She was glad for that because she could breathe again. She could forget that it was the same beautiful smile that he flashed her way so long ago, after giving her that first kiss. His teeth were still perfect, white and beautiful, and she had herself a little chuckle over that. Good to be the dentist’s son.
“We’re gonna get you out of here as soon as we can, Ri,” Maddox said, and he looked like he regretted it almost immediately.
She gritted her teeth. “My name is Orion.”
“Orion . . . sorry.” He hung his head, and her eyes caught his badge once more.
She nodded her head toward it. “What’s up with that?”
He glanced down to the badge and chuckled. It was forced, grating. The sound was attractive and hideous at the same time. “Hard to believe, huh? I fast-tracked after high school.” He paused. “After everything.”
Everything. She saw the way his shoulders slouched just a little more when he said it, and his forehead scrunched and nose twitched, just as it did when he got nervous as a kid.
She thought about that word again. Everything. Ah. That was a handy little word to encompass ten years of hell. All the rape, you mean, Maddox? The torture?
Orion kept her cool, her eyes steady on Maddox, Jaclyn and Shelby watching her every move, like Maury Povich had popped out of the TV. “It’s certainly hard to believe the guy who got me stoned for the first and only time became a cop,” she said, not trusting herself to grin, even if she wanted to.
The first time she’d smiled in a decade had been when the blood drained from Thing Two’s neck, her pen shiv sticking out of his eye, and the memory then, just as it did many times after, filled her with a sense of satisfaction unlike any other.
“Yeah, well,” Maddox said, rubbing the back of his neck with his arm. He chuckled. Nervously, this time. He glanced toward the buttoned-up black man beside him, his partner, she guessed. He was handsome, but Orion didn’t really understand how to classify men as handsome anymore. How to classify them as anything but monsters hiding underneath flesh. She knew that was unfair. To lump them all in with The Things. But life wasn’t fair. “I never touched the stuff again. Kind of lost its luster after you . . . left.”
“Left,” she said, laughing condescendingly. “Is that what I did, Maddox?”
“Aww, that’s Maddox?” Jaclyn drawled, her voice saccharine sweet, taunting the moment. She knew who Maddox was. Stories were all they’d had in The Cell.
Orion glared at her. “Shut up, Jaclyn.” She turned back toward Maddox and pointed at the man beside him. “So, who’s this?”
The man stepped forward, flashing white, perfectly straight teeth, a movie-star smile if she’d ever seen one, and she shook her head. Does everyone but me have great teeth?
“Detective Eric Baptiste,” he offered in a smooth voice. “Nice to meet you, ladies.”
Orion arched a brow and looked toward Maddox. How did they connect? A polite black man in a neatly pressed shirt standing next to the white man who hadn’t shaved in days, and obviously never changed his shirt.
“My partner,” Maddox explained.
Eric chuckled. “His better half.”
Shelby sat up, having been half hiding behind the two of them. Her eyes were wide and darting between the two men. “Seriously?”
Orion wanted to roll her eyes at the woman’s gullibility, but then again, to come out of what they’d been through and still be naive took talent. And some strong denial.
“No, no,” Maddox said. “My work partner.”
Eric shook his head. “He’s always denying our love. But, one day, we’ll be life partners too.”
Maddox rolled his eyes.
Playful, Orion noted. Sense of humor. Kind eyes with a hardness around the edges. She didn’t trust her taste in men at this stage. Anyone who wasn’t raping or beating her could be considered “good.”
Shelby giggled. Both Orion and Jaclyn glanced back at the sound. It was foreign. She decided she wouldn’t knock out Eric’s teeth. Not yet at least.
“So, you were saying . . . about us getting out of here? Haven’t we been locked up long enough?”
Maddox straightened, jutting his chin up ever so slightly. Orion watched a mask—a cop mask, she thought—settle over almost all of his face except his eyes. They gave him away. He cleared his throat. “The doctors are done with you. We’ve got one of our clerks bringing toiletries, a few changes of clothes,” he said. Cop voice too. He didn’t take his eyes off Orion. “If it’s alright with y’all, we’re going to get you out of here and over to a hotel in Edwardsville for the night. We’ll have uniformed officers there all night to keep you safe.”
Jaclyn let out a snort.
Orion was with her on that. Safe meant fucking nothing to them.