She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,225

this time. Preacher held Darby’s sleeping body in his arms, with Cammie beside him, as we followed my father past the cabin to the outbuilding. He entered a code on the security panel at the metal door. There was a loud buzz, and the door swung open. The lights turned on automatically. Inside were three Cadillac Escalades, white, with wires trailing out from under the hoods.

“I keep them gassed up and on trickle chargers. There’s cash in the glove boxes for gas. They should get us where we need to go.”

“Why white?” Preacher said.

“They won’t be looking for us in white vehicles. They blend,” my father said, eerily echoing what Stella told me a lifetime ago.

Preacher drove the first SUV with my father, Cammie, and Darby. I drove the second vehicle, with Hobson in the passenger seat and Stella asleep and stretched out in the back.

Our journey would end where it began, and with each passing mile, I felt Pittsburgh growing near.

17

Reid Migliore stood waiting for us at the mouth of the road leading to Carrie Furnace, an AR-15 cradled in his hands. Two other men I didn’t recognize leaned against the black SUV parked directly in our path about ten feet back. All three perked up as we approached, Reid in particular, his eyes nervously darting over Hobson, then Preacher and Cammie in the SUV idling behind me. He approached my open window, with the barrel of his assault rifle pointing at the ground. He had a fresh scar running along his right cheek.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

He ignored my question and glanced over at Hobson in the passenger seat—tied up and blindfolded. “What is this, Thatch? Dunk didn’t say nothing about kidnapping.”

I tied Hobson back up at the last gas stop. “Dunk knows.”

“Well, he didn’t say nothing to me. I don’t like any of this.”

Stella groaned from the back seat.

Reid leaned in a little closer. “That her?”

I didn’t answer.

“What’s wrong with her?”

It was my turn to ignore his question. “Where is he?”

Reid took a step back from the SUV and pointed the barrel of his assault rifle back toward the old steel mill. “Park where we did a few weeks ago, at Blast Furnace #7. He’s inside.”

I put the SUV back into gear and followed the overgrown road toward the large metal monstrosity.

I parked in nearly the same place we had the last time and shut down the engine.

Preacher pulled up beside me and did the same. He stepped out of the SUV and surveyed the buildings, the catwalks, the men slowly pacing back and forth along all of it, their eyes on the surrounding fields. He said softly, “Are you sure about this?”

“Nope.”

A girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen, walked up from the side of the brick building. Like Reid, she carried an AR-15. Unlike Reid, both her arms and half her neck were covered in colorful tattoos of snakes. The mouth of a cobra opened below her chin, ready to strike. She said something into a small Motorola radio before dropping it into the pocket of her green army jacket. “I’m Adella Fricke. Follow me.”

“Where’s Dunk?”

“In a few minutes. We need to get you settled first.” She glanced back at Stella. “Bring her. The others, too.”

Preacher looked at me, uncertain. I could only nod.

Adella led us through the brick building, out the other side, and down a long, wide hallway. Rusty water dripped from the ceiling and puddled on the floor. The walls glistened with it. Machinery long ago abandoned slept in every corner, left to die years ago. The men and women who worked for Dunk—gang members, runaways, homeless—I didn’t really know how to describe them. They watched us silently as we passed. Twenty, thirty, probably more. They were everywhere. The youngest looked no more than twelve or thirteen, and the oldest I spotted—a man wearing faded coveralls—might have been in his late fifties.

We took a set of stairs up to the second level, then followed a catwalk under a sign that simply read BARRACKS. Stella’s arm was over my shoulder, and although she wasn’t quite awake, she was able to walk on her own. The long walk was still exhausting, though. I was grateful when we entered a large room lined with bunk beds on the outer walls and tables in the middle—she hadn’t spoken in over a day. Her breathing was horribly labored, and sweat openly trickled from her pores. I settled her into one of the beds near the back,