A Girl Undone

by Catherine Linka

  A truck roared up the drive, catching Mikhaela and her grandma in the headlights, and they broke apart.

  “Holy mother, he’s speeding up,” Luke said.

  “Brace yourself!” I said, grabbing hold of his seat.

  The truck veered before it hit us, thumping across the dirt to a stop. Then a man hopped out, his coat half on and arms flailing as he landed awkwardly on the ground. “I came to take you home, Mikhaela. Get in the truck.”

  The chained dog barked wildly, frantic to get at him. “Tell that dog to shut up!” he yelled.

  “What should we do?” I whispered to Luke.

  “Hold tight. Don’t do anything just yet.”

  The woman stepped in front of her granddaughter. “What are you doing here, Hatch?”

  “I came to pick up my daughter.”

  “She’s not your daughter.”

  “Law says she is.”

  “Law says you’re not allowed within a hundred feet of us.”

  “I got me a lawyer, and I’m getting custody.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  Hatch laughed. “So be it, old woman!” He drew a gun and pointed it at her face.

  I gripped Luke’s shoulder. “What should we do?”

  “This cannot happen.” Luke reached for the pipe.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” I said, but it was too late. The van door released with a faint click, and Luke was out the door, cat quiet. He crept behind the truck and out of my sight.

  I crawled into the front and peered out, praying that the dog would keep barking, and the man wouldn’t hear Luke behind him. I fished inside the glove compartment and under the seat, hoping Streicker had another weapon stashed away, but all I found was a crushed soda can and a first-aid kit.

  Oh God, Luke, be careful!

  The man wobbled ever so slightly. “You’ve got to the count of three to get in that truck, Mikhaela, before I blow your grandma’s head off that skinny body of hers. One.”

  Mikhaela took a step toward her stepdad, but the old woman threw out her arms to hold her back. “You’re drunk, Hatch. Six hours out of jail, and already drunk.”

  “Two. I’m warning you, Mikhaela. It’s your fault if I hurt her!”

  I saw Luke behind Hatch, inching forward, the pipe raised over his shoulder like a baseball bat.

  “Three!”

  Mikhaela screamed, and I slammed my fist down on the horn. The man jerked his head, and our eyes connected as the pipe slammed into his skull. He dropped to the ground, and the gun flew from his hand.

  Luke straddled the body, his chest heaving. I scrambled out of the van, and Luke raised the pipe again.

  “Luke, stop!” I yelled, hurtling toward him. “Put it down!”

  He looked up at me, his face transformed into something so dark and disturbed, I spun to a stop. I locked my eyes on his and stretched my hand out, praying that the Luke I knew was still in there.

  “You got him,” I said quietly, easing closer. “He can’t hurt them now.”

  Please, please give me the pipe. You’re not a killer. You don’t want to kill him.

  I saw Luke’s shoulders drop, and I held my breath as he lowered the pipe. I slid it out of his hands and heard Mikhaela whimper, “Is he dead?”

  My heart was pumping like I’d been running flat out, and all my senses were ramped up.

  Luke and the grandmother stayed where they were. I dropped the pipe on the snow and crouched by the body. I set two fingers on the man’s neck and felt for a pulse, grateful he was facedown. “He’s still alive. We should call an ambulance.”

  The woman reached over and picked up the man’s gun. “Go,” she told us. “I’ll deal with this. You get Mikhaela taken care of.”

  Luke stood over the man, not moving. I tugged on his arm. “Luke, please. We need to go. We need to get Mikhaela out of here.”

  The dark presence in Luke’s face was gone, but he looked dazed like he’d capsized at sea or crashed in a desert. He blinked, and took a couple steps toward the van. “I’ll get the engine started.”

  “Okay. Good.” I was breathing hard and trying to stay focused. I had to get Mikhaela.

  She’d backed up almost to the porch, and as I walked toward her, she shook her head at her grandma. “The police will think you hurt him. I have to stay and tell them you’re innocent. That it was someone else.”

  Help me, Mikhaela’s grandmother asked me with her eyes.

  I put my arm through Mikhaela’s. She was shaking so hard, I was afraid I’d have to ask Luke to carry her. “Mikhaela, we need to get in the van so your grandma can call the paramedics.”

  I wished I knew if I was doing the right thing, taking Mikhaela to Streicker. I wished I could guarantee she’d get safely to Canada, but all I knew for sure was if I left Mikhaela here, she could end up with her stepdad if he lived, or in an orphan ranch if he died.

  Her grandmother set the gun down and took Mikhaela’s other arm. “Nobody’s going to lock up an old woman,” she promised. “Not one who was defending herself.”

  We walked Mikhaela to the van, and I belted her into the seat beside mine. I held her hand as tears ran down her cheeks. “What’s going to happen to us?” she said.

  “Everything’s going to be okay.” I hoped I wasn’t leading her into a trap. “We’re going to get you over the border.”

  Luke backed down the drive, and Mikhaela rocked in her seat like she was winding up for full-blown hysterics. I rubbed her back, knowing I had to calm her down.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I said. “You won’t be alone. The people at Refugee Assistance in Canada will find you a nice family to live with.” I thought back to the promises Yates had made me about them. “They’ll get a message to your grandmother so she knows you’re okay.”

  “But I’m never going to see her again!”

  I turned so she couldn’t see my face. “You’ll see her again. The border won’t be closed forever. I bet your grandma will be there to see you graduate from high school.”

  I kept babbling, promising things I couldn’t deliver, trying to keep Mikhaela from losing it, even though I was barely holding on myself.

  When we drove onto Streicker’s property, I was ready to collapse. If Mikhaela’s stepdad lived, I could be looking at kidnapping charges on top of all the other charges the feds had against me.

  But if he died, Luke had just killed a man.

  15

  Streicker didn’t thank us for the favor. He met the van outside the back building, taking Mikhaela’s birth certificate from Luke and then thumbing through the money. “Seven grand. All here.”

  Then he ordered Mikhaela to go inside and get some food, jerking his head at the metal building. “You want to eat. It’s gonna be a long night.”

  I pulled my hat over my hair, and stepped down from the van. The adrenaline rush from extracting Mikhaela was fading and I wondered if Yates had felt like this when he helped girls escape into Exodus: bruised, but still standing, in a world I’d tried to make a little bit better.

  Luke went to follow Mikhaela in, but Streicker held him back. “Something happen out there?”

  “Her stepdad showed up,” Luke said. “He pulled a gun on her grandmother.”

  “You okay?”

  Luke shrugged.

  “You kill him?”

  “He was alive when we left.”

  Streicker narrowed his eyes at me like he’d decided this was my fault. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. I watched him head back to his house, ticked he’d put this on me.

  I didn’t push Luke to hit that man, but maybe what Streicker really blamed me for was bringing trouble to Salvation and getting Barnabas killed.

  Luke leaned against the side of the van. The darkness and confusion had left his face, but I felt he’d pushed it deeper inside him. “You did good back there,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  He raised his hand, and my heart skipped, sensing he was about to touch my cheek, and even th
ough I wanted to hold Luke and have him hold me after what we’d just been through, I made myself reach up and adjust my hat, and his hand fell back the way I thought it might.

  “You got Mikhaela into the van,” he said. “She wouldn’t have left if it was just me. And you calmed her down. I couldn’t have done that.”

  “I hope we did the right thing, bringing her here. Are you okay?”

  He looked into the dark. “Yeah. Tired. Hungry as a wolf that missed a kill.” He shook his head. “Forget I said that.”

  I followed his gaze. Luke was pretending he was fine, but he wasn’t. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  The metal building was a big open space, divided by a partition that rose most of the way to the ceiling. In the front half, cardboard boxes were stacked on pallets, and a long folding table and chairs were set up in the middle.

  Sure, I was exhausted, but it took me a second to register the six teenage girls sitting around the table eating stew. They were probably here when Luke and I first arrived, but we never picked up a clue, which I was sure was what Streicker intended. They were all about my age except for Mikhaela, and looked so young and fresh-faced, so unaware of what could happen, I felt years older. I hoped none of them would have to go through anything like what I’d been through.

  Clearly, Streicker had a whole operation going. Six girls supposedly headed for Canada. Thousands of dollars in cash. A van tricked out to carry ten girls at a time. God, I hoped he was for real.

  The smell of warm beef stew filled the room, turning my stomach. I knew it was Scarpanol-free, and I was starved, but I couldn’t eat it.

  I cut a couple slices of bread and spread butter on them. Luke sat, hunched over his stew, while the girls talked quietly among themselves. I stood, watching him, wishing we were alone and far away so we could talk about what had just happened.

  It was only a week or so ago that he talked Ramos out of aiming his gun at me, but that was before Luke saw Maggie executed. He’d changed. He wasn’t the guy I could trust to keep his head and think things through.

  At least he didn’t boast to Streicker about almost killing that man. If he had, I don’t know what I would have done.

  Luke finished eating, then got up and went over to help two men load a dolly with cartons of prescription drugs. Pharmaceuticals had paid my private school tuition, so I knew there was big money in painkillers people stole and sold on the street, but the drugs in those boxes didn’t look like the ones I knew addicts wanted.

  Still, there were thousands of dollars in pills, and I couldn’t believe Streicker ran a legitimate business out of here. I slid around the partition separating the front half of the building from the back and spied stacked blankets and cots, and the open door of a bathroom, but what really drew my attention was a backdrop surrounded by light stands and the shiny silver umbrellas that photographers use. I peered at the life-sized photo taken inside of a barn or a rodeo ring. Real bales of hay were stacked beside it.

  “Hey!”

  I jumped, and Streicker gave a laugh. “Like a hound on a scent, aren’t you?”

  I tried to look casual. His hands were full of navy blue passports, and I was asking myself how he’d gotten real U.S. passports when I saw the lion and unicorn on the covers. Like my fake passport, they were Canadian.

  Streicker flipped two open. “Who do you think Mikhaela looks more like?”

  Mikhaela didn’t look anywhere close to twenty-one, but at least she had the same red hair as the girl on the left. “This one.”

  “Good choice.” Streicker walked over to Mikhaela and held out the passport. She glanced at me, wide-eyed, and I nodded for her to take it. She gulped and shoved it deep in her pocket.

  Then Streicker zipped up his parka. “Toss your plates, everyone. Time to go.”

  Outside, the girls lined up to climb into the van, and I stood back, watching. Mikhaela looked over her shoulder at me, and I gave her a little wave. Then she darted out of the line and flung her arms around my neck. “Thank you for helping me.”

  I closed my arms around her. “Be brave and make your grandma proud. You can do this,” I whispered. She was trembling and scared, but I knew she might be one of the lucky ones who got away. And I’d helped. In my own small way, I’d helped.

  Streicker tapped her on the back. “Let’s go.”

  She squeezed into the last jump seat, her knees knocking against the cases of pills that made a wall down the center of the van, and I realized what I was looking at. Heart meds. Cancer meds. Embargoed drugs that Canadians desperately needed, but the U.S. was holding back to force Canada not to take in American refugees.

  The van drove off, and I followed the red taillights until they disappeared.

  Streicker is a smuggler. He knows how to get past the border patrols. If Luke would only agree to go, Streicker could get us both out.

  Streicker came up behind me. “You’re jealous of those girls.”

  I didn’t turn around. “No, I’m not.”

  “You’re lying. You wish you were on that van right now, because you don’t agree with Luke’s plan.”

  I refused to answer.

  Streicker leaned in until I felt his breath on my neck. “Admit it. You’re going to try everything in your power to talk him out of going to D.C.”

  I was trembling, fighting the urge to run for the house, but I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets, and stood my ground. “How can you get the girls over the border when it’s closed?”

  “There’s an airfield a few miles from here.”

  “You fly them into Canada?”

  “No. The plane sets down in Montana near the border. There’s a tunnel that comes up in Alberta.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”

  Streicker chuckled. “First, the airfield and tunnel are not on U.S. soil. It’s the Blackfeet Nation. Second, no one’s going to rat me out, because everybody’s making too much money.”

  “But what about the border patrol?”

  “Border patrol’s making more than anyone, but don’t tell that to the tribal leaders.”

  Bribes. Corruption. Exploitation.

  “But the third and most satisfying reason I will not get arrested for smuggling is that the men who own the tunnel, or what we like to call the White Gold Pipeline, those investors contributed millions of dollars to reelect Fletcher and his Paternalist cronies.”

  It took a moment for what he said to sink in. “But the Paternalists closed the border.”

  “Funny, how it all works out.”

  I felt like I was going to be sick. “So smuggling out a girl helps make money for the Paternalists.”

  “Every girl, every pill.” He started to walk back to the house. “God, I love America.”

  I waited until I heard the kitchen door close before I turned around. This was one big sick game where the Paternalists won even when they lost. And Streicker didn’t care that they made money as long as he was getting his.

  16

  Lola was drinking coffee in the kitchen when I walked in. Her sweater sleeves were pushed up, exposing the scars on both wrists. Streicker’s men were taking the girls to Canada, but then what? What would happen to the girls once they got there?

  I took hold of Lola’s wrist and flipped it over. “Did he do this?” I said, pointing to the front room, where Streicker sat, then pointing to her scar.

  Lola glared at me.

  “Did he do this?” I repeated.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” she said, and ripped her wrist away.

  “You speak English?”

  She gave me a look that could melt skin. “He found me in a garage chained to a wall. He freed me.”

  Then she told me about leaving Ukraine for the promise of a nanny job in Montreal, only to find out it was a lie. Two brothers kept her locked in their house, and the harder she fought to get away, the more they beat her.

  “How did Streicker get you away from them?”

  Lola stirred her c
offee. “Is not important.”

  I got up from the table. I had no doubt that if someone went to that house, they’d find the decomposing remains of two paunchy, middle-aged men.

  When I came into the front room, Luke and Streicker were hunched over together, their heads just inches from each other’s. They were watching the Sportswall, and Streicker was pointing at two of the screens and flipping the sound back and forth between the broadcasts.

  A thousand college students at a protest march in Boston had torched a life-sized image of Senator Fletcher outside the Old South Meeting House. The fire-blackened body sagged in a suit and tie from the top of a flagpole.

  “Right there. That’s what I’m talking about,” Streicker said.

  Luke focused hard on the screens and I sat on the edge of the chair, wondering what exactly Streicker wanted him to see. Then Luke shook his head. “Damn, it’s just like you said.”

  Streicker clapped him on the back and my stomach turned. “All you got to do is pay attention,” Streicker told him.

  “Pay attention to what?” I said.

  Luke turned to me, his face all fired up. “To how the reporters talk about the Paternalists. Like what adjectives they use to describe them. The stations the Saudis own talk about the Paternalists like they’re the real patriots. Even the photos of the Paternalists they use make them look, I don’t know, heroic.”

  “But I thought all news stations treated Paternalists like heroes.”

  “The Saudis are way worse. And they’re buying up stations left and right. Streicker says they own almost a quarter of all the TV and radio stations in the country.”

  “Is that right?” I said.

  Streicker smirked. “That kind of media support could put a man in the White House. The man the Saudis want to see there.”

  He watched me to see if his message sank in. “Yeah, I can see how that would be a big help,” I said.

  Crap. The Saudis had the money and power to get Jouvert elected, and we had only days to get the thumb drive past Homeland Security to D.C. if we wanted to shut Jouvert down.