Orion read her hesitant eyes for a moment and then nodded. She took a seat. “No turning back,” she whispered, trying her best to remain confident She knew she was ready to die rather than spend another day in this hell. She also knew that if they were caught and the plan failed, death would be the least of their concerns.
Jaclyn scoffed. “Not a fucking chance.”
Shelby shook, sobs taking over her. Her bottom lip trembled.
“This is serious, Shelby,” Orion said, cold with a hint of cruelty. She knew the kind of girl Shelby was all too well, and she wasn’t about to waste another second nurturing the girl or walking her through it. “Stay focused.”
Shelby nodded, swallowing visibly with her eyes moving to the ground.
Slight footfalls and a groan sounded from the other side of the room. Sounds they were all too familiar with, but it chilled their blood the second they heard it regardless.
The large concrete door struggled to open, a smell even worse than inside The Cell wafting in as Thing Two’s scrawny arms came into view.
He muscled the door open, then licked his lips, adjusting his crotch as he eyed Orion and the others with a hunger that was born somewhere in the depths of hell.
“Now, who’s it gonna be today?” he asked in a sing-song tone, pointing at them. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by her toe. If she hollers, make her pay. Eeny, meeny, miny, may.”
His finger landed on Shelby, and her flinch was immediate and violent.
“Looks liked you win, sweetheart,” he said, showing yellow, rotted teeth as he smiled. “I won’t lie. I wanted it to be you!”
He crept toward Shelby, his spindly fingers groping for her. He carried a glint in his eyes that Orion hated. She despised everything about the Things, but it was that look. The ownership in it. The possession, as if they were just inanimate objects for the taking. Like this was his right. Nothing more than instruments to him. Pets.
Orion was worried for a second that Shelby would chicken out. That she wouldn’t play her part. Ri knew that Shelby wasn’t the type of girl to stab a man, but she hoped somehow she would find a way. For them . . . for freedom.
“Please, no!” Shelby cried, scuttling backward toward the wall as Thing Two advanced.
“Hush, girl,” he snapped, grabbing a clump of her hair.
She cried out as Thing Two rifled in his pocket for the key to her cuff with his free hand. He was too distracted to notice Ri and Jaclyn standing up behind him, staring at him hungrily, watching his movements, waiting for the perfect moment. They readied their own weapons.
“Do it, Shelby!” Orion screamed.
Thing Two turned his head, an eyebrow arching. “What’d you say, bitch?” he snarled, eyes wild. “Sit the fuck back down!”
Orion ignored him, looking past him and focusing on Shelby, her heart in her throat. “Now, damnit!” she screamed.
Shelby didn’t move. She was still shaking, weeping. Frozen.
Orion was about to scream, about to try and reach him, to stab him herself if she could. But Shelby turned slowly toward Thing Two, and something in her changed, something took over, and in one quick motion, her hand just a blur, she drove the piece of metal down into Thing Two’s carotid artery, right where Orion told her to.
Orion couldn’t tell who was more surprised, Shelby or Thing Two.
Shelby shrieked at the blood that poured from the wide gash in his neck, and she pulled her hands back, leaving the metal right where she put it.
Thing Two’s eyes went wide, his face ashen. His hands met his neck, and he stumbled back. Neither Jaclyn or Orion hesitated. They rushed forward, stabbing their own shanks into him in quick succession. After carving up his throat and face, Orion embedded her bloody pen into his eye with a squelch, leaving it there. He fell back onto the floor liked a downed tree, his head making a sick thud when it hit the concrete. He groaned weakly.
Jaclyn chuckled, much the same way many monsters had laughed at her own pain. She lodged her toothbrush shank into his other eye, leaving it there, silencing him for good.
Orion didn’t laugh. She just stood there, watching him bleed out, feeling an exhilaration she hadn’t ever felt before. It wasn’t because she was one step closer. It was because killing someone who had caused her so much harm, so much pain, so much grief, felt like a drug. She felt invigorated, like a tiny little crack in her soul had been filled in.
As Shelby vomited beside Thing Two’s bleeding body, Orion snatched the keys from the floor beside him. She made sure to take one last good hard look at him. Her stained hands fastened around the keys, tight enough to cut through the skin on her palm. She cocked her head, analyzing the way the blood pooled around Thing Two’s skull.
And then she smiled.
It was the perfect summer day.
The sun was still shining.
Kids were still playing.
Fathers had stopped mowing their lawns; they were mostly positioned in front of the TV, third beer in hand, a sports game on TV. Others were in backyards, cleaning grills for parties. Some were playing catch with their children in the front yard.
That was what Henry Rollins was doing with his daughter. His son Andy, wasn’t interested in sports. He liked to read vampire books. His wife told him it was nothing to worry about, so he tried not to worry. Tried to support him and not show how weird he thought it was. He thought he did it well. He loved his kids, and only wanted the best for them. He didn’t want them to be bullied or turn out to be serial killers.
Hannah had a good arm and a passion for sports. His wife told him that did not make her gay. That disappointed him. He would much rather his little girl be gay. Men were pigs.
He heard the sound of the front door across the street burst open, and his eyes immediately lifted. Pig was a good description of the men who lived there. That was why he never let Hannah out there on her own. Why he made sure she was with a group of friends if she wanted to ride her bike. The guys across the street gave him the creeps. He didn’t like the look of them.
But it wasn’t one of the pigs.
He squinted at the form of a woman covered in blood and wearing pajamas emerging from the door. And then there was another behind her. The last sprinted out before collapsing on the yellow grass.
“Dad!” Hannah yelled, her eyes on the scene too.
“Get inside now,” he said. “Call 911.”
Then he raced across the street.
His green baseball mitt landed on the lawn.
He wouldn’t be able to pick it up again without thinking of this day. Those women. Those broken girls.
Three
Maddox was tired.
He also had a thumping in his skull thanks to the Jameson he drank the night before. He wasn’t proud of the amount of liquor and beer bottles in his recycling bin every week, but he didn’t really care much about what people thought of him either. He never drank on duty, and he never made a mistake on the job. So, what of it if he caught a little buzz after a hard day’s work? He had earned it.
He often told himself things like that throughout the years. That his drinking was simply a way to blow off steam. That it was the only thing that could help him sleep. But he knew deep down he drank because of her. Because she had left him with a feeling unlike any he’d ever had before in his sixteen years of life, and then, without warning, she was gone. Vanished into thin air.