by Tillie Cole
Flame
I’d shouted at her. And she’d left.
I moved my fingers over my arm to dig my fingernails into the veins as I always did in the tub, but as I focused on my skin, I couldn’t feel the flames. Instead all I could think of was where Maddie was. Was she standing in the kitchen? All I could see were green eyes looking up at me through her long lashes, with cheeks blushing.
I liked her cheeks blushing. Because it meant she liked what I had said to her. It made her feel special.
Because she was special to me. She was everything. She was all I thought about, day and night. I had to be underneath her window just to be near her. And now she was in my cabin. My Maddie was in here, with me, now. Caring for me. She said she would care for me. No one had ever cared for me before.
Putting my hands on the side of the tub I forced myself to get out. My arms shook as I held my weight, but I managed to put my feet on the floor, skin stinging from the slashes. From the cold.
I stood with my head down waiting to dry. I saw a towel in the corner, that Maddie must have put out. But I never touched them. Instead I forced my wet skin to face the cold.
I ran my hand down my face and I closed my eyes. I was so fucking tired.
When I was dry, I went to move out of the door when I saw a pair of leathers on the floor. I stared at those leathers and my heart pumped hard.
Maddie. Maddie again.
I had to sit on the side of the tub to put them on, but I managed to push them over my legs, my teeth gritting together as the tight material scraped against my new slashes. But the pain reminded me what lived within me. Why Maddie could never get too close.
Planting my hands on the doorframe, I walked through into the living room and found Maddie sitting near a lit fire. The room was warm. This room was never warm.
Maddie’s tiny body was sitting on the floor, back facing me. But when I approached, her head whipped round and her mouth parted.
My stomach tightened. She looked so perfect sitting by the fire. Her black hair was hanging down one side of her body, but in the flames her green eyes were bright.
“Flame…” she whispered and her eyes dropped to looked over my body. My legs felt weak, my body feeling too heavy. I needed to sit down.
Using the wall, I staggered forward, until I sat opposite Maddie and slumped to the floor.
Maddie sat up straight and asked, “Do you feel better?”
My skin felt tight and numb from the cold. And the flames had calmed—I felt better. I nodded my head, and Maddie’s eyes narrowed. “You look cold.” I didn’t respond, and inching closer, her long dress dragging on the floor, she said, “Are you cold, Flame?”
“Yeah.”
“But you must bathe like that to stop the flames in your blood?”
“Yeah.”
Maddie sighed, and rose to her feet. “I have made you soup. You need to eat to regain your strength.”
I watched her go into the kitchen and put soup in a bowl. Then she brought it back to me and placed it by my side. But my arms felt too heavy to move, to pick it up, the warmth from the fire causing my freezing muscles to tingle with pain. Like shards of glass were scraping across my skin.
“Flame?” She sat before me, at my feet and pointed at the bowl. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah,” I rasped and looked to the bowl, but I could barely move my arms. My fingers bent, and then straightened as I tried to move my arms. I stared at my hands wanting them to move, but I was too tired.
Then Maddie, without saying a word, shuffled to my side and lifted the bowl. Her eyes were wide as she looked at me, and then the bowl. Her expression had changed, but I wasn’t sure what was wrong.
“What are you feeling?” I asked. Maddie froze.
Dropping her gaze, she stirred the spoon in the bowl and said, “It feels… it feels nice being this close to you.” Her lip curled at the side and she added, “And you are clean. I can see your skin.” She looked up at me through her long lashes and shrugged. “You are you again. You look… like my Flame.”
My body tensed. “Your Flame?” I asked, making sure I watched her face closely. I didn’t want to ever look away. I wanted to see her say it again.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Like this, without the blood on your skin, you are my Flame, again.” Maddie stirred the spoon again and said, “Can I feed you?”
“Yeah,” I replied and braced for her to move closer.
Maddie shuffled on her knees but she stopped just inches from my legs and said, “I will not touch you. I would never give you cause to distrust me like that.”
I relaxed, and a second later Maddie lifted the spoon to my mouth. The hot soup hit my tongue and I groaned. Viking normally made me my food. I didn’t know how to cook anything. But it never tasted like this.
Maddie was silent as she fed me the soup. My empty stomach suddenly felt full as the hot liquid ran down my throat.
And I watched her. I watched as she was calm at first, but the more I studied her, the more her hand began to shake. When the last of the soup was gone, she dropped the spoon to the bowl, and lowered her head.
I frowned.
Maddie’s small chest lifted with her breathing, but it was getting faster and faster. “Thank you,” I said. Maddie’s head snapped up.
“What for?”
“The soup,” I replied and her head lowered again. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t looking me in the eye.
“Maddie—”
“Do you believe that I am a sinner, Flame? Do you look at me and believe that the devil created me to tempt men?”
Instant anger raged through my veins at her question. My jaw clenched as I shook my head. “Fuck no,” I growled, my hands coming back to life as the flames that ran under my skin began to ignite.
Maddie placed the bowl down on the floor. “All of my life I was cast aside, along with my sisters. I was paraded through the commune as a child and the people were told by the elders that I was evil. That my looks; my hair, my skin, my eyes… my body, were perfectly crafted by the devil to tempt men to do evil things.”
I focused on breathing through my nostrils, to keep calm. But I was losing my shit. I couldn’t get the image of that fucked up commune from my head. Of that cunt Moses holding Maddie’s hand, that little hand that was mine, as people looked at her and hated her.
Maddie’s eyes held mine, and she quietly asked, “Do you think me beautiful, Flame?”
My heart slammed in my chest. “Yeah. The most beautiful,” I answered.
Maddie nodded, blushed, then asked, “Do you think I am evil?”
Unable to contain my anger, my hand fisted and I hit out at the empty bowl. It crashed along the floor and smashed apart.
Maddie stiffened, but inhaling a deep breath, she continued to speak. “Neither do I… now. But for years I believed it to be true, and I would question all of the time why God had singled me out, to spite me. Because I did not feel evil. And my sisters,” Maddie’s voice cracked and her eyes filled with water, “my sisters, to me, were not evil. They were perfect. Yet all of commune despised us. They would spit upon us as we walked by. And they would recite passages of deliverance to us, trying to rid the devil from our souls.”
Maddie’s hands, in her lap, trembled. “Then I turned six and my life went from being one of fear and loathing, to being one of pain and utter self-hatred. On my sixth birthday, Brother Moses came to take me away at eight in the morning.” She huffed a humorless laugh. “The birds had been singing outside, and I remember that it was incredibly hot. There was not a cloud in the perfectly blue sky. It truly was the most perfect of days… a day that ended in darkness. I did not know it then, but it would be the day to change it all.”
Maddie quickly wiped a tear that had fallen from her eye, and feeling all of her pain, my skin crawled.
“He took me, Flame. He took me in ways I do not think I will ever be able to divulge, as saying them aloud makes me feel it all over again. He did things I did not know were
even possible. And every time he did, I believed more and more that I was a Cursed Woman of Eve. I believed I was inherently evil.”
Maddie shook her shoulders and took a deep breath. I stayed transfixed. I stayed transfixed on her pretty eyes. “And then Mae left. I had returned from a Lord’s Sharing to find Lilah sitting alone in our quarters. And she was crying. Mae had gone. But not only that, I found out that my elder sister, Bella, had been killed by Brother Gabriel for refusing his advances. It was why Mae ran. I remember praying with Lilah, the two of us believing that God was punishing us. Taking us one by one. I lived in fear for days. The Disciple Guards could not find Mae, and it drove them to such anger that it terrified me.”
Maddie’s breathing changed, the knuckles on her hands became white. The color had drained from her face, and with unfocused eyes, she said, “That was when they all came for me. All four elders. They believed my bloodline was tainted. That my blood ran with nothing but sin and evil. The bloodline I shared with Bella and Mae.”
I sucked in a breath, my body now shaking. But I couldn’t move to get my blade. My body was rooted to the fucking floor by Maddie’s words. Turning my hand, I curled my fingers and dug in my nails.
Maddie’s eyes slammed down to watch as I began to count under my breath. But she carried on.
“I wanted to die, Flame. I no longer wanted to live. I remember thinking I would have accepted eternal damnation than to live like that. I could no longer bear to be touched. I hated men. All they had ever done was hurt me.” Maddie paused, then leaned forward.
I stilled.
“Then Mae returned, and following close behind was her love. Her love and his friends. When I saw the men all lined up as Mae brought Lilah and I from the cell, I had never felt such fear before. The men all appeared different to what I was used to. Then when I looked to the ground, I saw slain elders. The men who had just spent months sexually exorcising evil from my blood. Yet the man that grieved me most was not there. I found out from Mae’s love that another had been slain in the trees. And for the first time in my life, a sinful thought crossed my mind. Because I prayed that it was Brother Moses. I prayed to God that he had paid with his life for the years he had caused me pain.
“I ran into the woods, then I saw him. I saw him impaled against the tree. I saw the four long blades keeping him in place. I saw the blood pouring from his mouth. I saw his dark lifeless eyes staring into nothing… and I remember breathing. I remember standing there, staring at my torturer, my own living demon, and I breathed. I smelled the fresh air. I could smell the flowers. I heard the birds singing in the trees. At that moment I realized that I was alive. For all those years, I had not been living.”
I listened to Maddie talk and saw that blush coat her cheeks again. I wondered why, then she spoke, and I knew.
“I walked back to the clearing where I had left Mae and Lilah. I felt all the men looking at me, but I had one task. One burning question: who was my liberator? Which man had freed me?” I noticed Maddie’s hands had stopped shaking. And when I glanced back up, she was looking at me with a new expression. I didn’t understand why, but it made me feel good.
“And it was a man at the end of the line. A man who was covered in colorful drawings, and pierced with metal. And he had blades attached to his leather pants. I remember standing before him. He was so tall and I had to tip my head backwards just to see his eyes, his eyes that were so dark they appeared black. And I asked him if he had killed the man in the trees. He answered yes, he gave me a straight truthful answer that held no shame, and I knew right there, that he was my savior. He had slain the man who had ruined my life.”
I saw it all in my head. Everything she said, I saw in my mind. Because I lived it every day. I saw it in my head all day every day. Maddie standing before me. Her green eyes staring into mine. The first person to ever stop the flames.
“And as all the barriers around my heart crumbled to dust, I held him. For the first time in my life I held a man, I embraced him. I felt his hot skin against my cheek, and I felt his heart race in his chest. And then a miracle occurred—he held me back. A man. A man held me, and I felt no desire to throw him off me. Because this man had saved me.” Maddie paused, eyes unflinching. “The man they called Flame.”
I breathed in and out, in and out, but Maddie’s eyes didn’t look away. She refused to let me go, and I couldn’t move.
“I held you, and you held me.” Her hands moved and gestured down her body. “And your touch did not harm me. The flames you believe run in your veins, did not engulf me. Instead, you gave me life. You gave me back my light.” Another tear fell down her cheek, and she whispered, “You, Flame. My Flame. My tortured boy. You gave me life and light.”
“Maddie,” I said and heard my own voice. It was broken and it was rough, but inside. Inside, I felt… quiet. I didn’t feel anything.
My eyes dropped down to my arm. My fingernails on my skin had frozen. I hadn’t finished my counts. I hadn’t drawn blood. I blinked and blinked again, my body sagging with tiredness and confusion.
“I know you feel there are flames in your blood. I know you believe there is evil within you. But I am here to fight those beliefs. Because I think, like Brother Moses did to me, someone made you believe these truths. And you may never tell me who or why. I may never know why you sleep on the floor. I may never know why you slash your arms eleven times, but I know that you are not evil, Flame. How can you be evil when you ignite such hope in me?”
“I do?” I croaked.
“Every night you arrive below my window. And every day when I feel those dark eyes of yours watching me with a blinding intensity.”
I closed my eyes and my arms fell to my side. The heat in my veins was gone. With Maddie by my side, I didn’t want to cut. I didn’t need to spill blood.
“Sleep, Flame. You are tired.”
The heat from the fire warmed my skin and I wanted to sleep. I wanted to get stronger, because then I could be closer to Maddie. I could hear more of her voice, taste more of her food. And listen to her sing.
As my head lay on the hardwood floor, my skin warm and clean, I looked up at Maddie who was beside me and asked, “Sing again. Sing for me again.”
Maddie blushed and my lip twitched. She’d liked that I’d asked her. As the fire crackled, and my skin warmed, I heard her begin to sing…
“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…”
And the flames let me sleep.
Chapter Fourteen
Prophet Cain
New Zion Commune
“So the hit on the Hangmen drop off was a success?”
I looked across the table at Judah and his face lit up. Sitting forward, with his hands on the tabletop, he replied, “More than a success. The Chechens bowed out when they lost their man. Then as we hoped, they turned straight to the Klan for business. Which means we have another buyer. And this is just the beginning.”
“And fatalities?” I asked.
Judah sat back and shrugged. “Minimum. The Chechen’s dead. A woman was hit. She survived though.”
Brother Luke shifted on his seat. “The men the Klan hired were killed.” He paled and shook his head. “Murdered, and tortured, about twenty miles north of Georgetown. One of the Hangmen caught them and tore them apart with a knife.”
My stomach sank, as a familiar face flashed in my mind. “Flame,” I murmured. “The brother is deadly with a knife.”
“He’s the devil’s man. They all are,” Judah spat. I could hear the venom in his voice. “All of them will pay eventually. It is just a matter of time.”
I nodded, then looked to my brother and my adviser. “Is there anything else?”
They both nodded, but flashing a look to Judah, Brother Luke stood awkwardly and left the room. I suddenly found myself alone with Judah in the office. Judah sighed and got to his feet. “What is wrong, Cain? You have been quiet recently.”
I glanced outside of the floor-to-ceiling windows and sank fa
rther into my seat. “I do not know. I feel 'off'. I feel like I can never get a sermon correct. I feel like our people are losing faith in me. And I feel like the battle that must be waged with the Hangmen is impossible. One Chechen contract does not seem like enough.” I stared at Judah and said, “I lived with the Hangmen for five years. I know how far their reach goes, and I know how many contracts they have. One Chechen deal is like hitting a lion with a plastic arrow—it will anger them, but it will not kill. In fact, it is the person shooting the arrow who stands to be torn apart.”
Judah walked beside me and laid his hand on my shoulder. “But we have the Lord on our side. And the Lord’s message lives within you.”
“I have yet to receive a message from God. Uncle David received them directly. God spoke to him as you do me now, but I myself have had no word, no contact.”
“It will come,” Judah soothed. “You are new, the commune is still being developed. God will speak to you when we are ready to receive a commandment.”
Running a hand down my face, I forced a smile. “You’re right.”
“Judah’s wide smile was infectious. Then he stepped backwards. “Come, I have something that will make you happy.”
I got to my feet and followed Judah into the living room. A stack of DVD cases were piled up on the coffee table standing before the sofa’s. Judah motioned for me to sit. I did as he asked.
Judah walked into the hallway and came back with a TV on a cart. I frowned. “Judah, what is this? You know we shun technology.”
He stopped and said, “Then how else am I to show you these. And the Lord would not disapprove, it is right that you see these videos. You need to relax more and stop over-thinking your duties. Jesus had Mary Magdalene to soothe him when his message and ministry became too much, you need someone to do the same.”
An image of Mae immediately sprung to mind, and for once, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to remember her black hair, her pale skin and those ice blue eyes that would smile at me when they lay upon me.
I remembered us sitting on the sofa in my room, her head laying on my shoulder as she slept. I had never felt anything like it before. Or since. I was convinced no one else would ever measure up.