Page 17 of Caged Bird

Whatever friendship there’d been between us was long gone. As dead and buried as the person I’d once been.

Even still, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I’d barely gotten a glimpse of him five years ago, when he’d been there with his brother, holding me captive in a blacked-out room. All I really remembered from those days was his green eyes amongst all the darkness.

But he’d changed from the teenager I’d known best. Approaching thirty, he’d lost the slimmed-out appearance he’d once had, and gangly limbs had been replaced by muscled biceps and strong thighs.

The laborer’s workpants and the shirt reading AP Concrete and Earthmoving probably explained the new physique. His skin was deeply tanned and even from here, I could see the dirt beneath his nails. He could have stepped right off a jobsite.

Eddie drew me under his arm and kissed the top of my head. “How about we go inside? I had Zane stop and get some groceries. Maybe my sweetheart here could whip us up a nice lunch. What do you think, Peach?”

I wanted to cringe away from his touch and tell him he and his brother could shove their meals up their asses. I wanted to scream at him and remind him that while he’d been eating three square meals a day at the hospital, his son and I had been slowly starving.

The very thought of making Eddie and Zane a meal had bile rising in my throat and venom sitting on my tongue, ready to spit.

Eddie’s fingernails dug into the fleshy part of my upper arm.

A reminder he was in control here. And I had no say in the matter.

I was so sick of having no voice.

But just like he always did, when my thoughts of rebellion got too loud, Eddie reached for Otis.

And that was enough to get me to instantly blurt out, “Of course. I’ll make us all something right away. Just let me get the groceries. Are they in the back of the truck?”

Eddie snorted. “Where else would they be?”

I gritted my teeth and moved to the truck bed, dropping the tailgate and peering beneath the expensive hard-top cover for the bags of groceries. I closed my eyes for the briefest ofmoments, knowing I needed to get myself under control. It was dangerous not to. I wrapped my fingers around the plastic bag handle, forcing out the ideas of wrapping one over Eddie’s head and suffocating him with it.

Zane came to my side. “Let me help.”

I froze at how close he was.

Knew I’d pay for it later if Eddie saw. “I don’t need your help.”

Zane paused, not looking at me.

It gave me a moment to breathe him in. And though he smelled about as good as I did, there was something familiar about his scent that my body remembered. Something that reminded me of the kindhearted teenager who’d sat with me when his brother was being a drunk, obnoxious fool at a party instead of paying attention to his girlfriend. Something that reminded me Zane hadn’t always been just like Eddie.

“I want to help,” he said quietly.

I glanced at him sharply, our gazes connecting. For a tiny second I thought there might have been a hidden meaning in his words.

But fear swallowed up any notion of that idea in an instant.

Zane had already shown me who he was once.

I’d trusted him, and it had blown up in my face.

I wouldn’t make that mistake twice.

I gathered all the bags and lifted them from the truck. Despite the weight cutting into my palms, and my shaking, wasted biceps, I moved past him without turning back.

The same way he’d done to me, leaving me at the bottom of a stairwell for dead.

5

ZANE

Fawn walked away into the house, her little son following her quickly. She let him take a bag to help her, and I pressed my lips together, watching them.

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