The Clark County Sheriff’s Department never really did open an investigation on Orion’s disappearance. As the largest county in the state of Missouri and situated smack dab in the middle of meth country, Clark County didn’t have time to waste on teenage runaways. They looked at her home life, at the previous runaway attempts, at the mental institution stay when Orion was twelve, and they determined she most likely ran away again. The police never looked for her, her parents never looked for her, and her memory was left to wither away to nothing.
Detective Maddox Novak, one of only two detectives working out of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, couldn’t accept that. He never believed she would up and leave, not without saying something, at least. She would’ve contacted him. Even before their kiss, even before he confessed his feelings, he had grown up with her. He wanted to believe she cared for him like he did her. Maybe that’s why he ended up joining the department.
When the call came in from the sheriff on his weekend off, he was thankful, if he was being honest with himself. He grew to despise days off. Much like the alcohol, work became a way for him to forget, to busy himself numb. His sister had taken the early shift on the Saturday that would flip his whole world upside down, so he was left alone and miserable, with too much alcohol in the fridge and a service revolver that beckoned him, as it often did when the depression was particularly bad.
The call from the sheriff was unusual. Three women found in a suburban neighborhood, covered in blood, confused and with signs of abuse. He’d been at the scene, and it was clear that these women were abused. The fucking prison in the basement told him that. The filthy mattress and the chains, the albums upon albums upon albums of child pornography told him that. He wasn’t comfortable with the thoughts of Orion that hit him when he searched the premises.
Once forensics arrived, and the coroner soon after for the dead meth head in the basement, Maddox was sent to the Cook County Regional Hospital with his partner, Detective Eric Baptiste, to interview the girls who had escaped. He hadn’t checked the case file yet, hadn’t seen her name among the women. Had he seen it, he wouldn’t have made his way so leisurely to the hospital.
He stopped in the doorway of their room, staring at the three women wearing hospital gowns only briefly before his jaw dropped. His heart beat so hard, it felt like it might burst from his chest.
Orion Elizabeth Darby.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. He just stared as Eric continued jabbering on beside him about the Cardinals and who they needed to trade for.
There were four beds in the room. Three beds had been slept in, the sheets messy, but all three of the women were crowded together on the fourth bed. Not touching, but close. That told him things. That there was a bond between them. From captivity. Abuse. Murder. He felt comfortable, if only slightly, in knowing she at least had them in that wretched place.
The TV perched on an extendable arm in the corner showed Maury Povich, and the three women were captivated by it.
“Hey, you hearing me?” Eric asked, but his partner continued into the room, toward the women, ignoring him. Eric scoffed and then followed him in.
Maddox cleared his throat after standing motionless for a second. He cleared it a second time, louder then, but the women stayed glued to the television.
Maddox was about to do it a third time when Eric put a hand up, chuckling, and said, “Uh, ladies . . .”
“Can you not see we’re busy, motherfuc—” Jaclyn’s mouth formed an O and it stayed there as her almond eyes discovered the badges hanging from chains around their necks. “Well . . . alrighty then.” She let out a nervous chuckle, the glint in her eyes rebellious.
Orion chuckled, not seeing Maddox just yet, then turned her head to see who Jaclyn was talking to. And in a heartbeat, her smile faded, her jaw going slack, eyes wide.
The thumping in his head dissipated and a dull roar in his ears replaced it.
He stepped forward slowly, never taking his gaze from her wide hazel eyes, tears forming in his own. “Ri,” he choked out.
The woman with the familiar eyes sat up straighter. Stiffened. Cleared her throat. Seemed to dismiss him just as quickly as she’d recognized him in awe. “Um, hey, Maddox,” she said casually. “What’s it been, five, ten years?”
She was hallucinating. That had to be it, right? The shrink with the glasses and the pointy noise told them all about it not an hour before she laid eyes on Maddox for the first time in ten years. Post-traumatic stress disorder would treat them to things like flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, cognitive delays, and a whole other laundry list of things they had to look forward to. You don’t just get out of what they went through unscathed. They were damaged for life. Broken. Orion had known that the second the sun shone on her skin and feelings of happiness or freedom weren’t anywhere to be found. She knew that cell had followed her out. It was attached to her black soul.
The shrink had a soft voice, said all the right things, and made sure to comfort them, but Orion still saw the glint in her eye. The hunger. She wanted to get her talons into their brains. Unpack them. Dissect them. Put them up on her wall as some kind of achievement . . . a badge of fucking honor. Fuck, she probably wanted to write a book on them.
The Missouri Three. Or The Lost Girls. Maybe The Broken Ones. Surely, they’d come up with some stupid fucking name as soon as everything hit the news, if it hadn’t already.
Orion didn’t know how much they knew about everything. She couldn’t remember how much she’d said. All she knew was that her ankle felt too empty without the chain, her body too clean, stomach too full. The room was too wide. Bright.
There was too much white.
Then there was too much Maddox.
She knew it was him immediately. She shouldn’t have. After all, it had been ten years. It shocked her so much, that instant recognition, that instant longing, that she forced nonchalance, but she was as surprised as he was to be face to face again.
“Ten years, nine months, and twenty-six days, actually,” Maddox corrected her. His voice was scratchy. Choked. Hesitant. The rest of him wasn’t. Everything about him was strong, confident, but he carried an air of mystery she didn’t remember him having.
She eyed him for a moment. Studied the new darkness in his eyes. The badge on the chain around his neck. Polished. Clean. The gun in a holster on his hip. The T-shirt that was so worn the print on the front was too faded to decipher. Muscles underneath the shirt. Sculpted biceps. Sinewy arms. Large hands. Man hands. He had certainly grown.
She snapped her eyes back up to the man with the strong jaw and five-o’clock shadow.
“Ten years, Ri,” Maddox said, stepping forward, eyes wide in wonder. “I always knew you were alive, you know? I never let them tell me otherwise . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head, a small grin at the corner of his mouth.
She hated him in that moment. For smiling. For growing up well, with clean clothes, muscles, control over his hair, his life. Fucking smiling at her like they were on that porch again. Like this world gave you reasons to smile. Like him thinking they were still alive after all these years somehow took away all the pain those years had brought.
“It’s Orion now,” she said stiffly. She made sure to hold herself completely still so she didn’t shake. She didn’t want him thinking of her as that little girl anymore. No, that little girl was gone. A shell is what was left of her, and a shell is what she gave him. “When can we leave?” Her tone was nasty. Too nasty, she thought. But she disregarded his feelings.