5. Orion
5
ORION
“SASS MONSTER”
It’s nearing twilight by the time I make it to Ghost’s house—though, lair is probably a better word to describe the underground fortress built into the northern cliffs of Moriton. I walk over to the stone hatch nearly hidden by the fallen leaves and debris littering the small clearing and crouch down, my fingertips trailing along the cool slab as my mind races.
This is a bad idea. They’re finally happy—you shouldn’t involve them in your mess.
But even as the thought passes, I find myself pressing my wrist into the small divot into the stone, listening for the telltale click that will signal whether my key still opens Ghost’s door.
Nothing.
I straighten as a heavy sigh brushes my lips, my eyes drawn to the gray skies above and snagging on a singular black crow dotting the heavens. I frown, longing to reach out and experience that sense of freedom. Of wonder. But I’m just a man—stuck here on the ground.
The stone hatch suddenly scrapes open, drawing my attention to the earth. My brows hit my hairline as I look into the dark stairwell that leads to Ghost’s lair, the shadows thick and foreboding with the terrors beneath. With a shrug, I enter the hatch and take the stairs down, the scent of damp growing stronger the farther I descend into the cliffs.
Several flights later, I enter the large circular living space, squinting my eyes against the harsh light blinking from the iron sconces situated throughout the room. A haunting melody makes its way to my ears, and I jerk my gaze toward the grand piano sitting in the center of the room. My mouth pops slightly as I take in the little girl perched on the bench like a tiny black-haired bird, her fingers moving across the keys with a skill far surpassing her age.
There’s a little black ball of fluff sitting next to her on the bench, his tiny legs curled beneath him as he slumbers. Feline eyes slide open, and Brett’s cat Venom pierces me with a judging stare as he pins his ears back. Ghost’s Great Pyrenese, Rupert, lies at the girl's feet. He picks his head up for a brief moment, huffs at my intrusion, and lies back down to continue listening to the serenade.
The girl must feel my gaze on her because a moment later the sound comes to an abrupt halt. There’s a soft squeak as she turns in her seat to face me, and I’m immediately taken aback by the strange swirling purple of her irises. Ghost’s eyes. So this must be…
“I’ve been waiting up for hours. ” There’s a hint of irritation in her high-pitched voice. “What took you so long?”
“I’m sorry… ” I murmur, not quite sure why I feel the need to apologize to this girl I’ve never met. “I had to walk here on foot.”
“How else would you walk here? On a pair of stilts?” She rolls her eyes—the motion reminding me so much of her mother for a moment that I have to do a double take.
“I’m assuming you’re… Brett and Ghost’s kid?”
Another eye roll. “Nooo. I totally broke in and have been living here under their noses. What do you think?”
Damn, okay sass monster. “Are they… home?”
She nods, letting out a heavy sigh like my presence bores her. “Yup.”
“Can I see them?”
“Not unless you want to come across a sight that’s been burned into my nightmares for the past month.” She shudders dramatically. “They’ve been in their bedroom for the past hour… so you’ve still got a while to wait.”
I blink, not quite sure what to make of the tiny yet ferocious girl. “How old are you?”
She scrunches her nose. “Don’t you know never to ask a lady her age? I know you’ve been in the hole for the past eight years, but dang.”
The hole? “I’m… guessing your dad has told you where I’ve been then.” I rub the back of my neck as a wave of embarrassment pours over me.
“Nope,” she says, popping her p as she jumps off the piano seat and trots over to me. She jerks her chin way up in the air to get a good look at me, those swirling violet irises filled with skepticism. “I found out myself.”
“Oh.” I fight against the urge to take a step back, wondering how it’s possible for this tiny girl to make me feel like a cockroach under her microscope. I’m not sure what possesses me to explain myself to her, but something in me is screaming for her approval. For her to see me as something other than a monster. “I’m… it’s not true, you know. What they said about me.”
She narrows her eyes. “I know. Why do you think I let you inside?”
“Because… your dad told you to?”
She scoffs like my words offend her. “I’m not some brainless kid. I can think for myself. If I thought you were a threat, I would have left you out there for the tigers to feast on.”
I have to laugh at that. “Tigers? Don’t you mean wolves?”
She shakes her head, her eyes deadly serious. “No. I mean tigers. I hear them hunting at night.”
Uh-huh. And I’m a flying spaghetti monster. “There are no tigers in Moriton. The closest zoo is three hundred miles away.” And now I’m arguing with a kid. Fantastic.
She looks at me like she’s thinking the same thing. “Whatever you say, man. Just don’t come crying to me when one of ’em bites your face off.”
I open my mouth to retort when a small scuffle draws my attention to the opposite side of the room. I tear my gaze from the little girl, and my heart stops as I take in a face I haven’t seen in eight long, lonely years.
Brett Evangeline looks practically the same—her hair is still long and dark as pitch, her shoulders held back and proud with those dazzling emerald eyes shining bright. Truly, the only difference is the deepened smile lines around her mouth and eyes.
She looks healthy. She looks happy.
“ Orion. ” Her voice cracks slightly as tears well in her eyes. She races forward, pulling me into a sisterly embrace that has my throat closing with a powerful emotion. I missed this. I missed her.
“I thought you hated hugs.” I return the strength of her embrace twofold. She laughs hard against my shoulder, smacking me playfully before pulling back.
“You get a free pass this one time… Look how big you’ve gotten!” Her mouth pops as she sizes me up like I’m one of her kids. “I can’t believe this. You’re not my little buddy anymore.”
I shake my head with a deep chuckle. “I mean… I’ve never been ‘little’ if you know what I mean…” I waggle my brows at her, earning me another smack.
“Ew, Orion. Just ew.” Brett turns to her daughter. “I’m so sorry you had to hear that.”
“Please.” The girl rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “As if I don’t hear a thousand times worse on a daily basis.”
Brett flushes with the insinuation. “Anyway! Why don’t you head on to bed, Sloane. Orion and I have some catching up to do.”
Without a word, she gets up from her seat and walks out of the kitchen, Rupert and Venom hot at her heels. She’s about to turn down the hallway when Brett’s voice calls out, stopping her in her tracks.
“Sloane! Say good night to your uncle Orion!”
Sloane sighs heavily, turning her bored expression to me one last time. “If I was actually related to that moron, I’d fling myself from the cliffs. Good night.”
Her bare feet patter down the hallway, but only when I hear the slam of her bedroom door do I gather the courage to speak. “Your kid is mean as hell, Brett. Nice job.”
A soft laugh falls from her lips, and her eyes are filled with warmth as she looks at where Sloane used to be sitting. “She was actually really excited when she heard Ghost say you might be coming over. I’d sent her to bed hours ago, but I guess she wanted to stay up and be the first to meet you. It’s hard for her to show affection to strangers, though. She really takes after Ghost that way.”
“Right. And I shit gold bricks.”
She whips her arm out and smacks me hard on the shoulder, though the laugh that peels from her mouth tells me she's not actually upset. “Okay. Maybe she takes after me just a little. ” She pinches her fingers together to demonstrate the minuscule amount, and I take it upon myself to widen those fingers to the correct distance.
“Ow! Orion, my fingers don’t bend that way!”
“I’m trying to show you how wrong you are.” I laugh, being careful not to apply too much force in case I do actually snap her fingers. Pretty sure Ghost would not appreciate that.
“Are you trying to break my wife’s fingers? In my own home?” a deep male voice booms out across the room, nothing but malice reverberating in his tone. In a flash, there's a silver blade pressing against my windpipe, the edge drawing pearls of blood to the surface of the delicate flesh. I bellow a laugh, the motion causing the blade to cut deeper, but I can’t be bothered to care.
The Ghost has arrived.
“Well, hellooo. Nice of you to join us.” I smirk, pressing forward into the blade to call his bluff. However, he holds the blade steady, and Brett lets out a horrified gasp as more blood pours down my neck and chest.
“Ghost! Stop that right now!”
“He was hurting you,” Ghost murmurs, his voice eerily monotone as he digs the blade closer toward my windpipe. “I don’t like when things hurt you.”
“Good Lord! He wasn’t actually hurting me.”
“Listen to your woman, Ghost. She knows best—ow!” I raise a hand to clutch my temple, now throbbing from where Ghost slammed the handle of his dagger. At least he dropped the blade, though. “ This is the greeting I get after eight years? Harsh.”
“You brought it on yourself.” Ghost pockets his dagger and turns to Brett with a pained expression. “I’m sorry you had to see that, darling.”
“This is bullshit,” I grumble, ducking just in time to dodge the punch Ghost throws in retaliation. “What? I feel like if anyone in this room is owed an apology, it’s probably the guy who almost got his throat slit for no good reason. Just saying.”
Ghost narrows his eyes. “I may have… overreacted slightly.”
“Slightly? You and Brett need to get your measurements straight, I swear.”
At my words, Brett lets out a boisterous laugh, causing some of the murderous rage in Ghost’s eyes to die. Thank bejeesus for that.
He turns his gaze back to me, and the murder flares to life again. “Well? Explain yourself.”
I’m about to reply with something sarcastic when Brett smacks Ghost hard on the arm, though he doesn’t react in the slightest. “Ghost! We should let him get settled in first.”
“Ah, yes. Get me all nice and comfy with a false sense of security before you attempt to extract my secrets from me. I like the way you think, Brett.” I tap my noggin with a smirk. “Diabolical as ever.”
Brett rolls her eyes. “Fine. You don’t have to talk about it. You don’t have to mention one word of what happened eight years ago. You absolutely have no need to explain why you cut off all contact with your family for no reason or even why you refused each one of our twelve hundred attempted visits. Why you didn’t trust us enough to listen to your side of the story. To help you. And you certainly don’t have to explain why you broke our hearts.”
Shit. She’s gotten a lot better at the guilt trip since becoming a mom. “Brett… I’m sorry… it's not that I didn’t trust you. It’s that I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t want to get out of there. I wanted to be left alone to rot. To live out the only fate I deserved.”
“But why? ” Her lower lip quivers as she looks upon the broken thing I’ve become. “Why would you do that to yourself?”
Ghost suddenly raises his head, his violet eyes swirling with understanding. “What happened that night, Orion? What happened at the Hound’s clubhouse? Why were you there in the first place?”
I shake my head, finding a spot on the floor to stare at and refusing to move my eyes. I’m about to open my mouth and tell them everything when a small screech reaches my ears. I whip my head toward the hallway, noticing half of a face peering at us from behind the shadowed corner.
“Sloane!” Brett crosses her arms as she gives her daughter a stern look. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”
“I don't wanna go to bed!” she whines, her violet eyes wide and brimming with tears. It’s clear she doesn’t wish to shed them, but her emotions are getting the best of her. For a moment, I debate offering to let her stay—quickly banishing the thought when I remember she’s barely eight years old, and this is not a conversation she should listen to.
“Listen to your mother, Sloane.” Ghost walks over and hauls her into his arms. He places a kiss on her unruly black hair, whispering something to her that sounds a lot like “I’ll fill you in later, babygirl. But only if you’re good to your mom.”
He places her back on the ground as Brett gives me an apologetic smile. She walks over and takes Sloane’s hand, kissing her husband lightly on the cheek. “I’m gonna go read with her for a bit. You go talk—I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on.” There’s a loving warmth in her gaze as she looks at Ghost. Happy. Fulfilled.
Jealousy roils in my stomach, though it has nothing to do with her or them. It's that thing they have. That unending, unequivocal, magical kind of bond. Though I would never dream of voicing it, I’ve always longed for something like that of my own.
Ghost watches them until they disappear into the bedroom, then he just stares at the closed door for a few moments. Wordlessly, he nods his chin at me, then takes off down the hall.
I follow him into his office, the golden-eyed girl’s shot glass heavy in my pocket. The door slides shut behind us, and he turns his violet eyes onto me with a question bursting forth. Before he has time to ask, I grab the shot glass from my pocket and toss it to him. He looks down at the faint red lipstick print on the rim, his brow furrowing.
“What is this?”
“I need you to help me find someone.” I lean my shoulder casually against the wall. “Figured that might help.”
Ghost sighs, placing the glass gingerly on top of his black oak desk, refusing to look at me. “Why?”
The question takes me aback for a long moment, and I find at the end, I don’t have an answer for him. “I just need to find them. I have to?—-”
“No,” he interjects, finally turning his gaze onto me. “ Why should I help you? Why, after all this time, when you still refuse to explain yourself?”
I don’t understand the look on his face as he speaks, but the more he goes on, I begin to realize. He’s hurt— I hurt Ghost. The thought is so preposterous, so unbelievable.
Yet, it’s clear as day.
“Is it true?” His violet eyes pierce me from across the room. “Did you really kill that little girl?”
A humorless laugh falls from my lips. “You really need to ask me that?”
“Brett doesn’t think so. She never did. Not for a moment.” His lips press into a thin line. “You broke her heart. You know that, right?”
I nod, suddenly at a loss for words. What could I say to that? “Ghost, I’m sorry?—”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” He runs a hand across a face much too tired for his years. “I know you didn’t do it. But you let them imprison you. It was senseless, needless self-sacrifice. And for that, I admit I was… I was angry with you. Angry you wouldn’t let us help you. Angry you cut all ties with Brett and me… and Sloane.” His voice cracks at the mention of his daughter. “She was robbed of the best uncle a girl could ever have.” He looks up through lowered lids. “I understand why you did it. I know all too well the guilt you carry from that day. I never blamed you for that, and I never will. You were my brother then, and you’re my brother now. Because of that, I will do what you ask of me. I’ll find whoever it is you want to find.”
I open my mouth to thank him, but the severity in his eyes has the words dying in my throat. “I understand why you made your decision, but you made my girls cry, Orion. And that is something I will never forget. Never forgive.”
I swallow hard, guilt settling in the pit of my stomach as I think of Brett, her big eyes red from crying after each time I denied her visitation. At the time, I wanted to be left alone—to rot in my misery—and I wasn’t thinking about all the people I was hurting in the process. Truthfully, I didn’t care. And the knowledge of that hurts the deepest.
Pulling his eyes from my face, Ghost turns his attention to the shot glass in his palm, twirling the crystal between his fingers as he inspects the lipstick mark beneath the lights.
“You’re looking for a woman.” A statement, not a question.
“I am.”
“Why?” he asks, never taking his eyes from the mark.
I pause for a beat, considering my words carefully. “I think you already know.”
He closes his eyes tight, taking a deep inhale. “Your intentions?”
“Oh, I’m sorry—I didn’t realize you suddenly grew a pair of morals. I just need you to find her. I can take care of the rest.”
His eyes fly open, and when he speaks, his voice is low. Dangerous. “You’ve changed, Orion…”
That sentence shouldn’t be like a knife to my heart, but it is. Not that he uttered it, but because it’s true. “I guess you have eyes. Good for you.”
His nostrils flare, but he says nothing to retaliate. “I’ll have the info for you in a day or so. And Orion?”
I raise my brows, preparing myself mentally for the blow he’s about to deliver. Except it never comes.
Ghost strides up to me, throwing his arms around me and pulling me into a bear hug. I’m so shocked that I don’t return the gesture for a moment, but when I do, Ghost pulls me tighter against him in a brotherly embrace.
“I’m glad you’re back, Orion,” he says, pulling back with a heavy emotion swimming in his violet gaze. “Don’t do that again. Okay?”
He slaps my shoulder as he passes me, moving down the hall silent as a phantom. He stops at his bedroom door, waggling his fingertips at me in a silent adieu.
And then he’s gone.
I see my way out of the lair, a heaviness settling in my chest as I take the stone steps to the exit and leave the place I called home. But it is no longer and will never be again.
I step out onto the clearing, lulled by the distant waves lapping against the cliffs, their strength just as powerful as the sadness cresting in my veins.
Because even though I am free, I have never felt lonelier in my life.