Page 11 of Caged Bird

I honestly didn’t care.

The sun rose outside the dirty windows, and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. Mom would wake soon and freak out when she realized I wasn’t there.

I minimized the surveillance app and called my mother, drumming my fingers on the tabletop and praying the waitress would be fast. I didn’t even know what I was going to say when Mom answered. She’d made so much progress. She’d even started seeing a therapist who she met with via Zoom. It hadn’t helped with her dreams, but it had helped her to leave the house at all.

This was going to set her right back to the beginning. I just knew it.

Her phone rang out, and a sick feeling swirled in my stomach. I called again, but the same thing happened. The third time I risked the wrath of the other people in the restaurant and put the call on loudspeaker so I could watch the footage at the same time.

Mom was up and moving around, but her phone was nowhere to be seen. I peered at the nightstand in her bedroom, where she charged it diligently each night, but it wasn’t there.

Another call came through, and this time, I recognized the number. I wanted to smash my head against the wall. “What?”

“Why are you so codependent on our mother that you call her multiple times in the space of a minute?”

“You took her phone then?”

Eddie laughed. “I didn’t. I’m laid up in a hospital bed with a very painful gunshot wound that required surgery and a fuck ton of stitches to fix. I couldn’t steal so much as a Snickers bar from the vending machine.” He smacked his lips, like he was devouring a candy bar right then. “My guys might have slipped inside and borrowed it though.”

I despised the idea of those men being in the house while she’d slept. And that I hadn’t even noticed them.

“That’s how easy you’ve made it for me, Zaney boy. Did you really think a couple of cameras and some bars on the windows would be enough?”

I said nothing.

“How far away are you?”

“An hour.”

“Hurry up. Clock’s ticking. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

I left the diner without waiting for my order. The shot of adrenaline that came from knowing my mother was completely cut off from the outside world and a sitting duck was enough to get me to the hospital in the city. The final hour of the drive a blurry rush of cars and nausea.

I parked illegally near the entrance and jogged inside the building, stopping only at reception to ask where Eddie’s room was. The woman behind the desk gave me directions, and I followed them up to the third floor, eyeing every phone and security guard as I went, trying to come up with some sort of plan where Eddie went to jail for the rest of his life and I got to walk away with mine.

Except every scenario I ran, all played out the same way. I called the cops and sent them to check on my mom. They’d do a quick check of the perimeter, see nothing was amiss, and then leave.

And Eddie would be pissed off enough to hurt her.

Or I told these security guards what my brother was and how he was dangerous. And they laughed in my face, because how dangerous could a man be when he was in a hospital gown that showed his ass?

No matter what scenario I tried in my head, they all ended with Eddie on top. My mom hurt. And me caught in the fucking middle.

Forever Eddie’s pawn.

I found his room and had to force my feet to enter it. Two beds filled the space, each with a flimsy green curtain offering some degree of visual privacy from the other patient but did nothing to muffle the obnoxious sound of Eddie’s voice loudly barking orders down the phone.

I drew the curtain back.

Eddie’s gaze slid to mine. “Gotta go. My ride just showed up. Finally.”

I ground my teeth, biting down hard.

He raised an eyebrow. “What? No hug for your brother? No concern for the life-threatening injury I sustained?”

He was a cockroach. The kind that would still be alive even after a nuclear explosion. He didn’t look any different than the last time I’d seen him. Still tall and thick as a tree trunk. His ugly prison tattoos still marring his skin. His eyes still beady and sharp and full of cruelty.

I just wanted to get as far away from him as possible. “I’m here. Now what do you want?”

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