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“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.
The woman turned toward Orion, scowling. “I will call the police right this second, you little bitch, if you don’t get off our property right this instant!”
Orion stood her ground, her shoulders high, her eyes unflinching. “You won’t get away with this,” she said, her tone even, volume lowered, but still laced with venom. “I will not let you erase Mary Lou from her memory. Am I making myself clear?”
The woman scoffed, slamming the door in Orion’s face, the large door knocker clanging.
Orion didn’t move an inch. She took heavy breaths, her hands in tight fists, her carotids thumping so loud she could hear it.
“Orion,” Maddox called out from behind her. “We should probably—”
Orion turned sharply, glared at him. “I know, Maddox!” she yelled, stomping back through the lawn, harder this time, toward the Camaro.
Maddox took a deep breath, tried not to grin as he watched her trample the lawn.
They both climbed into the Camaro, and they sat quietly for a moment.
“Are you okay?” he asked, unsure of himself.
She shook her head, her eyes locked on the massive house, her anger intensifying. “Just drive, please.”
He nodded, put the car in gear, and drove off.
As she watched the fancy houses pass, the lawn jockeys, the timed sprinklers, and the lawn care armies, she thought about Mary Lou, and how much harder it must have been for her to cope in The Cell. How drastic of a change her life had taken, and yet she loved every girl in that place as if they were her own daughter. Her last thoughts were not of the freedom she missed, or the death she knew was coming, but of her daughter. In all the hell Mary Lou had been through, she never stopped putting others before herself.
Orion felt the anger dissipate, and a hollow ache of anguish take its place. The haunting feeling that Mary Lou’s daughter—Mirabelle—would never know her mother, would never know how she saved so many stolen girls.
Orion burst into tears, uncontrollable tears, and she threw her face into her hands.
Maddox jerked the car to the side of the road and threw it in park. He didn’t say a word. He just put a hand softly to her back and felt her body tremble as she sobbed. She didn’t jump at his touch. On the contrary, she leaned back into it, comforted by the feel of him, the warmth that radiated from his palm.
Twelve
Maddox was innately caring. Patient. Easygoing.
This was a glimpse of the boy she’d once known. He’d been quick to smile, easy to laugh, nothing was really a big deal to him. But then again, nothing ever came hard to him. Life gave him a lot, so he had no reason to be tense, waiting for the next blow.
Since she’d locked eyes with him in that hospital room, she’d seen nothing of that easygoing boy. Everything about this man was tense, angry, wired. And she certainly had smelled the faint whiskey on his breath a time or two. Sure, that could’ve been due to the fact she’d come back from the dead after ten years and he had to investigate the horrors she’d gone through. Maybe it was the years of horror he’d seen before she returned.
Maybe some of it was that.
A lot of it wasn’t.
April made a point not to talk about him a lot, not to probe Orion for feelings about him, but when she did mention Maddox, she made it clear he was no longer the boy from before, no longer carefree.
Then again, none of them were the kids they had once been.
It interested her, the butterfly effect her disappearance had had on them. She hadn’t thought she’d change the course of their lives. She thought she’d just be a dark mark on a tiny part of their childhood, that they’d soon forget about the girl they used to know who went missing. They’d continue on their paths full of light and privilege. Instead, they had both plunged themselves into different kinds of darkness.
“You hungry?” Maddox asked.
Orion jerked, realizing at some point she’d stopped crying and they had started driving again. She looked around, surprised they had made it back to her apartment already.
“Hungry?” she repeated.
He nodded. “It’s getting toward dinnertime, and I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. There’s a great Italian restaurant not far from here. No one really knows about it but the true Italians.”
“You’re not a true Italian,” she returned with a raised brow.
His eyes twinkled, and he smiled. Smiled. With teeth. Like before. “Ah, but I know many of them, and they trust me enough to let me in on the secret. Which means, of course, you have to promise to keep quiet.”
