by Tillie Cole
Ash held out his hands in front of him. “I keep thinking I see blood on my hands. I keep washing them, but I still see blood sometimes.”
I had fuck all to say to that. AK hadn’t said anything else to me that night years ago. Then Ash looked at me again, and his face screwed up. He was crying. Fuck, he was crying. I tightened my hand on his shoulder, but he just cried more.
Panic surged through me. I looked at our bedroom door, but it was shut. I had to get Maddie. She’d know what to do. But then Ash’s head fell forward. I didn’t like how he looked. It made my heart hurt.
I heard Maddie’s words in my head. Like me, he loves you. And you love him. He is safe for you. He may need to know that he is loved right now. A hug will give him comfort . . .
I stared at my hand on his shoulder. Everything in me told me to push him away. But when I saw his shoulders fucking shaking, I couldn’t. I took a long fucking deep breath and yanked him to my side. I put my arm around his shoulders and brought him into my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed through my nostrils, trying to fucking calm down. Ash stopped making a sound. I opened my eyes, thinking he would say something to me. That he would look at me and make me push him away. But he didn’t. Instead he gripped onto my cut and cried some more.
I stared at the ashes in the fire, just working on keeping my shit together. He was touching me. He was touching me. He’s good, I told myself in my head. He’s your fucking brother.
Ash stayed that way for ten minutes. I counted the minutes in my head in seconds. Eventually he let go of my cut and lifted his head. His face was red and blotchy. He ducked his eyes from me when I looked at him. Staring across the room, I asked, “You okay now?”
“Yeah,” he rasped then cleared his throat. “Thanks, Flame.”
I nodded my head. Something fucking weird burst in my chest. It was warm. It didn’t know what it was.
“Sorry for being a fucking pussy,” he said.
“Not a pussy,” I said. “You killed. You’re a Hangman. You’ll kill again. I don’t feel it, but AK told me most people freak out. You’ve freaked out. It’s done. Won’t happen again.”
“Yeah.”
It got quiet. Real quiet. I didn’t know what else to say, but Ash spoke first. “Sorry I came here. I just wasn’t thinking, and the next thing I knew I was at your door.” His face was bright red. “I’ll leave soon. Go to Slash or Vike. AK has a full house again.”
I didn’t like the fact that he’d be going to Slash or Vike. “You like it in this house?” I asked.
Ash looked up; I saw it in my peripheral vision. “I love it,” he said quietly. “I like being with you and Madds.”
“Stay here tonight.” I got up from the couch. I couldn’t take all this talking shit anymore.
“Really?”
I nodded. “Madds never changed the back room. It’s yours.”
“Thanks, Flame,” Ash said. I was almost at the bedroom door when I looked back. Ash was on the couch. I glanced at the back room where he would be staying tonight. I thought about him being there every day. And I . . . liked it.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and said, “You wanna live here?”
Ash never said shit in response. I opened my eyes, about to just leave him the fuck alone. Ash was on his feet, looking at me from the other side of the couch. “You mean it?” he asked. “You want me to move in?”
“You got a room. You should use it.”
“Yeah.” He smiled. My jaw clenched.
“Don’t tell AK yet. Wait ’til all this shit with Phebe is done. He might take you leaving bad.”
“Okay,” Ash said.
I nodded and turned the knob on my bedroom door. I needed to get away now. My head was too full.
“Flame?” Ash called, making me stop. I didn’t look back. “Thank you.” He was speaking real fucking quiet. “For everything. I . . .” I heard him take a deep breath. “I think I’m gonna like living here.”
I nodded again. I had no words.
I pushed through the door and slammed it shut. Maddie stood by the bed, waiting. She was fucking crying too. “What?” I jumped forward. “Why are you crying?”
“I love you, Flame,” she said, taking my hands.
I frowned. “I don’t understand. Why are you crying?”
“I heard you speak to him.” She smiled. “And I heard you ask him to live with us.”
“You told me before that I should think about it. I have. I asked him to move in. He said yes.”
Maddie threw her arms around my waist. “I am so proud of you, Flame,” she whispered, and I felt my chest get tight again. “Just when I believe I could not love you even more, you go and prove me wrong.”
“I love you too,” I said and kissed her head. Then I froze. Every fucking part of me went still. My eyes were on the bed. Maddie had been drawing. Releasing her, I went to the bed and picked up the sketchpad. Ice filled me, and I looked up at Maddie for answers.
She shrugged. “It is not true yet. And I know that it may be a while before we are ready.” She came toward me, and I stared at the picture again. I didn’t know what the fuck was happening in my heart and my stomach, but I felt hot and cold. Fucking confused. “It is just something I wonder if we could have one day.” Maddie laid her head on my bicep. Her hand ran down the picture. I was there. She was too, and in her arms was a baby.
“I did not know if we could ever do it. But hearing you with Ash just now made me believe that, perhaps, one day, when we are stronger still, that we . . . could.”
“Maddie.” I looked down at her head on my arm. I swallowed and tried to imagine her like Mae was now, stomach growing. And I didn’t feel the flames heat up. In fact, they calmed.
Maddie lifted her head. She smiled. I kissed her mouth and said, “Maybe . . . one day.”
Then I kissed her again.
Still holding the picture in my hand.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Phebe
My eyes fluttered open at the feel of someone’s hand on my forehead. “Phebe?” a familiar voice said.
“Mm?” I murmured, not wanting to leave the woods. Yet the hand pulled me away. My soul yearned for that touch, for the heart of the person that soul belonged to. A magnet’s pull.
“Phebe,” he said again, and I opened my eyes. As the room came into view, I smiled. “AK,” I said and felt my heart fill with light.
“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I need you to wake. You’ve been asleep for a couple of days now.” As his words sank into my bliss, I felt a darkness begin to puncture the light. My mind raced, showing me things I did not want to face . . . Meister dying under my hands, Grace screaming . . . and then . . . then Sapphira’s body in my arms, her hand growing limp in my own.
“Sapphira,” I cried, the impact of her loss instantly too much to endure. I wrapped my arm around my stomach and tried to find some release as the sadness gripped me. I felt arms cradle me and pull me to a hard chest. AK. I knew his scent. “I cannot take this,” I whispered and let the tears fall.
“Red.” He put his hand under my chin, forcing me to lift my head. “Look at me.” I did as he said, and his handsome face came into view. “She’s alive.” I stopped moving. I stopped breathing as his words washed over me. “She lived. Sapphira, she lived.”
Shock rendered me speechless, numbing me completely. “What?” I eventually choked out, reaching out to steady myself on his wrists.
“She’s alive. Fuck, Red, she’s awake. And she’s asking for you . . . she’s asking for her mother.” My chest tightened and my breath shook as I listened to his words.
“She died in my arms. She was born into my arms, and I was there as she died too. My baby . . . my girl . . . I saw her both arrive and leave me.”
“She didn’t die, Red.” His head turned in the direction of the bedroom next door. “She’s through there, and she just woke up. She wants you. She’s scared, and she wants her mom.” AK’s voice was husky and raw. His eyes sh
one as he looked at me, and I could tell by his face that he was not lying.
“She is here . . . with me,” I said, the words sounding like a trick. AK nodded, and devastation hit me. “I thought she was gone. I thought I had not saved her. I thought she died trying to save me. And I could not . . . I could not bear the burden . . . that she would have died for me, when I should have died for her.”
Tears flooded my eyes and I choked on my sorrow. AK’s hands cupped my face and tilted my head up. “Because she loves you, Red. She never knew you as her mother, but when it came to it, she took that fucking bullet for you because you loved her even when you were held back from telling her.” He nodded. “She knew. She fucking knew.”
I fell into his chest and broke down. I held on to his shirt as I shook my head. “I am sorry. I am so sorry . . . what I did, after what happened to your brother . . .” I heard AK fight back his sorrow.
“Just don’t fucking do it again.” He wrapped his arms around me. I looked up at his kind eyes. “I kinda like having you around.” He tried to smile, then kissed my lips. It hurt and I flinched, but he was gentle and brief. “Now get in that room and see your kid. This time it’s on your terms, Red. She needs you.”
“She needs me,” I said. Nerves fluttered inside me. Taking AK’s hand, I got out of the bed. I was dressed in a long nightgown that Bella had given me. My body ached, but I had to get to Sapphira.
When we arrived at her closed door, my hands started to shake. I turned to AK. “What if I cannot do it?” He looked at me curiously. “What if I am bad at this . . . at being a mother?”
“Impossible.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “You were fucking made for this moment, Red. All the shit, it led you right to this moment.”
He was perfect.
I slowly turned the knob and opened the door. I could not contain the emotions that hit me as I saw Sapphira, clean and awake in the center of the neatly made bed. Her brown eyes were scared and large, but when they saw me nervously enter the room, they filled with something else entirely. Gone was the fear, and in their place was . . . love. Love and happiness . . . and it saw my heart soar to an unknown height.
“Sapphira,” I whispered, my voice breaking as the sob I tried to hold back came forward. I walked as fast as I could to her bed and sat on the edge. Careful of her injury, I stared down at my daughter. I had never felt so blessed.
Her fingers twitched on the bed. As if they craved my touch, as if they needed me. I softly threaded my fingers through hers. I sighed and she sighed. Meeting her watery gaze, I said, “I thought I had lost you.”
Sapphira smiled and shook her head. Then her hand gripped mine tighter. “I thought I had lost you too.” Her voice was as sweet as it had been in my dream.
“You saved me,” I said, feeling my heart break at the memory.
“I had to.” She tried to get closer. I moved for her, placing my hand on her soft cheek. Marks still remained, but she had been cleaned. She looked like an angel. My angel. “I could not imagine a world without you in it.”
My eyes snapped to hers, and her skin blossomed with an embarrassed blush. “You could not?” I whispered, and I felt each of her words cement a permanent place in my heart.
“No.” A single tear fell down her smooth cheek. “You . . . you are my mother.”
I watched her try to smile through her tears. An elated laugh came from my throat, and I kissed her head. “Yes, I am,” I said and could not help but smile. I sighed and moved back. Sapphira looked to the doorway. I followed her gaze and saw AK standing there. I smiled when his dark eyes met mine. “That is AK.” He tilted his head in a hello. Turing back to my . . . daughter, I said, “He is my love. A part of my heart.”
“The one you told me about?” she asked shyly, ducking her head from his attention.
“Yes.”
“I met my aunt, Lilah.” She smiled. “I like her. She cleaned me when I woke.” I closed my eyes, embracing the wash of joy I felt as I thought of my beloved sister caring for my precious daughter.
I heard AK move from the door, and Sapphira watched him go. “Do we get to live the life you spoke of now? The one you told me existed if we only survived?”
“Yes.” I squeezed her hand. “We get to live the way we always should have.”
Her eyes fell nervously. “I . . . I get to be your daughter here?” A pause. “A real daughter?”
“If you want that,” I said, praying with every fiber of my being that she said yes.
She looked at me again through long lashes. “D-Do I get to call you . . . Mama?” The last word was a whisper. But it was a grace. A blessing, pure and simple. A softly spoken pardon for all of my wrongs.
A new start.
“Yes,” I said and took her gently in my arms. “Yes.”
Then my heart bloomed when she whispered, “Mama.” I closed my eyes and savored the sound. Fourteen years. Fourteen years to hear that uttered from her lips.
“Mama? What about the others? The other sisters that had been captured?”
My heart broke. “They have gone, sweetheart. No trace . . . and I fear no hope. The men here have tried to seek them out the best they can, but their whereabouts are tragically unknown.” Sapphira was silent at that news. I was not sure she could take anymore sadness. My daughter had had her fill in her young life.
“Mama . . . ?” Sapphira said softly, a few moments later. “Can you stay with me while I fall to sleep?”
“Of course,” I said, almost breaking with joy. I laid my body beside Sapphira on the bed and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. She fell against me and gave a happy sigh.
“Will you tell me about this world?” she asked, tiredness in her quiet voice.
“It is like nothing we ever knew, sweetheart.” I closed my eyes and thought of AK. I thought of his kindness, his laughter, his pure heart. I thought of Lilah laughing as she ran over her lawn with Grace. And I told her of it all. All the good we were robbed of in our lives, and I knew my girl would now get to see these things too.
It was not long before I heard her breathing steadily with sleep. I looked down at her asleep in my arms, and a realization hit me. I had finally done it. I had stayed with my daughter, telling her a story as she fell asleep.
And I would never have to leave her again.
She was safe. And I was forever changed, all because of one man.
I bent down and kissed her head. “I will never let you down. This is my solemn vow.”
Leaving her to rest, I made my way from the bedroom and followed the smell of AK’s cigarette smoke. He was sitting at the kitchen table, lost in thought. He wore a white shirt with his leather vest and his dark jeans. His long hair was resting on his shoulders.
All the time, all I could think was he is mine.
He must have heard my feet on the floor, as his head turned toward me. I moved beside him and placed my hands on his cheeks. I saw the confusion in his eyes and said, “You have saved us.” My voice caught, but I kept pushing through. “You did the impossible and gave me my daughter. You gave me a chance to be a mother.” AK swallowed and exhaled deeply. “And you gave me back the beat to my heart.” I kissed each of his cheeks. “I love you, Xavier Deyes. I love you more than I knew was possible. You are my grace. You are my redemption.”
“Red,” he said roughly. I sat on his lap, sighing when his hands wrapped around my back.
I stared into his beautiful eyes. “You have given me this gift, this moment where my hell has ended. And now you need it too. Save yourself the way you try so hard to save everybody else.”
He looked away, but I guided him back to me. “I will be here with you. As will your family.” I pointed out of the window. “Viking, Flame and Asher. And Sapphira too. We will all be here for you.”
He watched me. He watched me for so long that I knew he had become lost to his thoughts. Then he kissed me, gently, reverently, before bringing me to my feet. “I gotta make a call,” he said and walked outside. “
Tan?” I heard him say. “I need your help in tracking someone down.”
And I smiled as I sat at the wooden kitchen table and looked about the cabin. I heard the birds singing outside. I heard the sounds of Flame and Viking coming over to talk to their best friend. And I knew this was it. This was the life I never thought I would gain.
AK and Sapphira, forever by my side.
I was home.
Chapter Twenty-Four
AK
Two weeks later . . .
I pulled my bike to a stop at the address Tanner had given me. Fucking Austin. The house had been in Austin.
Right beside me all along.
Phebe’s arms tightened around my waist, and her mouth came to my ear. “Are you okay?” I closed my eyes, and all I could see was Dev and Tina. I saw them only in my head now that the terrors had stopped. Nothing would stop the nightmares, the memories, but things were . . . better.
“Yeah,” I said and knew we both understood I was a fucking liar.
Phebe’s arms came from my waist, and she got off the bike. She stood on the sidewalk, dressed in leather, her long red hair back in a French braid.
Fucking perfection.
She held out her hand. “We are here now, AK. Let us go to the door.”
I got off my bike, fucking clenching my fists as my hands shook. And no matter how many deep breaths I took, I couldn’t calm myself. I knew I wouldn’t be able to. Because I knew how wrong this shit could go. I was under no illusions. I expected to have the door shut in my face and the cops called on my ass. For all I knew, they wanted me for breaking Dev outta the nuthouse all those years ago. No doubt Claire and Tom would have told them my part in it.
I gripped Phebe’s hand as we walked up the path to the massive white-painted house. Part of me relaxed at the sight of such an expensive place. Zane grew up here. He’d had more money than Dev or Tina could ever have given him. Not that money meant shit. But at least he hadn’t been in a shithole.