Why had she just woodenly followed Maddox into the van and to the hotel?
“I was in shock, I guess,” she muttered, shame saturating the words.
“Are you sure it was him?” Shelby asked softly.
Orion evened her gaze. “Positive.”
There were things you forgot. Keys. Names of people who didn’t matter. The combination to your locker, if you were April.
But you did not forget the look, sound, and smell of a man who tortured and raped you regularly like it was his right.
“Why didn’t you tell the detective?” Jaclyn asked, not softly. Neither of the women had probed her on the familiarity between her and Maddox. Because they knew her. Knew she hadn’t begun to process it.
Orion shrugged. “I don’t know what I was supposed to say. We’re the victims, remember? Had just come out of imprisonment of the worst kind. He was a doctor sporting a fucking Rolex. I’m guessing he’ll spin some fabulous story about our mental states and our memories being damaged by trauma or whatever.”
Already, various therapists had been pushed on them. There had even been one there, waiting for them, offering to stay in the room with them. None of the girls could hide their disgust at that, and Eric had thankfully gotten rid of her.
“Well, saying nothing is worse than the fucking blue-eyed detective thinking you’re crazy,” Jaclyn snapped. “Newsflash, we are crazy. We’re always going to be that way, no matter how many shrinks they push on us. What were you thinking?”
Orion picked at a cold fry, out of shame more than anything. “I was thinking about other things.”
“Like what?” Jaclyn demanded.
Orion looked up, discarding the half-eaten fry. “Like feeding him his own cock,” she said blandly.
Jaclyn rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay.”
Orion straightened her spine and narrowed her eyes. “I’m serious,” she bit out. “I want to kill him. I want to make him feel everything we felt in there.”
Suddenly, the need was overpowering, like starvation. A thirst for blood, for revenge. She hadn’t let herself think about this until just then. She’d numbed it all. But it was crystal clear to her. Because she was right. Even if she told Maddox, even if he believed her and tried to do something about it, the doctor would have lawyers, prestige, money behind him. Probably some Botoxed wife who stood by his side, defending him.
She was just a girl from the trailer park who got snatched up and ruined.
There was no evidence to tie him to a crime. As messy and gross as The Things had been, Orion had learned how organized their operation was. Years of it, she’d seen. This was not just girls being snatched and taken by two drug addicted hillbillies. Each of the men who did things to them had money.
Orion had recognized it, her trailer park upbringing making it possible for her to spot the money on people. Like she had noted the small gesture on Mary Lou that first day.
Jaclyn stared at her, really looking this time. “You aren’t kidding.”
Orion shook her head.
Jaclyn stepped back, snatched a soda, and jumped onto the bed, picking up a remote to flip through the channels. “Go on ahead. But I won’t be following you back into a cell. No fucking way.”
Orion watched the way she jerked the remote, the way her hand shook just a little. For all the big game she talked, for all her cursing, her tough exterior, she was really still that little girl they had snatched off the street.
They all were.
Orion didn’t resent her for not wanting the same things. For not wanting blood. She understood it. If she knew of a way to ignore this need, to turn away from her past and figure out a future, of course she’d take it.
But she didn’t. There was no way around this. The Cell molded each of them into something different. Maybe chipping away at their childhood until their ugly core was revealed. Maybe creating demons that never would’ve existed if things had been different. But things weren’t different. And a monster lived inside Orion now. She could feel it, and it was hungry.
Shelby was a broken, weak, and fragile little person who got everything she wanted growing up and, thusly, didn’t understand basic social cues. She had the lowest percent at surviving this world.
Jaclyn was a foul-mouthed, aggressive, and harsh woman who would pretend she was anything but weak. She might very well survive this world. If her façade held up.
And Orion. What was she? Who was she? She hadn’t gone so far as to think about that in-depth just yet. She knew she wouldn’t like what she found. Though she knew one thing. She was not a person who could forget about Dr. Bob Collins and what he’d done to her. And when she said it to them that night, admitted her wish to kill him, her plans for retribution, she only half believed it herself. At that time, she didn’t know just how persistent this desire would become, how frequently his face would haunt her dreams, how possessive the need for revenge would become.