Page 63 of Caged Bird

He laughed as he shook Augie’s hand. “I’m sure you do. I swear it’s only me she doesn’t like doing her hair.”

I tossed Mila into the air. “That’s because your daddies don’t know how to do the cute hairstyles, isn’t it?”

Augie raised an eyebrow at me. “But you do? Because you’re so girly?”

I made a face at him. Though he wasn’t entirely wrong.

We’d both watched more than one hair-braiding tutorial while the girls were sleeping over at our place, and out of the two of us, Augie was definitely better. I had a sneaking suspicion he’d been practicing on the nights he danced at the strip club. I’d definitely seen Eve rocking a braid the last time I’d been there, and now I was a little suspicious of it as Augie took Mila from me and kissed her chubby cheek.

“So where’s my new nephew?” I asked War.

He led the way past the formal living room they never used, and into the back of the huge house. This was where they were a family, with the older kids’ toys strewn about on the floor, and their artwork on the refrigerator. There were bottles loaded into a sterilizer and half-empty cereal bowls still sat on the kitchen table.

A large living area beyond it had a huge couch and a big-screen TV, and beyond that were glass doors that opened up into a spacious backyard, where the girls rode their bikes and kicked balls and played in the treehouse.

A very long time ago, Vincent, Fawn, and I had lived here with our parents. But it had never felt like a home the way it did now.

In the middle of all the chaos, curled up on the couch, was Bliss, a tiny baby cradled in her arms.

My ovaries really did give a twinge but not in a way that made me want one of my own. Augie and I had agreed a long time ago we didn’t want any, and though we regularly checked in with each other to make sure we hadn’t changed our minds, like this morning, I knew in my heart that neither of us wanted to be parents.

We were healing from our combined traumas, more and more each day, but neither of us felt the desire to procreate.

We wanted this. To be aunt and uncle and to have children in our lives who we would love with all our hearts.

But then to go home to our quiet house and fuck on the kitchen table at three in the afternoon just because we could. Or go to work without the guilt of leaving a child behind. Or take off and go traveling for two months, like we had recently, which was why we were only just meeting the baby now that he was a month old.

My brother stood from the couch when he noticed me, and as soon as he smiled, I knew which of his alters was in charge. Vincent was gentle and kind and a bit awkward. Scythe was loud and brash and generally unhinged. I loved both equally, but it truly was like having two brothers you never got to see in the same room at the same time because they were actually that different.

I pulled him into a hug, even though he wasn’t big on them. “Congratulations, little brother.”

He pulled back. “Thank you.” He glanced back at Bliss and the baby, and the others all crowding around her as she introduced the tiny blob to Augie.

I went to join them, but Vincent caught my arm. “Ophelia, wait.”

I cringed internally at the tone in his voice but turned back because it was one I didn’t hear often anymore. Not since he’d retired from the family business.

“What’s happened? Is it Dad? Mom? Jesus, what have they done now?” I cracked my neck, trying to loosen the tension that always crept in whenever my parents’ names were mentioned.

And I’d been so relaxed after a morning of orgasms.

You could always count on my parents to wreck a good mood, even when they weren’t in the room.

But he shook his head. “No, it’s not them.”

He glanced back at his family and then jerked his head for me to follow him. Dread grew with every step. I followed him into the bathroom on the bottom floor of their mansion, and he closed the door behind us, then leaned back on it while I took up a seat on the edge of a bathtub that was filled with rubber ducks and had bathtub crayon drawings all over the side.

He cleared his throat. “It’s Zane.”

I blinked. That had been the last thing I’d expected him to say. “Zane Sinclair? Eddie’s brother?”

“Yes. The tracker we have on his truck is reporting some irregularities.”

I was well used to Vincent’s more formal manner of speaking, but it took my brain a second to catch up. “What do you mean? Is it not working anymore?” I shrugged. “I don’t even know if it’s worth trekking all the way out there to replace it this time,V. Tracking him in the hopes he’d lead us to wherever Eddie has been hiding all these years hasn’t exactly gotten us anywhere—”

“His truck has been at an unknown location for days.”

I paused. “Not one of his friends’ places?”

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