“And then he lay above me, between my little spread legs. But I could not get free; I tried and I tried to get free. But it was no use. I was trapped, and Brother Moses relished it.” Maddie’s whole body tensed and her eyes winced. “And then he pushed himself inside of me. So hard and so rough that I remember screaming so loudly that my ears rang. I feared I had been split open, the pain was that great. But my scream only spurred him to strike my cheek and tell me shut up. He did not stop. Trapped on that table, he took me over and over, again and again. So many times, that I eventually passed out. When I awoke I was back in my quarters with Bella, Mae and Lilah, all surrounding my bed. And as I awoke, I remember feeling the agonizing pain coming from between my legs. Looking down, I saw blood. So much blood.” Tears were now falling freely from Maddie’s eyes, but she wiped them away to add, “And it never stopped. If anything, his ‘schooling’ of me became worse. I instantly learned to dread that room. Then after a while, it became my life. And that’s when I died inside.”
Maddie blinked fast and looked down at me. Her lip twitched and a sad smile played on her full lips. “Until you appeared, the unlikeliest of saviors. Flame, you saved me from him. From that life… from never knowing what it was like to hold hands. To kiss and to make such sweet love that it still feels like a dream. You have no idea how special you are to me.” Maddie held up our joined hands and said, “Even now, looking at these hands, I am terrified this is all in my head, that being here with you, is just another fantasy that will never be realized. That I am sitting at my window, sketching a future I pray will happen, before I blink and discover it is all in my head, that I must be content to simply watch you from afar.”
Maddie leaned down and pressed her lips to my forehead. When she pulled back, her hands were stroking my hair. “But then I feel this new, strange, overwhelming feeling in my heart, and know this is all real. That I have been saved, again. Because I feel fear and hope pulsing simultaneously through my body. I feel giddy and nervous at the same time. And I cannot breathe at the thought of being without you, for even one second.” Maddie’s hand lowered to rest on my cheeks, and she said, “So you may think you cannot be loved. But in my heart, in my healing soul, I am begging the question, how can you not? Because for me, you are truth. My truth. My heart, is all you.” Maddie smiled, the pretty sight like a punch straight in the heart. “I love you, Flame. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you believe that you are worthy of being loved.”
I groaned on hearing those words. I wrapped my arms around Maddie’s neck, bringing her down to my chest. I held her tight and rasped, “I can’t fucking stand the thought of that cunt doing what he did to you.”
Maddie’s arms tucked around my waist, and with her cheek on my chest, she admitted, “And I cannot bear the thought that someone hurt you either. Even now, I cannot fathom what really happened to you. I know that they hurt you at your church. I know it is because you do not see the world as everyone else does. But… who is he? Who is the man you refer to? The one who enters your mind? The one who takes you to the hatch and hurts you? I believe like Brother Moses did to me.”
I held her tighter as I thought of his face. His hard face and those eyes that stared at me with such hatred. I thought of the darkness, of the dirt floor… and the screaming… the motherfucking screaming…
“Flame?” Maddie called, summoning me from the darkness with a simple kiss on my chest.
I held her tighter, and confessed, “I’ve… I’ve never told anyone before…” My lungs squeezed, I could hear his voice pushing through, You evil little shit. You took her from us and now all he does is scream. Here, you fucking deal with it…
“Shh, Flame. All is well,” Maddie soothed.
I focused on her hands around my waist and her soft breathing on my chest, then I rasped, “The snakes didn’t work.”
Maddie tensed and her arms squeezed tighter. I stared at the ceiling and said, “The church, the poison; none of it worked. For months and months he kept taking me back to the church, back to Pastor Hughes. But nothing they did worked. He said the flames would never leave. That I was evil, and everything I touched would be ruined too. I never got better at understanding things, at being like normal people. And eventually they gave up taking me to church. But his punishments got worse.”
“Who is he, Flame?” Maddie asked, and his face came into my head again.
“My poppa,” I whispered in reply. My stomach ached at speaking his name aloud. “He said I was evil. That I had flames running in my blood. He tried to get them out through God. Instead he told me that I belonged to the devil. That I was a curse on all of the family, because the devil had made me slow and stupid.”