Barbed Wire Heart

by Tess Sharpe

  When he sets it down in front of me, I can’t help but smile. “You’re always patching me up.”

  “Somebody has to,” he says, and there it is—the pity. I hear it in his voice.

  “I really need you to go back to school,” I whisper.

  “And I really need you to stay alive,” he snaps.

  “I’ll be fine. As long as you’re not around to distract me.”

  “Distract you from what, exactly?” Will spits out. I’ve hardly ever seen him this mad, and it makes me worry. “What have you got planned next? Are you going to shoot Buck? Nail Springfield dead between the eyes with your sniper rifle? How the fuck do you expect to get away with this? What are you thinking, Harley?”

  Heat crawls up my neck. I hate that he underestimates me like this. I was never going to end up in college like him, but I’m not stupid. I’ve thought this through from all sides. I have a goddamn plan.

  “Do you remember the last time a lab blew?” I ask.

  He frowns, thinking back. I was twelve, and he was fourteen. It was summer, and I remember it vividly. The dry heat made the air shimmer in waves around us on the porch. Uncle Jake drove up reeking of sour meth smoke and Daddy had burns so bad I had to call Doc to come quick.

  “Everything got shut down for months,” he says slowly, remembering. “And Duke brought all the remaining product onto the property. I helped him and Jake load it into the shed.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So…you’re just gonna sit on a shitload of meth?”

  “No.”

  “Are you gonna kill him, Harley?”

  That’s the question, isn’t it? I’d like to say I have an answer, but I don’t.

  When it comes down to it, I’m not sure I trust myself not to kill Springfield.

  “If he could, Springfield would kill me,” I say.

  “You’re not him.”

  I smile, a bitter twist. “No,” I say.

  Will folds his arms, staring me down as he thinks. I can practically see the wheels turning in his brain, sifting through all that he knows. “If killing him is what you’re after, you’d just take a rifle, find a perch, and blow his head off.”

  “That’s one approach.”

  Will looks at the bag of drugs on the counter. “You could’ve left this inside the trailer…burned it up with the rest of it. But you didn’t. That means you have a plan for it.”

  I love him and this game we’re playing. It’s a part of him and me, sorely missed. Finally, someone who will meet me step for step. Who understands all of me—the good parts, the bad parts, the parts that belong to Momma, to Duke, to him.

  “You’re setting Springfield up,” Will says slowly, putting it all together. “The lab getting blown must’ve spooked the cooks,” he goes on. “How’d you make them think it was him?”

  “You know Springfield would be flashy as fuck if he finally decided to take us down. I played into their expectations. This”—I gesture to my face—“will just seal the deal.”

  “Smart.” Will nods in reluctant approval. “Let them draw their own conclusions first. Makes them more sure when you come along, confirming it.”

  “Makes them easier to deal with,” I agree.

  “So you let them fight it out and hopefully destroy each other—then you get away clean,” he says. “But what happens if Buck turns on you? Figures it out and sides with Springfield?”

  It’s a possibility, because Buck doesn’t have a loyal bone in his body. He obeys Duke because Duke terrifies him. I’ll never inspire that kind of fear because I’m a woman.

  That’s a blessing and a curse. But it’s the main reason I think my plan will work. They all underestimate me. Most of the cooks, they like me. Cooper loves me. But to them, I’m twelve years old and trembling at best and a pair of brainless tits at worst.

  Always take advantage of weakness, Harley-girl.

  “I don’t want to kill anyone,” I say, and it’s the truth. “But I will if I have to.” That’s the truth, too.

  Will looks away from me, like my honesty is too much. “You sound like him,” he says softly.

  I can feel the blood draining out of my face, and when Will catches sight of it, his mouth twists in apology. “Harley—”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry.” He’s not. He’s being the honest one now—I do sound like Duke. I know it.

  Do I have to become him to survive? To keep everyone safe? It’s the question that burrows in the back of my head, and I do my best to keep it there, but the answer’s waiting for me at the end of all this.

  But Will draws things out of me that no one else can—the deep kind of love, the protective kind of violence, and the hurtful kind of truth.

  He leans against the counter like someone punched him. “I’m too late, aren’t I?”

  I close my eyes against tears that stopped coming years ago. “What were you gonna do?” I ask shakily. “Save me? Snatch me? Take me away to Humboldt so I could go to class and live in the dorms with you?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  I turn red, and it’s not out of embarrassment or girlish satisfaction. It’s at the realization that he means it. That maybe he even planned it.

  It’s not something he would do. Taking me against my will, getting me away from Duke.

  It’s something I would do.

  Hell, it’s kind of what I did. I forced Duke’s hand and made him let Will go once he got into college.

  “Will…” I say. I want to step closer to him. I want to yell at him for even thinking he could get me to leave…get the best of me.

  He can’t. Not unless I let him.

  And I never would.

  I can’t leave the Rubies unprotected. I can’t leave the county to Springfield and Buck.

  “What am I supposed to do?” he asks. “In the two years I’ve been gone, he’s dragged you further and further into the business. Yes, I want to get you the fuck away from him.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about Duke,” I blurt out. “He can’t hurt anyone. He’s not even conscious anymore. The nurses say it won’t be long.”

  “Jesus,” Will says hoarsely, like I’ve sucker-punched him.

  I forget sometimes, that this is what he wants to do with the rest of his life: be around sick people. I thought I understood it when he left. It made sense, him becoming a nurse. He was good at taking care of people. I was basically his test dummy when we were kids.

  But when Duke got sick, when my days became nothing but vomit and sweat-stained sheets, muddled morphine moans and bruises from his flailing, I realized I didn’t understand this part of Will at all. How could he want to do this for someone he didn’t even know? Didn’t even love? Did it hurt less when you didn’t love them?

  “I didn’t realize…he’s that close…” Will’s eyes go bright again.

  I’m going to lose it if I keep having to look at him fight against grieving over Duke. It’s too much like what I’m doing myself.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” My voice is so close to pleading, it fights against my nature, against the whisper inside me: McKennas never beg, Harley-girl.

  “You’ve gotta let me take you away, Harley,” he says. “Especially now.”

  I look at him…really look at him.

  I love him. For his goodness and his strength and caring. For his ability to forgive and for the scars he bears, the ones that are my fault, that are Springfield’s, that are Duke’s, that are his mother’s…but never Will’s.

  I love him. I’d kill for him. Die for him. But I won’t leave for him.

  “This is my home!” It comes out fierce and loud—as it should. He should know this about me. “Do you know what happens if you take the McKenna out of North County? Think about it for a second. Think about what would happen if I just up and left. The sheriff can be bought off, no problem. The city council’s as corrupt as they come, and you’ve got a whole county’s worth of tweekers and junkies running loose, throwing around whatever
money they’ve got, stealing stuff to get the cash they need. Prime ground for a cartel or the Aryans to come in, if Buck and Springfield don’t kill each other first.

  “And what about the Rubies? What’s gonna happen to them if I’m not there to put a gun between them and the men they ran from? What about Mo? What about the diners? The trucking company? All the people who work for Duke’s businesses? What about them? You take the McKenna out of this county, Will, and there’s no county left.”

  “So you’re gonna take all this on?”

  “Someone has to,” I grit out.

  “Jesus,” he says, shaking his head. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He stares up at the ceiling, like an angel’s gonna fly down and hand him some magic key that would change my mind. A minute ticks by.

  “Okay,” he says finally. He pushes off the counter, turning to face me. “Okay, then. If you’re in this, then so am I. You need someone to have your back.”

  “No, I don’t,” I insist. “If you’re at my back, you’ll get me killed or caught. This is a one-woman job. If I take one wrong step, I’m dead. I can’t be looking out for myself and you.”

  “You can’t go in alone.”

  “Think for a second,” I tell him. “If I go to the Tropics with you, they’re going to want to know why you didn’t stop whoever did this.” I gesture to my face. “You’d mess up my plan from the get-go. You’re a distraction. And you’re not part of the business—you left. He let you go. There’s no way they’re letting you back inside. Especially when they think Springfield’s gonna attack at any moment.”

  There’s anger behind his eyes, but he doesn’t allow it reach the rest of his face. He knows deep down that I’m right. His heart’s just got to fight with his head a while before he admits it.

  “What’s Brooke doing, then?”

  “She stays with Duke during the day. The hospice thinks she’s my cousin.”

  “What about Gran?”

  “I paid the security guards at Fir Hill extra to keep a close eye on her. And the nurses know that only the people on her guest list are allowed in the wing. You think Springfield wants to mess with an angry nurse?”

  His mouth twitches, stifling a smile. “And the Rubies?”

  “The Sons of Jefferson are guarding them. I have a deal with Paul. I’ve got everyone covered but you.”

  “I’m not going back to school. Not if he’s dying, Harley, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You were just talking about taking me away from him,” I say. “And now what? You want to stick around to say goodbye?”

  It’s a low blow, one I regret the second it’s out of my mouth. Will’s eyes narrow, the hurt plain on his face.

  “Don’t pretend I didn’t spend all those years at your side, under his hand,” he says. “He’s the only man who’s ever given a shit about me. He’s the man who rolled up my sleeves and saw my scars and told me he’d kill anyone who did that to me again. And I believed him, not just because he’s the scariest motherfucker I’ve ever met, but because I knew he meant it. I didn’t know what safe was until him.”

  I suck in a shaky breath, too sharp and quick. Then I reach out, compelled by more than want, by a need that’s been so ignored and goes so deep that it hurts when I touch him. I don’t push back the sleeve of his flannel shirt; instead, I wrap my fingers around each of his wrists, my thumb resting on the inside.

  I can’t feel it through the flannel, but I know it’s there. The first in a series of scars, round and puckered, burned into his skin by a vicious man.

  “I get to say goodbye to him,” he says, softer now. Not as angry, because he feels my apology in the curl of my fingers, in the brush of my hip against his as I step closer.

  It’s so much easier without words, when the person can just read you in breath and body.

  “Duke took Gran and me in,” Will whispers, his eyes not quite meeting mine. “He saved me…and taught me…and he loves me, I think.”

  “Of course he does,” I say, and the truth of that goes deeper than he’ll ever know.

  “So I’m staying,” Will says.

  From years of experience, I know there’s no pushing him. Not without hurting him. Or knocking him out and dragging him over the county line…which I consider for a moment before folding my arms and gritting my teeth.

  “Fine,” I say. “But stay out of my way. And lay low.”

  “And I want to see him,” Will adds, an urgent note in his voice.

  I expected this, but still, something sick curls in my stomach. It’s childish, but powerful, this leftover fear that’s ingrained in me.

  Don’t break the rules, Harley-girl.

  “I need to see him,” Will says.

  No one can see me like this. Please, Harley Jean.

  “Please, Harley,” Will says.

  “Of course,” I say, and my betrayal is complete.

  I’ve broken every rule.

  Every promise.

  Every vow.

  I really am his daughter.

  Twenty-Nine

  I’m twenty-one when Will and I stop talking.

  After almost a year away at college, he comes home for Christmas. He’s visited a few times, but never for long.

  We call and we text, but it’s not the same.

  I can’t picture how he spends his day, his life at college. And the way he looks at me tells me that how I’m spending my time these days is all he’s thinking about.

  With every month that passes, Duke gives me more responsibility. I can see how it pisses Buck off, how it makes Cooper proud, and how it makes the fear in Will spark quick and hot.

  I don’t want this for you, his eyes say. They follow me around the kitchen as I bake the snowball cookies Miss Lissa always made for Christmas.

  I keep quiet. I don’t bring it up. I’m scared of what might happen if I do.

  Our worlds are separating, piece by painful piece, and if we speak on it, then it’s real. Then it’s something I have to deal with. Then I lose him for good.

  My plan, to keep my mouth shut and not ripple the waters, is working. And then it isn’t.

  He’d been staying up at the main house with us instead of the little cabin where he grew up with Miss Lissa. But the night before he had to go back to school, I wake up. When I walk downstairs to get water, I see a light across the meadow and I go, drawn to it—to him.

  The little cabin is sweet and cozy. Duke built it himself when he was a teenager, back when Granddaddy McKenna was still alive and living in the big house. From all accounts, my Granddaddy was a mean son of a bitch, and Duke had the scars to prove it. Moving out—even if it was just across the meadow—was probably a relief.

  The cabin’s still decorated the way Miss Lissa left it, with the pictures and photos that I didn’t bring to Fir Hill still on the walls and the crystal vase her momma had passed down to her on the mantel above the woodstove.

  I hear a rustling sound in the back bedroom, and that’s where I find him, sitting on his childhood bed, a cigar box he must’ve swiped from Duke in front of him.

  “You smoking cigars now?” I ask, coming to sit next to him.

  He shakes his head, flipping the box open. There are some old black-and-white photos of Miss Lissa when she was young and baby pictures of Will with her, but none with his mother. A worn Bible with a white leather cover, an old gold ring on a chain—Miss Lissa used to wear it around her neck, her late husband’s wedding band—and then I see it at the bottom of the box: a loop of barbed wire, fashioned into a bracelet.

  “Remember this?” he asks quietly. He runs his index finger lightly over the bent barbs.

  I have to grip the edges of the bed to keep from snatching the wire away. I want it back with me, in my hands, around my wrist, even though it’s too small. It’s been too small for years, shaped for me before I hit my growth spurt.

  “Of course,” I say. My voice is hoarse. It doesn’t sound like me.

  “Here.” He moves closer, his knee brushing my
thigh. With a deft movement, he untwists the wire. “Give me your wrist.”

  His fingers slide against my pulse point, and I wonder if he can feel it speed up. He closes the bracelet around my wrist, reshaping it to fit me again.

  My wrist’s still clasped between his fingers and I stare hard at his hand beneath the barbed wire.

  “I remember when I made this for you. You were what—nine…ten, maybe? You were still on house arrest back then. There were times I thought he’d never let you off the property. I’d think about it, how to sneak you out…run away.”

  “Even then?”

  He’s looking down at his hand, just like I am. But I can feel his gaze all the same when he says, “Always,” and my heart stutters inside my chest.

  His head tilts up; I feel it more than see it. “Do you know how much I’ve missed you?” he asks, and my head jerks up; I’m startled into looking at him because of the pain in his voice.

  It makes me want to crawl out of my skin into his. To do anything to erase how he’s looking at me right now, raw and hurt.

  “I missed you, too,” I say. “But you have school. And I have…” I don’t finish. I don’t need to, because we both know. I have Duke. I have the business. I have the Rubies.

  I don’t have him.

  All that openness in his face shuts in a second. His fingers twist in mine, and the movement tugs the sleeve of his Henley up. When I see the flash of black ink, everything inside me locks up. He drops my wrist instantly, pulling down his sleeve.

  But it’s too late.

  I’ve seen it.

  I grab his wrist, but he jerks it away from me.

  “Harley…” he says, like he’s going to explain or something.

  I don’t want an explanation. It’s not going to stop me. I’ll pin him to the bed if I have to.

  “Let me see,” I say.

  “Look—”

  “Let. Me. See.”

  Will grits his teeth, staring up at the ceiling. Then he raises his left arm and pulls up the sleeve to his elbow to expose the scars Springfield burned into him.

  One for every year he’d been alive, he’d told me years ago, with a sad, crooked smile. Ten circles, second-degree burns that didn’t get treated right, because Desi didn’t want CPS coming around.