Hush Read online

  Hush

  Anne Malcom

  BT Urruela

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Author

  Also by Anne Malcom

  Also by BT Urruela

  Copyright 2020 by Anne Malcom.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Furiousfotog

  Editing: Great Imaginations

  Proofreading: The Proof Is In The Reading

  For everyone who survived the monsters of this monstrous world.

  Including the ones inside their heads.

  “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

  - William Shakespeare

  Prologue

  Missouri summers are never easy, but this was a summer day for the record book in Grandview, a small farming community three hours southwest of St. Louis. The sweltering heat was worsened by the humidity that stuck to you like a second skin and kept most of the locals indoors—but not the children. Some spent the day running wildly through sprinklers in their front yards, others splashed around in the many brooks and creeks that surrounded the town. The older kids were looking for trouble . . . fireworks, alcohol, pot—anything that would give them a rush, a grounding, and some cool points.

  But for Orion Darby, it was not the heat she was concerned with, nor any childish games or teenage rebellion. No, it was the blue-eyed boy standing across from her on the back deck of his parents’ home. It was her first kiss on a broiling evening in June.

  It would be the last little breath of happiness before her world went dark, and a cell became her home. Before she would wonder whether it was cruel of the universe to give her that little taste of happiness, Maddox’s soft, hesitant mouth tasting faintly like Juicy Fruit. Or a blessing to give her that singular memory to hold on to when the pain felt like it could kill her. Much later than that, she’d realize that the universe was not concerned with her, that there were no greater powers at work other than monsters masquerading as men and she was just a pawn in their world. Surely, if there was a god, he would’ve saved girls like her.

  But that was later.

  This was still that perfect summer day . . . that perfect first kiss.

  Maddox Hampton Novak—or Maddie as loved ones called him—wasn’t supposed to like someone like Orion. He was the epitome of a teenage heartthrob. He played lead guitar in a punk band, started every varsity game as wide receiver for the football team, and he was even the lead in all the school plays. A true Renaissance man. Had he not been the older brother of her best friend, April, Orion knew he wouldn’t have thought twice about looking at her, let alone kissing her. At least, that’s what she told herself. Besides, he was sixteen, two years her senior, and he had plenty of girls his own age to chase after. Some older ones too.

  Orion had never planned on kissing him, even after she noticed her lingering glances were being returned. She didn’t want to piss off her best friend, didn’t want to destroy the only real thing she had in her life then. But when the town stud starts noticing the girl from the poor family, with Walmart clothes two sizes too small and a face dotted with countless freckles, what exactly was she to do?

  That was the most peculiar aspect of it all really. She was a Darby, and Darbys were poverty-stricken nobodies. Always had been. Always would be. They lived in squalor at Sunnyside Trailer Park, the scourge of Grandview, in a trailer passed down from one dirtbag to the next. Darbys drank away their paychecks and fed their kids scraps, perpetuating a cycle of addiction and abuse that lasted generations.

  The Novaks—Maddox and April—lived in a two-story house situated on three acres, in a community where each home was more impressive than the next. Their father was the only dentist in town, their mother a paralegal for the only law firm. Lights were always on, the water always ran, and life was good. Maddox and April had two parents who cared about them, who didn’t have rap sheets, who didn’t lay a hand on them in anger, and bought them whatever they desired. In other words, they were the exact opposite of everything Orion had ever known.

  When she first befriended April in the second grade, she had yet to realize just how different her existence was compared to everybody else’s. It wasn’t until she saw the Novak’s house for the first time, full of all their things, and all their happiness and familial love, that she realized just how bad things were.

  That was why Ri never expected the heartthrob she’d secretly loved for years to finally see her . . . to want her.

  The week before, he’d pulled her aside at Jessie Knowles’s party, and told her how he felt, told her he wanted to kiss her, and his words made her come alive.

  She had dreamed of it happening but never expected it, that smile he flashed as he held her hands on the back porch, the sun setting behind them and casting beautiful reds and oranges like fire across the sky. Slightly crooked, that smile of his. But not his teeth. Being the son of the town dentist had more benefits than just a nice home. For a moment, it reminded her of her own teeth, crooked as they were, though white from habitual cleaning, so she flashed him a tight-lipped smile back.

  The way he looked at her then, a stupid grin on his face as his eyes traced her lips, made her both nervous and excited. When he finally kissed her, she forgot all about the fact that he had just broken up with Sharlene Evans, the most beautiful girl in school. She forgot about the long line of beautiful girls who had come before Sharlene. Forgot about her crooked smile, her Walmart clothes, and her shitty parents. None of it mattered because right then, in his embrace, he saw only her and she saw only him—the world was theirs for the taking.

  He kissed her passionately, like she was the only girl in the world. It was the kind of first kiss that girls with straight teeth and more reputable last names deserved.

  But Ri didn’t think about that.

  She just thought about how perfect he tasted, how freeing it felt to be wanted by the boy she had loved for so long. The boy all the other girls wanted.

  Maddox pulled back, staring at her with a smile in his eyes, but not on his lips. He rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip in a practiced move that was so very adult and manly.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he muttered through a grin.

  “Thank you,” Ri said, voice meek and raspy, her nervous eyes jutting to the wooden deck beneath their feet.

  Maddox’s fingers went to her chin, forcing her gaze upward.

  “I mean it,” he said. Louder this time. More forceful. “I’ve always thought about what it’d be like to kiss you.”

  Ri’s stomach dropped much like she imagined it would’ve had she been on a roller coaster—which of course, she wasn’t. Her family could never afford Six Flags. But she figured it’d feel like thrill, fear, and excitement mixed up in her insides.

  “Really?” she asked, unable to keep the shock from her voice. “I mean, it felt like lately, maybe you were feeling some kind of way about me. Flirting, I guess, but I didn’t know, I could
n’t ever imagine you actually liking me. And then with everything else . . .” Her voice trailed off. She shouldn’t have talked so much. Shouldn’t have made her doubt so prominent, right on the surface. She should’ve buried it deep down, much like the shame her last name brought with it.

  Maddox shrugged. “You mean my sister.”

  Ri nodded. April had not been blind to the way Ri looked at her brother, and she’d given Ri a bunch of crap about it, making it clear she didn’t approve. Orion tried denying her feelings, but unlike her parents, she was no good at lying. She’d made a promise to her best friend that she would stop liking Maddox. The promise wasn’t a lie, per se. She really did try.

  Then came this moment, on this perfect summer evening, with this perfect boy, and it all had gotten the best of her. A first kiss was important to a girl, especially a kiss like this. And though she had defied her best friend’s request, she was certain that no first kiss had ever been better.

  It was in the midst of this perfect kiss when Orion heard a familiar voice, thick with agitation.

  “Ew, Orion . . . I did not just catch you making out with my brother.”

  Orion glanced up and found April with a hand on her hip and annoyance in her eyes.

  Maddox moved slightly but purposefully in front of Ri, like he was going to protect her. Not only from his pissed-off and overly dramatic sister, but from the world. “Give it a rest, April,” he said. “It’s none of your business.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you, buttface,” April snapped, her piercing gaze focusing on Ri. “Orion, are you aware that it’s almost dark?” She pointed to the sky. “Um, hellooo . . . your mom’s gonna kill you.”

  Ri, who had been feeling delightfully soft and carefree, snapped her eyes up at the sky. Panic crawled into her throat. Reality hit.

  “As mad as I am at you right now, I’d prefer my best friend remain alive. Who else am I gonna watch Charmed with?” April continued, and she let out a huff.

  “I’m so screwed,” Ri said, hating her best friend a little in that moment for ripping her out of this dream. She eyed Maddox, a pout forming. “I don’t want to leave,” she admitted. “Today, all of this was just . . . perfect.”

  A gagging noise came from the direction of the back door as April slid it open. “Okay, I’m going back inside now. I can’t witness this nonsense or I might puke.” April shook her head. “Get home, so you don’t get grounded, Ri. I wanna hang out tomorrow, but don’t think I’m not still pissed!” April said with a little scowl, before storming inside and sliding the door closed hard behind her.

  Maddox put his arms around Ri, the gesture already natural, right. He wasn’t hesitant, nervous. No, he touched her like he had been doing it for months. “Don’t worry about her. You know she’ll forget why she’s angry by the time you get home.” He kissed her forehead. “It’ll all work out.” He said it with such assurance that Orion wanted to believe it, wanted to pretend things worked out for girls like her. To pretend that bad things weren’t waiting in the wings to tear it all down.

  She almost fell for it. She wanted to. But she didn’t have a perfect life, and she had plenty of real worries. She did not have experience in everything ‘working out.’

  Maddox saw her worry, her confusion, maybe not the depth of it, because he didn’t have the ability to read people too far beyond the surface—not yet anyway—but he saw enough to know her mind was running, her thoughts a storm.

  So he kissed her again.

  “Trust me?” he asked, cocking his head.

  It was a big question to a girl like Ri. She didn’t know how to trust because she always had to be on guard, on the defensive. Really, she didn’t even know what trust meant, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. She wasn’t about to let him in on how messed up her thoughts were sometimes, how self-degrading.

  “I trust you,” she muttered, her chest tightening, the hurt of having to leave feeling all too real.

  He took her in for one last hug, kissed the top of her head, and whispered, “I won’t break that trust, Ri.”

  They were the last words she’d hear him say for ten years.

  She thought about him the whole ride home. She was happy. Hopeful, even. Energized enough not to worry about a grounding or a beating. Enamored enough not to notice the van following her.

  How could she have noticed it? She was imagining a future with the man of her dreams. The wedding. The house on the rich side of town. The cars, the babies. No thoughts of jobs, bills, or practicalities. Girls weren’t plagued with the details of reality, not after their first kiss anyway.

  The bike ride home from the Novaks wasn’t too far for Orion—a fifteen-minute trip at best—and she had done it so many times before that she could do it in her sleep. But along the way, as she got closer to home, the area grew more derelict—smashed streetlights, long abandoned industrial buildings, and very few homes, which were rundown and unsightly themselves. Orion had always ridden extra fast through these parts, but this time she was too distracted, too lost in her thoughts, too immersed in a world where she lived life as Mrs. Orion Novak.

  By the time she noticed the van behind her, it was too late. Its bumper clipped the rear tire of her bike and sent her flying over the handlebars, hurtling her onto the front of a rusty Civic that was parked on the street. She bounced off the windshield and landed with a jarring thump on the road, the breath heaving from her lungs. Her whole body stung, muscles seized, hot blood dripped from her nose.

  It wasn’t a pretty crash.

  It was ugly.

  Just like the rest of her life was about to become.

  One

  As a child, Orion was a force to be reckoned with. She talked back. Complained. Refused to cry. Did just about everything an overdisciplined child of abuse shouldn’t do. It was her way of taking back control. Of fighting back against the beatings, the despicable words, the ugliness of life itself.

  When she didn’t give her father the tears he desired, he’d zip-tie her hands, duct-tape her mouth, and make her sit in a closet in complete darkness, sometimes for a few minutes, other times for hours. The length of time depended on her father’s anger, state of inebriation, or if her little brother was able to sneak in and let her out himself with their father none the wiser. Adam was always looking out for her in that way, trying to help her when he could, even if it risked abuse of his own. Perhaps it was his loving nature, or maybe he felt guilt over his sister’s much tougher treatment at the hands of their father.

  Ri had been so sure that she’d escape it all as soon as she was old enough and had earned enough money. On that fateful bike ride home, she had entertained the thought of Maddox potentially being involved in that escape. Not as a savior, because she was going to save herself regardless, but as a partner-in-crime of sorts.

  It didn’t take her long to realize she wasn’t going to be saved. Wasn’t going to escape. Her life was only going to get worse and worse and worse, until she was eventually snuffed out like a candle in the wind and the world forgot all about her.

  She eventually discovered that all the pain she felt as a child—her father’s temper and cruelty, her mother’s apathy and complete disregard—was all practice, training for the years she’d spend in a twenty square foot concrete cell, in the basement of an unassuming house, twenty miles from her home.

  The first night was little more than a blur. Being thrown into the van, her head throbbing, her vision blurry, the pain immense. Voices gruff and cruel. She remembered begging, pleading. And the smell. Like body odor, cheap booze . . . like her father. But worse than that. Like something was decaying from the inside out. She’d smelled it on their breath. Hot on her face. Terrifying.

  Her bladder let go at some point, she remembered that. The smell of her own urine mixed in with the filth of the van, a smell that would stay with her forever.

  She didn’t remember the specifics of the van ride, apart from the wetness between her legs, the shame, terror, and pain mixed in.
She remembered them speaking, threatening . . . the Things. She’d learn that all the girls called them Thing One and Two. They didn’t have names, didn’t deserve them. They were monsters. That’s all.

  She didn’t consider them monsters at first because she was too afraid. Disorientated. Confused. There wasn’t enough clarity to understand what was going on. Maybe she didn’t want to understand. If she didn’t understand, didn’t force herself to face the facts, then she could pretend this wasn’t happening. That somehow she’d strayed into a nightmare like The Twilight Zone. She’d wake up soon.

  But she didn’t.

  The nightmare wasn’t in her head.

  The nightmares had become reality.

  She didn’t hear much of what they said, but one sentence stuck out to her, carved itself into her soul.

  “Hush now, girl. You belong to us now . . .”

  Reality became stark, lucid and inescapable with the first rape in the back of the van that first night.

  A girl always remembers her first time.

  She was kissed tenderly, lovingly, and amazingly on a perfect summer day by the boy of her dreams. On that nightmare summer night, her virginity was torn from her, painfully, violently, and terrifyingly in the back of that smelly van. Their sweat-soaked hands kept her screams bottled up inside and her arms clamped down at her sides. She fought until she could fight no longer. Her tired muscles gave out, she closed her eyes, and she used Maddox then for the first time as a sort of trance, a meditation . . . his beautiful smile, his tender kiss, his loving touch.