by Anne Malcom
Granted, it was harder since she didn’t have connections. But it wasn’t that hard. April’s weed buddy led her to his coke buddy, and so on and so forth, and she melted into the underworld with ease. Too much ease, probably. She felt comfortable there amongst the heathens and degenerates. They never fucked with her, they were too shit-faced most of the time to attempt it, and she felt at home in their world of ignored problems and synthetic solutions. With the criminals and the addicts, the walking dead, she felt alive.
But she was only used to damnation, so she preferred this ugly, honest world of addicts, whores, and murderers. Somehow, she felt safer there.
Jaclyn was sure their shrink would have a fucking field day with that. What her past had been before she was taken—all the lurid little details. Parents who loved drugs and beating on each other, and not much else. Derelicts in and out of the house. Living on tinned spaghetti and cold hot dogs. Dodging the wandering hands of all her “uncles.”
The shrink would love her substance abuse. And the fact she was now moderately addicted to heroin, then lying to herself that she was only moderately addicted because she was in control.
To be fair, the shrink probably wouldn’t have loved that, and likely would’ve had her locked up in some looney bin, where she—where all of them—arguably belonged.
Jaclyn was not stupid. She did not tell the shrink that. She did not tell her anything. She just sat in the office and played games with the bitch for no other reason than it amused her. Orion had said she probably had designs on writing a book about her. About all of them.
The Stolen Girls.
A lot of names were tossed around in the media, but that one stuck.
It made sense to the country filled with missing children, filled with the monsters who took them. They weren’t lost like a sock in the dryer. They were stolen from their lives. They were stolen from themselves to be the guilty pleasures of pedophiles. And now the world had shoved them high up on a pedestal, ignoring their need for privacy and healing, celebrating something they could never possibly understand. The news channels wanted their stories, their updates, their ad dollars. The public wanted to feel better about themselves. Wanted to look in the mirror and say they did something. And, Jaclyn couldn’t deny it, they certainly did something. The GoFundMe account, which Jaclyn still didn’t quite understand, had reached over four million a month and a half after their rescue, and though it started to decline along with the number of news stations they appeared on, the money still rolled in.
Yeah, the shrink would get a good book deal out of it. Jaclyn was sure of it, since none of them were interested in capitalizing off years of rape and torture. But she didn’t care. She had enough money coming in from the GoFundMe . . . and plenty more on the way from Uncle Sam. All three of them did. And she didn’t care to be in the public eye any more than they already had been.
At first, she was sure this lawyer Orion had insisted they work with was some kind of crook. All lawyers were crooks, Jaclyn knew that. But Orion wouldn’t budge, and Jaclyn trusted her. Orion was intent on fighting everything, fighting the world, and it was easier for Jaclyn to just go along with all of it. As far as she was concerned, she’d reached her quota on fighting. She’d done enough. She was happy to sit back and wait for the checks to clear. As it turned out, the lawyer was an even better crook than the justice system itself. Their payout was going to be staggering.
Having a plan and following that plan were two different things. Similar, to be sure. But being brave enough to began to execute that plan? A whole different beast.
Orion was smart. It seemed that had not been carved out of her in that basement. She still remembered how to read. It was like the proverbial bike, not something you forgot. Sure, she was a little rusty. The words seemed unfamiliar, jumbled at first. She couldn’t quite believe what was in front of her. What she was holding. An entire world. Someone’s fantasy typed and bound and ready for her to consume.
So that’s what she did at first. Devoured every single book she could get her hands on. And it seemed she didn’t even have to put her hands on them. April had given her a large square tablet, like a pocket computer.
“It’s called a Kindle,” April said quietly. Hesitantly. She yo-yoed between that and her exuberant—if a little vulgar—self. Orion didn’t know if it was because she could somehow sense the levels of Orion’s moods, how volatile she was, or the woman herself was undergoing some mental rollercoaster. Whatever it was, Orion was thankful for the softness of her voice that day.
“I’ve got it attached to my Amazon account,” she explained, as if Orion knew what she was talking about. The rainforest? Orion had stopped asking questions about things she didn’t understand. She was sick of feeling weak, stupid; the years that had been stolen stitched into every question. She had a computer now. A rudimentary understanding of how to work it. She kept a mental list of things to google. All that information at her fingertips was something. Daunting. Wondrous, maybe.
But she had not googled herself yet.
April tapped at the screen. Orion watched her intently, soaking up the gestures, the taps, stowing them away for later. “You can go into the store and click on any book you wish. And boom! It’s downloaded into your library.”
She held it out to Orion after the demonstration. Orion was hesitant to accept gifts. Any kind of string to connect them. She didn’t want it. But the books. They called to her. Whispered to her. If she understood this device correctly—and she thought she did—she could house thousands of stories in there. Thousands of peoples. Places. Knowledge. Ideas.
She hadn’t known she’d taken it until it was in her hands.
April had smiled with relief. She had thought wrongly that things were growing better between the two of them.
They weren’t.
The only reason Orion managed to keep it inside this particular day was because she was shaking off a nightmare and hadn’t had her wits about her. She didn’t make a habit of answering the door to her new apartment, complete with four separate locks she bought and installed herself.
Her lawyer had pulled all sorts of strings to get each of the women declared legally undead. It wasn’t a horribly complicated process, since people apparently came back from the dead often, but it was a lengthy process. Or it should’ve been, from what Orion could understand on the internet. And she made sure to understand a lot. Everything, in fact. Every contract, every document, every part of her lawyer’s job. He had reassured her that he would take care of them. He was from a reputable firm. He wore two-thousand-dollar shoes—she had googled that—and had a general air about him that said he was smart and rich.
She did not trust a man, no matter how smart, how silver-forked his tongue was, or how reputable his firm was. He was not going to take care of her. She would not trust him blindly. She refused to blindly trust anyone. She physically couldn’t. And if she could, it wouldn’t be the lawyer who spent two thousand dollars on shoes.
He was a good lawyer, as far as lawyers went.
They had bank accounts—already bulging with more money than Orion could comprehend, thanks to GoFundMe—Social Security, credit cards. They had their own apartments. At least Jaclyn and Orion did, and in the same complex. She knew both of them didn’t want to rely on each other. They wanted to be strong, independent. And if they were honest with themselves, they didn’t want to be sleeping that close to each other ever again. Too close to living reminders of what was dead inside them.
There was no other choice but to live in close proximity to each other, even if Orion had convinced herself she was drifting away from Jaclyn. They needed to be close. For now, at least. As their wounds turned to scar tissue. Until they solidified their backbones.
April was not integral to her healing—if that’s what that was. She was a hindrance, at best. A catastrophe at worst. She didn’t need childhood friends tethering her to the girl she once was. The human she once was.
For better or worse, sh
e was no longer human. Monsters were responsible for that. So she needed to become one herself.
“Thank you,” Orion said firmly. There was more in those two words, April saw that, Orion saw it with the way her eyes moved. She wasn’t stupid. Crude, maybe. Kind, definitely. Damaged—differently than her—to be certain. But not stupid.
She knew Orion was telling her to leave.
“I could stay,” April said. “We could order in, watch a movie? I have wine.” She pulled out a bottle from her overly large purse. It was black with studs and fringe. Orion liked it, or at least she thought she liked it. She didn’t know what to like because she wasn’t quite sure who she was.
She knew she didn’t want pink dresses or anything resembling girly. Heels didn’t make sense, but she liked the ability to make herself taller, more imposing. Makeup . . . she liked the idea of that. Covering her face up. Turning herself into a stranger. She’d watched many videos on it. She’d perfected all kinds of looks thanks to online shopping and a place called Sephora.
She most liked dark around her eyes, a sharp wing, creating shadows. No flaws on her face. Red on her lips, like blood.
Her hair was still long and wild because she didn’t like the idea of a stranger’s hands on her scalp. She had tried it, but lasted mere minutes in the chair, the hairdresser touching her from behind. After some more videos, she might be able to do it herself. But she wasn’t about to rush it. She was already mangled and ugly on the inside, she had no desire to be so on the outside too. Orion had read about many survivors of abuse who cut their hair off. Changed themselves completely so they were no longer desirable to men.
Orion understood that, the need to shrink away into the background in any way possible. But she also knew better. It wasn’t appearance, hair, or makeup that made monsters desire women. It was vulnerability. Opportunity. It was other things Orion couldn’t even describe. If they decided they deserved you, owned you, it didn’t matter how long your hair was.
So, she kept it, the hair. Because it was hers, not theirs.
Clothing, though. That was tricky.
April, for example, had a style. She showed a lot of leg, a lot of cleavage, a lot of skin. She liked tight. Leather. Leopard print. Lace. A lot of jewelry. Trashy, but with money. She could see the money on it, because she remembered, faintly, her mother’s cheap version of trashy. It was not the same.
April made it work somehow, not looking tacky but beautiful, a little dangerous.
At least, Orion thought she was beautiful. She couldn’t really trust her own judgment yet. The entire world was ugly, repulsive to her still. Beauty was a foreign concept.
“No,” she said in response to April’s offer of a movie.
She almost regretted how violent the single word was. How it made April flinch and pain flicker through her expertly made-up face.
But Orion didn’t apologize. She held tight.
“We could go out?” April’s hurt did not linger. She was determined, that was sure.
Orion’s stomach roiled.
Out.
She had not gone out, unless it was to her lawyer’s office or the police station. She had not been alone. Her lawyer had employed security for those trips, since the media was still transfixed by the women. Interview requests, book deals, all sorts of things were brought to each of them, and without speaking, each of the women had refused. They didn’t need the money and they certainly didn’t want the attention.
The gaze of one single stranger was enough to send Orion’s heart into her throat and blow a hole in her stomach lining. She did not tell this to anyone, of course. She was not ready to go out yet.
“No,” she repeated the word. “I want to be alone.”
Wrong. She did not want to be alone. She hated her own company. She hated the rooms in this apartment. She hated her reflection the most. She ached to have a distraction, to have someone here with her.
April sighed. For a second, she looked like she was going to find some of the anger that Orion knew was simmering under the surface, the annoyance at being turned away, denied, again and again. Orion had treated her poorly, so she was surely angry about that. April was charismatic, warm, and promised fun. And she was goddamn resilient.
“Okay,” she said, voice hesitant, small. Her eyes were hard, though. They told Orion she wasn’t going to give up. “I’ll come visit tomorrow then.”
“You really shouldn’t,” Orion muttered.
April didn’t answer, just placed the bottle of wine on the kitchen countertop. Orion realized she didn’t have wine glasses. Not that it mattered, but in a different life, a different version of herself would have had wine glasses at twenty-three years old. Maybe they wouldn’t be fancy. They probably wouldn’t match, because she would’ve no doubt dropped many of them, broken them, maybe even bought them from secondhand stores.
As it was, she had exactly four plates, four water glasses, two mugs, two bowls, and a cheap set of silverware. The rest of her apartment was much the same. Cheap objects, bare minimum. Bookshelves, already bulging, but not much else.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” April repeated, looking solemnly at her old friend, but not with pity, no look of regret or remorse. She looked pained, in mourning, lost. And then, she left.
Orion locked all the doors behind her.
And then she downloaded books to her kindle. And she read those books.
And then she planned.
Eventually, she’d get up the courage to live out those plans, to feel that energetic, warm rush of satisfaction.
First, she had to figure out how she was going to walk into a fucking supermarket without wanting to claw her own face off. Then she’d figure out that whole vengeance thing.
Nine
April was back. As promised.
This time she bought a bag with grease stains collecting on the bottom. She didn’t listen to Orion’s weak excuses or her stronger ones. She put the bag on the counter and began opening cabinets and drawers as if she owned the place.
Orion leaned on the breakfast bar, watching. She didn’t offer to help. You didn’t help a trespasser, which April was, being uninvited and unwanted.
April didn’t seem to mind Orion’s scowl, making herself at home, humming an unrecognizable tune as she dumped the contents of the bags onto two plates.
Burgers. The smell was inviting, and Orion’s stomach betrayed her with a heavy growl. She’d been working out hard today—YouTube was great for that too—and hadn’t had anything really substantial since her smoked salmon omelet breakfast.
Another plus to having an internet connection and a bank account with more money than she could comprehend—she could order anything she needed and cook anything she wanted. She could order groceries online, wine, treats. No limits. No rations. No off-brand dented cans.
Although the rest of her small apartment was sparse, her pantry was not. She spent hundreds of dollars on food, weekly. Even more on organizational products so she could create a very specific system. Every time she opened it up, a part of her, somewhere, exhaled, knowing she would never know true hunger again. She opened it up often, in the middle of the night, when nightmares forced her awake, taunted her into thinking this whole escape was just a dream and she was still in The Cell with an empty stomach and blood trickling down her thighs.
Orion had cookbooks stacked everywhere. She pored through them when she wasn’t reading, working out—borderline obsessively—or trying not to fall apart. She experimented with recipes. Made every meal an event, a treat. Which it was. Meals should be appreciated, revered.
She had gotten quite good at cooking—perfected lobster thermidor, porcini risotto, coq Au vin, bœuf bourguignon—and she’d sometimes envision a long dinner table full of guests, all of them eagerly awaiting a feast. Her feast. She knew this was a pipe dream. A life she would never know. But the thought comforted her, regardless.
She could’ve cooked something a lot more gourmet than the greasy burger and fries April b
rought, and she certainly had her fair share of fast food in the months since their escape. But the smell of the burger, as it always had, drove something primal in her. It was not something she could ignore.
So she took the plate April had been patiently holding out for her.
It was something pivotal, taking that plate. It sent all the wrong messages to April and the little voice inside Orion that longed for friendship, for family.
She would rectify it later, she told herself. She would ensure, once and for all, that this thorn in her side, this awful reminder of a past she no longer recognized, would find another charity case to bother. But later. For now, the burger hit just the right spot, and the company wasn’t entirely awful.
April went to the sofa, turned on the TV, and flipped through the channels until her eyes lit up. “Mean Girls, perfect. A classic.” She smiled at Orion. “You’re gonna love this.”
Orion didn’t smile back.
But she did sit at the other end of the sofa, eating her burger, and watched the movie, quietly laughing at parts throughout as to not alert April to her enjoyment.
The movie was finished.
The burgers were cleaned up, but the smell of grease lingered in the air, clung to Orion’s hair. She liked that. It reminded her of the days when they’d sit at the diner, drinking malts, and talking about teachers they hated, the boys they liked, and what they’d do if they were witches on Charmed.
Orion had always wanted to be Paige, with the ability to Orb out of her life, taking Adam with her, getting them a rambling Victorian house in San Francisco, fighting demons—the inside ones as bad as the ones from the underworld.
It might’ve been the burger smell that made her do it. Or maybe it was the ghost of Ri, the one who could talk to April about anything. It didn’t matter what made her say it. It mattered that she said it.
“How did he die, April? I mean, I know Maddox said it was an overdose, but was it . . . was it on purpose?” Orion took a sharp breath, hated the words that came out of her mouth, hated the way the thoughts made her lose control. “Did he kill himself?”