“Stop crying,” I said. But she didn’t. Tears ran down her red face. “Stop crying… please… Mama will be here soon.” But the shower still ran, and Maddie didn’t come. “Shh,” I whispered, my voice fucking shaking. But Beatrix didn’t shush.
Beatrix cried harder and harder until I reached forward and picked her up. I froze the minute she was in my arms. I fucking stopped breathing. She was in my arms. My daughter was in my arms… Big eyes looked up at me and I felt like the fucking world stopped. She stopped crying and looked up at me. My vision blurred. “I don’t wanna hurt you,” I whispered and checked her body for signs that I was. I watched her in case her skin started heating up. In case her breathing rattled and slowed down... but it didn’t. Beatrix stared up at me. Her breathing was normal. Her chest didn’t rattle.
I wasn’t hurting her.
I wasn’t hurting her… and it did not burn…
I pulled Beatrix closer and closer until she was at my chest, my hands cradling her head and my forearms supporting the rest of her body. She was wrapped in a blanket. Beatrix stopped crying. She stared at me. I stared back at her… I didn’t look away. I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. Something in my chest was caving in, something was wrapping around my fucking heart and holding it in its fist.
“Beatrix…” I whispered. She blinked, and I felt my legs get weak. I sat on the edge of the bed, just staring down at her. She was warm in my arms. She was so little. She was… perfect. She was perfect… and looked just like Maddie. She started squirming. I held her tighter, afraid I’d let her fall. Her lip stuck out and she started crying again. “No, don’t cry,” I begged, not knowing what to do.
I thought back to mama holding my brother… to the only other baby I’d ever known—Isaiah. I thought of what she did when he cried. Opening my lips, I tried to stop my hands from shaking and sang, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star…” Beatrix’s trembling lip stopped, and she watched me sing, no longer crying. I sang more. The more I sang; I saw Isaiah in my arms.
I felt the flames in my blood heat. But Beatrix would be immune to my flames. She was part of me. The flames wouldn’t hurt her. I sang, I fucking sang and sang until her eyes shut. I immediately stopped, pulse racing. But her breathing didn’t stop. Her chest raised up and down and her breathing didn’t stop. I heard a soft cry from the doorway. Maddie… Maddie was standing in a towel, watching us. Her hand was over her mouth and tears ran down her cheeks. But she was smiling. She was smiling her happy smile. Her eyes were back to being bright.
“She’s still breathing,” I said and stared down at Beatrix. Heat exploded in my chest and ran through my veins. But it wasn’t the old flames. It didn’t feel like those flames. They didn’t hurt me. They made me feel warm. They made me feel good. They had never felt like this before.
Maddie came and sat beside me on the bed. She laid her head on my arm. “You sang,” she whispered. “You sang to our daughter.”
“It made her stop crying.”
“I know,” she said, and a sob slipped from her throat.
“I don’t want to put her down,” I said. I liked her in my arms. She was safe in my arms. No one would get her in my arms.
“Then don’t,” Maddie said. “I am perfectly content to sit here with you both all night.” I nodded and kept watching Beatrix breathe. She looked like Maddie. I held a little Maddie in my arms.
“Maddie…” I said. Maddie wrapped her arm around my arm. “I think I love her.” I felt Maddie’s tears on my skin. But I knew she wasn’t sad. These were her happy tears. I recognized them now. “I think I love her,” I said again, holding her closer to my chest.
Maddie kissed my arm, and gently laid her hand on Beatrix’s stomach. “I think you do too, baby,” she whispered, and I knew she was happy about it. “I think you do too.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ash
“Ash, you fuck that slut last night?” I laughed at Bull’s question. I finished changing the oil on the Harley I was working on.
“None of your fucking business.” I winked at Bull.
“Shit, kid,” Tank said opposite me, lifting his head above the Chopper’s saddle he was refitting. “Just watch out for STDs yeah. That whore looked riddled with shit and the last thing you want is your dick falling off in the shower because you were too liquored up to wrap up.”
I laughed again and dried the oil off my hands with the rag I kept beside me. I turned, and my fucking fake smile slipped from my face. My fucking skin itched and I needed a hit. I needed a fucking hit so bad I couldn’t fucking focus.
“Ash!” Zane came through the garage doors. Get your shit together. I turned to Zane and walked toward him, grabbing a can of soda from the fridge. I knocked it back, just trying to stop my head from wandering, from everyone knowing something was wrong. Zane pulled out a chair and sat down. “The cabin’s almost done. AK reckons we’ll be in it by the weekend.”
I nodded. Good. I needed to get out of Flame and Maddie’s place. Beatrix was there now. I couldn’t be bringing my shit into the house around her. I was fucked up. I wasn’t gonna endanger my niece. I’d be better in the cabin with Beau and Zane. “Your aunt good with you moving out?” I asked Zane, hoping I sounded normal.
“She cried, but said it was time.” Zane shrugged, looking just like AK. “Graduated High School early, finally living on my own. Just gotta get patched in, and life will be fucking sweet.”
“Ash! You’re off the clock. Get the fuck outta here!” Tank bellowed across the garage. “And Zane, if you’re gonna keep coming around here this much, I’m gonna put your lazy ass to work.”
“Do it,” he said. “I’ve been working on bikes for years. I know my shit.” It was true. He knew more about bikes than me, but AK made him graduate before letting him do it as a profession. Now that was done, he could do what the fuck he wanted. But I didn’t want my best friend working here. I saw him watching me sometimes, in suspicion. Zane knew me too well. He would know soon enough if I didn’t get my fucking twitching sorted. If I didn’t find something to remove the fucked up thoughts from my screwed-up mind.
Tossing my cut on over my shirt, I threw my hand up in a wave and left the garage. Zane followed. “Why you wanting out of AK’s so bad?” I asked my best friend.
Zane eyed me weird. That meant one fucking thing. Saffie. My heart started fucking pounding, preparing myself for what he’d say. I saw his eyes drop and I fucking knew. “She’s got that fucking symbol brand, doesn’t she?”
Zane finally fucking met my eyes. He nodded. My body fucking set alight. For a moment I believed I knew what Flame meant, when he talked of flames in his blood. I was his brother, the fucking snakes bit me too. I was a Cade. If Flame had fire in his blood, then so the fuck did I.
“She’s having real fucked up nightmares lately, screaming and needing to be restrained by Phebe again.” Rage, that’s what I felt. Rage so strong it knocked the fucking wind straight out of my lungs. I wanted to go to her, fucking sit outside her cabin so I knew she’d be safe. Then I thought of all the fucking sluts that I’d been with lately. The sluts whose faces all blurred into hers, all fucking blondes. All when I was fucked off my face on coke and Jack. I was no good for Saffie. I wasn’t even worthy to be around her.