Hush

by Anne Malcom

  “Don’t you say his name,” Orion snarled, cutting him off, sounding like the feral animal she was. She was afraid she might try to claw at his face if he mentioned her brother again. Threw the loss in her face.

  Maddox flinched. He made no move to hide the jerk, the way his entire body moved as if shot. Orion liked it. He should feel pain for that. It wasn’t his fault, not entirely, she knew this. But if he couldn’t find her, save her, the least he could’ve done was save her brother.

  He nodded stiffly. “We looked,” he repeated it again. “The police looked. But, after interviewing your parents, they thought—”

  “That I ran away?” she interrupted. “They took one look at the shitty trailer, the shitty human beings addicted to opiates and booze, saw the fact there was a high chance that they beat their kid, and figured I ran? That I’d made the choice to leave on my own? That I’d turn up maybe, after I’d gotten too hungry, run out of whatever money I’d managed to steal?”

  Orion had gone through those scenarios. Not in the hours after she’d been taken. Not days. Not even months. No, she didn’t have the presence of mind to think such things. She didn’t have much of a mind at all. It had been broken, shattered, shredded.

  Years later she’d thought of that. The years in which no police had knocked down the door looking for them. And she recognized what it did to her faith in police, in authority.

  It’s a theory she’d managed to cobble together. Most girls taken would be missed. The world might’ve been sad and ugly, but not that ugly. Most young girls had someone, even if it wasn’t parents. A sibling. A grandmother. Friend. A teacher. Someone would miss them. They’d be pumped out on TV screens, their loved ones doing news interviews, meeting Oprah, and writing books. And those girls, found or not, are remembered, celebrated. Girls like Shelby. Orion had no one, and she was forgotten almost as soon as she was taken. Yet, she didn’t envy Shelby. She enjoyed the isolation.

  Of course, some of them were taken out of pure opportunity. Not many from privileged backgrounds. Loving parents. They never lasted long. Apart from Mary Lou, of course, who knew just what to say, and when to say it. She made herself essential, for the most part, in keeping the new girls calm. It didn’t work for most of them—Shelby was sure to go at some point in the not so distant future had they not escaped—but girls like Orion and Jaclyn, they listened to Mary Lou, they bided their time.

  Maddox gritted his teeth. “That’s what the sheriff’s department said. Your parents mentioned the mental hospital stay, and—”

  “I still can’t believe they fucking told them that.” She cut him off, angry, her face turning red from both embarrassment and rising blood pressure. “It wasn’t that big of a deal. I was twelve when I tried it, and I didn’t even want to die. I just didn’t want to live in their fucking house, under their bullshit rules, in complete fucking misery.”

  Orion hadn’t told anyone about that. Not even April. She’d just said she got appendicitis and then she’d gotten an infection, hence not being able to see her for weeks. Shame had cloaked her like the straight jacket she’d learned was a myth after her stay there. Doctors had tried to manipulate things out of her, but in a bored way, honestly. They weren’t exactly surprised a girl like Orion had found her mother’s valium and took a handful to see what would happen.

  Maddox put his hands up defensively. “Please, Orion, I’m just trying to explain to you what happened, as far as I know it. I was a kid then. I didn’t know my ass from my elbow. All I knew was, this girl that I was crazy about went missing without a trace, and I didn’t really believe she’d just up and run away.” His face read sincerity, his emotions starting to show through. “It’s why I joined the force. It’s why I never stopped looking for you. I wanted to save you.”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t save me,” Orion said, suddenly close to fainting, or throwing a chair across the room. Both of those would betray emotions she didn’t want to show. She needed a bed. Some silence.

  She didn’t wait for a response, didn’t wish to continue the conversation. Instead, she turned on her heel, opened the door, and walked out of the room.

  Jaclyn was waiting there, right outside.

  She didn’t say anything, didn’t ask if she was okay. That was a stupid fucking question. Neither of them was okay.

  “I feel like eating a steak,” Jaclyn declared, leading Orion down the hallway. “And after taking a glimpse at that GoFundMe thing, I think we can afford as many steaks as our little hearts desire. What do you say? Should we figure out how to UberEats ourselves a big fat chunk of cow? Eric said the department is hooking us up with those iPhones.”

  Orion let out a breath of relief, tried to smile. “Yeah,” she said, tiredness leeching into the single word. “That sounds nice.”

  Jaclyn nodded as they reached the front door. Maddox came up quickly behind them, the thump of his boots rebounding in Orion’s skull. She ignored him.

  She focused on what was in front of her. The front door. The squeak of footfalls against the tile floor. The bright fluorescent lights.

  Ignoring Maddox, Orion shouldered the door open, holding it for Jaclyn, when a man stepped up to them, creeped up on them. They braced themselves. Orion hated that her first instinct was to cower. To submit. It shouldn’t be that way. That’s what her mind told her. But years of conditioning, of torture, said differently.

  “Orion, Jaclyn,” the man said, smiling. “Is it okay if I address you by your first names?” His thick brown mustache twitched.

  Orion and Jaclyn didn’t reply, didn’t do anything except stare at the man long enough for Maddox to catch up to them.

  “Who are you?” Maddox demanded, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder, pushing him back a few steps.

  She rolled her eyes. It was a little late to be protecting her.

  The man seemed undisturbed as he steadied himself, dusted his hands down the front of his sport coat, and said, “I could sue you for that, Detective.” He smiled smugly, motioning toward himself. “My name is Lucas Spector.” His voice was smooth and greasy. “I’m a lawyer. I’m Ms. Darby’s lawyer. Along with the other two ladies. I was simply trying to make my introduction.”

  Orion blinked. She had not hired a lawyer. And by the look of his suit, he was expensive. She didn’t have any money, considering she didn’t have a bank account, and she was guessing her parents left her nothing but debts. Jaclyn had looked up this GoFundMe thing, but Orion was dubious that anything on the internet would translate to actual money or support. Maybe enough to buy her a few steak dinners.

  She realized that she had no marketable skills. No college degree. No résumé. Nowhere to live. She had nothing but the clothes on her back, the tennis shoes that were too small and stained with her blood. As much as she had a hatred for lawyers and authority figures, she sensed opportunity.

  She stepped around Maddox. “I didn’t hire a lawyer.” Orion made sure to raise her brow in challenge, meet his stare evenly, not act like a victim.

  He smiled at her. It was more like a predator making a show of teeth, which didn’t unnerve her. He was making no pains to hide what he was. She respected it. “Oh, but you will. I’m here to make sure you get what is owed.”

  “Owed?” Orion repeated.

  Maddox stood behind her radiating fury. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hands fisted at his sides. “That is enough,” he said, voice firm. “I don’t know who let you in here, but I’m about to forcibly remove you if—”

  “I want to hear what he has to say,” Orion said, not looking back. She was impressed that she kept the fury from her voice. Maddox answering for her, trying to step in, whether it was out of duty to his badge or to the ghosts of their past, was not acceptable.

  The lawyer liked this. His smile widened, taunting Maddox a little before he moved his full attention to Orion. “Juan Del Rio was on parole. For sexual assault and attempted kidnapping. You were kept captive for ten years. You have lost income. Lost educa
tion.” He eyed them both. “Lost life. I think that requires some compensation, considering your state failed you by letting a known predator take you and torture you.”

  Maddox tried to speak. To argue. “She doesn’t need—”

  “She doesn’t need anyone speaking for her who has no idea what she needs,” Orion snapped at him again.

  As much as it pained her to do so, as much as her instincts screamed against her, her pride spoke louder. She held out her hand. “Orion Darby. I’m interested in hearing what you have to say.”

  He took her hand. His grip was firm and dry, hands softer than hers. “I’m interested in getting you everything the three of you are owed. And I mean everything.”

  Orion wanted to laugh at the statement.

  What they were owed was a childhood.

  A prom.

  A high school degree.

  A first kiss—for Shelby—a second kiss for Orion.

  The ability to laugh.

  Beyond that, they were owed the blood of all of their enemies.

  But no lawyer was going to get them that.

  She’d get the blood all on her own.

  But the lawyer could get her a lifetime of steak dinners. And that would be just fine.

  Eight

  Three Months Later

  “Shelby, honey, do you want me to run you a bath?”

  Shelby gritted her teeth. Run her a bath. At four in the afternoon. There would likely have been pajamas, fresh out of the dryer, waiting for her after the bath, laid out perfectly on her bed. They would have ducks on them, or flowers. They’d be flannel and made for kids. And Shelby would feel that faint, awful familiarity . . . a reminder of her years in The Cell, the baths and the nightgowns.

  Her parents only knew their child. Their little girl who still liked to hold her dad’s hand on the long evening walks they took, and who let her mother kiss her goodnight. They didn’t know how to be around the woman who had her virginity ripped from her without her permission. Who knew what starvation tasted like, smelled like. Who knew what monsters looked like.

  They were afraid of that woman. Terrified.

  So, they catered to the girl they remembered, and they ignored the woman right in front of them, the one barely keeping it together.

  “No, thank you, Mom,” Shelby said, clenching her fists. But she smiled. It felt fake, almost painful. She had never felt this kind of anger, frustration. Not even in The Cell. What did that say about her, that love and tenderness caused her to want to scream, but pain and torture had her withering up and submitting. Who had she become?

  Her mom stood in front of her, forcing an easy smile onto her face, but her eyes filled with panic—she was all but wringing her hands. “How about I make you some mac and cheese?”

  There was also the food. Her mother cooking all of her childhood favorites like it might do something. As if eating enough Hamburger Helper might erase what had happened.

  She sighed, looking at her mom, at the almost permanent glassiness in her eyes, always a breath away from tears. Her mother’s tears once brought Shelby tears of her own, but she now found them to be grating, maddening. An insult to her own anguish. But she didn’t say what was on her mind, didn’t know how to.

  “Sure, Mom. Mac and cheese sounds great.”

  Her mother smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It was a mask she wore around Shelby.

  Her father was a little better because he didn’t try quite as hard. Men, as a rule, weren’t as practiced at hiding their true feelings as women were. At least, for women in the O’Reilly clan. They learned at an early age, in order to be liked, in order to please people, in order to survive, they had to play pretend sometimes . . . for the sake of the family, for the sake of her fragile sanity. They were masters of deception in many ways.

  O’Reilly men were better at other things, like hiding their monsters but not their feelings. The Irish blood running through their veins, lubricated with a little whiskey and ale, made secrets and feelings and worries pour from their lips freely. Her father was no different. He didn’t drink like his father—her late “Grampops”—and he hid it from her for most of her childhood, but it never bothered her anyway. She liked the way it made him more open and honest.

  That’s why she preferred being around her father. He didn’t hide it all quite so well, didn’t really even try to. And he didn’t make her feel like she was some breakable trinket, tiptoeing around her and speaking to her like a child. She felt more comfortable in the hideous honesty rather than the synthetic kindness and warmth her mother used as a shield.

  But they were both trying. They both loved her. It was cruel of Shelby to feel such all-encompassing irritation toward the parents who loved her, had grieved over her, had never lost hope . . . specifically, her mother.

  Jaclyn and Orion didn’t have that.

  They had no one.

  They didn’t have anyone to run them baths, make them food. All of their family was gone.

  For a moment, a pang of jealousy rippled through Shelby. She knew it was a terrible thing to wish for that kind of aloneness, for her parents to just up and disappear. Even if it were just for a moment. It was stifling here, in this house that hadn’t changed a bit. In her room that was all but a shrine to the person she used to be. She lived in a neighborhood where the neighbors were anxious to see her, to chat her up, to drop off gifts while wearing their pitiful smiles. If she had to fake one more thank you to one more neighbor, she thought she might just kill them right where they stood.

  Expectation pressed down on her from all directions, heavy, suffocating. Of course, her parents couldn’t see her desperation, her claustrophobia, her suffering. They were good people, good parents, if a little overbearing—she knew that. She saw just how loose the threads were holding them both together. Her mother had always been the strong one. Terse. The disciplinarian. She eschewed all stereotypes of the softness and grace a mother was meant to have. Her father was the soft one. Despite his stature—she had always thought him so large as a child, when in reality he was average height—his strong jaw, his moustache that was thick and masculine, he was the one she went to. He was the one who spoke softly, never raised his voice, and happily let his wife boss him around.

  Things had changed. Her mother was no longer the strong, unyielding figure she had been. She was drawing baths and making mac and cheese. Her father sat in an armchair beside her, reading a book. He was pretending to read it, at least. Shelby knew he was just using it as an excuse to be in the living room with her. She was never alone.

  They were watching her. Perhaps because they wanted to soak up all the lost years. But mostly because she was sure they were waiting for something. For her to crack. But if she actually cracked, they’d shatter. She’d never been good at reading people. She said the wrong things at the wrong times, even before The Cell. And that stunted whatever social skills she might’ve had.

  But she wasn’t an idiot. She saw it. That her parents wouldn’t be able to handle her doing what she wanted to do. Tear her hair out. Drink an entire bottle of that Fireball April had given her. Smash every mirror in the house so she didn’t have to look at herself. Tear apart the room that was no longer hers—it belonged to a Shelby long lost, long dead, her corpse in The Cell, in a house of horrors. She ached to tear the posters off the walls, set her flowered comforter on fire, and murder all of the soft toys her mother arranged artfully on her bed.

  But, of course, she didn’t do that.

  She ate mac and cheese. Had baths. Pretended to watch stupid movies her mother put on.

  And felt herself slowly going insane.

  Sometime later, when she felt as if the armor was seconds from peeling away, her rage a bomb, mid-explosion, she began to write, and she kept writing and writing and writing until she filled a quarter of a spiral notebook. She’d later determine most of it to be utter garbage, but she found some gems too. She couldn’t deny feeling better.

  There was so much to catch up o
n.

  So much to eat, to watch, to read, to drink . . . to inject.

  She hadn’t planned on it.

  Jaclyn didn’t think anyone planned on becoming addicted to things. They were just looking for cures in the wrong places. Looking for quiet in the storm. Escape. Whatever. She just wanted it all to stop for a moment. She wanted to escape her body. Her mind. Past. Future. Present. All that crap.

  At first, she wanted to try it. Because she wanted to try everything. She wasn’t used to having control over herself, her environment, her body. And that returned control made saying no to anything new, anything a little bit dangerous, that much more difficult.

  For years, her body was not her own. Others ruined it. Scarred it. Stained it.

  Jaclyn didn’t want to fix it. She wanted to ruin it in her own way. She wanted to finish the job they had started, but on her own damn terms.

  She started with the drinking. She knew Orion blamed April for that, but it wasn’t April. It wasn’t the booze manufacturers. It wasn’t her piss poor genetics. The fact of the matter is, she liked it. Not the hangovers, of course. They were brutal and nothing like she remembered when she was younger. The hangovers eventually led her to weed. That was better. Easy to get, with a quick call to one of April’s seedier friends. Easy to handle. It made her want to laugh, the way things had changed. This world looked the same at first glance. She might be fooled if glancing is all she did. But if she looked closer, she’d see how many things she’d missed out on. How lost she was. It was comical, a reason to want to laugh.

  The weed was good.

  April was right. Food tasted better. Movies were funnier—holy shit all the movies. She couldn’t believe how many there were, and how good they had gotten. On weed, life was lighter, her problems dissipated. Eventually, the high wasn’t all that special anymore, and Jaclyn went looking for something different, something stronger.