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Orion stayed silent. That was something else. She couldn’t rule out the fact he might be wearing a wire. She wasn’t about to incriminate herself.
“Fuck,” he whispered. He paced the living room. “Fuck!” he roared.
Orion didn’t think she had any fear left in her. She didn’t think she had the ability to flinch away. But she did. She knew it wasn’t possible, but she was sure that the walls had rattled.
Then he advanced. He prowled forward with murder and violence in his eyes.
She wasn’t proud of it, the fact she retreated until her back hit the wall. Maddox got close enough to box her in with his body. And he didn’t stop. He didn’t respect her space, her aversion to body contact. He had no concern for her in that moment.
“What the fuck are you thinking, Ri?”
“It’s Orion,” she said, almost on autopilot.
His eyes flared. “You’re right. It is Orion. Because I have no idea who the fuck I’m looking at right now. Do you know what would’ve happened to you if anyone else but me could pick you out of those videos?”
Something moved inside her. A little hope. Not just for herself, but for them. For her and Maddox. She could’ve been wrong, but it sounded like . . .
“Did anyone else recognize me?”
His face cleared of all fury and went blank. For a few moments, he didn’t speak at all—nothing but a cold and violent stare. His breath was hot on her face.
“No. The video was shit. And circumstantial at best, because nothing puts you at the crime scene. But, my God, Orion. What the hell were you thinking?”
His eyes cleared, and he looked at his arms, framing her body and caging her in, as if they were foreign and not his. Maddox quickly stepped back, putting space between them.
Orion exhaled in relief, but also with the loss of him. She had been so sure that she hated any human being in her space, and she had hated Maddox there, but she needed him too. It made her feel whole.
“I was thinking how that monster didn’t deserve to live anymore, not for what he did to me . . . to all of us,” she said.
He sighed. It was not a soft expelling of breath that most sighs were. Somehow, it was violent, almost painful. It had years of suffering woven into it. His eyes met Orion’s. They were hard, almost hateful. She was glad for that. She liked it.
“Let’s forget, for just a fucking moment, about the fact that vigilante justice, in any form is illegal. Let’s forget that Missouri still has the death penalty as punishment for murder, though I’m finding it real hard to forget those things because I’m a fuckin’ cop, but I’ll try.”
He gritted his teeth. Expelled another violent sigh.
Orion figured he was trying to hold himself together, stop himself from giving into the rage, from screaming at her and spewing ugly things. She wished for that, but Maddox was too much of a good man to give her that, despite the fact she deserved it.
“Forgetting all of that, how about the fact you’re fucking with some dangerous people, if what you’re telling me is true. You survived them once, Orion.”
She bristled. “Not once,” she hissed. “Not twice. Thousands of times. Thousands of beatings, assaults, punishments. I survived these monsters for ten years, Maddox. I can handle it.”
His jaw hardened, calcified in place. He was getting better at hiding his reaction to her hurling her past in his face. It was the only weapon she really had. “Yeah, you did,” he agreed. “You did what I don’t think many other people, man or woman, adult or child, would be able to do. That doesn’t mean you’re invincible. You can still bleed. Just because you survived doesn’t mean you can’t still die. That they can’t throw you away in another cage and leave you there for what you’ve done.”
She heard it. The fear in his voice. The terror. This was a man who wanted to protect her. Who couldn’t. Who had attached himself to her and her wellbeing, despite all of her efforts. This was a man who loved her, despite even more of her efforts. She had tried to use what she had become to disgust him, to scare him and his concerns away. And it wasn’t working.
“I’ve accumulated enough currency for my own little half acre in hell,” Orion said. “So, I’m not afraid of death.” She eyed him. “And I’m not ever gonna be put back into a cell. Not by anyone, law or otherwise. So, they better kill me. You better kill me.”
He rolled his eyes, his thick hands meeting his hips. “I’m so fucking glad you’re not afraid, Orion,” he hissed, horror in his eyes. “But did you think for a second about what your death, or incarceration, might do to other people? What it might do to my fucking sister? She’s finally getting her shit together. To Shelby?”
