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April stared at Orion for a long time, chewing at the inside of her lip, chewing on the truth. Orion wondered if she’d ever heard it that plainly before.
“Okay, so you wanna know me?” April finally said. She didn’t wait for an answer. “You wanna know who I am? I’m April Elizabeth Novak. I still like Charmed. I think it’s the epitome of girl power and I love their outfits. I have shitty taste in men, or the men I date have shitty taste in women, since I’m a pretty terrible girlfriend. I get bored easily with relationships, jobs, and hairstyles. I hate working out, but I’m unhealthy about my weight, so I starve myself on every day of the week except Sunday. I drink too much. I stay up too late, I play my music too loud.” She took a deep breath, the tears really rolling now, but with a new energy in her, a brightness in her eyes. “And you know why I didn’t end up at that private school on the East Coast on my parents’ dime? Because I was such an emotional fucking basket case after my best friend in the world went missing that I stopped giving a shit about everything in my life. My grades went to hell, I started drinking more, doing drugs. I fucking gave up.”
She stood up before Orion could argue, could fling more ugly things at her to make her hate her.
She wiped her eyes and stood a little straighter. “No, I don’t know what you’ve lived through these past ten years, Ri. I can’t even fucking imagine. But you were my sister then, and you are my sister now, and I’m not fucking going anywhere. You’re not gonna push me away. You got that? No matter how cruel you are, no matter what mean things you might say to me, I’ve got thicker skin than you think and I’m just as stubborn as I was when we were kids.” She winked at her before snatching up her fringed purse. “I love you, Orion Darby. So get used to it,” she said, and then walked out the door.
“Maddox.”
Orion had expected April. Now that her old friend had made it clear she wasn’t going anywhere, Orion had become resigned to the fact she was not alone. She should’ve been more irritated about that, considering she’d gone to great pains to lie to herself about not needing anyone.
Little whispers of truth hit her then. Little pieces of relief that she didn’t have to weather the silence of this apartment until she was brave enough to take her future into her own hands.
Her body turned to stone with Maddox’s large frame standing in her doorway, a hand stuffed into his jeans pocket. He looked uncomfortable, as if he were worried about how she’d react at seeing him there, as if he hadn’t a clue how to act around women anymore since this one came back. She remembered the doorway seeming comically small with him in it. She felt comically small, fear bubbling up in her throat with the knowledge that this was a man, a strong man, and despite her workouts, she wasn’t strong enough to fight him off. It didn’t matter if it was Maddox, she knew the kind man with the soulful eyes wouldn’t hurt her. But the damaged, larger parts of her screamed that there was no such thing as a man who didn’t hurt women when he had the chance. That there was no such thing as a man without evil, and lust, and want.
She hadn’t seen him in weeks, not since the last of their interviews at the police station. Their lawyer had been present at all of these interviews, Orion had been thankful to the man, despite the fact that he wore too much aftershave and tried so hard not to be patronizing it was nauseating. He made sure the interviews remained professional and didn’t give Maddox the chance to try and step through the barrier of professionalism to try and rescue some lost past.
It was only on their second interview, a few days after they’d escaped, that they were told that Thing One had been captured. He had been hiding in the middle of the woods, eating from a landfill nearby. The man who had caused her so much pain, so much misery, was found living like a rodent. Fitting.
Orion had a vague reaction to the news. She took solace in the fact that he’d experienced even a few weeks of discomfort, in the fact that his discomfort would be intensified tenfold when he hit prison, that he would call a cell home then. But the feeling should’ve been more visceral. It should’ve been more of a victory. But it wasn’t. Not with the time to think on just how unimportant he’d been to the whole operation. They’d seemed so big, so powerful all these years, but they were nothing more than well-trained guard dogs. She should’ve been relieved, a little happy even, but she cried herself to sleep the night she learned Thing One was captured, because she thought of all the monsters out there in the world, walking around freely, taking, using, destroying the children in their paths.
