Hush - Anne Malcom Page 0,49

her apartment was much the same. Cheap objects, bare minimum. Bookshelves, already bulging, but not much else.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” April repeated, looking solemnly at her old friend, but not with pity, no look of regret or remorse. She looked pained, in mourning, lost. And then, she left.

Orion locked all the doors behind her.

And then she downloaded books to her kindle. And she read those books.

And then she planned.

Eventually, she’d get up the courage to live out those plans, to feel that energetic, warm rush of satisfaction.

First, she had to figure out how she was going to walk into a fucking supermarket without wanting to claw her own face off. Then she’d figure out that whole vengeance thing.

Nine

April was back. As promised.

This time she bought a bag with grease stains collecting on the bottom. She didn’t listen to Orion’s weak excuses or her stronger ones. She put the bag on the counter and began opening cabinets and drawers as if she owned the place.

Orion leaned on the breakfast bar, watching. She didn’t offer to help. You didn’t help a trespasser, which April was, being uninvited and unwanted.

April didn’t seem to mind Orion’s scowl, making herself at home, humming an unrecognizable tune as she dumped the contents of the bags onto two plates.

Burgers. The smell was inviting, and Orion’s stomach betrayed her with a heavy growl. She’d been working out hard today—YouTube was great for that too—and hadn’t had anything really substantial since her smoked salmon omelet breakfast.

Another plus to having an internet connection and a bank account with more money than she could comprehend—she could order anything she needed and cook anything she wanted. She could order groceries online, wine, treats. No limits. No rations. No off-brand dented cans.

Although the rest of her small apartment was sparse, her pantry was not. She spent hundreds of dollars on food, weekly. Even more on organizational products so she could create a very specific system. Every time she opened it up, a part of her, somewhere, exhaled, knowing she would never know true hunger again. She opened it up often, in the middle of the night, when nightmares forced her awake, taunted her into thinking this whole escape was just a dream and she was still in The Cell with an empty stomach and blood trickling down her thighs.

Orion had cookbooks stacked everywhere. She pored through them when she wasn’t reading, working out—borderline obsessively—or trying not to fall apart. She experimented with recipes. Made every meal an event, a treat. Which it was. Meals should be appreciated, revered.

She had gotten quite good at cooking—perfected lobster thermidor, porcini risotto, coq Au vin, bœuf bourguignon—and she’d sometimes envision a long dinner table full of guests, all of them eagerly awaiting a feast. Her feast. She knew this was a pipe dream. A life she would never know. But the thought comforted her, regardless.

She could’ve cooked something a lot more gourmet than the greasy burger and fries April brought, and she certainly had her fair share of fast food in the months since their escape. But the smell of the burger, as it always had, drove something primal in her. It was not something she could ignore.

So she took the plate April had been patiently holding out for her.

It was something pivotal, taking that plate. It sent all the wrong messages to April and the little voice inside Orion that longed for friendship, for family.

She would rectify it later, she told herself. She would ensure, once and for all, that this thorn in her side, this awful reminder of a past she no longer recognized, would find another charity case to bother. But later. For now, the burger hit just the right spot, and the company wasn’t entirely awful.

April went to the sofa, turned on the TV, and flipped through the channels until her eyes lit up. “Mean Girls, perfect. A classic.” She smiled at Orion. “You’re gonna love this.”

Orion didn’t smile back.

But she did sit at the other end of the sofa, eating her burger, and watched the movie, quietly laughing at parts throughout as to not alert April to her enjoyment.

The movie was finished.

The burgers were cleaned up, but the smell of grease lingered in the air, clung to Orion’s hair. She liked that. It reminded her of the days when they’d sit at the diner, drinking malts, and talking about teachers they hated, the boys they liked, and what they’d do if they were witches on Charmed.

Orion had always wanted to be Paige,