by Tillie Cole
We pulled into the busy main street. People were all around, but I kept my head forward, tightening my jaw, trying to keep my shit together. Styx hadn’t wanted me on this run today. In fact, he fucking banned it. Said I hadn’t been right since I came back from hospital. Said he thought I was a fucking curse on this cash drop.
I’d almost fucking snapped. I went everywhere with AK and Vike. I was with them on every drop. This was AK’s deal, and that meant I was fucking going.
AK had told Styx he’d needed me, that he’d watch me. I’d had to bite my fucking tongue at that, but Vike had whispered to me to keep my mouth shut. Styx allowed it, but warned me to calm the fuck down.
Shaking my head to focus, I saw AK hold up his hand and signal to the left. It led us to a side street. A street much quieter than the main road. Less witnesses.
Seeing the Chechen town car up ahead, we came to a stop. AK got off his bike. Vike and I pulled to a stop a few yards back. Hush and Cowboy pulled to a stop right behind. I heard them get out of the truck and walk to the front.
Then a blinding rush of heat surged through my body. They’d been coming more and more since I’d been tied down in that fucking hospital for weeks on end. I curled my hands, sharp fingernails digging into my palm. I counted my breaths, in and out, swallowing back the craving to take my blade out on the public road.
“Y’all good man?” I heard from behind. Turning my head, Cowboy was staring at me, his shades now in hand, Stetson shading his narrowed eyes. He was right next to Hush, my mixed race brother with the bright blue eyes. He was sitting on the hood of the truck with this thick-set arms across his chest. The Cajun newly patched brothers were always together.
I grunted, just as another wave almost knocked me off my fucking bike.
“He’s good,” Vike said from in front of me. I fixed my attention forward, seeing AK talking to a guy in a suit.
As my nails dug in, I tracked the people on the streets. Men, women, kids. Then my eyes stopped on a woman holding a little baby in her arms, a little boy by her side, holding her dress.
Like taking a hit to the back with a crowbar, all the air left my lungs. My nails dug deeper into my palm. The woman was smiling at the little boy, then she smiled at the baby. I could feel my body shaking. I could feel my stomach tightening.
Shut the fuck up, boy, and get down there. I heard his voice say in my head. Sinners belong in the dark.
Then I could hear her begging, Leave him alone. Please, just leave him alone…
I blinked. I shook my head, desperately trying to get their voices out of my head. I shot my eyes to AK. He was still talking to the Chechen. I could hear grunts and growls coming from my throat. I stood off my saddle.
Viking’s head turned to me. “Flame?” he said slowly, but I didn’t look at him. I needed AK to hurry the fuck up. I had to get out of this fucking place. I looked to my right. The woman was still there with the baby and the boy. They were crossing the road. Then the blood drained from my face.
The little boy was looking at me as they waited. His eyes were watching me, just me. He pointed at my bike and said something to his mother. She smiled at him. His mother smiled at him. Then he waved. My nails dug in harder. But vomit was clawing up my throat. The pain of sharp nails didn’t remove the sick feeling in my stomach, of the puke climbing up my throat. I stood, watching the boy wave as he began to cross the road, and I froze.
My eyes were filling with black spots. My throat was closing up, as the darkness crept in. I couldn’t take the darkness. I couldn’t stand the motherfucking darkness.
I was losing my shit.
“Flame. Brother. You need to calm the fuck down. You need to breathe. You’re growling out loud. You’re fucking pulling attention.” Vike was in front of me, but the black spots were blurring his face. “You’re having one of your freak outs. Just try to breathe.”
“The flames,” I said as my fingers began clawing at the skin on my throat. “The flames are choking me. They’re fucking choking me.”
“Fuck!” Viking spat. I saw AK up ahead turning to look at me. His eyes found me. He quickly said something to the Chechen.
AK began walking back. I counted his rushed steps. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—
Then three loud bangs suddenly shot out into the street, the clear sound of gunfire piercing through my head.
“Get down!” Hush shouted from behind. But I couldn’t. My eyes scanned the road, tracking the people falling to ground. The Chechen had been hit. His body sprawled on the asphalt, blood leaking from his skull.
My body burned, burned with need to kill as I searched for the shooters. Then a high-pitched scream almost burst my ears. I ran forward. But the more the screaming came, the more I lost my shit.
Then I stopped dead, heart beating way too fast, black spots still filling my eyes. The mother had been shot. The little boy sat beside her, crying… and the baby… the baby was no longer in its white blanket. It was on the ground. Its legs were kicking. Its arms were flailing. Its face was red with its cries.
I glanced back to the little boy who was beside his mother. He was crying, this time looking at the baby on the ground. But he couldn’t touch it. He couldn’t fucking touch it.
Then he looked up at me. He looked up at me and held out his arms. His face was pleading. His mother was shot, but he held up his arms for me.
Pain rushed through my head and my hands balled into fists at my side. The boy was screaming, still holding his hands out. The baby was still on the ground, crying. Then the boy moved. He started crawling toward me. His dark eyes look up at me, but I was rooted to the spot. He was crawling to me, wanting me to hold him… to touch him.
No, no, no… He was getting closer, still I couldn’t move.
His screams got louder. The baby’s fucking screams got louder.
The screams were filling my head to bursting. They were poisoning my head. The boy came closer still.
I had to move. I had to get the fuck away.
Then the boy stopped at my feet.
He reached out. He almost touched my leg. Then feeling the rage take hold, I roared, “NO!”
The boy fell back in shock. I turned. Hush and Cowboy were running my way. They ran past me and I saw the Hush pick up the boy. I saw Cowboy pick up the baby. They gave them to a woman on the street; she was speaking into a cell.
The screams were getting louder in my head, screams I couldn’t stop. The baby’s screams. The boy’s screams… fuck, they were his screams… In my head, they were his screams!
“Stop!” I yelled, as AK and Viking rushed toward me.
When they reached me, AK held his hands up. "Flame, fuck,” was all he could say.
My eyes snapped up. “I need blood,” I growled. “I need to kill.”
“They went north,” Viking informed. I heard the sound of a bike racing away down the road. I didn’t hesitate to fucking move.
I ran to my bike. In seconds I was cutting up road, AK and Viking racing behind. I heard the truck, I heard AK calling my name, but I didn’t slow down. I had to kill the fuckers. I had to kill the fuckers that shot the woman. That made the boy cry. That made the baby scream.
Throat tense, I screamed as I burned more gas. And then I could see them. Two bikes up ahead. Two dirt bikes. Two white men on cheap shitty dirt bikes—the shooters.
I accelerated as we left the town limits, nothing but farmland came into view. No cars were on the road. There was nothing but me and the dead men riding ahead. The dead men I was closing in on. The ones that would pay for the screaming.
I was closing in. The men rode side by side. One of the men looked back. They tried to increase their speed, but I was faster.
My Harley closed in. I maneuvered to run beside the cunts. Their faces were filled with fear as they saw me run parallel to them. The look on their faces turned my blood to molten lava, scalding my veins. And I needed it out. I needed the flames to get out.
I needed to kill.
>
Lifting my leg, I kicked out, hitting the front wheel of the bike closest to me. The bike fell away, smashing it into the cunt on his right, both of them crashing into the roadside ditch.
The pricks screamed as they crashed onto the long grass. I slowed my Harley and, chasing back, brought it to a stop. The bastards were crawling, trying to get away. All I could see was red. Reaching into my belt, I pulled out my two favorite knives and closed in for the kill.
My nostrils flared. My skin was prickling with the urge to rip the fuckers apart. To sink my blade into their flesh. To watch the blood spill on the ground.
I smiled in excitement, my arm muscles straining, holding my knives. They had broken bones from the crash. They couldn’t get away. They were mine to kill. Their lives were mine to take.
They panicked as they saw me approach. I licked along the edge of my knife, tasting the tinny flavor of steel in my mouth. My dick got hard. Got hard just imagining stabbing into their flesh. Hearing them scream. Hearing them scream like the little boy. The little baby.
I snapped.
I released a roar and dived at the first man I saw. Sending the blunt end of my knife into his face, I knocked him back and straddled his legs. Leaning forward, I watched his eyes widen with fear, and I smiled. I smiled, knowing my fucked up face was the last thing he’d ever see.
Putting a knife between my teeth, I gripped his throat, pinning him down to the ground. I could feel his pulse under my hand. I could feel it racing.
I would feel it stop.
Raising my blade, I sent the first strike into his stomach. “One,” I hissed as the cunt’s back bowed. “Two,” I struck again, hearing the flesh tear under my knife. My heart pounded with excitement. “Three,” I growled as I hit his stomach once again. The cunt tried to move, he tried to scream, but I was blocking his screams. No more screaming.
No more fucking screaming!
“Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” I hacked his stomach, his blood spattering my bare chest. The warm blood coated my skin.
The cunt died, his eyes glassing over. But I needed an eleven. Pulling my knife back, I raised it high. Then, with a loud roar, sent it straight through his forehead, splitting his skull.
Ripping the blade back from his skull, I jumped to my feet. The other prick was crawling away. My muscles twitched as I closed in. He heard me, and looking back over his shoulder, he called out. “Fuck, please. Shit, don’t kill me.”
I ignored his pleas. But he kept on screaming, shouting like a fucking pussy. His voice incensed me.
He needed to fucking die.
Leaning down, I gripped his hair, bending his head back to bare his throat. I didn’t wait this time, the need to spill blood burned too strong. Raising my hand, I sent the blade into his throat—once, twice, three times, four. And I counted all the way. I counted every strike, his blood splashing up my arms and down my cheeks. I counted from one to eleven until that fucker was stone cold dead.
But the flames were still too strong in my veins. The kills hadn’t taken away the screams. The screams were in my head… his screams were in my head. Those loud screams. Then the quiet screams. Then the silence.
The motherfucking silence.
Then I thought of his face. And I couldn’t touch him. When he needed me to touch him, I couldn’t. Because I was evil. I had evil in my veins.
The flames. They needed to be out. They all needed to come out. Finally, all of them, once and for all...
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 fuck’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 fuckin’ kill yourself! I don’t wanna touch you, brother, but so help me God I will if you don’t fucking 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 fuck to shake free. But the hand was too strong. Another set of hands grabbed my arms. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t fucking move! And now more hands were touching me. Touching my skin. Stopping the flames from getting the fuck out.
“Get him in the fucking 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 fucking stand the darkness.
“Fuck, Flame. What the fuck 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 fucking snapped once and for all.”
“Shit!” a voice yelled.
Then the darkness came, but the flames?
The flames and the fucking 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 fucking lost it this time, Styx. Fucking tapped out crazy. I don’t know what the fuck 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 hi
s 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 fucking 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 fucked up head. Seeing some memory in his head as fucking real.”
Viking crouched to the floor and, hands on his head, said, “If me and AK can’t calm him the fuck down, who the fuck can?” Viking hushed with a pained voice.
Silence filled the room. All the men were quiet, hurt, in emotional pain. Instead of fear seizing my body, something inside me ignited. Flame’s face entered my mind and ushered my feet to move forward. I walked slowly to assume a position in the debating group.
“Me,” I whispered loudly, as I emerged from the shadows. All of the men stared at me in obvious disbelief, but I bit back all fear and offered, “Let me try. Let me try to calm Flame.”
I straightened my shoulders, meeting Styx's searching eyes. He did not move from his seat on the sofa. Ky glanced to Styx, then looked to me. “Maddie, this is club business. You can’t be in here.”
I ignored Ky, and stepped one pace forward. Not once did I take my eyes off Styx. “Let me try. Let me go to Flame.”
“Fuck,” Ky spat, but I could see in Styx’s calm eyes that he was thinking it through.
Turning to Viking, who was staring at me, mouth agape, I said, “Let me try. I… I feel I can help.”
“Maddie?” Mae’s voice calling from the hallway made stiffen. When I turned, she and Lilah were standing side by side, their pretty faces masked in shock.