She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,230

the sink using some liquid soap, then I hung them over a towel rack to dry.

Before leaving her, I placed the remains of the fruit bowl within reach on the ground beside her, and I brushed her wet hair from her face and brow.

Then I peeled off my own gloves and went back to the others.

Back in the bunk room, Cammie sat with her daughter, watching her work in a coloring book. She looked up at me wearily. Preacher huddled over a table of weapons with two of Dunk’s men—I spied everything from AR-15 assault rifles to handguns and knives. He had added our own guns to the pile along with all the headphones, unboxed and lined up.

Hobson sat in one of the chairs, his blindfold off. My father sat in a chair, facing him with a bottle of Jägermeister perched between them on an old wooden milk crate. Hobson’s hands were no longer bound. Both raised shot glasses to their lips and drank. I spotted another shot glass on the floor next to Cammie and an empty one in Preacher’s hand.

“Seriously? You’re all drinking right now? Why’s he untied?”

“Do you want one?” my father said, refilling both him and Hobson.

“No, of course not.”

For some reason, this drew looks from everyone.

My father cocked his head. Over the past few days, the bruising on his face had transitioned from reds and purples to blues and blacks. Now it appeared yellow and green. The swelling around his eyes had eased, and both were open again. “You don’t need a drink?”

I thought about this for a second. Only a few days ago, I would have jumped at that bottle and chugged the contents. Between tremors, cravings, and an all-out dependency after years of drinking, alcohol had become a necessary part of my life. No different than water or food. I couldn’t survive without it. But now, “I haven’t needed a drink for a few days now. I’m good.”

And I was. No shakes. No cravings or dizziness. Like Stella’s hunger, this was probably only some kind of reprieve, but I’d take it.

My father drank his shot, then set the glass down on the milk crate. “Alcohol dependency is a side effect of the shot. None of us drank heavily prior to the shot, but after it was administered, we all went out to a bar to celebrate our newly-acquired riches. A few days later, we began to realize we craved alcohol. Soon, we had to have it. The people from Charter said it was just a side effect and would wear off. A metabolic thing. It didn’t, though, just got worse with time. Odd thing is, none of us really get drunk anymore. Haven’t really since the shot. We can, if we really push it, but for the most part, it does little to us—only keeps the withdrawal symptoms at bay. After you were born, Charter ran a series of blood tests and concluded that you would most likely suffer from the same dependency when you got older. All the children would.”

Hobson slowly lifted his glass to his mouth and drank. When the glass was empty, he handed it back to my father and wiped his lips on the bank of his hand.

“Okay, but that doesn’t explain why he’s untied,” I said.

“Come here,” my father said. “I’ll show you.”

I took a few steps closer.

My father leaned in toward Hobson. “What did David Pickford tell you?”

“He told me to go to Cammie’s house and say hello for him, then kill her. Shoot her dead. He also said he loves Stella, and he’s cleaning up the whole mess, just for her. Like it never happened.”

My father said, “But you don’t want to hurt Cammie, do you?”

Hobson shook his head.

“And you understand you do not have to do what David Pickford told you to do, right? You have free will?”

“That crazy little shit tried to hijack my head. If I put a bullet anywhere, it will be in him,” Hobson said. He nodded at his glass. “One more.”

My father poured him another shot. “Is Cammie safe?”

Hobson drank and turned to Cammie. “I’m sorry, Cams. Are we good?”

Cammie smiled and nodded. “You don’t kill me, I don’t have to kill you. I think we’re good, and the world is better for it.”

My father turned back to me. “David’s ‘suggestions’ are just that. His ability causes them to become necessary actions in the mind of the person he speaks to, but they’re not carved in stone. You can talk