didn’t factor into this shadow. It didn’t chase it away with the knowledge that they were out, that this man wouldn’t hurt them, that they were safe.
Safe was nothing but a four-letter lie.
“It’s fine, Jac,” Orion said, holding her hand up to placate her.
Jaclyn narrowed her eyes. Orion wasn’t sure if she was doing it playfully—because this situation amused her—or aggressively because she didn’t trust any man and likely never would.
Maybe both.
Orion missed her tough, independent stance the second the door closed behind her, the two of them alone in a conference room.
If she thought the interrogation room was stifling, it was nothing compared to the room they shared now. She jutted her chin upward to feign confidence. She had not been alone in a room with a man who didn’t intend on raping and torturing her for ten years. She was afraid.
Maddox cleared his throat, eyes meeting hers. He tried his best to soften himself, she saw that. Make himself small, unthreatening. But it was physically impossible for Maddox Novak to be unthreatening. Even if he didn’t have his gun and badge. Or even his height and muscles. All he needed was those eyes that carried ghosts.
“I . . .” he began, voice breaking, crumbling on that single letter. He cleared his throat, tried again, stumbled again.
Orion watched, didn’t try to help him, didn’t try to carry on the conversation to make it easier for him. She had no urge to help men, not for the rest of her days.
He rubbed at his eye, where a single tear had escaped. It hit her, that show of emotion. She didn’t know this man anymore, so he could be an emotional mess at the drop of a hat, but she figured otherwise. Cops didn’t last long if they cried at the horrors of the world.
This was bad, to be sure.
“I don’t know what to say,” he admitted, breaking her train of thought. He ran his hand through his hair. He didn’t sound much like the professional, capable officer that had conducted the interview. He sounded much more like the boy she’d kissed on a porch many years ago.
Orion shrugged, a vain attempt to let those memories wash from her like rain. “I suspect you have some kind of script that you’re meant to stick to for kidnap victims,” she said, voice cold. “Rape victims. Those held captive for years. I’m sure there isn’t a particular script for all three but I suspect you’re a smart man. You can improvise.” She was being cruel. Maybe just because she could. Maybe because she wanted to punish him, or maybe because she had no idea how else she was meant to behave in this situation.
“We looked for you,” he whispered, his voice hitched. His glassy eyes met hers. She ached to find a spot on the wall, but she maintained eye contact. Maintained her rigidity. He continued. “And Adam—”
“Don’t you say his name,” Orion snarled, cutting him off, sounding like the feral animal she was. She was afraid she might try to claw at his face if he mentioned her brother again. Threw the loss in her face.
Maddox flinched. He made no move to hide the jerk, the way his entire body moved as if shot. Orion liked it. He should feel pain for that. It wasn’t his fault, not entirely, she knew this. But if he couldn’t find her, save her, the least he could’ve done was save her brother.
He nodded stiffly. “We looked,” he repeated it again. “The police looked. But, after interviewing your parents, they thought—”
“That I ran away?” she interrupted. “They took one look at the shitty trailer, the shitty human beings addicted to opiates and booze, saw the fact there was a high chance that they beat their kid, and figured I ran? That I’d made the choice to leave on my own? That I’d turn up maybe, after I’d gotten too hungry, run out of whatever money I’d managed to steal?”
Orion had gone through those scenarios. Not in the hours after she’d been taken. Not days. Not even months. No, she didn’t have the presence of mind to think such things. She didn’t have much of a mind at all. It had been broken, shattered, shredded.
Years later she’d thought of that. The years in which no police had knocked down the door looking for them. And she recognized what it did to her faith in police, in authority.
It’s a theory she’d managed to cobble together. Most girls taken