Hush

She felt alive.

But everything was wrong. It was too quick. Too messy.

She had cleaned the blood from her face with some makeup wipes in the car—she’d tossed the gloves under the seat. If, for some reason, she was pulled over, on the surface, it wouldn’t seem like she’d just brutally murdered someone.

If the cop was the least bit suspicious, he’d find it. The evidence. The blood. The murder weapon tucked into her boots.

She’d be done.

She hadn’t slept.

Not a wink.

The entire rest of the night was spent destroying evidence. Washing her clothes. She wanted to burn them, toss them in a dumpster. Have them out of her house, out of her life. Gone. But that was far too suspicious. Most people who committed crimes of passion and tried to get away with it thought getting rid of everything was the right idea. It wasn’t. If anything, it was a huge fucking neon sign of premeditation to the police.

So, Orion kept the clothes. The gloves too. She washed those with bleach, even though that ruined the fucking leather. Maybe she was keeping them as a trophy. A reminder of her stupidity. Then there was the car. Her shoes. Everything she touched after the murder. The knife. It was a murder weapon now. She couldn’t dispose of it. She had to hide it and hope she hadn’t left a trail leading straight back to her.

When all the practical stuff was done, she tortured herself with all of the ways she could’ve damned herself. An insomniac looking out the window, seeing her rush from the alley. Cameras. Hair. Footprints. She’d done the research on how to get away with murder, so she was all well versed at how to get caught.

The knock at the door jarred her bones. Her stomach churned as her body threatened to fail her. It was them. The police. She’d done all the research at how to be smarter than the criminals. One moment of lost control and she’s busted almost immediately.

She could run. But where? Out a third-story window? If she didn’t break her legs from the fall, she had on no shoes, had no money. Her fake passports were yet to be picked up—you couldn’t exactly FedEx them.

She couldn’t escape.

No, she had to face it.

On wooden legs, she walked to the door, opened it.

And she was right. It was the cops. But just one. Gun strapped to his belt and not pointed at her. Eyes full of softness instead of cold hatred. Hands full of coffee and a paper bag. The smell coming from it caused her to gag.

“Maddox, what are you doing here?” she rasped, a feeble attempt to sound normal.

He took her in. Quickly, probably as he was trained to do as a cop, but she knew he saw the sunken, empty look in her eyes. She’d showered. Three times. Scrubbed her hands with watered down bleach. Her hair was washed three times too, and it was in a damp braid down her back.

She was wearing clean sweats.

But she was still a murderer. She was still the person Maddox was trained to catch, hiding right before his eyes.

“I’m here with breakfast,” he said, holding up the coffee and bag. “To congratulate you. We didn’t really get to celebrate you passing your driving test.” A heavy pause, a memory of what had happened in this very doorway. “I haven’t been able to get a hold of you since then. You’re a hard woman to pin down.” He smiled, showing her his teeth.

Orion swallowed daggers. She wasn’t sickened by what she had done. She was sickened by the thought of a cell. Of getting caught. And Maddox never smiling at her again.

His smile faltered at her silence, a worried frown replacing it. “Are you okay? You look like you haven’t slept.”

Orion straightened her spine. She could not have a relationship of any kind with this man. He noticed things too easily. Cared far too much.

“I know I’m not adept on social niceties, but even I know you’re not supposed to say something like that to a woman.” Her voice was stronger now. Colder.

Orion was a killer of men. She needed to start acting like it.

Maddox looked properly chastised. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just worried about you.” He paused. “I care about you, Orion.”

It didn’t affect her. That admission, delivered quietly and with nervousness filtering through the words. It would’ve, had she not descended into her heart of stone, the place where she felt nothing and thought only practically, strategically. She couldn’t take credit for such an idea. She’d given herself leave to read for pleasure every now and then, and had immersed herself in a fantasy series by Patrick Rothfuss. She liked the idea of crafting such a place in her mind. Like the worlds she used to escape to in her mind when the suffering became too great.