Page 67 of Savage Daddies

But it’s like the laws of physics don’t want that.

They want us together.

Even though I don’t want that myself.

I disrespected Felix, but the truth is—the man has no idea I exist. I’m in one photo. That’s it. He knows my face, but that’s about the extent of it. He’s the only person in the world who gets it, who grew up with bullying and neglect.

But Zoe isn’t safe. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but the fact that she’s nowhere to be found is a sign that Felix has seen the photo and initiated lockdown.

“I know things didn’t work out in our favor, but thanks anyway, boys.” Grizzly heads to the door, eyes teary for the first time in…I can’t even remember when he last cried. “You win some, you lose some.”

He exits after that, and it leaves me with an even bigger hole in my chest.

Do we win or lose Zoe?

At the moment, it’s looking like a loss.

I uncross my arms and dangle them in the space between my legs. “What now?”

Wrangler runs a hand through his silver hair. “We continue searching for Zoe.”

Poet’s eyes remain on the floor.

“We need to get her out of there,” I say.

Two heads turn my way.

Poet frowns. “First time you’ve saidthat. Does she really mean that much to you?”

I shrug. No word in the English dictionary, I don’t think, can accurately describe the way this girl shakes my being. She did it once at the masquerade, and she’s doing it again.

I could be a good person.

For her.

“More than I’d like to admit.” I sniff a laugh.

“What’s the deal with you and Felix, anyway?” asks Wrangler. “You met before?”

“Never.”

“Then…what?”

“I dunno.” Now’s not the time to go full Wrangler and deliver my life story. I suppose the boys deserve something, though, since we’re all in this together. “Sometimes, you see yourself in someone. Felix and I don’t know one another, but we have the same pasts. He gets it.”

Poet narrows his eyes. “Gets what?”

“What it’s like to grow up second best.” I turn my body around to face them. “I had a brother, you know. We were twins. That’s all I know about him. Our parents were too drugged up to care for us, so when we were a few months old, child services removed us and placed us into the foster system, separately.”

“Separately seems harsh,” says Wrangler.

“Apparently, according to my foster parents, it’s harder to adopt siblings. I don’t know logistically how it all works. All I know is how it feels to be second best. Michael was my foster parents’ biological son, and he was royalty.”

“It sucks,” says Poet, “that you didn’t get to grow up with your real brother.”

“You win some, you lose some,” I say, wise words from the Prez himself.

But I only won once, and it was at that goddamn masquerade.

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