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?”
That part hit her. Because she was worried about April. She hated that she was. She hated that she wasn’t worried enough about her to stop. And she was so proud of how far Shelby had come.
“What do you think is going to happen to me, Maddox?” she asked sharply. “Do you think I’m going to go to therapy for the rest of my life, heal my wounds, return to society, get married, have two point five kids and act like those ten years were just a bad nightmare?”
She waited for him to speak. To offer a real, honest answer. A real honest alternative.
He stayed silent.
“Exactly,” she said. “There is no happy ending for me. Not for Jaclyn. Shelby. We’ll never get out of The Cell, not really. So I’m doing what I can to live with that. And it sure as fuck isn’t getting myself a husband and a white picket fence. If it puts me in another cell, then whatever. I’ll sleep at night. So, you going to cuff me?”
He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He also didn’t cuff her.
“You have a choice to make,” she said. “You can lock me up right now. You can take me downtown and fulfill all those oaths you took to get that badge. Or you can take that gun and shoot me in the head. Those are your