Barbed Wire Heart

by Tess Sharpe

  “You’ve got a sniper rifle trained on the driveway.” Will takes another step forward, slow and steady so I don’t run. “With enough ammo to take down a small army. From the looks of it, you’ve been sleeping up there. Makes sense: easily defensible space, hard to reach, single entry point, only one window.”

  He ticks off the attributes dispassionately, because that’s the way Daddy taught us to be. Analyze the situation. Protect your back. Never let go of your gun. And if you draw it, you best be ready to kill, Harley-girl.

  I lock my knees as he takes the final step forward. Now we’re closer to each other than we’ve been in more than a year, and it’s playing tricks on my resolve.

  “Something is very wrong. This is overboard, even for you. So let me help. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I stare up into his face. He is my first, only, forever love. I can’t shake him even when I try my hardest. And I want. It swells inside me. I want so badly to tell him, and right now, with him so close, so pleading and willing, that I betray my name. I crumble.

  Duke would be ashamed.

  “Duke’s sick,” I blurt out.

  Will’s eyebrows snap together. “Sick,” he repeats. “How sick?”

  “He has pancreatic cancer. Stage four. They diagnosed him five months ago. He won’t let me tell anyone.” My heart pounds just thinking about the betrayal in my words, and the truth in them.

  It’s like watching a war go on in Will’s face—his eyes sharpen and glint, but then he clears his throat and presses his lips together, keeping it in.

  “Where is he?” he asks, his voice tight and strangled.

  “He’s in Burney…in hospice care. He’s—he’s—” I shake my head. I can’t say it. I can’t think it. I promised myself.

  “Oh, Jesus, Harley,” he breathes. He wraps me up in his arms, and I grab his shoulders and hold on. His hands are warm and strong around me, and I want to sink into him, let him soothe away everything else. It feels right, like he fits with me and doesn’t belong anywhere else.

  But he doesn’t belong with me or to me. He belongs back in college, where he won’t get shot or arrested or end up dead in the woods where no one’ll ever find him. There’s no place for me in his new life, and the sooner he gets back to it, the safer he’ll be.

  I pull away, cross my arms, and grit my teeth.

  “You didn’t have to come all this way. It’s not your job to worry about me. No matter what Brooke said, I’ll be fine.”

  “Bullshit,” Will says. “You’re telling me Duke’s dying, and you’re fine? Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s my problem, Will. My family. Not yours.”

  “You’re my family,” he says.

  It’s like getting punched in the gut, those three words. They mean so much more than just love or blood. It’s the two of us and how we grew up and why: bonded together by circumstance, until it didn’t matter how we came together, only that we did.

  “What are you up to?” He bends down so he’s looking down right into my face, like the answer’s blinking on my forehead.

  I make sure my face is as blank as it gets when I mumble, “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re not running,” he explains patiently. “You know the second the cooks find out Duke’s dying, Buck’ll take over. Cooper’s too old and tired of the game to stop him. When the Springfields find out, it’s gonna be a bloodbath. They will kill you. It’ll be at the top of his list to snuff you out. But you’re not running.”

  “I’m not running,” I confirm, holding his gaze.

  He cocks his head and narrows his eyes, staring through me so hard I want to run. When we were kids, he’d get like this when I didn’t want to talk about one of Duke’s lessons. He’d stare until I wore down and spilled it in halting bursts.

  It always made me feel better, after.

  “The fire out in Viola yesterday,” Will says slowly. “That was a hit on a lab, wasn’t it?”

  I don’t say anything, but he knows; oh, he knows.

  “You hit a lab,” he says slowly, his eyes drilling into mine. “You hit one of Duke’s labs.” He’s saying it like it’s fact, but the way he’s looking at me is all searching, like he hopes he’s wrong.

  But he knows me better than that.

  “That’s where you got all the drugs,” Will goes on. “You—did you kill anyone?” he whispers, and I want to grab his arm, pull him close, because his voice cracks on kill.

  I shake my head. “I was careful.”

  “You did do it,” Will breathes. His eyes widen and his hands clench at his sides. “Holy fuck, Harley! What were you thinking? There’s no careful in blowing a lab. You of all people know that.”

  My palms itch, my body instinctively aligning for a fight. “Don’t you dare bring them into this.”

  “Do you really think your mom would want you doing this shit?” Will demands.

  I may love him with whatever’s good left in me, but he’s on dangerous ground. One more word, and I’ll snap.

  “Momma would’ve wanted me to survive,” I say, with ice in my voice. “And that’s what I plan on doing.”

  “If survival was on your mind, you would’ve run the second Duke got sick,” Will says. “You wouldn’t be blowing up his meth labs. You wouldn’t have an Army-issue sniper rifle locked and loaded in your attic. You wouldn’t be all beat up by whoever did that to you. You’d be in Mexico, where no one can touch you.”

  “I’m a McKenna,” I say. “We don’t run.”

  “Bullshit,” he snaps. “This is more than that. This is about him.”

  Almost fifteen years have passed, and Will hates saying his name.

  “Fine,” I say. “It’s about him. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Revenge isn’t gonna bring her back.”

  I look at him, and I can’t stop the disgust from curling my lips. Who the fuck does he take me for?

  “I’m not some little girl on the deck waiting to be saved anymore,” I hiss at him. “I’m a grown-ass woman and I am taking care of business. My business.”

  “I know that—” he begins.

  “You obviously don’t,” I say. “There is no fucking way I’m letting Carl Springfield drive me from the only home I’ve ever known just because he had a hard-on for Momma and Duke got her. I’m not running because of him. I have the Rubies to think of. And I can’t let Buck take over the trade—he’ll start selling to kids and pregnant women before Duke’s cold in his grave.

  “Duke’s a rotten man, Will. We both know what he’s done. But he never sells to kids or knocked-up tweekers. He has my back when it comes to the Rubies. His honor’s shot to hell, but at least he’s got some kind of a code. Buck’s got nothing, and you know it.”

  I look in his eyes, searching for a flicker of understanding, but he’s staring me down, resolute.

  “So, yes, I blew the lab. I have a plan. I’m done with all of this. I’m sick of truces and territory lines and bodies in the woods. Grown men running around, playing at war. Well, I’m putting an end to their fucking war.”

  Will steps forward and then back. He can’t decide what to do. For once, I’ve thrown him, and his hands clench and his jaw twitches as he tries to figure out a way to talk me out of this.

  But he knows it’s a losing battle.

  I’m a losing battle.

  “They’ll come for you,” he says quietly. “The second they find out.”

  “Good,” I say, and I mean it more than anything I’ve ever said in my life, feel it with a surety that walks hand in hand with the snake-handling, crazed kind of faith. “I’m ready for them.”

  Part Two

  The Warehouse

  Twenty-Seven

  I’m nine years old when Uncle Jake tries to take me from Daddy.

  Jake’s smart about it, because by then, Daddy’s got me trained. He’s got me scared and already on the path to dangerous, his lessons drilled into body and mind. The moment I walk into a ro
om, I look for the escape routes. I can load a rifle in the pitch dark. I can shoot any gun I’m strong enough to lift. I can throw a knife and hit a bull’s-eye at twenty feet.

  Uncle Jake waits. He lets Daddy grow distracted, obsessed with getting Carl Springfield. And when the moment’s right, Jake makes his move.

  Daddy and Cooper have been gone on business for almost a week. Miss Lissa’s busy that day, because Will got into a fight at school. I’m bored and trapped at home, going stir crazy, and it’s been like that for over a year, so when Jake suggests we take a drive, I leap at the opportunity.

  The only time I’m ever let off the property is with him or Daddy, so I don’t think much of it at first. He tells me we’re going to the feed store. But then we don’t take the right exit off the highway—we just keep going, heading south. The alarm bells that Daddy’s worked so hard to hardwire into my head start to ring.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’ve got an errand to run,” Jake says.

  He’s never been a good liar, and I’ve been taught to spot even good lies. But I want to believe him. I tell myself to, because if I don’t…

  As we drive down the highway, I start to sweat. Uncle Jake doesn’t say anything, but he lets me play with the radio. I switch back and forth between the oldies and the country station, my nervousness showing, filling up the cab of the truck like smoke.

  I look out the window, turning in my seat to look behind me. That’s when I see the suitcases in the bed of the truck.

  My stomach twists and turns like the road cut through the mountains.

  We pass Salt Creek, heading over the lake and down toward Shasta County, and I know what’s going on now, but I don’t want to voice it. If I say it, if I ask him, if he confirms it, then it’s real.

  Then I have to run.

  If anyone tries to take you away from me, Harley-girl, you run. Never stop trying to run.

  My mind’s blank with panic, because it’s Uncle Jake. He loves me. He wouldn’t…

  He would. Of course he would. I see how he looks at Daddy when he thinks I’m not paying attention. I see how Daddy looks at him.

  They don’t like each other. Uncle Jake’s legit. That’s what Daddy says, and when he does, his lip curls.

  McKennas aren’t legit.

  We’re criminals. I know this. I understand it better than Daddy thinks.

  Uncle Jake sticks around; he skates the line between good and bad…only because of me. He loves me. And Daddy tolerates it, to a degree. He allows it in a way he wouldn’t with anyone else because of Momma.

  Uncle Jake and Daddy have two things in common: They love her and they want what’s best for me.

  Problem is, they have very different ideas of what that means.

  I let it go for another hour. I stay quiet and I pretend I haven’t noticed. But once we’ve passed Red Bluff and the shadows lengthen, I start to worry he’s heading to Sacramento. That he’s going to put me on a plane.

  “This is a bad idea,” I say. I croak it out, my throat dry with anxiety, with fear, with a shred of hope that I try to ignore, because it’s not right. It’s not.

  I belong to Daddy.

  You run, Harley-girl. Never stop trying to run.

  Jake’s fingers tighten around the steering wheel. He pushes harder on the gas pedal, and the truck speeds up. “What is, baby?”

  Irritation prickles through me. I’m not a baby. He treats me like one.

  Daddy doesn’t. He puts guns in my hands and steel-toed boots on my feet and tells me that one day, I’ll have to use both.

  “I’m not stupid. I know what you’re doing.”

  He glances over at me, his face showing the guilt. He knows it’s wrong.

  He knows it’s dangerous.

  “Harley,” he says, and then he presses his lips together, shaking his head. “I’m getting you out of there.”

  I can’t stop my eyes from skittering over to the door. My mind’s already twisting through it: a way out. The door’s unlocked, but the truck’s moving too fast. If I tried to roll out, I’d go splat.

  I could just be patient and wait. Daddy will find me.

  But it might take him a while. And the longer it takes, the madder he’ll be.

  My heart thuds in my ears. He wouldn’t kill Uncle Jake.

  Would he?

  Maybe not when Momma was alive. But now…

  It’s a new world. A new Daddy. He left the cloud of whiskey and grief behind for the hot spur of the hunt. Seeking out Springfield, destroying Springfield’s business, killing Springfield’s men—it’s filled him up and buried his mourning of Momma deep.

  I lick my dry lips, trying to think.

  I need a phone. If I call Daddy and keep him from getting too mad, he might let Uncle Jake live.

  I need information, so that means I have to play along. “Where are we going?”

  It’s the only way to save him.

  “Far away,” Uncle Jake says vaguely, his eyes on the highway ahead.

  “Yeah, but where? What’s the plan?”

  Does he even have one?

  “You don’t have to worry, honey,” he says. “You’re never going to have to worry again,” he adds under his breath, like he needs the reminder to believe it.

  But deep down, he has to know it’s a lie.

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” he says, and he smiles like he isn’t putting his life on the line.

  I go quiet, because bugging him isn’t gonna work. I look out the window, at the acres of crops—sunflowers and corn—that blur as we speed by. The sun will go down soon.

  I’ll wait him out. He has to stop eventually—even if it’s just for gas. And then I’ll make my move.

  The first time he pulls off the highway, he won’t even let me out of the truck cab. He pays for his gas at the pump and jumps right back into the driver’s seat, his head down and his baseball cap pulled down firmly over his eyes. We drive on.

  We’re about two hours north of Los Angeles when he finally stops for the night. It’s past two a.m., and I’m nodding off, my head bumping against the window.

  “C’mon, honey,” he says, pulling me gently from the cab and leading me into a motel room. It’s got these big pictures of flowers all over the walls and flowers on the blankets and hell, even flowers on the carpet. I crawl into one of the beds and pull the blankets over myself, my eyes drifting shut.

  I keep them shut until I hear his gentle snoring. Then I can’t help but look over at him and think Stupid. Because Daddy would never have stopped. Daddy would never have fallen asleep. And neither would I.

  I swipe his car keys and the motel key and slip out of the room. The parking lot’s quiet; everyone’s asleep but me. His cell phone’s in the glove compartment, and I turn it on, watching as the screen fills with missed call alerts from Miss Lissa and Daddy.

  My finger hovers over Daddy’s name. I need to call. But I don’t know what to say to keep him from killing Jake.

  I’m supposed to run. I’m supposed to call him. You run, Harley-girl. Never stop trying to run.

  I take a deep breath and press my finger down, bringing the phone to my ear. Two rings, and then he picks up: “Where the fuck have you taken my daughter?” he yells into the phone, and my shoulders hunch, my stomach freezes at the snarl in his voice.

  “It’s me.”

  “Harley,” he breathes, like a prayer, like I’m the best thing he’s ever heard. “Where are you?”

  “At a motel in Lost Hills.”

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’m coming to get you,” he says. “You stay right where you are.”

  I look over to the motel room. The window is still dark, but Jake will wake up before Daddy gets here.

  Jake will have me in Mexico before Daddy gets here.

  “That’s gonna be hard,” I say.

  “Harley, you find somewhere to hide,” Daddy orders. “Somewhere Jake can’t find you.
You take the phone and you stay there until I come for you.”

  I shake my head. I bite my lips as I think, the chapped skin breaking under the pressure.

  “I don’t want you to kill him,” I say.

  “You don’t—” Daddy chokes on his anger. I can almost hear his fists clenching. “Harley Jean McKenna,” he says, his voice low and menacing. It sends chills down my spine. I look over my shoulder, even though I know we’re hundreds of miles apart. “You will hide. Now.”

  Momma wouldn’t let him touch Jake. She would understand where Jake was coming from.

  But Daddy can’t. Because when a person takes someone he loves, he only knows how to hurt and kill.

  And I am the only person left that Daddy loves.

  “When you get here, I can make sure I’m still in Lost Hills,” I say. “But I’m not gonna tell you exactly where I am until you promise me you won’t kill him.”

  “He took you from me!” Daddy thunders, so loud it makes my ear hurt. “I thought Springfield had got you! That bastard is gonna pay.”

  I swallow, my heart beating so fast I’m afraid it’ll jump out of my chest. “You promise me you won’t kill him, Daddy,” I say. “You swear on Momma.”

  It’s a terrible silence that swirls around me. I feel light-headed as he draws it out, lets me stew, lets me soak in the fact that I’m defying him.

  That I’ve broken the rules.

  That I’ve brought Momma into this.

  But he’s not the only one she’s haunting. Her ghost may fit into the curve of Daddy’s smile and the blue of Uncle Jake’s eyes, but it’s my face that’s the mirror, the constant reminder to the men she left behind.

  She would want me to keep Jake safe.

  The silence stretches on for what seems like forever. I’ve never done this before, never defied him, and I’m scared. Not just of what he’ll do to Uncle Jake, but what he’ll do to me. But I have to keep Uncle Jake safe…for Momma’s sake and for mine.

  So I wait. And then it happens. Daddy clears his throat, and after a few more long seconds of silence, he says it. “I swear on your mother I won’t kill him,” he chokes out the words. Finally.