Page 81 of Caged Bird

“You take Fawn and…” He glanced at Zane. “Himhome.”

My sister looked ready to rip Vincent’s knife from his fingers and turn it on him. “I know you didn’t just give me babysitting duties. After all these years. Need I remind you I came back from overseas to rescue your scrawny ass once upon a time.”

“That didn’t work out so badly for you, Ophelia.”

Vincent’s manner was always quiet and to the point, but there was something else in his tone. Something I didn’t quite catch.

But clearly, Ophelia did.

She closed her mouth, pressing her lips together tightly, and shot a glance in my direction. I cocked my head to one side, silently questioning her, but her teeth dug into her bottom lip, and she turned away.

It had been a long time since I’d seen my sister. A lot had changed. But I still knew her. And she was hiding something.

Something that was eating her alive with guilt if her expression was anything to go by.

But it wasn’t my way to push, and so I let her and Vincent argue until they agreed they needed backup and a well-thought-out plan.

I wanted to argue. Wanted to demand we go after Eddie now, and that his disappearance had to have something to do with Guerra and his wife. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to just storm the Guerras’ house and force them to tell me where Eddiehad taken my child. My mama heart just needed my baby back in my arms.

But I also knew that while once upon a time, I’d wanted nothing to do with the two people in the front seats of the car, arguing back and forth about storming houses, taking captives, threatening murder and mayhem and violence and destruction, now they were my best hope of getting my child back.

And I needed to let them do what my parents had trained them to do.

Even though I was terrified they wouldn’t succeed and Otis would be lost to me forever.

The very idea sent a chill of panic through my body that was only chased away when Zane put his arm around my shoulders, and in the darkness of the back seat, held me close.

Ophelia shot us worried, disapproving glances in the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t bring myself to care what my sister thought.

I needed Zane. His touch steadied the nervous, frayed edges inside me, the low rumble of his voice comforting as he mumbled reassurances to me that some deep-rooted, fearful part believed.

In the back seat of that car, it wasn’t my siblings who talked me off the ledge. It was Zane’s touch, soft and gentle against my skin, that lulled me into sleep.

“Fawn.”

Zane’s voice cut through the fogginess of sleep, and I peeled my face from the crumpled mess I’d made of his shirt. I peered up at him, blinking, taking a second to realize we were still in the car but no longer hurtling alongfreeways in the dark. The sun had risen, and the sky was splashed with pretty pinks and golds.

Outside, the streets were familiar, the sign for Saint View High flashing by as my sister maneuvered the car through town. I sat bolt upright.

“We’re in Saint View?” Panic speared through me again and wiped out the last remains of the calm, deep sleep Zane’s embrace had lured me into. “We can’t be in Saint View! Otis—”

Ophelia glanced back at me. “We got all the details we needed out of Zane while you slept, and we have a plan. There’s a team headed to Eddie’s house now to do surveillance, but that’s just me covering all bases. He’s not going back there. He knows you’re going to come to us, and we know this whole thing is all about hurting you. We need to be where he can find us. And I’m not cocky enough to think we don’t need backup. We might only get one shot at getting Otis back, and for that, we need more bodies. I need you to trust me.”

I shook my head, fighting back tears. “He’s just a baby, Lia. We’ve never spent a night apart.”

She parked in front of a house and then twisted to look at me properly. Her gaze was as solid and dependable as I remembered. It was the big sister face she’d made when I was little and kids at school had picked on me. It was the expression she’d worn when our parents had tried and failed to make me more like her. Tougher. Stronger. Ruthless.

Ophelia had always been the one to stick up for me. To protect me. When I’d wanted out, wanted to leave the family behind, she’d been the one who’d stopped our parents coming after me.

She’d always been on my side. She’d been the one who’d set me free.

And she was asking me to trust her again.

I nodded. “Okay.”

She reached a hand back to me, and I clasped it, taking note of the surety in her expression and letting it wrap around me reassuringly.

If Ophelia said this was what needed to happen for them to bring Otis back to me, then it was.

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