Page 96 of Caged Bird

The tremble disappeared. I chuckled darkly. And like music to my ears, Otis’s little voice yelled out, “Don’t you hurt my daddy!”

But it was the cocking of the gun from behind me that caught all our attention.

And then the crack of a bullet as it exploded from the chamber.

26

ZANE

From the bottom floor of the cheap motel, the gunshot sounded like an explosion. It echoed off all the cracked tile and splintered through my ears.

But it was Ophelia screaming Otis’s name that was the most deafening of all.

Fawn’s eyes went wide, and in a heartbeat, she was lunging for the rickety metal staircase and was two stairs up it before I caught her wrist, pulling her back.

“Zane! Let me go! That’s my son up there!”

The panic and fear in her eyes made me want to give in. Made me want to let go of her and let her run up there, because all I’d ever wanted was to give her exactly what she needed.

But for once, my head knew better than my heart. “You running back up there is exactly what Eddie wants.”

She fought with me anyway, but this time, I wasn’t giving in. I caught her chin in my hand. “I’m going to get him back, Fawn. I promise.”

Something changed in her eyes, and then she pressed up on her toes and brushed her lips over mine.

I didn’t want to question what that kiss was.

Because something deep inside me felt like maybe it was a goodbye.

I spun on my heel, pushing the thought out of my head, because there was only room for one now. And that was getting Otis back.

Fawn would never be whole without him. And I refused to let her live the rest of her life in just a different sort of misery. I refused to let my brother take away the one small happiness he’d given her.

My boots thundered up the stairs, the old metal groaning beneath my weight, like it might collapse at any moment.

The scene at the top of them, in the open doorway of a motel room, stopped me in my tracks.

I’d assumed it had been Eddie who’d fired a shot. Or Vincent. Or Ophelia.

Instead I found Otis, a gun clutched in his small fingers, Ophelia, and Vincent trying to coax it from him, and Eddie finally looking at the kid with the pride I’d felt the moment I’d seen him.

A spray of plaster dust covered the dirty carpet, courtesy of the bullet hole in the ceiling.

“Come here.” Eddie held a hand out to his son. “Give me the gun.”

Otis went to move, obedient as ever, the survival mechanisms Fawn had taught him kicking in. He was just doing what had to be done to keep himself alive.

But Ophelia and Vincent both shouted, and Otis flinched, the gun swinging around the room wildly, making all three adults duck.

“Fucking hell, kid!” Eddie shouted. “Why are you so fucking dumb? Just give me the goddamn gun.”

Otis swung the gun in his father’s direction, and I saw the color pale out of Eddie’s face.

And the indecision, fear, and anger on Otis’s.

“I can take you to your mommy,” Ophelia tried coaxingly. “I know where she is.”

But Otis was too smart for that. He didn’t know she was his aunt. He didn’t know these people at all. All he knew was shouting and violence and that he had no idea who to trust.

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