Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
He didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “You haven’t held Trixie yet?” I breathed slowly through my nose when something pulled in my gut. “She’s beautiful.” I nodded. She was. Every time I saw her face… she was beautiful, just like my Maddie.
“He was a fucking asshole, Flame,” Ash said. I lifted my head. Ash pulled out a smoke from his cut and lit up. I inhaled the smoke. It fucking calmed me. I stared over the trees. The sun was setting. How fucking long had we been out here? Ash took a long drag. “Poppa. He was fucked up. I know you don’t think like I do.” Ash didn’t wear a smile when I looked at his face. He wasn’t calling me a retard for being different. He was staring out over the trees. “I think about that asshole a lot. More than he ever fucking deserved. Do you ever realize that? He died, Flame. Fucking years ago, yet look at what he still does to us.”
I frowned. “What does he do to you?”
Ash caught my eye. I dropped my gaze to my leathers. “He does enough,” he said. “He killed your mama, Flame. He killed Isaiah.” I held my breath. “He did, Flame. Poppa killed Isaiah, not fucking you.” The pain in my gut started fading away. “He killed my mama too, Flame. Fuck,” Ash cursed and flicked his smoke away, only to light up another. “If you hadn’t been dumped at a hospital, eventually he would have killed you.” Ash paused. “Then he’d have come for me.” I saw my poppa’s face in my head. Saw his smile, that I didn’t think was from happiness. It wasn’t like Maddie’s happy smile. It was wrong, like it didn’t belong on his face. Even with my fucked up brain, I had realized that. He liked blood and pain. He liked hurting other people. Why the fuck did he like hurting other people so much?
I felt Ash’s eyes on me from the side. “You’re hurting Madds, brother.” The flames turned to shards of ice in my blood. My lungs stopped fucking working. I thought of Maddie’s face over the past few weeks. Her eyes didn’t shine. She had black rings underneath them. They always filled with tears when she looked at me.
“I don’t wanna hurt her,” I said, kicking my boot into the mud at my feet.
“I know. But you are. You don’t go near Trix. Fuck, brother. She looks just like Maddie. I know kids have blue eyes when they’re babies, but I reckon she’ll have Maddie’s eyes, and our hair.” I ran my hand through my hair. Beatrix already had black hair. I looked at Ash’s hair. It was the same color.
Maddie’s eyes… I imagined Beatrix with Maddie’s eyes. My fucking heart squeezed. I loved Maddie’s eyes. They were the only eyes I could ever meet. The only eyes that didn’t see me as wrong or retarded. What… what if Beatrix was the same? Could I meet her eyes too? I didn’t know. I hadn’t even fucking tried.
“Don’t let him win.” Ash flicked his second smoke to the ground. He took out a hip flask. I shook my head when he offered it to me. He took a long swallow. “Don’t let our old man win. You push Maddie and your kid away, then that cunt wins. Even in fucking death he tortures our lives.” Ash tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “But you got a family now, Flame. Maddie needs you. Beatrix needs you even more.”
Needs me… she needs me more…
I looked down at my wrists, at the veins I could see. “You won’t hurt her. There’s no fucking way you would hurt her.” Ash exhaled. “Plus, she’s your kid. If you do have flames in your blood, if Maddie’s wrong and they’re bad, then Trixie will be immune.” My head snapped up to my brother.
I made myself fucking look into his black eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You made her. She’s half you. Your flames won’t hurt her.” I gasped. I fucking gasped as Ash said that. Was he right? Was he fucking right? I wouldn’t hurt her. I couldn’t hurt her… I looked at my hands. I could hold her, and she wouldn’t burn like Isaiah did. She wouldn’t be hurt by my hands. I felt my head get fucking damp with sweat. I didn’t hurt Maddie. I wouldn’t hurt Beatrix too.
“We grew up with an old man who didn’t want us, Flame. Don’t make Beatrix grow up thinking that too.” I closed my eyes when Ash’s words stabbed me in the fucking chest. “Imagine growing up with a papa that fucking loved you. I can’t even imagine what that would fucking feel like. What it would be like waking up and not being beaten and thrown into a cellar… and worse...”