Hush

The shrink would love her substance abuse. And the fact she was now moderately addicted to heroin, then lying to herself that she was only moderately addicted because she was in control.

To be fair, the shrink probably wouldn’t have loved that, and likely would’ve had her locked up in some looney bin, where she—where all of them—arguably belonged.

Jaclyn was not stupid. She did not tell the shrink that. She did not tell her anything. She just sat in the office and played games with the bitch for no other reason than it amused her. Orion had said she probably had designs on writing a book about her. About all of them.

The Stolen Girls.

A lot of names were tossed around in the media, but that one stuck.

It made sense to the country filled with missing children, filled with the monsters who took them. They weren’t lost like a sock in the dryer. They were stolen from their lives. They were stolen from themselves to be the guilty pleasures of pedophiles. And now the world had shoved them high up on a pedestal, ignoring their need for privacy and healing, celebrating something they could never possibly understand. The news channels wanted their stories, their updates, their ad dollars. The public wanted to feel better about themselves. Wanted to look in the mirror and say they did something. And, Jaclyn couldn’t deny it, they certainly did something. The GoFundMe account, which Jaclyn still didn’t quite understand, had reached over four million a month and a half after their rescue, and though it started to decline along with the number of news stations they appeared on, the money still rolled in.

Yeah, the shrink would get a good book deal out of it. Jaclyn was sure of it, since none of them were interested in capitalizing off years of rape and torture. But she didn’t care. She had enough money coming in from the GoFundMe . . . and plenty more on the way from Uncle Sam. All three of them did. And she didn’t care to be in the public eye any more than they already had been.

At first, she was sure this lawyer Orion had insisted they work with was some kind of crook. All lawyers were crooks, Jaclyn knew that. But Orion wouldn’t budge, and Jaclyn trusted her. Orion was intent on fighting everything, fighting the world, and it was easier for Jaclyn to just go along with all of it. As far as she was concerned, she’d reached her quota on fighting. She’d done enough. She was happy to sit back and wait for the checks to clear. As it turned out, the lawyer was an even better crook than the justice system itself. Their payout was going to be staggering.

Having a plan and following that plan were two different things. Similar, to be sure. But being brave enough to began to execute that plan? A whole different beast.

Orion was smart. It seemed that had not been carved out of her in that basement. She still remembered how to read. It was like the proverbial bike, not something you forgot. Sure, she was a little rusty. The words seemed unfamiliar, jumbled at first. She couldn’t quite believe what was in front of her. What she was holding. An entire world. Someone’s fantasy typed and bound and ready for her to consume.

So that’s what she did at first. Devoured every single book she could get her hands on. And it seemed she didn’t even have to put her hands on them. April had given her a large square tablet, like a pocket computer.

“It’s called a Kindle,” April said quietly. Hesitantly. She yo-yoed between that and her exuberant—if a little vulgar—self. Orion didn’t know if it was because she could somehow sense the levels of Orion’s moods, how volatile she was, or the woman herself was undergoing some mental rollercoaster. Whatever it was, Orion was thankful for the softness of her voice that day.

“I’ve got it attached to my Amazon account,” she explained, as if Orion knew what she was talking about. The rainforest? Orion had stopped asking questions about things she didn’t understand. She was sick of feeling weak, stupid; the years that had been stolen stitched into every question. She had a computer now. A rudimentary understanding of how to work it. She kept a mental list of things to google. All that information at her fingertips was something. Daunting. Wondrous, maybe.

But she had not googled herself yet.

April tapped at the screen. Orion watched her intently, soaking up the gestures, the taps, stowing them away for later. “You can go into the store and click on any book you wish. And boom! It’s downloaded into your library.”

She held it out to Orion after the demonstration. Orion was hesitant to accept gifts. Any kind of string to connect them. She didn’t want it. But the books. They called to her. Whispered to her. If she understood this device correctly—and she thought she did—she could house thousands of stories in there. Thousands of peoples. Places. Knowledge. Ideas.