Page 16 of Caged Bird

I froze as the man with the baseball cap turned around, his green-eyed gaze meeting mine.

Shock rippled across his expression, his eyes widening, his full lips parting on a rushed exhale of air. “Fawn?”

I’d met Eddie’s brother as a teenager. He and I had been the same age when I’d started dating Eddie. He’d been almost as tall as Eddie but skinny and gangly with youth. Quiet. Kind. He’d been sweet to me.

But the last time I’d seen him had been years later, when he’d helped his brother hold me captive.

He’d been there the day Eddie had tried to kill me, pushing me over the staircase railing.

He’d done nothing to stop him.

The kind, quiet boy I’d known was as big a monster as his older brother.

Worse maybe, because he’d made me think I was his friend.

When we were anything but.

Another squeeze of Eddie’s hand reminded me of the performance I was supposed to be putting on. I lifted my head and drew my shoulders back as best I could, though the thick keloid scar that ran down my back pulled painfully. “Hello, Zane.”

The words rolled off my tongue with a near visible frost.

Eddie gave a pleased chuckle, though I had no idea why.

Otis looked from Zane to Eddie to me, completely missing the animosity in the air between the three of us.

Zane stared at me like he’d seen a ghost. “I thought you were—”

I cut him off with a sharp look at the little boy, watching and taking in every word.

He didn’t need to hear Zane had thought me dead.

To him, I was.

Zane pressed his lips together and nodded, but his gaze never left my face. It flickered all over me, skimming across my hair that he’d only ever seen blond. My eyes. My nose. His gaze lingered on my lips long enough I noticed, before sweeping down my body.

An unwanted feeling stirred inside me. Something that was dredged up from deep inside, a faint memory of what it felt like when a man looked at you with honest desire instead of leering greed.

But it disintegrated the moment Zane’s gaze lifted back to meet mine.

His eyes were filled with pity…and something more sinister.

Disgust?

I dragged my thin cardigan tighter over my chest with the one free arm I had, the other still gripped by Eddie. I didn’t need to see myself to know why Zane stared at me like that.

Hair unkempt. Hadn’t showered in days. No makeup. Ratty clothes and half starved.

I was a far cry from the pretty blond stripper I’d been when he and his brother had snatched me from my home.

But I refused to hide. I held his gaze, mine burning with embarrassment but also a will to be seen.

He’d done this to me, just as much as his brother had. He might not have been the one to carry me into the back of a blacked-out van. He might not have been the one to lock me in a basement and hold me prisoner.

But he’d been there. He’d heard my cries. He’d listened to me beg for help.

And he’d done nothing but walk away.

He’d gotten to live his life for the last five years while I’d slowly healed from injuries that should have killed me. He’d probably been going to concerts and birthdays and hanging out with friends and flirting with women, while I was chained in the house of horrors his brother had created.

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