Flame exhaled, and asked, “Why didn’t you let them go?”

I closed my eyes, feeling my throat clog with emotion for the girl I had been back then—alive but not living. “I think… I think I kept hold of the old beliefs, because… because I did not know who I was without them. My whole life I had served the disciples. I had been a slave to my fears. Then, when I was free, I would sit in the darkness, watching others embrace the light… watching them sing. And I would mouth the words, wanting so badly to feel the freedom I could hear filling the air. But I just could not. I could not bring myself to let go. I feared the person I was.”

Flame’s finger played along the skin on the back of my hand, and he inquired in a hushed whisper, “And who are you?”

Tears filled my eyes and a smile graced my lips. “Yours,” I confessed, from the deepest recesses of my heart. “I am yours. It took you falling into darkness to make me see the truth and light.”

Flame stilled, and then lifting my head with his finger under my chin, he groaned, “Maddie…” and he briefly closed his eyes.

Holding his wrist, I continued, “It is true. Yours, is who I am. You gave me a purpose, Flame. You gave me a reason to live… you gave me your love… you gave me you.”

Flame’s forehead dropped to mine and his hands threaded into the sides of my hair. “Maddie,” he rasped. “I… I don’t believe in this shit. Church, God, none of it. I fucking hate all of it. Hate how people get so fucking sucked into it and let it change them, rule them. I can’t be around it no more.”

Feeling a lightness fill my soul, I replied, “Neither do I, Flame. This is not my life any longer. I do not believe in this anymore, either.”

“Then what do you believe in?” he tentatively asked.

Smiling through my tears, I said, “You. I believe in you.” Raising my head, my nose brushed his, and I confessed, “I believe in me. In us. We are all I need. All I’ll ever need from this point on.”

“Fuck, Maddie,” Flame sighed and pressed his shaking lips to my mouth. Then as our lips fused, the sweet heavenly sound of the choir began to fill the air… and it was my favorite song. The one I sang for Flame.

Flame broke from my mouth with a gasp, and proclaimed, “Maddie… the song you sang to me.” His eyebrows pulled down, his mind active, thinking, and he affirmed, “You sang for me? When I was…” he tapped the side of his head. “When I was fucking trapped in here. You sang… and I heard you.”

I nodded my head. “I know.”

“But you didn’t dare let yourself sing before. You said you never sang the words aloud.”

“I know,” I repeated.

“Then why…?”

“Because saving you gave me my voice. You gave me the strength to break free from the bonds that chained me to my past. The bonds that existed only in my mind. You… you freed me.”

I watched Flame’s eyes move from side to side. I knew this to mean he was thinking again.

Then a strained groan escaped his throat. A tear ran down his cheek, and he said, “I lost everyone. He fucking took everyone from me. My mama, Isaiah. He fucking took me from me. Made me into a psycho freak. All my life I’ve had nothing. He fucking took it all. I… I never stood a chance.”

My stomach sank as I felt every ounce of his pain. Flame suddenly stilled and stared at me, as though I were a living miracle. “Then I got you. I have you, and I can’t lose you, Maddie. I can’t ever fucking lose you or I will fucking go insane.”

“You never will lose me,” I assured.

His head dropped and he choked out, “Then I got Asher.” His eyes lifted, and they were plagued with fear. “I got a fucking brother again. I got you, and I got a brother… and what if… what if…”

Sliding my hand to the back of his head, I said, “No one will take us from you. I am going nowhere. And Asher… Asher only wants his big brother, Flame.  He wants you to go to him. Speak to him. He needs you to love him. He has lost everything and everyone too. He has lost it all due to your father. Just like you did.”

Flame held out his arms. “But Isaiah died. He died in these fucking arms. On the eleventh breath, he died. He left me… because of me.” His eyes brimmed with unshed tears. “I killed him.” He tapped his head. “It’s always in here. I see it all the fucking time. Always eleven, because of poppa’s slices and Isaiah’s last breaths.”

“No,” I cried, and bent my head to kiss along the heavily scarred flesh of his wrists. Flame froze, then tried to pull away, but I gripped them tightly. I pressed kiss after kiss to his scars, and when all of them had been covered, I said, “There are no flames, no poison, no evil in your veins. They run with blood, like everyone else. Your father was wrong. Lord, Flame, he could not have been more wrong. He believed scripture and sermons falsely given to him by that Pastor, but they were wrong. He believed wrongly. Especially about you.”

I fought back the anger building in my heart and assured Flame, “You are loved, loved so much. And your heart has so much love to give.” I held back my threatening tears, and listed, “You saved me. You protected me. You sat outside my door, day and night, to make sure I was safe. You paced before my window each night.” I traced along the scar on his neck. “And you took a bullet for me. Your blood, it flows with light and goodness, not flames and sin.”