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Five
It was a full moon. That must’ve meant something.
Orion hadn’t had enough time to read about it all when she was younger. To lose herself in the minds of those who believed the moon had meaning. But she’d watched enough horror movies about werewolves, vampires, wendigos. She knew that the moon brought out the monsters. Monsters like her.
She would come to appreciate sitting outside in silence and looking up at the beautiful sight of it, the craters reminiscent of her own scars and impressions. Thinking about awful things. Awful things to most, but music to her ears. She felt at one with the night, with the darkness. In the daylight, she felt exposed. And with daylight came people, and with people came that unnerving feeling of being completely out of control, suffocating in your own skin.
She had been staring at the moon from the hotel window for a while that night, feeling a connection to it for the first time.
“You weren’t serious before, were you, Orion?” Shelby asked, and it broke Orion from her trance. She had no clue how long she was sitting there, staring, daydreaming. Night dreaming.
The television had been the only sound in the room for a long while. Jaclyn couldn’t settle on a show for longer than a couple of minutes before muttering obscenities about reality shows and the world going to hell, while also proclaiming how incredible it was to have more than ten channels to choose from. She flicked past news channels in a second. None of them needed to see that. Not yet. They were the belle of the ball on every news station in the Midwest. They had seen a mess of reporters out in front of the hospital, waiting, as they made their getaway in the van. For Orion, the thought of being even remotely in the public eye made her physically ill.
Orion focused on Shelby, curled up against the headboard of the bed, her long sweatshirt draped over her knees. She was so small, everything about her. And so beautiful. Orion wanted to comfort her, to tell her no, that it was only the trauma talking. That she could never bring herself to do such a thing. But comforting someone with a lie was nothing but shooting someone when they were on morphine. They wouldn’t feel it straight away, they’d be comfortable for a time. But the damage would show eventually.
“When you stabbed Thing Two, when you saw him bleeding on the fucking ground, tell me you didn’t feel what I felt, tell me you didn’t like it, just a little even, being able to punish him for what he did to us. Tell me the power didn’t mean something to you. Tell me you wouldn’t do it to Thing One if you could? To Dr. Bob? To every motherfucker who used us,” Orion said, tears welling in her eyes. She hid her face, tried to calm her rapidly beating heart. She took a deep, steadying breath.
Shelby bit her lip. “Yeah, I guess I get that feeling. I just, I don’t understand why you’d risk going to prison.”
The drone of the TV was silenced by Jaclyn hitting mute and turning to face Orion.
“That’s what I’m saying! I feel you, girl, I do,” she said. “Something about that revenge, that justice, it was sweet and it was good, and it did feel powerful. It felt right. But that was self-defense, okay? That was warranted. This . . .” She waved her hand at Orion. “What you’re talking about? It’s something else entirely. Vigilante shit. It’s premeditated. It comes with too many fucking cons. It’s not fucking worth it, Orion.”
Orion folded her arms across her chest, ready to square off. It was not the first time the two of them had argued, nor would it be the last. In a way, Orion appreciated Jaclyn for this, for keeping her on her toes. For playing devil’s advocate. For being a thorn in her side.
“So you’re saying you wouldn’t have done it to the doctor, while he was raping you, one of the many times, if you had had the chance?” She flung the words like the weapons they were. And she knew she was right. But she knew they were right too. To be thrown into a jail cell, after everything they had been through, could not be an option. And, in reality, it never was. She knew from that night, from the moment she first considered killing him, that she would rather die than spend another night in a cell.
Jaclyn narrowed her eyes. “Without hesitation,” she replied. “But those are different circumstances and you know it.”
Orion tapped her bare foot against the carpet. “How are they different circumstances?” she asked. “He did that to you. To me. To Shelby. They sold us like fucking merchandise. Just because we escaped doesn’t mean he’s going to stop. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s walking free. People like him don’t ever stop—they can’t. It’s a sickness. How is stopping him not self-defense? Curing the sickness.”
