“They took me to a big building. It was dark and they left me at the door. I think I must have fallen asleep, because when I woke up I was in a bed I didn’t recognize. A man came in and tried to talk to me. But he laid his hand on my arm and I screamed. I pushed him off and told him about the flames. I told him about the evil in my blood and scratched my wrist to show him I was trying to get them out.” Flame’s eyes had lost focus, completely immersed in his memory. “But he didn’t understand me. I couldn’t make him understand what was wrong. Just like with everybody else, I always said something wrong. Something that made them scared or upset or angry.”
“Flame,” I whispered, but he was still there, inside his head. “They took me somewhere new. A hospital, I think? But I didn’t like it there. They injected me with drugs that made me numb, because I would try to get to the flames. Then I couldn’t feel the flames, but I knew they were there. They tied me down so I couldn’t release the flames. I spent all day, every day, for years and years, burning from inside. I hate fucking being tied down.”
Flame’s gaze moved to meet mine and he explained, “The flames hurt all of the time. They wouldn’t let me release them. They left me alone in a room, tied to a bed, letting the flames burn me alive.”
“Then how did you get free?” I asked. In my mind's eye I pictured Flame, in the bed weeks ago, seeing him thrashing around trying to get free. And then the look on his face when I sliced him with his blade. Because he had been laying, feeling the flames burn him alive.
“They moved somebody in my room with me. People would come and visit him. And there was this one guy that always came over to me. The doctors had injected me with the numbing drugs, but I always remembered his face. He had dark hair and always wore leather. I could always smell the leather.” Flame took in a deep breath, and I could hear his heart racing in his chest. “Then one night, the guy in leather broke in and freed the other man sharing the room with me. I heard him opening the window in our room and I heard them leave. But then I felt someone untying me and, when I managed to look down, I’d been freed from the bed. And the window was still open.”
My body was tense as I listened to his story, and I pushed, “Then what? What happened next? Who was the man who freed you?”
Flame’s finger ran down my cheek and he said, “What happened next is not real clear because of the drugs, but I remember climbing out of the window and running. I don’t know how long I ran for, but I ended up in an alley because I needed to sleep. But when I woke up, I had nowhere else to go. But I had my knife. The knife I’d managed to hide all those years, the one I would strap under the mattress. The knife my poppa used on my back every night.
“I was cutting my arms when I heard footsteps approaching. I’d tensed, gripping my blade in my hands. When I looked up, it was the guy that had freed me. Him and a bigger guy with long red hair. They were both dressed in leather, the devil painted on their backs.”
My eyes widened and I whispered, “Viking… the long red hair? Was it Viking?”
Flame nodded and added, “And AK. AK was the one who freed me. The man in the other bed had been his older brother. They were all Hangmen.”
“And he found you again. He came back for you?”
Flame nodded. “Yeah. I was seventeen.” His gaze fixed on mine and he said, “I was seventeen… seventeen, when I embraced the darkness. Seventeen when I fucking became Flame. Styx’s old man gave me the name because I told him I cut my arms to release them from my body. He never asked anything more. He just accepted me.”
“Flame,” I murmured, kissing along an orange flame tattoo on his chest. But as I did, I asked curiously, “How did you get all of these tattoos and piercings if you cannot be touched?”
“I wanted them so people wouldn’t come near me. So they could see on the outside, what lived inside.” Flame tensed, and he added, “And they were painful. Tank did them. Did them all over my body for three days nonstop. Viking and AK kept me knocked the fuck out. Then when I woke up, I was this me. I was Flame. No longer Josiah William Cade.”
I stared at the tattoos and I understood. They kept people away. So they wouldn’t touch him. They made people stay away before they chose to stay away.
Every new word from his mouth seemed to gut me.