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.”
Tracing the tracks of the tears on Flame’s cheeks, I added, “We are Flame and Maddie. And we have survived.” I pressed a kiss to his fingers and I emphasized, “We have found each other, and we are never letting each other go. Okay?”
Flame groaned just as the choir hit a crescendo. He enveloped me in his big strong arms.
Safe.
Inhaling the rich scent of his leather, I pulled back and suggested, “Let us leave, Flame. Let us go home. And let us never come back.”
We made it home in record time. As we entered the living room, Flame locked the door shut. I turned to face the man to whom I had just vowed my life. He stepped closer, and freeing my hair from its braid, hushed, “I want to be with you.”