“He got in one day and found my stash,” she goes on, and with every word, I get more sacred, more desperate to get Phoenix out of her arms. “He was blue when I found him but I tried to save him anyway.”
“Negligence,” Nancy says. “‘Criminal negligence,’ they accused me of. But how…? I locked my f*****g door. It was locked! He was just… he was too smart. He was such a beautiful boy. So smart.”
Phoenix senses the shift in the air. The growing tension. The approaching violence.
He gives a sharp cry and raises one hand in a small fist. My heart jumps erratically.
“Nancy,” I say quietly. “He needs to be fed.”
For the first time, she looks up at me. “You were fast asleep and he was whining,” she reprimands. “You didn’t even notice! He could have rolled off the bed and fallen. He could have b
