Page 55 of Caged Bird

He shook her violently, and I knew why.

Because Zane and Eddie’s mom looked dead. Her eyes were so lifeless I couldn’t bear to see them any longer. I turned away.

Eddie slung an arm around my shoulder. “Where you going, Peach? Don’t you want to say hi to Mom? I know she’s a traitorous old bitch, but she is my mother. The least you can do is be polite.”

He steered me back to where Zane frantically ripped at his mother’s bindings and begged her to say something.

Eddie leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Aren’t you glad I was the one who punished you and not Spider? At least Ididn’t chase you around the house with a knife until you were practically fucking comatose with fear, and then drive for hours with you tied up in the back of a truck.”

I said nothing.

Eddie’s cruelty knew no bounds. I had no doubt in my mind he’d instructed Spider to do every single one of those horrible things to the woman.

Eddie grabbed my ponytail and yanked my head back. “I said, aren’t you grateful?”

He forced me to nod, jerking my head up and down by my hair. He didn’t stop until I whispered, “Thank you, Eddie.”

He shoved me again. “Help Zane get the old bitch inside.”

Zane crouched on the back of the truck, supporting his mother to sit, and glared at his brother. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you like this? What did she ever do to you?”

Eddie’s jaw locked, and his lip curled up in a sneer. “You have some serious rose-colored glasses, Zaney boy. You don’t remember the way she ran Dad off? Nagged him so fucking much he couldn’t take it anymore and just never came home one day?” He stared at the older woman. “And then once he was out of the picture, it was me she nagged twenty-four seven. Always in my fucking business. Just like she is now.”

Zane lost his patience. “We were out of your life! We wanted nothing to do with you, but you fucking hunted us down, Eddie!”

“Because I needed you! I’m fucking injured, and you and Mommy dearest arestillnot there for me. I don’t know why I would have expected anything different; you always were her favorite.”

Zane’s frustration was etched into every muscle of his body. “Do you think that’s maybe because I don’t torment her the way you do? All I remember from being a kid is you doing things to hurt other people. Tripping Mom when she was carrying trays of cookies and then laughing at her when she hit the floor and thecookies went everywhere. Holding my hand to a hot plate until I screamed.” He glanced at me. “Throwing Fawn down those stairs until she was so damn broken she looked like she was dead. You don’t even draw the line at hurting your own son! You know it was me who held him the other night while you were hurting his mother? Me who held him on my lap and calmed him down. He barely fucking knows me, Eddie, and yet he came to me for comfort because he knows his father is a goddamn monster.”

Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “You think you’re so fucking perfect, don’t you?”

Zane shook his head. “Not even a bit.”

“You are though. The perfect son. You were never the one Dad belted for being such a fucking disappointment. You were never the one he laughed at in front of the whole neighborhood when it took you weeks to learn how to ride a bike. He never even tried to take me with him.”

Despite the way I hated him, my heart gave a tiny squeeze for the hurt, ignored, and belittled child he’d once been.

“He didn’t take me either!” Zane roared. “You know who taught me to ride a bike? Mom did. You aren’t fucking special because Dad didn’t love you. You’re just a narcissistic psychopath who doesn’t feel remorse for anything, the same way he was.”

And in a heartbeat, I realized Eddie’s whole sob story was a lie. A big dramatic story I’d almost fallen for because, unlike him, all I knew was empathy. Even after everything I’d been through, I knew where my heart lay, and it was in kindness.

I refused to think that was a bad thing. Maybe if I’d been heartless, I could have escaped from Eddie by now. Maybe I could have killed him in his sleep or poisoned him or tripped him at the top of the stairs and hoped the fall down them would snap his neck.

But that wasn’t who I was. It wasn’t who Otis was, or who Zane or their mom was. It wasn’t how any normal, average person acted.

But Eddie was far from normal or average. And he proved it again now with his laughter. He turned to Spider. “I thought that performance was Oscar-worthy, personally. Didn’t you?”

Spider nodded. “Believed every word.”

Eddie twisted back to face Zane. “I gave you your mommy back, just like you wanted.”

He shook his head. “This isn’t what I wanted.”

“You said she’d die without you, didn’t you? That she’d only last a few days before she forgot where her fucking medicine was and overdosed or something. So I brought her here for you. You’re supposed to say thank you.”

Zane said nothing, just rubbed his mother’s arm absently.

Eddie threw up his hands in frustration. “Fuck me, you and Peach are a bunch of ungrateful assholes, aren’t you?” He flicked a hand toward Spider. “I’m sick of the both of them. Let’s go find a bar.”

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