Souls Unfractured

And his best friends AK and Viking had been missing too. My nerves were in shreds wondering what could have happened to him? And the way Viking had hurried, the way he had bolted into this cabin just now, had sent a shiver of fear down my spine.

Suddenly, raised voices sounded from the living room directly below.

It was Viking. I recognized his voice.

I approached the shut door. My hand hovered over the doorknob, but I just stared. Fear held me in its grip. But then Viking’s voice drifted up the stairs. His frantic voice… his distressed and upset voice.

Flame, I thought, he was here about Flame.

Moving on instinct, my hand landed on the doorknob and I slipped through the door, a cacophony of loud voices overwhelmed my senses.

Steeling my nerves, I slipped down the stairs. On the downstairs landing I slipped into the shadows. There I waited and I listened.

“He’s fucking lost it this time, Styx. Fucking tapped out crazy. I don’t know what the fuck to do. What’ll get through to him?”

I could see Viking pacing the room, Styx and Ky were sitting down listening to the running commentary from Viking’s mouth. The rest of the Hangmen looked on, confusion and apprehension etched on their features.

Viking, who looked tired and unkempt, was coated with dried blood on his shirt. He ran his hand through his messy long red hair. “He just flipped, real bad. And for two days he hasn’t calmed. Fuck!” Viking’s voice caught in his throat and a strangled moan slipped from his lips. “We had to touch him, restrain him. And I swore to my brother that would never happen. The way his eyes looked at me, like he couldn’t believe I’d betrayed him. FUCK!”

Ky sat forward. “Calm down, Vike. We need to fucking think.”

Viking choked on a humorless laugh. “Calm down? You ain’t seen him, man. I think… I think this time we’ve lost him. I ain’t sure he’s gonna be right again. And I don’t know what set him off. I don’t know what he saw to push him over the edge. Yeah, there was a shooting, but the brother’s been in more shootouts than I can count. It was like he was seeing something in his fucked up head. Seeing some memory in his head as fucking real.”

Viking crouched to the floor and, hands on his head, said, “If me and AK can’t calm him the fuck down, who the fuck can?” Viking hushed with a pained voice.

Silence filled the room. All the men were quiet, hurt, in emotional pain. Instead of fear seizing my body, something inside me ignited. Flame’s face entered my mind and ushered my feet to move forward. I walked slowly to assume a position in the debating group.

“Me,” I whispered loudly, as I emerged from the shadows. All of the men stared at me in obvious disbelief, but I bit back all fear and offered, “Let me try. Let me try to calm Flame.”

I straightened my shoulders, meeting Styx's searching eyes. He did not move from his seat on the sofa. Ky glanced to Styx, then looked to me. “Maddie, this is club business. You can’t be in here.”

I ignored Ky, and stepped one pace forward. Not once did I take my eyes off Styx. “Let me try. Let me go to Flame.”

“Fuck,” Ky spat, but I could see in Styx’s calm eyes that he was thinking it through.

Turning to Viking, who was staring at me, mouth agape, I said, “Let me try. I… I feel I can help.”

“Maddie?” Mae’s voice calling from the hallway made stiffen. When I turned, she and Lilah were standing side by side, their pretty faces masked in shock.

Mae glanced to her husband, then walked into the room.  “Maddie. You cannot. Flame… Flame is not well right now. He could hurt you.”

“He will not hurt me,” I bit back with complete conviction.

“He’s fucking tapped out, Madds. He ain’t the Flame you know.” I heard Ky, but I shook my head. It was then that Viking stepped beside me. I flinched at his proximity, but refused to be swayed from what I was determined to do.

“She’s right,” Viking rasped, my attention shot straight to his face. Viking was talking directly to Styx. “Right now I reckon he’d murder any cunt in his path, AK and myself included. But this little one,” Viking said, pointing at me. “I don’t know. Even as fucked and gone as he is right now, she may be our only fucking hope.”

“No!” Mae shouted, when Styx began to sign something to the brothers. My heart pounded as loud as a storm’s heavy rain hitting a window. I did not know what was being said, and from out of nowhere, a surge of anger inflamed my very soul.

The brothers began arguing with each other. Mae was pleading with Styx to refuse my request. And I shook with white-hot anger, incandescent at being ignored. I had been ignored enough in my life, pushed aside, thought of as weak and unimportant.