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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. Perps. Visiting colleagues. Friends. And this time he was meant to do the same. Ensure the safety of these three women. These victims. To set up an interview, learn their story. A sad story, to be sure. It had rattled him too. It always did when rape kits were necessary.
But it was supposed to be business as usual.
Until he hit the room. Until those eyes hit him.
Ri’s eyes in the body of a woman. A beautiful woman, of course, because she was always going to grow up to be beautiful, even if she was raised in ugly. He’d noticed that years ago. The way she was blossoming. The way that little girl his sister brought home one day when he was in fourth grade became a woman before his very eyes. He knew she hadn’t finished, when he was sixteen and she was fourteen. Knew she’d grow taller, her features sharper. Her womanhood would cut through every boy at school, right to the dick. He’d wanted none of that. He wanted her to himself, to be the man she deserved, to spend homecomings together, and proms, and one day, a great big wedding.
Of course, he never told his friends these things, these thoughts of future days with the girl who was supposed to be like a sister to him, but he reveled in the thoughts, nonetheless. He remembered the party. The sudden and visceral need for her to be his and no one else’s. The realization that she wasn’t like a sister to him, and she never had been. He had always wanted her, even when he was a mischievous young punk pinching her and running away or telling her how gross she was. Cooties, and all that.
That’s what had followed him throughout those years. How he’d never have that chance to see things through with her. If he had just been a gentleman, if he’d been a real man and biked home with her, she wouldn’t have disappeared. If he’d been there to protect her, life would be different, and she never would have endured that hell.
He was to blame, alright, and he never let himself forget it.
When she’d first gone missing—when he and April had spent all their time looking for her, searching those derelict buildings along the way, calling out her name as if she were a dog that ran away from home—he envisioned finding her, saving her, and her jumping into his arms in blissful relief.
But she’d gone and found herself. Saved herself.
Ri was like that.
Orion, he corrected mentally.
A small difference to some. Many girls grew up and shed their nicknames to sound more mature. But it wasn’t that. She had shed the skin of her childhood like a snake might’ve. Everything about her was . . . lost, changed, different. He didn’t blame her, but he worried about her, and how those ten years of abuse had left their mark.
He didn’t even realize he’d punched through the wall until Eric’s hand caught his wrist going in for another. It wasn’t the first time he took his frustration and anger out on a wall. Over the years, pictures had been added to cover some holes in his house, rough spackling patches on others.
Blood covered his knuckles. Not enough to drip, but if he’d kept going, he would’ve painted the wall before he even noticed. Probably broken his knuckles too.
An orderly hurried past, averting his eyes, and a wave of embarrassment washed over him. It wasn’t often he let his anger problem seep into the public sector. No, he would bottle it up, and hold it in until he got home. Then, the alcohol would start flowing. Then, the violence.
But now he had exposed himself to the public, disgracing the badge hanging around his neck. He swallowed thickly and wiped the sweat from his brow.
