Page 28 of Caged Bird

“Is there anythingyouneed, Fawn?”

I swallowed hard. His question didn’t sound like a trick. It sounded sincere.

But then Eddie was the best liar I knew.

And he and Zane were cut from the same cloth.

“I’m fine. Good night.”

If he mumbled a good night back, I didn’t hear it. I was already halfway down the stairs.

I forced my feet to the living room and picked up the tray Eddie had left on the coffee table for me. He hadn’t moved from the recliner since he’d first sat in it hours earlier.

His gaze followed me around the room. “Where have you been?”

I picked up the empty beer cans and added them to the tray. “Upstairs, putting Otis to bed.”

“I heard voices.”

I nodded, knowing better than to lie. “Zane asked me for some clean clothes. I gave him some of your old things. I hope that’s okay?”

Eddie’s lips twisted. “That all you talked about? My clothes? You weren’t reminiscing about the good old days?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him what good old days he meant? The days where I’d been a stupid teenager and he’d taken advantage of me? Or the days he’d kept me prisoner in his basement? Or maybe he meant every day of the last five years where everyone I knew thought I was dead, and he threatened my child every time I so much as thought about trying to escape?

There were so many ‘good old days’ to choose from.

The sarcasm burned my tongue, but I was smart enough not to let it out. Instead, I stroked his ego. “I’m really not interested in making small talk with your brother, Eddie. I thought I’d make some of those cookies you like.”

Eddie nodded in approval. “Yeah, do that. You’re a good woman, Peach.”

He closed his eyes again, and a minute later, his snores filled the room.

I made his cookies slowly, not wanting to go back upstairs and risk running into Zane again. They were ones I’d once onlymade at Christmas, cutting them into pine tree and Santa shapes in the strip club kitchen because the tiny kitchen in the home I’d rented from Eve had been too small for the mass batches I’d needed to give out to my friends and their families. But ever since Eddie had brought me here, I’d started making them at all times throughout the year, shaping the dough into regular circles instead of festive shapes, but the smell reminding me of being back where I belonged.

I sucked in deep breaths, wishing with everything I had that one day, I’d make these cookies in the club kitchen again. Sometimes, that was the only thought that kept me going.

I missed Eve. I would have given up almost anything to have her pull me into one of her warm, motherly hugs. I missed Lyric’s sass and attitude. I missed Augie and Phoenix always watching out for me.

I thought about the four of them all the time, wondering what they were doing. Wondering if they still thought about me the way I thought about them.

But the reality was that they’d had closure. They thought I was dead, so they’d likely moved on.

I had none of that. All I had was the waning hope that one day, my chance would come, and things could be different.

I cleaned the kitchen until it sparkled, and when the cookies were finished, I wrapped a few in a napkin and slipped them into my pocket.

I needn’t have bothered hiding them though. Eddie was still sleeping in his recliner. I left him and went upstairs, tucking the cookies into the small plastic box I kept hidden behind piles of my old clothes. It was empty. Otis and I had eaten all the food I’d already stashed in there while Eddie was in the hospital. Now I’d have to start over, taking what I could, when I could, preparing for the days where Eddie decided I wasn’t worthy of food.

With the cookies safely stashed away, I puttered around the bedroom, enjoying the freedom of being able to move without the chains. I stopped at the window, ready to draw the curtains closed so the early morning sun didn’t wake me up before Eddie bellowed for my attention. But something outside the window caught my attention.

It was dark in the yard, and the trees cast shadows over Zane’s shiny blue truck. With all four tires flat to the ground. There was no way that had happened accidentally.

Shock rippled through me.

Zane was just as much a prisoner here as I was, apparently.

A little of my anger and distrust disappeared. And for the first time all day, I considered that Zane’s eyes hadn’t changed in the years since I’d seen him.

---