Page 49 of Caged Bird

But we both knew she was dead if she didn’t.

I clutched the police officer’s arm. “Sir, you need to understand what you’re doing here. He chains her up like she’s a fucking dog.”

But instead of listening to my pleas, he stared down at my hand on his arm. “Get your hand off me.”

“Not until you listen to her side of the story!”

The police officer grabbed my arm and before I could even blink, had it twisted up behind my back. My shoulder wrenched painfully, and the wind knocked out of me when he shoved me up against the side of the car.

“No, stop!” Fawn shouted. “He hasn’t done anything wrong!”

But the cop was already slapping a cold metal cuff around my wrist.

From the awkward angle of my head, all I could see was Eddie, and his smug, self-satisfied grin.

Like he’d known all along this would be the outcome.

“Tony,” he barked out.

The cop paused in trying to get the cuffs on me.

Eddie took a small wad of cash from his pocket. “How about a little bonus payment to forget my idiot brother doesn’t know his place?”

Tony didn’t agree, and Eddie huffed out a sigh and pulled out another stack. He limped to the car and put both piles of money down on the hood.

“How much more to just let him go? I don’t have the time or means to go down to the station and do this down there.”

The cop nodded at the pile. “Another.”

Eddie let out a low whistle through his teeth. “You drive a hard bargain. Anyone ever tell you that? Fifteen hundred on top of the thousand I already paid you tonight? You’re going to send me to the poorhouse, Tony.”

But he withdrew another stack from his pocket, and Tony, the clearly corrupt cop, unlocked the cuff from around my wrist.

I shook out my arm, staring at the cop with hate in my heart.

But Fawn’s expression was so much worse. “A thousand dollars,” she practically spat at the cop. “A thousand dollars was all it took for you to look past the chains he keeps me in. A thousand dollars to pretend you don’t notice my son and I are both underfed.” She spun around, yanking at the cheap elastic on her dress so it exposed more of her scarred skin. Her voice turned hysterical. “A thousand dollars to ignore the scars he’s put on my body! Are you looking at them now? Seeing what he’s done to me, or are you just pocketing your money and walking away?”

Her words hit me like a punch to the stomach. Even though I’d seen her scars, felt them beneath my fingertips, the raw emotion in her voice, and the damage to her back lit up by police cruiser headlights had my stomach rolling.

I stared at the cop, begging him silently to change his mind.

But Eddie just put another stack of money on the pile, and Tony the cop picked them up and got in his car without another glance in Fawn’s direction.

We both stared as he disappeared down the dirt driveway into the darkness. Taking all hopes of escape and freedom with him.

The cracking hit of a gun handle to the back of my head should have been expected. The blackness that followed was the only relief I was going to get from how royally I’d screwed up.

Iwoke up to screams. They pierced the darkness and the clouded soup that was my brain. I blinked an eye open, no idea where I was until Eddie’s now familiar living room came into focus. But from an angle I hadn’t seen before. Istared up at the recliner, realizing I was on the floor. Eddie was missing from his usual spot though.

Another scream tore through the silent house, splintering through my pounding brain.

“Eddie, please! Stop!”

Fawn.

I pushed up to my feet, ignoring the pain radiating down the back of my neck and through my spine. I lunged for the stairs, scrambling to get up them. To get to her. Her sobs were all I could hear, her screams sending fear through every muscle of my body.

I knew my brother had a weapon and he’d probably shoot me dead the moment I got to them, but it didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter when her pain was more than I could bear.

---