, at that commune months ago. She’d walked straight up to me and touched me. But the flames never took hold.
I still didn’t know why. But something happened that day. She’d done something to me. Somehow she got into my fucking mind. But since then, the thought of being touched had got worse. Because now I wanted her to touch me.
But I couldn’t ever let her.
“Brother. Talk to me.”
“Yeah. She touched me. After I’d fucked up that cunt, Moses, real bad she thanked me. She looked up at me with those big green eyes and then she fucking touched me.” I looked up at AK and Viking. “And I could touch her back. I can’t touch anyone unless I’m killing them, because of the flames.” I shook my head as my eyes clouded over and my stomach tightened so much I couldn’t breathe. I blinked, and said, “But she touched me. The flames didn’t hurt her. I made her feel good.”
My chest ached at how much I wanted to touch Maddie again. But a deep pit caved in my stomach when I told myself that I couldn’t. That it was a one-time thing. Then I saw a drop of water hit the thigh of my leathers. My hand moved over the water, my finger pushing through the wetness. Then another drop hit.
“Shit!” I heard AK hiss. When I lifted my head, Viking and AK were blurred. My hand went to my face, and I felt wet on my skin. Wet from my eyes.
AK stood up. “Flame, man. Fuck. Sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed. I shouldn’t have asked about the little one, and the touching, and how you feel about her. That’s your fucking deal.”
“She would never want me. I’m a fucking retard.” I hit the side of my head with the heel of my palm as my eyes blurred again. “I don’t think right in here. I’m fucked up—I don’t get people, they don’t get me. And I ain’t ever gonna be able to read people. Why would someone as perfect as her want someone as fucked up as me? Someone who isn’t right in the head?”
AK held out his hand. “Stop fucking talking like that. That bitch fucking watches you as much as you do her. And I ain’t thinking after what she’s come from that she’s as perfect as you think. Mae ain’t. Lilah ain’t. What makes you think she’s different?”
“Because she’s perfect. Everything about her is fucking perfect. Every-fuckin’-thing.”
AK stepped forward, his palms in the air. “Brother, I think you need to sleep. Just… yeah. Just get some fucking sleep.”
Vike joined AK. “Go, Flame. Go in your cabin and sleep. Shit’ll feel better when you’ve got some strength back.”
Dropping the untouched steak to the ground, I got up and turned to my cabin, but just before I reached the door, I glanced back. “I had to save her. I had to save her from that bullet. I can’t touch her. I can’t ever… be with her. I can’t… do that. But I can save her. I can keep her safe.”
AK ran his hands through his dark hair. “I know, man. I fucking know.” He dropped his head. “And I’ll say it again. That bitch fucking sees something in you too. Like she gets you or some shit…” He trailed off and his voice got rougher.
I felt like I should know why. But I never understood other people.
Vike pointed at my cabin door. “Get inside. Get your head down.”
I opened my door and walked inside, confused at my brother’s emotion. Scanning the room, my things were just as I left them: knives, leathers, guns.
Then I looked to my right, and to the floor. The scalding blood in my veins hit me like a freight train when I fixed my gaze on that hatch, at the back of the living room. I held my breath as a slice of pain stabbed through my stomach and I felt the flames once more. I closed my eyes and stumbled in the direction of my knives.
I picked up the old steel knife. The one I always used. I stared at the knife. Felt the evil filling my veins; the fire crawling to the surface. Then I felt my cock get hard. Felt it push at the zipper of my leathers. And I knew he’d be in my head any minute.
Breathing fast, muscles pumped and dick hard, I stumbled to the hatch. Lifting the knife, I held it between my teeth. It was dark, no light on this side of the room, but my eyes were fixed on that hatch.
Then the voice in my head stirred.
His voice.
The voice that never fucking left me alone.
“Strip,” he ordered, his rough voice loud in my head. Teeth biting down on the knife’s handle, I hissed, and my eyes rolled back. In seconds I’d ripped off my cut.
“All of them, boy,” he growled, and I heard the crack of his leather belt follow the command.
My cock throbbed and tested the zipper of my leathers. Reaching down, my hands slammed to cup it in my hands. I squeezed and squeezed harder again, my fist iron-tight until my legs shook, then a roar tore from my throat.
“All of them, boy,” he demanded again. “Get all of them gone.”
Releasing my granite cock, I snapped the button of the leathers, yanking them apart and wrenched them down my legs.
My shoulders tightened and my chest heaved waiting for the next command. My hands were balled into fists at my side, my untouched cock aching, hard and waiting.
My eyes were shut, my teeth gripping harder on the blade, when the voice suddenly commanded, “Get on the floor.”
My legs dropped from beneath me onto the small hatch built into my cabin’s floor. I grabbed the blade from my mouth, and with my other hand, took hold of my dick. Curling my fingers around my flesh, I let my long nails dig in, hissing at the flash of blinding pain.
I moaned. I moaned loud and my hips thrust forward. My hand started to move; back and forth, back and forth. It hurt. It burned… it felt so fucking good.
This was what I needed.
This was what I fucking needed.
My mouth dropped open as my hand worked faster. My body tensed as I felt the fire spiking up my spine. The pressure built in my balls. But I couldn’t come. It was there. The fire, the flames needing to get out. But I needed… I needed…
In a flash, the steel blade cut down my thigh, the sharp edge slicing into my flesh. Blood pooled at the wound, as the voice hissed, “One.” He counted me on with each strike. “Two.” My hand worked faster and faster up and down my dick, my sharp nails clawing into my thin skin. “Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine…” I hunched over, my breath hissing through my gritted teeth as the voice, and the blade’s deep strikes, built me higher and higher. “Ten,” the voice called louder, blood dripping down my thighs and onto the hatch.
Body tensing, I braced for the final command. My hand squeezed tight, nails shredding my cock,
the blade stabbing deep into my thigh. Then the voice thundered, “ELEVEN!” With a rush of pure heat, every muscle inside my body roared with fire. My bones shook with pent up rage, and with a pained scream, I came. I came so fucking hard that my head threw back and my blade clattered to the floor.
I fought to breathe, my exhausted body slumping forward. But when I caught my breath, the usual slam of nausea rolled in my stomach, my body lurching to the side as I wretched into the waiting bucket beside me.
When there was nothing left in my stomach, the emptiness was replaced with the rush of shame I felt every night. Every night after I’d cut myself, purged and obeyed his voice.
My head hung as I felt cum on my legs, mixing with the blood on the floor beneath me. Shifting my aching tired body, I wrapped my arms around my waist and fell down to lie on the floor. Sucking in a stuttered breath, my chest wheezing from my release, I laid over the hatch on the hard cold floor. I closed my eyes, and tried my best to sleep.
His voice, inside my head, quiet for now.
Chapter Four
Maddie
I loved to draw.
It was something I had discovered in my many nights spent alone in my bedroom.
And I was good. At least I thought I was. But more than that, it was my escape. I got to live out the fantasy life I had dreamed for myself, if my upbringing had been different… if I were different.
A cold wind wrapped around my body as I sat outside. Sleep did not find me, and my hands itched to draw. It was the middle of the night, and the stars shone in the dark sky like diamonds.
Closing my eyes, I inhaled. I loved breathing in the night air. I loved being outside. I simply loved the peace.
Sitting back on the lawn chair, I reached for the three quarter full sketchpad lying on the grass. Opening the bound book, I flicked past the first few pages; pictures of leaves, birds and trees. I skipped past the pages of a young girl in a meadow, smiling up at the large sun. Four young sisters walking hand in hand—three dark haired¸ one bright blond—still innocent and untouched.
