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Orion could fill in the blanks. She’d heard bits and pieces of the story before, all the ugly sides of Mary Lou’s seemingly perfect upbringing.
“They wouldn’t believe I just left,” she whispered, hope that was yet to die threading through the words. “They couldn’t. Maribelle didn’t have a mother. She doesn’t know me. I just want you to make sure she’s okay. I need you to make sure she’s okay, Ri.”
“You’ll do that,” Orion said with a sureness she didn’t fully believe. “You’ll do it when we all get the fuck out of here. You hear me?”
Mary Lou didn’t respond. Instead, she looked upon Orion lovingly, as a mother would her daughter, and stroked Orion’s hair behind her ear, smiled her brilliant smile.
They took Mary Lou later that evening.
And they never brought her back.
The interrogation room blinked back into focus, the fluorescent light overhead flooding Orion’s senses.
Orion didn’t know how long she’d been trapped in that memory. The shrink said flashbacks were a symptom of PTSD. But this hadn’t felt like a flashback. It was like someone had snatched her out of this room and hurled her back into the past. She could still smell the stench of The Cell. Her legs ached and her stomach protested with hunger.
It took her a while to get her bearings. To remind herself that her stomach was full, her ankle was empty, that she was free. Eric was staring at her with patience. Understanding.
Maddox showed concern. Was he waiting for her to break down? Fall apart?
Orion sipped her coffee. It was cold now. Tasted bad. But nothing tasted worse than her rancid memories, regret ripping the skin from her tongue.
“I can’t say for sure how many,” she said, taking care with the words, with her tone. She did not want that look of pity. To be treated like a grenade about to go off. “But there’s more than three.” She swallowed roughly, thinking of them all. Some had lasted years. Others mere days. Orion had come to understand life was kinder to those ones, gifting them with death. She had come to entertain the idea that it was her last name and the sins in her genes that kept her alive all these years.
She glared at Eric. “How is it that two men can bury bodies of countless women in a backyard without somebody noticing?” She structured the question like a weapon, jabbing at them. She wanted to point the blame in as many places as possible.
Orion couldn’t remember much after she ran out of the house. She remembered a man who was kind, gentle. But he still scared her. There were women. People who seemed reasonable, normal. That’s what had scared her the most, how normal the street had been. How many of these kind, reasonable people were so close.
“Honestly?” Eric replied. “We don’t know. We don’t understand how this could have gone on for as long as it did without someone noticing. From what we can understand, the neighborhood steered clear, and the two perps cleaned their tracks well. None of the neighbors had any idea. Didn’t like the guys, but didn’t think anything of them either.”
Orion snorted.
She had thought more and more about the quiet suburban street they had been living under. At the time of her escape, she was in too much shock to comprehend it. But she had time now. They’d all been so sure they were in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. It was a horrible thought to them, to be so isolated. But it was a more horrible thought that life was going on all around them, and no one had noticed. They were invisible.
“I was there for ten years,” Orion said. “I saw at least six girls come and go. Some just disappeared. They couldn’t handle it and nature showed them mercy. The others . . . they aged out.” She swallowed. “Once you get too much like a woman, they don’t like you anymore. I should’ve aged out too. But . . .” She trailed off, thinking of that medical badge. That urge to find him, open his skin, hear him scream. “I had some regulars who liked me.”
Both men jerked. Apparently their cop masks weren’t welded in place. “Regulars?”
Orion observed them with interest, making sure to detach herself from the sorrow swimming in Maddox’s eyes. “You thought it was just two men?” She didn’t wait for them to answer. “They were just the gatekeepers. The ones who made sure we stayed alive, the ones who killed the girls who weren’t of use anymore, the ones who, obviously, fooled the fuck out of an entire neighborhood. But that place was a brothel. And our abuse went far beyond those two scumbags. It was hordes of them. Every day.”
Maddox went ashen. She thought for a second he might actually pass out.
