Page 7 of Caged Bird

It took me a moment to identify where I was. Couch with the spring that stabbed me in the back. Living room painted sunny yellow but currently cast in shadows from the TV playing an old episode ofLaw and Orderwith the volume all the way down. Dirty work pants and shirt. My boots weren’t even unlaced, mud still clinging to the soles. I’d clearly fallen asleep as soon as I’d sat down.

The screams came again, and this time I was awake enough to register them. I pushed to my feet and crashed my way down the hall, knocking a photo frame off the wall but leaving it to hit the floor behind me.

The glass cracked, but it could be replaced. It wouldn’t be the first one I’d broken in a hurry to get down here.

I slowed when I hit Mom’s room. It was small enough I only had to take two steps before I was at her side, shaking her bony arms, trying to wake her from the nightmare that had her features twisted in pain and fear, even though her eyes were closed.

“Eddie, no!”

My stomach tightened, and I shook the small woman harder. “Mom. Wake up.”

Her eyes fluttered open, and she sat up quickly, gnarled fingers twisting in the bedsheets. She cringed away from me. “Eddie, please…”

I realized my mistake and leaned over to flick on the lamp. “Not Eddie, Mom. Me. Zane.”

She instantly settled. “Zane?” A tear leaked from her watery blue eyes, and she reached out a hand for me. “Oh, Zane. What are you doing in here? You did such a long shift, you must be tired. Do you want me to make you some dinner?”

“It’s the middle of the night. You were having a nightmare…”

She pursed her thin lips. “No, I wasn’t. I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

We both knew she wasn’t fine. She always tried to convince me the dreams didn’t upset her. Or that they hadn’t happened at all. She never wanted to be a bother.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” I said softly.

Her shoulders slumped, the trembling in her body too bone-deep to hide any longer. “It’s my fault. He’s the way he is because of me.”

I shook my head, picking up her hand. “Eddie is the way he is because of no one but himself. He’s a monster becausehechooses to be.”

She shook her head. “I did something wrong with him. I just know it. He was a sweet boy once upon a time…”

He was once a boy who’d killed cats for fun. There’d never been anything sweet about my older brother. Mom just had rose-colored glasses. Or maybe a heart that still held hope there was something good in my brother.

I sighed heavily. “You should go back to sleep.”

But she stared at me with fearful eyes. “I can’t sleep. He’s going to come for us. I know it.”

I hated Eddie with every part of me. Because this wasn’t the first time Mom had woken screaming. It wasn’t even the hundredth time. Ever since I’d moved her out of my childhood home and taken her as far from Saint View and my psychopathic brother as I could get, she’d had nightmares. She barely slept, fearing the images and thoughts her mind conjured up. The memories of the abuse she’d suffered at his hands. The abuse he’d inflicted on others.

My chest tightened, and I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to remember the women he’d held captive.

The woman he’d killed.

“He’s dead,” I assured her.

She gave a sharp shake of her head. “You don’t know that.”

I didn’t. I just hoped it with everything I had. “We’re safe here,” I promised her. “It’s been five years. If he’s even still alive, which I doubt, considering the life he lives and the people he associates with, then he’s lost interest in us. Go back to sleep, okay?”

She didn’t seem convinced, but what else was there to do in the middle of the night, when the perceived safety of daylight was still hours away? She huddled beneath the blankets, breathing still too fast.

I hated that I couldn’t take her fear away. Hated the constant threat we’d lived with our entire lives because my brother was unpredictable and cruel.

I went around the house, checking every window and door. I checked the security system I’d installed and replayed the day’s footage in 4x speed, searching for anything new that might have set my mother off.

But there was nothing. And when the sun rose, Mom emerged from her bedroom fully dressed and with makeup attempting to cover the bags beneath her eyes.

I pretended not to notice them. And she pretended the nightmare hadn’t happened. She made breakfast for the both of us, and I sat and ate it dutifully, even though I had no appetite.

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