by K. L. Savage
“No!” The word is a broken scream leaving the depths of my chest. “I won’t let you.” I yank against Patrick, who is holding on tighter than I expected him to be.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers in my ear, only causing more anger to boil away what’s left of my soft, understanding nature.
“He will never forgive you,” I whisper, my chin wobbling as I try to hold back my emotions. I look from Tool to Tongue, who has already whipped his shirt off and tossed it on the ground. He’s kneeling on the floor, hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed.
He’s defeated. He has already given up. Why isn’t he fighting? Why won’t he stand up for himself?
Tool takes the poker out of the fire, the wood crackling as if it is spitting hot hatred and sparking across the floor from the hearth.
There it is.
The hesitation.
He doesn’t want to do it.
Tool spins the iron poker, watching the bright orange glow bright with heat. “Reaper… I don’t know.”
“Give me the goddamn poker! You think I’m happy about this? You think I want to do this? You think I don’t care? I have to uphold our law. We will get through it. We always do,” Reaper snaps.
Tool grudgingly holds out the poker and Reaper takes it from him. I can feel the heat of it caressing my skin like a hot summer’s breeze as he walks by.
I give one last effort to rip myself from Patrick. I stomp on his foot and slam my elbow into his ribs. He grunts and his breath leaves his lips in a hard whoosh puffing against the back of my neck. I run into the room and block Tongue with my body.
“Comet, it’s okay. Stand down. I’ll be fine.”
“I won’t let them hurt you.” My legs are spread, rocking right to left to be ready to attack Reaper. “I won’t let you hurt him.”
Reaper drags the hot poker behind him as he walks into the room, burning a line in the wooden planks. He reminds me of the Grim Reaper right now, but instead of dragging a scythe, he’s dragging a flaming sword.
“Daphne, this will be quick, and Tongue will be fine. He always is.”
“Yeah?” I shove at his chest. “Maybe it’s time he isn’t always fine. Maybe it’s time to see him for a person. A real person. Isn’t what happened to him punishment enough? Isn’t the guilt he carries for what he did to Sarah enough?”
“No, because I have to make an example.”
“I do too. I will die before I let you come near him.”
“You’re challenging me?”
“I’m daring you.” I might be saying words that will lead to my untimely death, but I can’t stop the tears. I’m afraid, but I will not let him hurt Tongue.
I don’t care what I have to do to make sure that iron poker doesn’t go near his skin.
“Daphne, please. I’ll be fine. It’s nothing I haven’t felt before,” Tongue says in a small voice behind me.
I spin around and drop to my knees. He is statuesque, a sculpted moment representing defeat. He’s strong, made of stone, but is choosing to crumble instead of stand. My hand shakes as I lift it to his cheek. He tilts his head and leans it into my cheek, the killer stripped bare. Now the vulnerable boy who hides under the man who thirsts for blood, yearns for a simple touch.
For a simple love.
“You don’t have to feel it. It’s me and you, Tongue. You don’t have to fight alone anymore. You have me now. Remember when you said my silence would be my tragedy? Because I do.”
He nods.
“Your pain would be mine.” My breath hitches as I comb my fingers through his hair and then lift his chin with my other hand. His eyes hold the weight of the world. The weight of life. Why can’t anyone see just how pure Tongue is in the way that matters?
His heart is so big, and his love is one of kind.
“It’s why I’m not going to let it happen.” I turn counterclockwise, peering over the curve of my shoulder to fixate on the sizzling hot poker searing the wood. I stand and glance at Tool, who is blocking the doorway so no one can get in.
I remember vaguely someone telling me about the rules. I just hope I get it right.
“I want to be his champion.”
Everyone gasps when they hear me, and the room immediately explodes into a conversation I can’t understand due to how many people are talking at the same time.
“No!” Tongue staggers to his feet, and with a vehement shake of his head he pushes me behind him, nearly touching the poker with his chest as Reaper lifts it off the ground. “Don’t listen to her. Her mind is obviously fucking warped right now. Prez, I’m here. I’m taking my punishment. I’m here. Just do it.”
“My mind isn’t warped! I know what I want. I want to do this.”
“Not if you have a champion,” Reaper states, glaring over Tongue’s shoulder to look at me. “I’m not big on women getting punishment.”
“Well, I hear declaring a champion doesn’t have a gender specification.” I step out from behind Tongue. “Don’t you touch him with that or I will kill you,” I threaten the Prez, keeping my tone soft but venomous at the same time.
“I don’t like to be threatened,” he sneers.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Don’t fucking tempt him, Daphne.” Tongue pushes me away and Tool catches me before I can fall. I expect him to hold me, but he throws me back in the middle of the arena.
I know it’s just a room, but right now I’m fighting for what I believe in.
And I believe in Tongue. I believe in his innocence and his good heart. People might laugh and wonder how I see all that. How can a ruthless killer be innocent?
But he is. He is naïve and innocent, in the ways that boys are when they don’t experience life the way they should have. I won’t have him punished for that.
“Go get ’em, tiger,” Tool says to me, and Tongue whips his head at his friend.
“What the fuck, Tool? Grab her!”
“No. She’s doing what Sarah got to do for Boomer. It’s only fair. I think it’s brave, what she’s doing. If this is what she wants, then I think this is what should happen. Champion call always rules. Hands are tied. Sorry, Tongue.”
I give Tool a thankful grin for being on my side. I didn’t expect that. Out of all people, I thought he would hold me down while Reaper burned Tongue.
“Get Tank. I’ll need him, you, Bullseye, and Skirt to hold Tongue down.”
“No! Please. I said champion. I said champion! Why doesn’t it count?” I ask, desperately pulling at my hair. I’m willing to do anything.
Tool exits, and a few minutes later returns with everyone. “Lock him down,” Tool orders. All of the men move at once. Their footsteps march, the beating of their boots in sync with one another, and Tongue doesn’t fight them when they get to his side.
Tank and Tool hold down his arms. Skirt and Bullseye hold down his legs.
“Please,” I give one last attempt to offer myself instead. “I’ll do anything. Please, don’t burn him. You don’t know the damage,” I repeat, hoping Reaper will listen. “You have no idea what you’ll do.”
“Stand or kneel,” he says, which I find an odd request, but I do it anyway.
“It’s going to be okay, Comet. It will be over soon,” Tongue says without a single hesitation in his eyes. It reminds me of a scene from a movie where a man is about to get executed. Instead of straps holding him down, it’s people. “It’ll all be over,” he repeats, resigned.
Where will we go after this? I’m not going to have us stay here knowing they would use Tongue’s fear as a punishment tactic. There are only so many times broken pieces can be put back together again until eventually, some broken pieces are lost forever. Let’s face it, when things are broken one time, the integrity is never the same.
Reaper unbuckles his belt and whips the black leather out from the loops in his jeans, then folds it until it can’t bend any further. “Open your mouth,” he tells me.
Confused, I do as he says.
> “Now, bite down.”
I clench my teeth together and the burst of worn leather dissolves across my taste buds.
“Good. Now, keep doing that because this going to fucking hurt.” He tugs the strap of my tank top down my left arm.
“What?” Tongue suddenly shouts, on the edge of delusion. “No! Let me the fuck go. Tank, let me go!” He manages to get an arm free and punches Tank across the cheek. Tank takes the punch in stride and catches Tongue’s hand mid-air, then digs his knee into Tongue’s shoulder until Tongue’s warrior cry pierces the air.
My body quakes in fear from anticipating pain.
Tongue’s back arches off the floor and he lifts the men with him, but he still doesn’t break free.
“Christ, ye a stronger mother fucker, ain’t ye, Tongue?” Skirt grunts, fighting Tongue as if he were wrestling an alligator.
“Big bastard.” Bullseye lays his body across Tongue’s legs to keep him still.
“I’ll fucking kill all of you. You hear me? Don’t you touch her! Don’t touch her!” Tongue screams, his lungs exerting every ounce of air he possesses. His inability to save me echoes in the frequencies of his pleas.
“This is going to hurt,” Reaper warns me again.
My eyes roam to the door. Everyone is watching me, but I’m not going to back down. If they want a show, they got one.
I nod, letting him know I understand.
“You’re crazy,” he mutters, not intending for me to hear as he exhales and inches the hot poker closer to my chest. My heart is trampling, bruising my breastbone the closer the flaming iron gets. The hot poker has my skin reacting, the scalding heat still inches away yet already stinging my skin.
Crazy people will do insane things for the people they love.
And I’m one of those people.
“Daphne! Comet! No, please, don’t do this.”
Sweat drips into my eyes, but it doesn’t stop me from stealing one last look at Tongue. He is begging me, brows pinched and lifted.
No way in hell will I ever run from this. I bite down on the leather, keep my eyes on Tongue, and thrust my chest forward onto the flaming orange tip.
The first millisecond of sizzling has the smell of burnt flesh drifting in my nostrils. The belt in my mouth muffles my screams, and my teeth dig into the leather until I feel it give. I cry, tears as hot as the poker against my skin. Tongue’s livid, panicked shout numbs my ears. My throat is raw from screaming, and the air from my lungs is being stolen from me, a sick game of tug-of-war. I only inhale because I have no choice, but a second later it’s tugged out from me like a rope is tied to my lungs.
He’s worth it. He’s worth everything.
“There’s one half,” Reaper says, lifting the poker from my skin.
Dizziness takes over my head and I sway. My stomach churns and bubbles. Nausea clings to my insides and works its way up my throat from the pain. I swallow it down, not wanting to appear weak by puking or passing out.
I make a mistake of looking down. The tip of the poker is covered in my skin and dried blood, and the smell…
Oh god, the smell.
I gag again, the acid from my stomach burning a pathway up my esophagus, searing me from the inside while the iron poker ruins me from the out.
“Daphne,” Tongue’s voice breaks. “Daphne!” I hear Tongue’s voice in the distance as my head swims. My vision doubles. I see two of everything.
Two Reapers.
Two iron rods.
Two Tongues.
If I was feeling better, I’d try to make a dirty joke about that.
But Holy Moly.
I’m about to pass out.
“There.” Reaper tosses the poker on the ground and the metal hitting wood sings. High-pitched white noise blares in my head. “You did it. Fucking hell, Daphne.” Reaper kneels in front of me and takes the belt from my mouth. “You have a heart on your chest. It’s a warning. Second will be an arrow. You know the rest,” he informs.
“Let me go! Let me the fuck go. I can’t believe you’d touch her. Comet!” Tongue’s pointless broken cries for me fall on deaf ears as he struggles against his friends.
I try to smile, but the pain and smell is too much to deal with. Another wave of dizziness hits and I sway like a flower in the meadow in the middle of summer, only less graceful. I’m floating away.
“Let’s get you to, Doc,” Reaper says, holding his arms out to me. I can’t focus long enough on him to decide where his arms are, since there are two of him.
I sway to the left.
Then the right.
And this time, gravity wins, and I fall to my side. The burned flesh is still cooking and the agony spreading throughout my body is more than I could have ever imagined it could be. Even knowing the pain, I don’t regret doing this. If I had to get my entire body covered in burns to save him from, not only the agony of what the burn brings, but of the everlasting torture his memories would cause, I’d do it every single day.
I hear my name being shouted somewhere. I’m sleeping and someone is trying to wake me up, but it isn’t working. My eyes roll to the back of my head and darkness takes over.
I don’t mind darkness.
It’s safe here, peaceful, and quiet.
I fell in love in the dark.
And if I’m lucky, I’ll die in it one day too.
They finally let me go and I’m to my feet in less than a second. She’s lying unconscious on the floor, her skin charred, bleeding, and bubbling. Reaper kneels next to her and goes to slide his arms under her body to take her downstairs. I cross the room with long strides and shove him away from her. He stumbles back and hits the wall with a hard thump. He is sweating. Sweating from the concentration and precision it took to burn her beautiful skin.
I want to kill him.
“Don’t you fucking touch her.” I slide my arms underneath her limp body and pick her up, holding her to my chest. Her skin looks fucking terrible. “I bet you liked that, didn’t you?” I say to him, stopping in the middle of the doorway. Everyone parts ways, but I’m not done talking to Reaper yet. “This wasn’t you following the rules for a champion, this was you getting your revenge. How do you feel, Reaper?”
“What? Tongue, it’s nothing like that. I’d never hurt her intentionally.”
“But you did. And the difference between me and you? When I hurt Sarah, I had no idea what I was doing.” Talking to him is pointless, so I decide not to waste my breath with another word. He can tell me until he is blue in the face that he did this because she asked.
But I know better.
He’s been dying to get back at me, because if I were him, I’d feel the exact same way.
I pass Poodle, Patrick, Badge, and a few ol’ ladies. The girls are crying and Melissa steps forward from Poodle’s arms. “Is she okay?” she sniffles, wiping her cheeks with a tissue she has in her hand. “I didn’t know… I swear, I would have tried to stop her and convince her not to—”
“I know,” I say as gently as I can, but it still sounds like there’s a monster clawing up my throat. “She’ll be fine. Especially when I get her out of here.”
“When you get out of here? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Reaper follows me along with everyone else.
While I was held there on the floor fighting the strength of four of my brothers and witnessing Daphne taking my punishment, I realized I didn’t want this life for her. She’s had enough pain to last a lifetime, and I won’t subject her to any more. I thought the MC was my family, but the past few months have left me questioning otherwise.
Daphne is my family.
Ever since they found my journals, ever since I stabbed Sarah, nothing has been the same. I want things to go back to the way they were, but that’s impossible. The best thing for us to do is leave. I don’t want to go. This MC has been a part of my life for a long fucking time, but they have only ever needed me as a monster.
Underneath the rough exterior, I’m a human being, and it seem
s the club has no idea what to do with that bit of information. If they want a killer, they can do it themselves.
I’m done.
Daphne is my priority. We have enough to deal with together, like figuring out how Mercy knew her mom and if her dreams are real.
I need to convince Daphne about her dreams. She’s the only one that doesn’t believe them.
“Tongue, wait a minute. Just wait!” Reaper grabs my arm to stop me from opening the door and heading down to the basement. “You don’t mean to leave? We need you here.”
The basement door opens on a groan, the hinges creaking from years of use. “Please, the last thing you need is someone like me here.” I give him my back, step onto the first stair, and hold her tighter as I use one hand to reach behind me to shut the door.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Everything will be okay.
I head down the steps. The lights are turned down low and the beep of machines tell me Sarah is okay. My boot hits the last step with a solid thud and Doc peers up at me as he places a gray monitor around Sarah’s stomach. He dips his sights to Daphne and the burn she has on her chest and hangs his head. With a tired sigh, he pulls a knitted blue blanket over her body, then another tan throw before flipping a switch on it.
Must be a heated blanket.
“Come here. Bring Daphne to this bed,” Doc waves me over to follow him and skips the bed next to Sarah. “Lay her down here.”
I cup the back of her head and lie her down gently. Her body is on the mattress first, then her cheek is against the pillow, comfortable and unmoving. I expect her eyes to flutter, to show she’s okay and to come back to me, but she doesn’t.
“She pulled champion on me.” I push the chocolate strands off her sweaty forehead and take her hand in mine as I sit down in the chair beside the bed. “Crazy Comet. What was she thinking? I could have taken it.”
Doc busies himself with preparing the IV and pain medication. The wound on her chest is going to take forever to heal. I bring her knuckles to my lips and kiss them. “What were you thinking?” I ask her again.
