Page 64 of Sinful Deception

“Me.” Fresh tears slip onto Mia’s cheeks. “I’m the baby bird she gave you.”

“You sure were. She never regretted giving up the show for the eggs, and I know there isn’t a thing in the world she regretted trading for you. Because she loved them, and she loved you.”

“Did the baby birds crack out of the shells?” Hopeful, she stands on her toes and shakily smiles. “Were they okay? Did they find their mommy?”

“Yep.” He slides the paper into his back pocket and extends his hands to give her the go ahead to come around to him. So she breaks away from me and Fifi, clutching her bear and carefully navigating the surroundings of a hole in the earth. Then she jumps into Fletch’s arms and sets her cheek on his shoulder. “The little birds hatched, using their cute little beaks to break the shells when they were big enough. Then your mommy opened her bedroom window and set the box on the sill. She told them she loved them, and described the tree they fell out of. She gave them all the information she had, so they could go find theirmommy, and then they flew away. She saved them, Mia. Now, they get to fly in the pretty sky and have an amazing life.”

“I didn’t know that.” Sniffling, she uses the sleeve of her coat to wipe beneath her nose. “Mommy didn’t ever tell me about the birds.”

“It was so long ago, and she’d had her own baby bird since then. So, I guess they weren’t on her mind very much anymore. But I remember it all so clearly, because that was the day I knew I would make a family with her.”

“You loved her very much, huh?” She leans back and searches his eyes. “You loved her very much, so you could make a little baby bird like me.”

“Yeah.” He swipes a tear from his cheek and leans in to press a kiss to hers. “I loved her with my whole heart and soul, and it all began that day with the nest. She was brave and selfless, even when she knew it would get her in trouble. And that’s what I want you to be. Brave, even when it might get you in trouble. Selfless, but only for the people who would do the same for you. I want you to be strong and fearless and amazing, Moo. Because your mommy was. When she was at her best, she wasthebest.”

Carefully, Aubree steps out of our line and swipes two flowers from the large display surrounding Jada’s picture. Then she moves around the casket and offers the flowers to the Fletchers. “Birdies love flowers, and I think your mommy probably loved anything her birdies loved. So why don’t you give her this flower, Moo? You can place it on top and tell your mommy goodbye.”

Oh god.

Here it comes.

My eyes itch and my lungs squeeze until it hurts to breathe. I don’t make a single sound, but Archer still knows, pulling me closer and resting his lips by my ear. “I could never do this if you pass, Mayet.” He draws a long breath until I feel his chest grow,then exhales, the air making my hair flutter. “I would sooner put myself in the ground with you.”

“I don’t even want to consider what will happen when one of us goes.” I turn and tuck my shoulder under his arm, so Fletch and Mia remain in my peripherals, setting flowers on Jada’s casket and crying over the finality of what they’re doing. But I rest my cheek over Archer’s heart and blink the tears from my eyes. “I don’t know how to handle an existence without you in it. Someday, eventually, one of us will go before the other. I’m not ready for that reality.”

“Cyanide pills,” Felix whispers, leaning into our space and flicking my hair when I hastily swipe tears from my face. “You each have one. When shit’s getting dicey, you pop those pills and run into the afterlife together.”

“Not concerning at all.” I roll my eyes and press my palm to his face, pushing him back. “He doesn’t have access to cyanide, does he?”

Quietly chuckling, Archer sets his chin on the top of my head. “Probably. I’ll get some for us, too, so we never have to worry about outliving the other.”

“I love you, Mommy.” Mia presses a shaky kiss to the top of Jada’s silky-smooth casket. Then she rests her cheek on the cold wood while Fletch follows suit. “Fly little birdie.”

FLETCH

Grief is a tricky thing. And sympathy, more so.

I fell out of love with Jada Watson a long time ago. It’s been years since we shared a bed. Eons since we were a family. It feels as though I’ve lived a lifetime since we were a united unit, which means thethere theresand the sympatheticsorrysI receive, purely because sheusedto be mine, feel wrong.

Like receiving a participation ribbon for a race I never ran.

I don’t grieve the woman inside the box, not even when the undertaker flips a switch and allows the straps to lower her into the ground. I don’t mourn for the woman who chose pills over her child. Not the one who simply wasn’t strong enough to choose her family over cheap thrills.

I’ve never loved that woman. And for that, I’m not sorry.

But I miss the girl I fell in love with. The one who cried over a shoebox filled with cracked eggs. The one who dazzled on a stage and ran to me when her practice sessions were over. The girl who lit up a room simply by being in it, but lit up herself when she looked at me.

She loved me, and I loved her. For a while, that was enough. And for that girl, I’ll hold a torch in my heart forever.

But I hold my own baby bird now, while she’s witness to something a child should never see. While her body wracks from a soul-deep ache and her heart breaks, because she doesn’t understand that her mother is, horrifyingly, better off dead than stuck in the hell she existed within while alive.

Someday, she might get it. And I’ll know, when that day comes, that I can look her in the eyes and promise I did the very best I could. I never stopped. I never gave up. And even after death, I never faltered in my quest to make things better for Jada.

A flicker of light catches my attention. Something I’m not sure I would notice, if not for the fact I was expecting it. So I glance down and study the single red dot hovering over my heart. Just inches from Mia’s, as she plasters her body to mine.

I turn from the threat and search the faces of my friends, then past them, to the Detectives Elen and Balladae, whose eyes are cast this way. I guess there’s a part of them that still wonders if I’m the reason Jada was hurt. Because if they were as confident as they say they are, surely they’d be looking elsewhere.

“Sera?” My pulse thunders as I cross the lawn, but I catch her attention and snatch her hand, though she’s mid-conversation with the mayor. Yanking her around, I shove Mia into her arms and feel no guilt for how the girls crash together. “Take her for me, please.”

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