hers that would never soften. “No, I don’t give a fuck about whether my story is a lie. Or if yours is. All that matters is that we’re alive to tell them. All that matters is we can watch what we want, eat what we want, and say what we want.”
She narrowed her eyes even further, looking at Orion in the same way Orion was looking at her, searching her face, looking beyond. “Fuck, you’re not still hung up on this whole revenge in the form of murder thing are you? You can’t be fucking serious.”
Orion’s blood warmed. “How can you not want revenge?” she demanded. “After what they did to us?”
“I want revenge,” Jaclyn said quietly, more quiet than Orion had ever heard her. “Don’t you think that if I had a dragon, I’d burn this whole fucking city down just to find them?” She didn’t wait for Orion to answer. “Of course I would. But I don’t have a dragon. A kingdom. I don’t have a fucking army to take them down. It’s just me. And I know I can survive a lot, but I won’t survive some campaign for revenge or justice or whatever the fuck you think you’re doing, which can only end with my ass right behind bars again along with you. Because we’re never going to get it. No matter what we do, it will never be enough to even the scales. What they did can’t be repaired or revenged away, Orion. And when you’re sitting in a cell again one day for thinking it can, you’re gonna remember these words.”
She hated that Jaclyn was surrendering. She hated that the angry, rebellious girl in The Cell wasn’t the same out here. Mostly she hated that she was making sense. “So, you’re just going to give up? Sit here for the rest of your life and eat junk, watch TV?”
Jaclyn shrugged. “Maybe. But I think I’ve earned that choice, Orion, don’t you? As much as I love you, I’m not letting you drag me into whatever twisted web you think you’re capable of weaving.”
Eleven
Things had changed since Maddox’s visit.
Since his news.
Orion had always been planning on revenge. She’d been planning for blood. But in a way that might only ever be a plan. Never to be executed.
She liked to think that she would’ve gone forward no matter what, but something told her that she would have lost her nerve. She’d become too domesticated in this new world where torture and monsters were hidden. She, like everyone else, might fall into the habit of thinking monsters only existed in stories.
So, in that respect, Thing One did her a favor by killing himself. By proving to her that even in prison, he had more rights than she did. More control.
Bob Collins was still walking around a hospital in a white coat saving lives like he hadn’t ruined hers. And being celebrated for it.
She was going to do it.
What she’d been planning.
But before she got her hands dirty, stained with blood that would never wash off, she had a promise to keep.
Dark whispers taunted her with the truth that Mary Lou was dead and no one else had witnessed the promise made. Orion could break it and no one would know the difference. But Mary Lou had done more for her in The Cell than Orion’s parents had done her entire life before it. Nurtured and cared for her in a way that ultimately saved her life. She owed her this much.
She had plenty of time to damn herself, to sully her soul. Before she submitted to the monster inside, she would do this one thing. She would repay her debt to an old friend.
In order to keep her promise, she had to make a phone call, had to speak to someone she needed to never see again. Promises made in basements with chains on your ankles were never going to be easy to keep.
“I need a favor.” Orion forced out the words as soon as she heard him pick up.
“Well, hello to you too,” Maddox replied, sounding far too fucking easy. Casual.
Orion’s palms were sweating, and her lunch—homemade quiche Lorraine—was churning in her stomach. Stupid choice to eat before the call, but she’d been putting it off since she woke at six, and she would never go hungry for a man again.
She didn’t want to call Maddox. Didn’t want to hear his throaty, deep, fucking easy voice and have anything but an impassive reaction to it. It