Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 102136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 511(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“I don’t know obstetrics that well. If anything happens with Madds—” Rider trailed off.
“I will come. I know some about babies. And we will get Ruth to come too. She is a doula. She will be the best one to have with us,” Bella said. I smiled at my sister when she nodded her head at me in support. Bella and Ruth would be there. I already felt better knowing they would be beside me too.
“We ride in thirty,” Styx signed, and slammed the gavel down onto the table. The men were a flurry of activity around us.
“We’ll get y’all back here with the van soon,” AK promised. He and Viking departed Styx and Mae’s land on their bikes.
Mae’s hand threaded through mine. “Come, sister. We will get a bag packed for you here, just in case this journey takes more time than planned. You can wear my maternity clothes. I have them ready to give you anyway.” I let Mae steer me into her cabin. Styx passed by us and went into his study, closing the door. Lilah and Phebe followed Mae and me into her bedroom. Bella had gone with Rider to get Ruth and their own bags.
Mae led me to the bed and pointed to the edge. “Sit, Maddie. You have only just got out of hospital.” I did not want to sit. I wanted to keep moving. If I stopped, I knew all I could think of was Flame and Asher confronting the men who set fire to the clubhouse. All I could imagine was them being hurt… or worse.
“They will be okay,” Phebe reassured, as Lilah sat beside me and took my hand. “And AK and Viking will not let you or your baby come to harm.”
I tried to give Phebe a thankful smile, but I failed. “It is not us I worry about.” I ran my hand over my forehead. I was beginning to get a headache. “Asher is so young. He is suffering right now, on account of Slash’s death. And now he has joined Flame on this mission?” I felt tears fill my eyes but I wiped them away. “And Flame…” I shook my head. Lilah held onto me tighter. “He has fallen once more,” I whispered. Mae stopped packing my bag and came to kneel before me. Phebe sat by my side. “I cannot lose him,” I whispered, allowing my greatest fear to be spoken aloud. I met Mae’s saddened gaze. “I know people believe Flame to be the weaker one.” I laughed a single disbelieving laugh. “They are wrong. It is I who seeks out his arm to hold me each night, so the memories of Brother Moses abusing my body do not smother me and drag me back to a hell I cannot return from. It is I who holds his hand, just in case he is somehow taken away from me. And it is I, who rests my head against his chest each evening by the fire just to be sure his heart is still beating a strong, healthy rhythm.”
“Maddie…” Lilah murmured, wiping a falling tear from my cheek. She brought me closer to her side, holding me. As much as I loved my sister, it was nowhere close to the comfort Flame’s large tattooed arm gave me.
“You do not know what it was like in his cabin before.” I closed my eyes, seeing him strapped to the bed, eyes pleading with me for relief from this life. “You do not know how far he had fallen. How desperately he wanted to be free of this life, and the heavy chains that wrapped around him each day. They wound tighter and tighter until he could not take it anymore.” I wanted to tell them that it had been the memory of Isaiah that had dragged him down before. And it was again. Our baby… our baby had taken him back there.
Guilt suffocated me. I had hoped one day I would be able to have a child. I dreamed it for us. I had not expected it to be this soon. It was unplanned. I had always known Flame would find my being pregnant difficult. But I did not know to what extent it would affect him. Just how open the wound of Isaiah’s death still remained in his heart. “I would not survive,” I allowed myself to confess to my sisters. “I would not survive if something has happened to him. If something has happened to Asher. He is just a child. A child who is lost.” My head fell into my hands. “I cannot find him through his sadness. I cannot reach him no matter how hard I try. I am not sure who can.” I thought of Asher’s hard face, the granite stare in his black eyes, the hatred and pain that filled the air with every exhaled breath. “I pray there is someone out there who can bring him back to us, as I have done before with Flame.”