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Starting to walk to the car, I say over my shoulder, “Because he’s a cheapskate and paranoid, so I did it. Computers and technology make more sense to me than people on a good day.”
Derek hurries after me with a nod. “Why doesn’t this surprise me?”
Yep. Baby Williams and I are definitely going to get along.
14
DEREK
Ishould have known Orion would be able to see through my mask. He seems to have a way of cutting through the bullshit. Following him to his car, I sigh.
“Baby Williams, it’s not that bad,” he teases me. Rolling my eyes, I punch his arm as hard as possible, enjoying his grunt of pain.
“Fuck, I told myself I was going to regret calling you that,” he mutters as he rounds the car to the driver seat.
Snorting in mild amusement I climb into the car I spent hours inside of earlier today.
“Maybe you should listen to yourself. You’re smarter than you’re acting,” I tell him as I put on my seatbelt.
Orion rolls his eyes as he turns on the car. “You were really close to keeping up your pretense of following your father’s every whim,” he confesses as he puts the car into drive and pulls out of the driveway.
“Yeah? What gave it away? I need to protect them from my father,” I explain. “This isn’t a joke, so don’t fuck around on me. If you’re going to help me, fine. My father can’t know that Len and the guys mean anything to me.”
“What do you think he’ll do?” Orion asks.
I know he’s not new here, he’s in my father’s inner circle. “Xav is interested in correcting sexuality and how the brain views attraction,” I begin. “He wants to create super soldiers for the government, sure. But the reason my father is getting people institutionalized is because they embarrassed their families due to who they love? Xav wants to see if conversion therapy will work on them. This horrifies me because can you imagine not being attracted to people you care about? Your cock just says nope?”
Orion looks confused, his lips pursed. “I’m not wired the way other people are. My dick only gets hard when I kill people, so I’m having a hard time giving a fuck about this. Lennon was nice to me when I was in high school, seemed sweet, and I was happy for her when she got out of this town. Farrelsville has evil men who run it, and it’s no place for someone like her. My give a fuck button is broken most of the time, but I have a few hard lines. One of them is rape,” he says. “High school was a fucked up experience for her, and the bet you had going back then makes me want to hit you. You don’t deserve her.”
Staring at him, my world spins.I don’t deserve her, Orion is correct. There’s not a happy ending for us in sight, and I don’t care as long she is alive at the end of this. She may be a little banged up, but I need her to be breathing. Roark and Turner will help her survive afterwards.
“No. I do not deserve her, not after today and not after all the fucked up shit I’ve done to her. However, my father told me Xav is setting up buyers for a set of men who like their women beautiful and unable to say no. The private hospital has two sections, and Lennon is in a place where there are no rules. If she’s going to be sold, I need to find her,” I insist, my voice breaking as I explain this.
Orion shakes his head as he pushes the gas pedal down harder. “I’m getting involved because our fathers are lying to me. I hate being out of the loop, and I hoped they would bring me into everything. Mr. Xav’s involvement isn’t one I completely understand, but my father and Grant know I will not condone rape. They have to prove to me the men that I kill are bad people. I don’t have a great moral compass, murder makes me happy, and I am not normal, but I have very clear lines I stand on.”
I watched Orion cut off Sherman’s head today so my father could mount it on a spike in his front yard. The grin on his face will probably haunt me for years to come, so I didn’t think he had lines he wouldn’t cross.
“So the idea that Lennon is at Hidden Hills as Xav’s personal pet…” I drift off to see what he has to say. I need to find my girl.
“It makes me want to burn the world down, but I can't tell you why,” Orion says, pained. “I don’t make attachments to people, ever. I never feel guilt or regret, but a part of me wishes I cared more in high school. Maybe helped her?” Orion punches the steering wheel, and I feel as if I’m watching a breakthrough occur.
“So why didn’t you?”
Blowing out a breath, he looks almost apologetic. “I’m not a good man,” Orion breathes. “The first person I ever killed was my babysitter when I was ten. She was fucking her boyfriend down the hall from me and thought I was sleeping. They thought it would be fun to come into my room and touch me, see if I could get hard. Apparently they did this to other kids, and her boyfriend raped one of the little girls she was watching. I grabbed my bat in the closet and beat them both to death as they came through the door.” Orion sighs as he looks over at me, but my face is blank.
I know what it’s like to be touched by people who shouldn’t, and I don’t have it in me to condemn a little boy who decided to defend himself. Not even Orion. Are psychopaths made or born? Maybe a little of both?
“How did you get away with it?” I ask, intrigued to see a glimpse of the real Orion.
“My father came home, saw what happened, and helped me clean it up. He made me drive to a pig farm with him and watch as they feasted on the bodies. I think he wanted to gauge if I felt remorse, anger, or got sick watching. But I was ten and fascinated. Dad realized then that I wasn’t normal. He didn’t know what to do with me, so he taught me how not to get caught. I watched a lot of true crime documentaries and learned about the human body,” Orion says without emotion.
“You were ten,” I gasp, struggling with this information.
“I’m also a psychopath,” Orion says with a shrug. “I’ve killed a lot of people over the years, but I don’t fit a serial killer profile. So my dad did the best he could to help me, and then turned me into his own weapon. The problem for our dads is that I do have boundaries when it comes to who I’ll kill. I hesitate to call it a moral code, but I won’t hurt children or innocent people.”
This sounds like a moral code to me, but I’m not going to argue.
“I need to keep my dad from realizing I have an emotional connection to Lennon,” I tell him, bringing back the conversation to my worry. “If you figured it out—”
