should speak outside,” Maddox said, as if he could see the desperation in her eyes. He had known how close she was to her brother. There was a reason he couldn’t look her in the eyes then, couldn’t say what needed to be said.
Her insides turned to liquid.
“No,” she gritted out. “Just tell me what happened to my little brother.” She sounded strong from here, hopefully hiding the fact she knew her legs wouldn’t hold her up if she tried to move.
Maddox looked uncomfortable, in pain. She wanted to feel sorry for him, but she couldn’t, since discomfort and pain weren’t anything remarkable.
“Spit it out,” she snapped when he was silent a beat too long.
“I tried to help him,” Maddox said, voice a blade, tearing at her skin. “I tried to get him away from the . . . bad influences. Even told him if he straightened up and passed the academy, he could work for the department.” His voice broke. He cleared his throat. His eyes watered.
Hers did not.
“For a while, I thought he was going to make it,” Maddox continued. “But he was just . . . out of control. He stopped checking in. Stopped hanging out. We lost touch.”
Orion’s fingers cut into her palms with the force she was using to keep herself still.
“Is he dead?” she demanded. She didn’t need the fucking narrated version of his descent into the gutter.
Maddox stiffened. “Yeah, Orion . . . he is.”
Orion nodded once, her entire body tingling, then turning blissfully numb. She shouldn’t have let herself hope.
Jaclyn’s hand went to Orion’s, squeezed once before letting go. She had spoken to them about Adam. They had all fantasized about where he might be now. At least she knew where he was. Nowhere. Rotting.
“I’m so sorry, Ri. I really am,” Maddox said, voice almost a whisper.
She stiffened. “Orion.”
He flinched again. Another small score for Orion. “I’m sorry, Orion. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear. I wish I had better news.”
What else could she expect? Her parents to campaign for her safe return? Post on cereal boxes, devote their lives to their missing daughter? Their lives had always been devoted to their own destruction.
And Adam.
Even thinking his name nearly caused her to black out from grief, from not ever getting to say goodbye.
Interrupting the terrible silence, a small woman in a police uniform sporting a mom haircut shuffled in with three bags. Both men turned at her approach, and the three women on the bed stiffened.
“Got everything you asked for,” the woman addressed Maddox as she tossed the bags to the floor and let out a heavy sigh. “Jake’s got the van waiting out back, some undercovers with him. No media out there yet.”
“Great. What about out front?” Maddox asked, retrieving the bags from the floor.
The woman grinned at Maddox as he handed each girl a bag. “What do you think?” she asked in a dry tone.
Maddox smiled, nodded, and then his eyes shifted toward Orion as he handed her the last bag.
“Orion . . .” He trailed off. His eyes turned glassy. The hand holding the bag trembled.
Orion gritted her teeth, taking the bag, and she replied, “It’s alright. I know.”
“You ladies take your time getting dressed and cleaned up, we’ll be down the hall by the main elevators,” Eric said, a safe and practiced smile on his face. It was obvious he was experienced at making victims comfortable. Knew how to make himself smaller. Nonthreatening.
Or at least he appeared so. Orion knew there was no such thing as a nonthreatening creature when cornered. When given the opportunity to play out their darkest fantasies when they thought no one was watching.
Jaclyn was already digging through her bag, the rustling of paper bringing Orion back to the present.
Shelby nodded to Eric, clutching the bag in her small hands. Her eyes were watery, body shaking.
“Sure thing, Big E,” Orion replied.
He chuckled. It was easy. Would’ve been a pleasant sound in another life.
But Orion didn’t have another life.
Only this one.
There was no room for pleasant chuckles, or reunions with the boy she used to love, the boy she pined over for the length of her captivity.
There was only revenge.
Four
Maddox walked calmly out of the hospital room and all the way down the hall. His steps were purposeful. Strong. His chin jutted up and he nodded to the doctors and nurses who looked familiar.
He certainly looked familiar to them. He’d made plenty of walks through these halls throughout the years. Interviewing victims.