“There is no need.” Her words confused me. I tried to find an answer for why I should be cold, but I couldn’t. I’d always been cold in my room as a kid, and then in the cellar. But I couldn’t think why I had to be cold right now.

Maddie moved to stand above me, and said, “Use this blanket, for me? Please…”

I nodded my head, and braced for the material on my body. Maddie laid it over me, but she didn’t touch me.

The blanket felt strange on my skin. Another new feeling burst into my stomach. Maddie was the first person ever to want me to be warm. The first person to ever care since my mama.

I tracked Maddie as she stood still, her back turned to me. Her fingers were tense, but then she turned and looked down upon me. The expression on her face was new. I thought I knew her every look but, in this one, her lips were tense and her shoulders were pulled back. Then she lay on the floor in front of me again, her hand landing just an inch from mine.

Her cheek pressed flat to the wood. “Sleep, Flame. I will not leave you. I will stay right here until you are awake.”

My eyes began to close, darkness pulling me under. But the last thing I saw was Maddie’s green eyes, still staring at me. And even when the dark closed in, the darkness that I hated, her eyes shone bright. They chased away the pain.

Chapter Twelve

Maddie

He slept soundly.

He barely moved. The only movement was of his chest rising and falling with deep and peaceful long breaths. This lulling sound helped me relax, but each time my eyes drifted to a close, all I could see was Flame rocking against the wall, hands on head as he hummed.

I was convinced that he was not even aware he was humming. It seemed to me that he was trying to block something out of his mind. I sat frozen in fear at what it could be, when his eyes lifted to look at me. Yet they did not see me. He focused on something behind me. Something that caused his face to turn ashen, his eyes to bleed out life.

I squeezed my eyes shut when I remembered him staggering over to this hatch in the floor, and how he fought to remove his leather pants and… Lord… to touch himself. Roughly, painfully, and at the same time slicing his blade across his flesh eleven times. His entire body was covered with tattoos. Every part of him pierced. Every so often my eyes would catch sight of a strange scar, boasting two raised lumps. I had no idea how one could acquire such injuries.

And he found release on the floor, his back hunched forward. But not like he was in a pleasurable rapture, rather he was so pained by the manner of his release that it caused his body to expel his seed.

Then there was the vomit.

I remembered the vomit. I remembered it well. Because after Moses would take me as a child. When he would tie me down, rip through my womanhood and take me to rid my body of evil, I would vomit. It was part of the course. My shame, expelling the shame the act had caused.

I thought of Flame on the bed, his back arching like someone was penetrating him from behind. It dawned on me that we shared more in common that I had previously thought. Though, I was sure, what was done to Flame was far worse.

I thought of him talking to me. And in the quickest of turns, my heart fluttered. As I lay on this floor, I struggled to suppress the smile forming on my lips.

I like your hair…

Such a simple truth, yet one that sang to my heart. Because I was sure Flame did not offer compliments. Viking had told me Flame was shy and that he did not understand the subtlety of human emotions.  The more we spoke, the more I could see for myself that he struggled to understand my emotions. His dark eyes would narrow on mine when I assumed my expression was changing. But he could not read me. Yet he felt comfortable enough with me to ask why I shed tears. Why I blushed.

Some may find it abrupt, the way he spoke, and question why such simple understandings did not come to him as easily as they did to others. But I found it to be a most amazing transgression.  Men, in my experience, generally had no qualms about using falsehoods for their personal gain. But with Flame, I knew he would not lie. He could not lie. That made me feel so unbelievably safe. And to me, feeling safe was the most important thing in my life.

The cabin was dark. I knew that hours and hours must have passed. I wondered if AK and Viking remained outside, keeping watch. I suspected that they were. I knew I should tell them that Flame seemed to have subdued whatever had held him in its clutches. But I refused to move. Flame was still not back. Right now he was broken down by dehydration and his inner demons. His skin was still raw and he needed lots of care.

And, selfishly, I wanted to be left alone with him. I did not know how long we could stay in this existence—just the two of us—however I did not want it to end for a while.

Feeling my eyelids flutter down, the last thing I saw before I drifted to sleep was my hand, just a fraction from touching his.

*****

The sound of birds outside the cabin called me from sleep. Opening my eyes, my body jerked at the sight of an unfamiliar room, then clashed with a familiar face. Intense dark eyes stared at mine.

We stayed that way, laying in silence, until I took a deep breath and spoke a nervous, “Hello.”

Flame’s eyes blinked; once, twice, three times. Then his dry lips parted and he replied, “You stayed.”

The expression on his face had not changed but the tone of his voice expressed disbelief. “I told you I would.”

A sigh slipped from between his lips.

“How did you sleep?” I asked, glad to see that beneath the dried blood and dirt on his face, color had returned to his cheeks.