I moved lower, my poppa’s body now hemorrhaging blood like a geyser. But I couldn’t fucking stop stabbing, I couldn’t fucking stop screaming out all the years of fucking pain. I reached below his waist, and taking both knives, sent them piercing through his cock. My poppa choked on his blood. But I shut my eyes, still trying to push away the feel of his breath on my neck as a kid, of his fucking sweating chest pressed to my back, as he fucked me against the wall.

And I still couldn’t stop. I hacked down his legs, ripping through bone and muscle. I moved to his stomach and sliced apart the skin, then I got to his face. To those fucking dark eyes that were staring up at me glazed over, and raising both my hands, I slammed both blades down into each of his eyes. And yet I still couldn’t stop. I kept going, ripping through his jaw, his cheeks and his fucking skull.

I didn’t think I’d ever be able to stop, until…

“Flame! Stop… please!” a voice cried.

But lifting the blades, my hands shaking, I drove them through his skull, feeling the bone splinter under my hands.

“Flame! Stop! STOP!!!”

The voice calling my name suddenly broke through into mind, and I dropped my blades, my body slumping back in exertion. I panted, my breathing too hard and too fast, when my eyes finally snapped back into focus.

Blood. All I could see was a fucking shit ton of blood. Blood beneath me, blood covering a fucking corpse in front of me… a fucking corpse so fucking cut up you couldn’t see his face. You couldn’t make him out at all.

Movement beside me made me turn, and I gasped for breath. Maddie… Maddie…

“Flame. God!” Maddie sat on the grass verge behind me, her face pale, hand covering her mouth. Rage built in my chest, rage and a fucking rush of feelings I couldn’t understand, and I screamed.

I screamed and fucking screamed. Scrambling off my poppa’s torn up body, I collapsed on the road, my knees bent and neck muscles tight. Then fisting my hands, I threw my head back and screamed again. I fucking screamed until my fucking voice cut the hell out, my throat raw and sore.

Suddenly, I felt real fucking tired, exhausted, and my head dropped forward. My body shook as tears fell from my fucking eyes. And I couldn’t fucking stop.

I couldn’t fucking stop.

Too lost in the fucking aftermath of the kill, I felt a soft hand on my face. I flinched at the touch, but when I went to knock it the fuck away, Maddie’s face came into view. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her face and lips were deathly white.

“Maddie,” I croaked, unable to fucking move.

Maddie inched further forward on her knees, and my head fell into her chest. Maddie cried out, and wrapped her arms around my head, holding me to her chest. I pushed my weak assed arms around her waist, and said with a hoarse voice, “He’s gone. He’s really fucking gone.” It felt like a fucking ton weight had been lifted from my chest.

Maddie sobbed from above. “Yes,” she whispered, then crushed me harder to her tiny body.

We stayed that way for minutes, until I heard noise coming from behind me. Hearing Maddie gasp, I pulled back, lifted my head. And my heart fucking stopped.

Vike and AK were coming out of the house… walking out of that fucking house, with the kid from the cellar. A kid who looked about sixteen or seventeen.

He was thin.

He was tall.

He was pale.

But he… he…

“He looks just like you,” Maddie voiced from beside me. She’d said aloud what I was thinking. “Lord, Flame, he has your eyes, and he has your color hair… he looks like he is… God! Is he your brother?” Her hand reached down to take mine, and she questioned, “Do you have another brother?”

I stared at the kid, standing between AK and Vike. I stared at his ripped clothes. But his eyes were on me. He never fucking took them off me. Viking put his hand on the kid’s shoulder, but the kid jerked back.

I immediately shot to my feet. “Don’t fucking touch him,” I bit out.

Viking moved back, his hands in the air. “Fuck man, I weren’t gonna hurt him. I was fucking bringing him out to meet y’all, brother. This is Asher Cade. Turns out Daddio had a woman on the side, and after you left, he moved her and his bastard kid into this palace. Asher here is said bastard kid.” Viking pointed at the boy. “You have a fucking little brother, Flame. Asher fucking Cade. Your old man married his mama, and made it all nice and official as soon as he could.”

Feeling like I’d been fucking punched in my stomach with a lead bar, I walked forward. The kid watched me, then he fucking looked over my shoulder. I tensed when I knew what he was seeing, but then a fucking long sigh left his mouth, and his shoulders slumped.

“You good, kid?” AK asked, and he slowly nodded his head.

His dark eyes fixed back on me, and he shyly asked, “You’re Josiah?”

I stopped dead, Maddie’s hand squeezing mine. I shook my head and hissed, “I’m Flame. I used to be Josiah.  Now, I’m Flame.”

The kid looked at the body on the floor behind us. “He said I was... like you. Said I was too much like... Josiah. Then he hurt me… he…”

The kid’s voice choked off. He looked down at the ground. His eyes closed. He panted through his nose.

“How old are you?” AK asked, from my left.

“Sixteen,” the kid replied. I closed my eyes.

Opening them again, I asked, “Where’s your mama?” The kid looked up at me. I saw his expression change. His eyes lowered. He swallowed.