Home > My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8)(16)

My Maddie (Hades Hangmen #8)(16)
Author: Tillie Cole

 Inhaling my smoke, I edged closer and cleared my throat. “You doing good?” I wasn’t used to speaking to Saffie.

 Saffie’s eyes lifted. I swear I’d never seen lashes that fucking long or that dark before. She nodded but stayed silent. I wanted to hear her voice again. I moved closer and dropped to the ground close to where she was sitting. She looked kind of pale. The cuffs of her sweatshirt covered half her hands, like she was trying to disappear. And her eyes… they were wide like a deer’s caught in headlights. My stomach fucking caved in in sympathy. She looked petrified. What the fuck was she thinking coming here to school? I didn’t want to ask her that though. I didn’t want to make her feel like a fucking failure. I knew what that felt like. I wouldn’t bring her down in that way.

 I thought I felt her gaze on mine as I stared out across the football field. I cleared my throat from the fucking shivers climbing up my spine. “Where’s Zane?”

 I turned to Saffie. I couldn’t get over how different she looked. Those jeans. Those fucking jeans on her perfect legs. “He got detention,” she whispered, and my muscles tensed in an instant.

 “Why? Was someone fucking with you?”

 Saffie’s eyes widened. I guessed she’d never heard me speak this way. Like some overprotective fucking psycho. “No, Zane, he…” Saffie stared down at her hands. Her voice was as quiet as a damn mouse. It was still the best damn sound I’d ever heard. I wanted to hear more. But she was hesitating. Her gaze flitted around the bleachers and football field like someone would come and attack her at any second. I could tell she hated being here. Fucking hated being anywhere but in her home with her mama. “He is struggling,” she finally said. Zane and Saffie were siblings in a way. Zane was AK’s nephew, but I knew my friend saw him more as his old man. Saffie was Phebe’s kid. Z and Saff saw each other a lot. I was fucking jealous. In that moment I fucking envied Zane. He got to see Saffie every fucking day. See her blond hair and bright fucking eyes.

 Then her words circled my brain… He is struggling…

 I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I knew how to fucking breathe. The fucking innate skill seemed to have jumped ship the minute Slash took the bullet meant for me. It was karma, I supposed. I was trying to breathe in air that should never have been mine to inhale.

 And Zane… I knew he was fucked up too. Slash, me and Zane were best friends. He’d been there too that fucking day. And he’d been right beside me, firing bullets into the fuckers that killed our brother. I’d been so caught up in my fucking head that I hadn’t thought much of Zane. I knew he’d been fucking around in school. I wondered if he had the same anger I had. The same guilt that kept him awake at night. The fucking nightmares that haunted him whether he was awake or asleep.

 I smoked the rest of my cigarette and flicked it to the ground when it was done. I rested my head back against the post and closed my eyes. Saffie didn’t say anything else. I wanted to ask her if she was really okay, but I had no right asking that of anyone else when I was fucking falling apart myself. I felt her body’s closeness, could smell her vanilla scent. Sweet—just like her. That was enough. I could protect her when she was beside me.

 I concentrated on her body heat wrapping around me. It was like she was warmer or some shit than everyone else I’d ever met. She wasn’t even sitting right beside me and I felt her heat as much as I would the fire from an open furnace. I was cold. I was always fucking cold these days. She was the fucking sun. I couldn’t explain it more than that. My body just seemed to know she was there.

 I sighed, holding my breath when I began to feel calmer. My eyes snapped open and I looked across to her. She’d been watching me. The minute our eyes met, her cheeks burst with redness and she ducked her head. My stomach tightened just looking at that blush… and there was no sign of my anger. I closed my eyes, keeping my face turned toward her and I breathed. I fucking breathed, not feeling like there was an iron cage around my lungs. I was tired. So tired. Like this, with Saffie beside me, I could sleep. I didn’t know why it was different around her, but I wasn’t going to question it. My head ached all the fucking time. Right now, it was as if I’d just taken ten Advil.

 Suddenly, the sound of the school bell rang across the field to greet us. I rolled open my eyes and Saffie was on her feet, dusting off her jeans. Her legs. I’d never seen her in anything but a dress that covered her whole body. She was… she was fucking everything. I was eighteen. Saffie was a couple of years younger. And she was fucking beautiful. I’d thought it the first time I ever saw her. Thought it even more now. But she was pure. Innocent. She was good.

 Wasn’t sure I had any good in me anymore.

 Jumping to my feet, I nudged my head in the direction of the field. She walked toward the school like a death row prisoner would walk the fucking green mile. I wanted to pick her up and put her in my truck, take her the fuck home and question her sanity at why she would put herself through this when she clearly wasn’t ready. But this shit was her choice. I figured she’d had most of her choices taken from her in life by men. I wasn’t gonna add myself to that list. It was her right to do whatever she wanted even if I hated every damn minute of it.

 So, I stayed right beside Saffie, keeping my fucking mouth shut. I concentrated in holding on to the feeling of calm she brought with her. Enjoyed the break from the rage that strangled me all day every day. We walked across the field in silence, but it wasn’t awkward. I knew she preferred silence over anything else. It was nice not having someone on my back for once, trying to make shit better. Nothing would make me better. I knew it. I’d accepted it.

 I caught the stares of other students as I opened the door to the hallway and Saffie followed me inside. I felt the tension roll off her in waves, motherfucking tidal waves, when she saw the other students looking from her to me. Must have been wondering why the new girl was hanging out with the biker brat. I glared at any fucker that dared meet my eye.

 “Where’s your next class?” I asked Saff. She handed me her schedule. “This way,” I said, and she followed me to the classroom. Stopping at the door and eyeballing the football players that checked her out, I said, “I’ll meet you in the entrance after school. Go straight there. Anyone gives you shit, you tell me. Yeah?”

 Saffie gave me a flicker of a smile that fucking destroyed me, nodded, and then entered the classroom. That fucking smile imprinted itself in my brain. In fact, as the day droned on, I thought of nothing else. Gradually, the anger crept back, talon by sharp black talon until it regained its hold. Until I was shifting back and forth in my seat during final period, needing to get the fuck out. I thought back to Saffie, and how I felt being near her. Calm. Peaceful. I needed it back. I was coming out of my skin thinking of her pretty face, her legs in those jeans, her flushed cheeks… and how I could breathe around her. When the bell rang, I made my way to the entrance to find Zane and Saffie already waiting. I moved close to Saffie, not close enough to scare her or make her uncomfortable, but close enough to feel the darkness begin to fade. And it did. It really fucking did. She was the perfect drug.

 “What did you do?” I asked Zane, inhaling Saffie’s vanilla scent, letting it sink into my bones to numb the constant aches.

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