20. Axel #2
“Axel.” Madden grabs my attention. “Don’t push her.”
With a sinking weight filling my gut, I turn away from Ember and Warner. Madden backs up a step at the arctic glower that I train in his direction. My words are laced with such intense malice, I almost don’t recognise my own voice.
“What did you do?”
“Ax? What is it?”
I ignore Warner, focusing on the criminal thug. “Answer the question.”
Madden rolls his neck, mouth opening and closing several times. “She’s concussed. Confused. Ember knows you weren’t really there.”
“Then why is she so damn sure?”
“How should I know?” Madden’s shoulders jump.
The worthless motherfucker actually thinks he’s a better deceiver than I am. Like I can’t see through his bullshit. I’ve lived a lie my entire life.
“He saved me.” Ember’s voice sounds like it’s getting stronger. “Then… he hit me. Knocked m-me out. Axel, you hit me! But… it wasn’t you. Was it?”
“What the hell is this?” Warner thunders.
Madden exhales, still acting evasive. “Beats me.”
“Tell me what the fuck you’ve done, Blaine Madden. Before this hospital has to make a space in its morgue for a fresh fucking body.”
“Someone explain,” Warner demands. “Right now.”
“Nothing.” Madden smiles wide, the smarmy fuck. “I’ve done nothing. Ask your teammate.”
“Don’t lay this at my door,” I seethe.
“Your business, your door,” he snarks back.
“Until you decided it would be fun to meddle, and now Ember is hurt! I warned you. I damn well warned you to leave this be. Are you happy now?”
I’ve stepped closer, fists balled at my sides and itching with the desire to pummel Madden’s face into a meaty, unrecognisable pulp. He squares his shoulders in preparation, eyeing my body language.
The female doctor inches between us, hands outstretched in a plea for calm. “Do I need to call security and have you both removed?”
“No.” Madden shakes his head. “We’re fine. All calm. Right, Axel?”
“Just admit it.”
“You first, pup. This is your secret.”
“One you had no right to unleash! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Someone explain what the hell is going on before I toss you both out.” Warner wraps a protective arm around Ember, like he can shield her from us. “Axel?”
Fucking Madden.
On a good day, I tell myself I’ve made peace with the fiction that became my life story. The horrific lies I’ve told. The even more terrifying truth that I erased. Especially from the men I now consider my brothers.
The possibility that they’d ever know otherwise isn’t something I’ve dared to entertain. Not once. This isn’t a single white lie. It’s a monumental, life-changing, trust-shattering lie of epic proportions that will devastate my entire existence.
Worse still, I can see the goddamn amusement twinkling in Madden’s stare. He knows exactly what he’s done. All I want is for the motherfucker to admit it before I end his pitiful life.
“Fuck this,” Warner grumbles. “We have more important things to be worrying about than your ego contest. Shelve it, and we’ll have a very thorough conversation later on.”
“Sure, team leader.” Madden winks.
“Get out!” I howl at him.
“Come along now, Ax. You heard the man.”
“I’ll shelve it, but not while looking at your smug face. Get out.”
“I stay where Ember is.”
“Then I’ll get her as far away from you as possible!” I recoil at the feeling of my erratic heartbeat.
With a small, amused smirk, he throws up his hands then departs the clinical bay to wait outside. Not without taking a long, hard look at my girl first. Yep, walking corpse. He has a death wish that I’m happy to endorse.
Warner finishes chatting with the doctor then orders me to watch Ember while he’s taken to Hyland’s booth next. I nod curtly, looming over her bed as the pair depart to find our missing enforcer.
“Ax?”
Her pained whisper rips me wide open, letting anger and fear melt into plain old relief. I slump next to her on the bed, allowing Ember to cuddle into my side. She smells like blood and smoke, but I still hold her close.
“Sorry,” I offer against her dirty braid. “I never meant for any of this to happen. Sometimes the right decisions aren’t the easiest or even the moral ones.”
“My head hurts,” she murmurs.
Yeah. Mine too.
“Lay down, dimples. The others will be back.”
“Will you hold me?”
“Yeah. Always.”
Ember curls up in my arms, the hospital gown bunching around her scraped, bruise-smattered legs. She tucks her head beneath my chin, fingers winding in my t-shirt, forming a strangling grip.
I don’t know what pain killers they’ve given her, but she’s already softening against me. Her breathing grows longer as exhaustion takes hold.
“I’m so sorry.” I moisten my mouth, trying to find the right words. “I’ve got secrets, Em. Big ones. Stuff that I should’ve told you all long ago but never could.”
“We all have secrets,” she replies sleepily.
“Not ones like this. I thought I could protect you from my past, but it's arrived, and I can’t stop this disaster. Not if he’s here.”
She heaves out a tired sigh. “Who’s here?”
“Madden isn’t our only ghost. This one’s just been buried for a long time.”
Between the head injury, exhaustion and drugs, I know she isn’t grasping what I’m saying. Perhaps that’s giving me the courage to say it aloud. Soon enough, I’ll have to explain properly. Then Ember will never want to look at me again, let alone allow me to hold her close like this.
None of them will forgive me.
And I’ll lose everything.
All around, the constant hum of hospital life fails to overcome the pounding that fills my ears. Relentless. Terrifying. A countdown clock that leads to one place—the destruction of the fantasy I created. The tale that I was told to weave.
With Ember passed out, I manoeuvre my arm free then pull my phone from my pocket. It isn’t often that I call home. A life sentence is more than a signed piece of paper. It’s also a death warrant. The part about being an orphan is true in that respect.
“HMP Wakefield.”
“Phone call for inmate Meredith Slaughter, prison ID 6243. It’s urgent.”
“This is out of hours,” the bored voice drones.
“Family emergency, I’m her son. Locate her please.”
“Damn family members… Hold the line.”
The miserable operator vanishes with a click. I adjust Ember’s position on my chest, ensuring my sprinting heart rate doesn’t wake her up. She’s still breathing steadily in her medicated stupor.
After what feels like an eternal wait, the line rings out then connects with a low muffle. I hold my breath, waiting for the rattly voice that I only converse with once or twice a year. If that.
“Axel? Is that you?”
“Hi, Mum.” I gulp hard. “I don’t have much time.”
“What is it, boy?”
My eyeballs sear, a childish part of me rearing its head. Traumatised by what he’d seen then twisted into a lie that he never wanted to tell. But life doesn’t give us fair choices. Not even when you’re young and afraid.
If I’d had the option, I wouldn’t have erased my twin brother. Nor would I have covered up what he did back then. Mum did the best she could. She protected her baby. All while I bore the brunt of her carefully woven lie.
“Ax?” she prompts.
“Gunnar’s back.”
She wheezes, adding to my building terror. “Not possible.”
“It’s true.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. He’s in London.”
For an awful, stomach-clenching pause, there’s no advice. Not even a word of motherly comfort. Then the inevitable nail in my coffin comes in the form of a stark warning.
“Axel…” She sniffs back tears. “Run.”