Getting to his feet, he turned to Flame and Viking. “I’ll tell Madds and Phebe it was just Ash fucking around.” He nodded to Vike. “You tell Styx it was a false alarm and to hold back the fucking troops.” AK glanced at me over his shoulder. “Leave the kid out of it. No need to make the prez even more pissed at him. I’ll try and reason with Ash when he’s sobered up.”
AK and Vike walked away, into the forest. I stared out over the trees again, waiting for the ghosts to rise. I momentarily closed my eyes, resting my head against the trunk. I heard someone moving beside me. When I opened my eyes, Flame was standing over me, gaze fixed on the trunk above my head, not my eyes. Never my eyes. No, I wasn’t worthy of that yet. “You made Maddie scared,” he said, his voice lacking any kind of tone, as always. I didn’t say shit. What was the point? Flame was as fucking lost as I was. He was just doing what AK probably told him to do. Scold me. Fucking lecture me back into line.
“She’s having a baby. She’s not allowed to get scared or stressed.” Flame pushed his hands through his hair. Even fucked off my face I could see his nostrils flaring and his neck cording. He was falling toward hell, and quick. Snapping his head to me, he demanded, “You need to stop. Just fucking stop. She can’t die. I can’t let her die. This shit will make her sick.”
I knew I should’ve felt sorry for him. I knew how he was. I fucking saw him falling into a shit pit, digging his nails into his arms any chance he got. But I was already there. And I couldn’t find the energy to give a fuck.
“Great talk, Flame. Real inspiring,” I said sarcastically and as always, I saw no expression on his face in response. I knew he didn’t get sarcasm, that he took almost everything literally. Flame stopped dead, tipping his head to the side, trying to understand my response. His black eyes looked demonic in the moonlight. I had the same eyes. I wondered if mine looked that way too.
“Just fucking stop,” he hissed and fisted his hands at his sides. “Stop the fucking drinking. Go to school. Stop making Maddie sad.” I couldn’t take my eyes off his fists. “Stop making her stressed.”
He was fucking me off. His words were making me pissed. Pushing to my feet, the bark from the tree behind scraping my back, I lumbered over to my brother. Pointing to his fists, I said, “Looking just like someone we both knew, brother.” I spoke the words harshly. Flame frowned. I knew he wouldn’t understand. “You gonna hit me, Josiah?” At the use of his real name, my brother’s eyes lit with agony and he flinched. I wanted to stop, to shut my fucking mouth. The morsel of life remaining in my dying heart told me to fucking stop and just let shit go. But the darkness taking command led me on, made sure I saw this out. “You gonna fuck me up, and then throw me in a cellar? Make sure I learn my fucking lesson, huh? Is that what you’re gonna do, Poppa?”
Like I’d fucking plowed a crowbar into his stomach, Flame staggered back. My legs went fucking weak at the sight, but I kept my chin up high. I’d never cared that Flame was different. Never cared I couldn’t talk to him like normal brothers could. But right now I fucking cared. I wanted him to see that I was dying inside, that I was on the fast train to hell and I needed him to fucking realize it and save me. But in response to his silence, and as if I was being controlled by a sadistic puppet master, I lifted my shirt, showing the scars our poppa sliced into my flesh. “You gonna give me more?” Flame didn’t speak, just stared at me. But his eyes were no longer filled with fire. They were fucking blank. Like he’d shut down inside, disappeared into his head and away from me and my fucking lethal tongue.
I got that he didn’t think the same as most people. But couldn’t he fucking see that I needed him? That I needed more than him telling me to ‘stop stressing Maddie out’, to ‘just stop’? I didn’t know how to just fucking stop! I needed him try, just this once. Just fucking try and push past the walls that surrounded his brain and make him see me fucking dying.
There was nothing. No words of comfort from his mouth. No acknowledgment of my pain.
Laughing a cruel single laugh, I spat, “So that’s your fatherly talk to me, huh? This is you having a one-to-one, a heart-to-heart?” Flame blinked three times in quick succession. Fucking withdrawn. Maybe hurt? I couldn’t tell. He never showed emotion apart from anger… just like me. Leaning back against the tree, I kept watch for the ghosts, and said, “And you’re gonna be an old man?” I huffed a sardonic laugh. “Good fucking luck with that.” I waited for him to hit me. Flame had never so much as lifted a finger to me. Right now, I fucking craved it. I wanted him to hit me. To knock me out, beat my face so I would feel it for days. I deserved the pain. I fucking craved the pain. And at least it meant that he was listening to something I said. That he wasn’t just ignoring me and casting me aside.
My heart was pounding from the words I’d fired. Like cheap shots from a semi-automatic, each one rebounding into me leaving a gaping wound full of regret. Adrenaline surged through my body like ignited gasoline. I couldn’t control my mouth. I was lashing out at the very person I needed to make shit right.
Flame was as still as a statue. His eyes were still focused on the trunk above my head. But his face was pale. Even in my drunken state, I saw that he had lost color—it was the only reaction he displayed.
It was a punch straight through my heart.
Silently, he turned and walked away. His shoulders were bunched as he trudged slowly through the high grass. With each receding step my anger subsided, only to be replaced by a gutting pit so deep it became an abyss of endless pain. When Flame finally disappeared, my legs gave away. My ass hit the cold ground, and I stared out at the darkness. I wasn’t lucky enough to feel numbness this time. I felt it all, every ache and tear and splitting of flesh. My regret felt as though my organs were shutting down, one after the other, causing my body to blaze with fire and agony. Flame’s blank stare lodged in my brain and I replayed my words, making sure I remembered the gravity of what I’d just done… You gonna fuck me up, and then throw me in a cellar? Make sure I learn my fucking lesson, huh? Is that what you’re gonna do, Poppa…? I didn’t know what Flame felt inside, if he even had feelings, but I’d seen him flinch when I’d called him by his birth name. And the way he walked back to the cabin—shoulders slumped, feet weighing ten tons. And you’re gonna be an old man… good luck with that…
I suddenly felt real damn lonely. So fucking lonely that I didn’t know how the fuck to breathe normally. I was chasing everyone away, because I believed it was better than letting them in. Better they didn’t see my growing darkness. Better they didn’t witness the evil consuming my flesh. Anger. Resentment… the fucking hell-risen ghosts that never let me sleep.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the ghosts rising to their knees, reappearing in amongst the trees. This time they were gathering for a different reason—not to attack, but to watch me, to remind me that they didn’t sleep. That they’d always be in the shadows, waiting for the moment they could drag me with them to hell. As I stared at them, at their soulless eyes and sunken features, I felt wetness on my cheeks. I didn’t wipe the tears away. I let them crash like bombs into the earth beneath me, burning my skin in their fiery wake. Flame would now hate me. AK and Maddie too. But I supposed it didn’t matter in the end. Because no one hated me more than I hated myself.