by Anne Malcom
But nothing was ever easy.
And she had made a promise to a friend. The girl who gave her kindness when she shouldn’t have had any left inside her. The girl who should’ve lived if this world gave good people what they deserved. Karma . . . what a crock!
But she didn’t live.
“I need you to find someone for me,” she said.
A pause. A long one. Orion could understand why. Maddox knew that Orion didn’t have anyone left. No one left to care, and no one left to find.
Orion wasn’t ready for this. She took a sharp breath. “Mary Lou, the girl who was there when I first . . . arrived . . .” Orion was making great pains to control her voice. She didn’t want it to crack, to betray any emotion that would paint her as any more of a victim. Maddox was itching to play her protector, that much was clear.
“I need to find her family,” she continued.
Maddox cleared his throat. “Is that a good idea?”
Orion bristled. “It’s none of your business whether it’s a good idea or not. Can you or can you not get me their information?”
He paused. “It’s kind of against protocol—”
“Fine,” she interrupted, hating herself for making the call, for asking for help in the first place. It was humiliating.
“But I’ll do it,” Maddox said quickly, as if he sensed she was about to disconnect the call.
Orion gritted her teeth, unable to let go of her anger toward him. She couldn’t open her mouth to thank him, couldn’t spout those words. A fucking break in protocol was the least he could do for her.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” she said.
A pause. “Come again?”
“Playing dumb doesn’t suit you, Maddox. Unless you got more concussions playing football, I know you know what I mean,” she said, acid in her voice. “This doesn’t mean anything for us. There is no us. You’re just the detective on the case. I’m not going to turn into anyone else you think you know. I’m no one to you but a victim you’re doing a favor for. Okay?”
Another pause. A longer one. “Okay, Orion,” he said with a sigh.
She should’ve felt something at the emotion in his voice, the sadness and exhaustion.
But she didn’t feel a thing.
Three Days Later
“What are you doing here?”
“Following a hunch,” Maddox said, leaning on his car.
It was a black Camaro. Nice, shiny, impressive. It was what she imagined Maddox might have driven when she was fourteen years old. One single thing that had stayed the way she thought it might.
He pushed his Wayfarers to the top of his head. “Actually, it’s not a hunch at all. April told me you were planning on catching a bus. In fact, she’s the real detective here, since she peeked at your ticket.” He held up his hand to quell the anger Orion showed at that. “Now, before you decide to let her feel your wrath, she was only trying to look out for you. She knew that you wouldn’t do something like ask one of us to drive you. I had a feeling that you wanted the address for a reason. I also know I don’t want you on a bus full of strangers.” He shrugged. “It’s not something for me to decide, I know. And you can tell me to fuck off.” He paused. “But I’ve got the weekend off, a tank full of gas, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got enough horsepower in here to beat a bus, and a badge to ensure an expedient trip. It’s your choice.”
Orion gritted her teeth, gripping the tote bag she’d slung over her shoulder. She had makeup, a change of clothes, and some other essentials crammed in there. The Devil in the White City, for reading.
She wanted to be mad at April, for invading her privacy, for telling Maddox this, for thinking that she had the right to do any of it. Orion should be mad at April for that, but she couldn’t bring herself to be angry with April anymore. Her persistence had managed to chip away at Orion’s tough exterior, little by little with each visit.
She could, however, bring herself to be mad at Maddox. Leaning on his car so fucking casually, like he had the right to be there, the right to look at her, to follow a fucking bus across the state.
“I can look after myself,” she bit out, her hands in tight fists.
“I know.”
Orion waited for him to say something else. He didn’t.
He was right. She did not want to be on a bus full of strangers. Her skin had been crawling with the fear of what it was going to be like, wondering if they might recognize her. Her hair was tangled up in a tight bun, a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap low on her face. She’d made sure to put on a lot of makeup, to look older, unlike the girl who’d been plastered all over the news.
She’d done a good job, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t still recognize her. She’d experienced this new world long enough, the cameras, and reporters, the internet, the strangers wanting photos and answers to questions she couldn’t give. She wanted no part of it.
But the alternative to a bus full of strangers was a car with Maddox. Which was worse?
She hated this feeling, relying on anyone else but herself. She even hated Mary Lou a little for tying her to this fucking promise.
“Fine,” she bit out, hating him and herself. “But you’re giving me a ride, nothing else. And I get to pick the music.”
He nodded once, and thankfully, he didn’t have the stupidity to smile like he’d won something. “Deal,” he said with a little smirk, and she wished she could wipe it off his stupid face.
“What happened to Jaclyn’s face?”
They hadn’t spoken a word in two hours. Orion had been certain that she’d wanted this silence between them, Twenty One Pilots blaring from the speakers, Maddox focusing on the road and not on trying to force some connection between the two of them.
But she had changed her mind after about five minutes. The silence was worse.
“Didn’t you ask her that in her interviews?” she replied, voice hard.
Maddox glanced at her then back at the road. He turned down the radio and she responded with a scowl. “Uh, no,” he said. “She wasn’t able to recall much of what happened to her. It’s common, with victims of trauma.”
Orion blinked rapidly. Jaclyn couldn’t remember? She hadn’t said anything to Orion, but then again, they hadn’t made a habit of reminiscing over old times since they’d been out. They hadn’t spoken a word about it, actually, apart from when Orion had told her about Thing One. Jaclyn was avoiding her, Orion knew that, and she didn’t particularly blame her.
It was inconceivable to her that someone could just forget those years of horror, though. That the specifics weren’t embedded in her mind. But maybe Orion was the strange one, for remembering too much, for seeing it etched in every nightmare and every waking hour. For forcing herself to do that.
“They had punishments,” she said, her need to say it out loud suddenly overpowering. Even if it wasn’t her story to tell. “For when we were . . . bad. For when we tried to fight back. It wasn’t good for business, I guess. Not what they paid for. Jaclyn fought a lot. At the start, at least. They have ways to make sure you don’t fight, though. Sick ways. They . . .” She trailed off, remembering the pain, the instruments they used on them.
She realized that she hadn’t told the detectives about that either. Was she trying to spare them the horror of the truth? It wasn’t like they needed to know that. All they needed to know was how to catch the criminals. Maybe she’d just been too weak to talk about it.
“I’d never seen them before, what they used,” she continued. “The internet has been good for a lot of things. I remembered the details, and I was able to look it up, to learn about them.” She looked at him with hollow eyes, a coldness taking over her. She could feel the shift as the memory washed over her. “You’ve heard about the Spanish Inquisition, right?”
He gulped. Nodded.
“Well, these guys, they liked that shit. A lot. Metal, and whips, and chains. And well, other things. Something called a Scold’s Bridle. Of course, I didn’t know that whe
n they were using it on us. It was just a metal mask back then. Reminded me of the one from that Leonardo DiCaprio movie, The Man in the Iron Mask.” She took a moment, a breath, focused in on the metal, the desperation. “You couldn’t eat with it on, couldn’t sleep . . . you could barely breathe. It buckled in the back and always caught your hair, ripped it out.”
"My God, Orion," he said, his voice trembling.
She ignored him, continuing. “Yeah, they loved that medieval shit. A time where punishment was an art, when cages weren’t enough. Torture was what kept the peasants from rebelling against those in power. It worked the same way with us. Stopped us from fighting, from believing that our fate could be changed.” She paused, remembering the day when Jaclyn had been hurled back into The Cell with a crude bandage on her face, stained through with blood. The metal clasp of the mask had ripped a wide gash in the back of her head. “With the Scold’s Bridle, or the box . . . with the whips and the chains, they controlled us. Tormented us. And Jaclyn . . . Jaclyn got it the worst.”
It should’ve been stitched, that gash. It was deep and ugly. It also should’ve gotten infected without proper care or antiseptics. It would’ve been kind for her, to die of an infection.
Maddox’s knuckles were white from how tightly he was gripping the steering wheel. Orion cheated by looking at him, not looking straight ahead at her future. Maddox was her past. But he was forcing himself into the present. Forcing himself into this promise that was threaded through with the Ri that still tasted his kiss on her lips.
“Fuck, Orion,” he said, voice a rasp. “I don’t even know what to say. I’m so . . . so angry, and hurt, and—” His voice cracked. She thought she saw his eyes glisten. “Just so fucking sorry you’ve been through all this.”
She was surprised that the emotion, the naked pain in his voice hit her. It hit her in the place where the summer was perfect, and his lips tasted like Juicy Fruit. The place she would kill right after she kept this promise.
“I’m sorry too,” she said in a whisper.
“This is it,” Maddox said, leaning forward to take in the house they’d stopped in front of.
It was the first word he’d spoken since she’d told him about the mask, the extent of the torture. She guessed it fucked him up. He had to have found them at the scene. But maybe seeing them and hearing about them being used were two different things.
Orion was used to torture, as much as any human being could be used to such a thing. Sitting in the car with Maddox was a different kind of torture though. The small space was drenched in his scent, a strong aftershave that should’ve been offensive to Orion, but wasn’t, because undercutting it was Maddox’s smell. And she hated how it took her back to that evening on his back deck, his thick hands cradling her, his eyes as genuine as she’d ever seen a man’s.
It comforted her, and she hated that. But the large house with the manicured lawn and immaculate garden terrified her. It was a world she didn’t know, didn’t want to know.
She had suspected Mary Lou had come from money and she had been right. This wasn’t just upper middle class, this was rich.
Orion was dressed to look rich enough, she supposed. She had tried on ten different outfits the night before to ensure she did. Black slacks that molded to her body in ways she didn’t think were possible. A silk shirt that didn’t crinkle with travel and looked presentable. Diamonds at her neck because she had the money to buy them. Because she liked the cold, strong, beautiful thing touching her. She felt strong like the diamond when she dressed this morning, but now, looking out over the sprawling estate, Orion shrunk into herself. She felt small, weak.
She took a breath before stepping out of the Camaro, steadying herself. She was wearing heels. Only after practicing around her apartment for weeks did she learn not to walk like a baby giraffe in them. They cost hundreds of dollars and were the most uncomfortable thing she’d ever worn, apart from her own skin. But they made her feel important, classy. With her eyes on them, she composed herself, took a breath, forced Mary Lou’s face into her mind’s eye.
She let the expensive shoes take over, pretending as she did in her apartment while she was learning to use them, like she was a CEO or a lawyer, tall and strong, and sure of herself. They were painful, sure, but they were powerful too. And she liked the pain. That every step was calculated agony. She doubted if she grew up without The Cell, without the ankle chains, that she ever would’ve found herself walking around in six-hundred-dollar shoes.
She liked that too.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” Maddox asked after Orion had been staring at the house without moving for five minutes.
“No,” she said quietly, purposefully.
He didn’t argue with her, she was thankful for that.
“I’ll wait here,” he said.
She gritted her teeth at that. Orion didn’t want him here on the curb, a front row seat to whatever disaster this would be. But she didn’t have any other alternative, because honestly, she never would’ve survived three hours on a bus with strangers.
“Okay.”
He hesitated before climbing back into the Camaro.
She took a deep breath and crossed the lawn, her heels sinking with each step. She purposefully didn’t walk up the paved path. She wanted to ruin something about this place. The utter perfection of it all enraged her. She didn’t know why, it wasn’t like they should have a fucking tombstone for their daughter sitting beside the mailbox, but it was. There was also something beautiful about dirtying her new shoes, knowing full well she could hop on the web and buy another pair on the drive back. Ruining something beautiful felt powerful to her.
The Donovans had a porch. With a swing. Expensive looking wicker furniture. A plush welcome mat.
Orion’s hand shook as she pressed the doorbell.
She could turn around and run right now, and she felt her legs attempting to do so, something pulling her back to the car. If she had managed to get here on her own, there was no doubt in her mind that she would’ve run, would’ve hightailed it out of there and forced Mary Lou from her memory. But Maddox was there, watching. She would not let him witness her weakness.
So, she waited, poised, her ankles protesting, her soul screaming.
It didn’t take long for the door to open.
“Can I help you?” The older woman with the thick pearls around her neck asked. Her chin tilted upward as if she could somehow smell the trailer park on Orion.
She had tightly curled strawberry blonde hair sprayed within an inch of its life. Her shirt was neatly pressed without a wrinkle or stain. Ditto with her pants. She was immaculately made up and smelled like expensive perfume.
The woman showed no signs of exhaustion or grief clinging to her like it had clung to Shelby’s parents.
She didn’t recognize Orion. Which could’ve been because of the makeup, the clothes, the mask she’d figured out how to perfect in public. But the force at which Orion was sneering at her, with such concentration, she couldn’t have missed who she was. This was a woman who noticed the details. She would’ve recognized Orion if she watched the television coverage, would’ve wanted to know every lurid detail.
“My name is Orion Darby,” she said, proud of her voice and the way her own chin darted upward too. In defiance.
Something moved in the woman’s eyes. Her body stiffened and her gaze turned downright hostile.
“I know who you are,” the woman hissed. “What do you want?”
Orion shouldn’t have been surprised at this response. Mary Lou had told her enough about her stern and unyielding mother. But she didn’t. She expected what a mother should do when faced with the last person to see her daughter alive.
“I’m here because of Mary Lou.” Her voice wasn’t as strong now—it was dry and raspy.
“My daughter is dead.” Not even a hitch in her tone.
Orion sucked in a breath, welcomed the anger simmering in her belly. “I know. I know because I was the one wh
o saw them drag her away. I was the last one to see her, to speak with her, and I made her a promise. To check on her daughter.”
If Orion had slapped the woman, she doubted she would’ve gotten the same flinch. The woman moved into the doorway, standing taller, peering down at Orion with a veiny hand clutching the door frame.
Let the bitch try.
“I don’t know you, young lady. And I will not have you coming to my home, disturbing my family. Mary Lou has been gone for years now. We have grieved her loss for long enough. You will not bring that evil into this house. Am I making myself clear?”
Orion was about to jam her foot in the door the woman was preparing to close. But she heard a voice from behind the foul woman.
“Who is it, Mom?” a girl asked, a preciousness to her tone.
The words had been spoken by a ghost. By the girl who used to try and comfort those imprisoned in a Cell with demons, but more youthful, energized, curious. Without the demons her mother would ever have.
She had strawberry blonde curls too, darker than her mother’s. Her face was slightly rounder, but she was an imprint of Mary Lou down to every detail.
Orion’s heart dropped as she took in the young woman, her heart lurching. She looked up slowly at the woman, her expression hardening, her eyes narrowing. “Mom?” she repeated.
“You need to leave,” the woman said, nudging the young woman back.
“No, I don’t,” Orion spit, taking a step forward. “I need to tell this girl that her real mother did not leave her. She did not abandon her. She was the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She loved her with all her heart. And she fought for her!” Orion didn’t realize she was yelling, so loud that Maddox exited the Camaro.
“Mirabelle, you go to your room. Now!” the woman screeched at the girl—young woman, and she scurried away obediently, her strawberry blonde curls bouncing as she ran.