Iron Goddess (14 page)

Oscar turned as Shea flew at him. She stabbed him in the chest, but the blade hit a rib, barely penetrating his skin. The lighter fell to the floor as he dropped to one knee.

She reached for her Glock in his waistband. He punched her in the face before she could grab it. The pistol clattered to the concrete as she reeled backward onto her chair from the blow. When he went for the gun, she drove her boot into his temple. He collapsed onto the floor.

Out of the corner of her eye, Shea saw Victor raise the Colt. She rolled, grabbed the Glock in her left hand. A bullet whizzed overhead. She returned fire putting two in Victor's chest. He slumped against one of the shelving units.

Oscar seized her left wrist, weakening her grip on the gun. His eyes blazed with hatred. “I'm gonna rip you apart,
blanca
.”

She stabbed his forearm. He let go with a yelp, blood gushing from the wound. She plunged the knife into his neck. He bellowed as arterial spray showered them both.

She scrambled to her feet, wiped her face with her arm, and looked down at Oscar. Blood pooled around his now-still body. His eyes were half closed, mouth agape.

With her ears ringing from the gunshots, a darkness crept over her, as if she'd crossed a threshold with no hope of return. She'd never killed anyone before. God knows, they deserved it. But she couldn't shake the fear that she'd become like them. Like her father.

The grief-stricken face of Oscar's mother appeared in Shea's mind.
Why you kill my Oscar?

“Help.” Wendy's ragged plea pulled Shea out of her head.

Shea rushed over to her sister and cut her restraints. With her hands free, Wendy wrapped her arms around her chest and sobbed.

Shea knelt down and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you're hurtin', but we gotta go.”

Wendy nodded. With a whimper, she pulled off her bra and tied a knot with the corners of her now-buttonless shirt to cover herself. Shea dug through Oscar's pockets and found his keys and his phone. To her surprise, the phone didn't require a pass code to use it. Oscar was either too confident or too stupid to worry about anyone stealing it. There was a single bar's worth of cell signal. She slipped it into her pocket.

“Shouldn't we do something with the bodies?” Wendy grimaced against the pain as she stood over Oscar's body.

“Why?” Shea trembled from adrenaline.

“Hide the evidence.”

“Two dead gangbangers in a warehouse full of dope? What all you planning on hiding? I just want to go.”

Wendy kicked the lid off one of the plastic bins. “Jesus.” She picked up one of the bags of hex.

“Leave it.” Shea opened the garage door and walked toward the Pathfinder.

“Please? I'm in pain. I could seriously use a hit right now.” Her eyes pleaded with Shea. “Besides, this shit is worth a buttload on the street.”

“I said, leave it!”

“And if I don't, what? You gonna kill me, too?”

Shea put away her knife and holstered the gun. “Just get in the truck.”

Wendy dropped the bag and sauntered to the Pathfinder, sulking the whole way. Shea started the engine. She wished she had taken a few moments to destroy the computer with the surveillance feed on it, but if she did, they would be dead now.

As Wendy climbed into the SUV, Victor began to stir and moan.

“Hurry up,” Shea said. “Victor's alive.”

Victor raised the Colt and fired, putting a hole in the upper right corner of the windshield. Ducking down, Shea threw the truck in reverse and floored it. Victor fired three more shots.

“How's he alive?” Wendy asked while they hurtled backward down the hill. “You shot him.”

“Must've been wearing a vest.” Shea stared out the back window, struggling to keep the Pathfinder on the narrow gravel road.

They reached an intersection a quarter mile from the warehouse. Shea spun the Pathfinder around and raced back through the labyrinth of unmarked roads.

Shea's leg began to throb. She pounded the steering wheel. “Fuck!”

“What's wrong?”

“Forgot to get my pain meds back from Victor.”

Wendy put a comforting hand on Shea's shoulder. “Once we get to the Church, I can have Dopey give you something.”

Shea scoffed at the idea. “Great.”

Moments later, a red triangle appeared on the dash. The engine temp had redlined.

“Dammit!” Shea ran her hand through her hair as steam poured from under the hood. “This is not good.”

“Now what's wrong?”

“Victor must've hit the radiator. Engine's overheating.”

“What do we do now?”

Shea pulled out the phone and handed it to Wendy. “Think you can remember Hunter's number now?”

“Don't matter whether I can or not. There's no bars on the phone. We're outta range.”

The truck lurched and whined. “Looks like we'll have to hoof it soon.”

“Hoof it? We're in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

For the next mile the engine started rattling, growing louder until the whole thing seized up and quit. The truck coasted to a stop.

“Well, that's it. No choice now.” Shea searched the back of the truck for a first-aid kit, a bottle of water, or anything that might make a long trek through the wilderness easier. All she found was a worn spare and a dusty navy-blue windbreaker. She tossed Wendy the jacket. “In case it starts to rain.”

“Thanks,” she whispered.

Shea opened up the maps app on Oscar's phone. Despite the lack of a cell signal, the GPS pinpointed their location. “The closest highway is five miles southeast.” She pointed in the direction they had come.

“Back toward the warehouse?”

“We'll get off the road and stay in the woods. I think we can avoid Victor. How's your chest?”

“It hurts. A lot. I wish I had your pain meds right now.”

Shea grimaced. “Wish I did, too.”

The GPS led them off the road and into the dense woods. Poison ivy and prickly pear cactus permeated the underbrush. With no trails to follow, it would be a tough five miles across steep, rugged mountains.

“If I tell you something, you promise you won't be mad?” Wendy sounded like a kid again, terrified of getting in trouble.

“What?” Shea struggled to keep her balance as a rock hidden by leaves twisted her ankle.

“You gotta promise.”

“Tell me already.”

“Okay, I wasn't going to give you your prescription.”

Shea didn't say anything. She wasn't in the mood to have deep emotional conversations with her junkie sister.

“Ain't you gonna say something?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno, like, ‘I forgive you,' or, ‘Hey, that's okay, we all make mistakes.' ”

“No. I don't forgive you.”

“As if your shit don't stink, Miss Grand Theft Auto.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“News flash, Shea! We all got issues.”

“Whatever. Keep walking or Victor
will
find us.”

The terrain fell away steeply, forcing Shea to grab on to trees to keep her balance. She looked for signs of the road, but the horizon was too hazy to make anything out. After thirty minutes of tripping through underbrush, Wendy collapsed onto a fallen log.

“Ugh, I need a break.”

“We gotta keep moving. Victor is looking for us.”

“You're just saying that. No one could find us in this jungle.”

“It ain't no jungle. Just a forest.”

“I'm in pain and I'm thirsty.”

“I am, too. But the only way outta here is to keep moving.” Shea pointed down the hill.

Wendy looked in the direction Shea indicated. “What's all that?”

“All what?”

“Red. Looks like a field of flowers down there.”

Shea stared down through the trees and caught a glimpse of color. “Wildflowers, I reckon.” Wendy was stalling, making Shea all the more frustrated.

Wendy shook her head. “Wildflowers bloom in the spring. It's August. It looks like the fields of roses they grow outside of Phoenix.”

“Whatever they are, that's the direction we're headed, so I guess we'll find out.”

Above them, a wall of slate-gray clouds swallowed the sun, deepening the gloom of the woods. “We best get going. Even if Victor doesn't catch us, that monsoon might.”

Wendy gazed at the approaching storm. “Geez, can't catch a fucking break.”

“Whatever. Come on.”

With a grunt, Wendy stood up and trudged along behind Shea down to where the terrain leveled out and the trees ended in a field of scarlet. They weren't wildflowers. Dense lines of chest-high plants topped with blood-red petals grew in precise rows, complete with drip irrigation lines. A chill ran down Shea's spine. “We shouldn't be here.”

“Why?”

“They're poppies.”

“Opium poppies? I didn't think they could grow here in Arizona.”

“Victor musta figured a way to do it. We better get outta here before someone sees us.” Shea crept back up the hill into the trees, looking for a route around the poppy field. When she didn't hear Wendy behind her, she turned around.

“What are you doing?” Shea rushed back down to the field to find Wendy pulling up poppy plants and collecting them in her arms.

“I'm taking a few samples. No harm in that.”

“What the hell's wrong with you? Hunter stole heroin from Victor and you see where it got us. Seriously, how stupid are you?”

Wendy glared at her. “It ain't like I'm taking several keys' worth of smack. Geez, you're such a square.”

Something whizzed past like a supersonic bee, followed by the boom of a gunshot echoing across the valley. “Shit! Get down.”

Shea and Wendy dropped to the ground.

“Shit, that hurts,” Wendy said under her breath.

“You hit?” Shea looked her over but didn't see any fresh blood.

Wendy shook her head, eyes closed. “No, but I landed on my chest.”

“This is why I didn't want you picking flowers. Fields like this aren't left unguarded. Now follow me and keep low. And try not to bump any of the plants.”

Someone shouted in Spanish from the other side of the field, maybe fifty yards away. Shea couldn't make out the words, but from the tone of his voice, he was pissed. She crept along the row of flowers to the southern end of the field, hoping the poppies would give them enough cover to reach the trees. Another shot whizzed overhead.

“Fuck,” Shea muttered. “He's getting closer.”

“You've got a gun. Shoot him.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say. I don't know where he is. Last time I stuck my head up in a firefight, almost got it blown off. Remember?”

“So what's your plan?”

“Right now my plan is not to get shot.”

“Great plan, sis.”

Shea looked at her, frustration mixing with fear. “I'm open to suggestions.”

Wendy held out her hand. “Give me the gun.”

“You know how to shoot?”

“Of course. Hunter taught me. Now give it here, if you don't want to use it.”

“Fine.” Shea handed her the Glock.

Wendy sat on her haunches and peeked above the tops of the flowers. The guard fired again, blasting a seed pod next to her head. Wendy squealed and fell back. Another shot whizzed by, not far from the last. Wendy scrambled on all fours toward Shea. “Go, go, go!”

Shea ducked through a gap in the plants to move across a couple of rows, then lay flat. Wendy hit the deck beside her. They had reached the end of the row. Nothing but fifteen feet of open terrain between the poppies and the trees. Chances of reaching cover without getting shot were slim.

“Okay, bad idea,” Wendy said.

“Where's the gun?”

“I dropped it.”

“You what?” Shea's body shook with frustration. “You said you knew how to handle a gun.”

“Not when someone's shooting at me, turns out.”

“Any other bright ideas, Annie Oakley?”

Another shot. This time the bullet ripped through a poppy plant next to Shea, shearing off the flower from the stem. The ring of petals spun in the air like helicopter blades and landed delicately in front of her.

“Maybe if you talk to him,” said Wendy. “Tell him we're just looking for the road.”

“You wanna get chatty with Mr. Trigger Happy, be my guest. I'm getting my gun back.” Shea slid past her, retracing their steps.

“Hey! Señor Guardo!”

Shea listened for the guy's response to her sister's call. No shots. No words in Spanish or English.

“No el shoot-o, por favor.”

Wendy's butchered Spanish alone should have earned her getting shot, thought Shea. But the guard held his fire.

“¡Manos andale!”

Shea hurried back to where they were when Wendy dropped the gun, but didn't see it anywhere. She looked in neighboring rows, up and down the way.

“Don't shoot.” Wendy stood with her hands up in surrender. She'd discarded the jacket and was looking all Daisy Duke with her shirttails tied around her chest, showing off a lot of skin.

“You done lost your mind?” Shea whispered.

“Ay, ay, ay, mamacita!”
The guard swished against poppy plants as he approached.

Fighting against the rising panic, Shea resumed her search for the pistol before the guy could do more than ogle her half-naked sister. She spotted it one row over and dove for it.

“He's coming closer, Shea,” Wendy muttered.

The guard's approach grew louder. Shea rolled onto her elbows and looked through the plants, gun in hand. Thunder rumbled in the distance. She guessed he was twenty feet away. Through the stems of poppy flowers she caught a glimpse of denim.

She raised the pistol and fired. The man fell to the ground, screaming in pain.

“You got him!” Wendy sounded gleeful, like Shea had caught her first fish.

Shea wasn't so filled with joy. The darkness in her was growing, numbing her emotions.

She pushed through the field to where the man lay on a bed of crushed poppy plants, moaning and crying out in Spanish. He smelled as if he hadn't bathed in weeks. His skin was dark, his clothes dirty and sweat stained. Blood poured from a wound above his left knee. He looked more day laborer than gangster, despite the AK-47 just out of his reach.

“¿Por que? ¿Por que?”
he cried over and over. He looked up at Shea, eyes begging for mercy.
“Lo siento. Lo siento. Por favor, ayudame.”

“He says he's sorry.” Shea pushed back against the darkness, fearing what would happen if she gave into it. Memories of her father's trial and a lawyer with slicked-back hair played in her head.

“Yeah, well, fuck him. He's only sorry we shot him first.” Wendy spit at him, while pulling the windbreaker back on.

“What do we do with him?” The darkness in Shea wanted to finish him off. Tit for tat. “Eye for an eye,” said the darkness in Ralph's twangy rumble of a voice.

“You gotta finish him.”

“Why?” Something in his face made Shea wonder who he was, if he had a family somewhere.

“You didn't finish off Victor and now we're hiking all over creation to get to the road. Then this fucker tries to blow my head off.”

Shea pointed the Glock at his head, willing herself to pull the trigger. Her hand trembled, as he sobbed with pleading eyes.

“Do it! For God's sake, if he was a wounded buck, you'd shoot him and put him out of his misery.”

“He ain't no animal. He's a human being.”

“He's a fucking spic working for the Jaguars.”

“¡Ayudame! Por favor, ayudame!”

Rain started falling in large, cold splats on Shea's arm. The longer she stared at him, the more her hand shook.

Shea holstered the gun. “I'm gonna save him if I can. There's a blue tarp across the field. Probably his camp,” she said. “Put pressure on the wound while I go look for something to stop the bleeding.”

“Like hell I will. You wanna save him after he tried to kill us?”

“Do it, Wendy!”

“Fine! You're fucking crazy, ya know that?” Wendy knelt down.

“Yeah, I know.”

While Shea trudged through the field, the rain came down harder until it was a deluge. The wind howled, whipping the rain in sheets across the rows of poppy plants. The ground turned to muck that pulled at her boots.

The man had strung a blue tarp into a makeshift lean-to with a pile of belongings stashed in one corner. Among the empty freeze-dried food wrappers and assorted camping gear, she found a faded photograph of the man with a woman and five kids.

A loud boom shattered the patter of the rain. Shea ducked down, gun raised, not sure if it was a nearby lightning strike or another guard shooting at them. Wendy stood with the guard's AK-47 tucked under her arm, pointed at the ground.

“What the fuck'd you do?” Shea ran back as fast as she could. “What'd you do?”

Wendy stood over the man with a satisfied grin on her face. Blood oozed from a bullet hole in his forehead, mixing with the mud around his body.

“Had to be done.”

“He had kids, goddammit!” Shea held up the photo.

“So do I, and these fucking wetbacks took her.” Wendy glared at her.

Compassion softened Shea's anger.

“Let's go.” Wendy slung the rifle across her back and marched across the field.

“I'm sorry,” Shea whispered to the guard's body. She tucked the photograph of his family into his dead hand, then ran to catch up to her sister.

As they marched onward, Shea's mind drifted back to when she was fifteen and skinny with Ralph's chestnut hair, long and wild. She was sitting at the kitchen table with her seven-year-old sister, Wendy, both of them eating bowls of Fruity Pebbles, watching the milk turn that funky purple-brown color. Wendy's strawberry-blond curls bounced as she hummed tunes in her head. Ralph sat between them dressed in a wifebeater, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee.

Mama walked in, wearing a yellow dress with white polka dots. She was dragging an old blue suitcase with a broken wheel and a smaller one Shea and her sister used for sleepovers. Her long red hair was put up in a bun. With her face made up, which was a rarity, she reminded Shea of a World War II pinup girl—except for the new shiner peeking out from beneath a layer of concealer. Ralph took one look at Mama and said, “Where the fuck you going?”

“I had enough of your shit.”

“What the hell you yammering about?”

“Your drinking, your abuse, and your insatiable need to tap every piece of ass that comes your way.” Her voice trembled with anger. “I will not have my daughters grow up in this environment.”

Ralph's face darkened. He bumped the table as he stood up, spilling milk from the kids' cereal bowls. He'd been grousing all morning 'cause Mama hadn't fixed him breakfast. “Where you gonna go, bitch? Everything you got belongs to me.” He grabbed the suitcases away from her and threw them clattering across the kitchen. “You got no money. No car. Nothing.”

Wendy looked up from her bowl and ran to Mama, wrapping her little arms around Mama's legs. She was always Mama's girl.

“I got my daughters.”

Mama reached for Shea's arm, who pulled away. “What are you doing, Mama? I ain't going anywhere. This is crazy!”

“Shealene, please! You deserve better than this. You stay here, you'll end up like me or worse. Remember Auntie Gina? And Beverly? You wanna end up dead or in prison the way they did?”

“I'm gonna be a Thunderman, like my daddy.”

Mama stretched out her hand. “Shea, you're a girl. They'll never let you be a Thunderman.”

“You can't tell me what to do!”

Ralph put an arm around Shea. When she nestled into his embrace, he grinned. “Shea stays with me. You wanna take that redheaded brat, you go right ahead. Never thought she was mine anyways. So go on. Everybody'll see you walking down the street like the drunken whore you are.”

A car horn beeped three times on the street.

“Who the fuck is that?” Ralph's tone turned icy, sending a shiver down Shea's spine. Trouble was coming. She slipped out of his embrace and stepped away from him.

“None of your damn business.” Mama picked up the suitcases and strode to the front door, but Ralph caught her. Wendy panicked. She let go of Mama's legs and ran out the door.

“It's that douchebag boss of yours, ain't it?”

“Larry's giving me a ride.”

“Ha! I'll bet he is. You been fuckin' him?”

Shea backed away into the corner of the cabinets farthest from the door. “Daddy, let her go.”

Mama escaped his grasp, pulled open the door, and looked at Shea. “Baby, please come with me.”

Ralph dragged his wife back in and slammed the door shut. “You ain't going nowhere, cunt, till I get some answers.” He threw her against the stainless steel fridge next to Shea, leaving a dent.

She looked dazed but managed to stand. “I've taken your shit for fifteen years, Ralph Stevens. You don't frighten me.”

“No?” He pulled a butcher knife from the knife block and stepped toward her. “Scared now?”

Mama stood taller, her chin high, and glared at him.

Shea crouched on the floor beside her, wide-eyed. “Daddy, stop! Please!”

“I ain't gonna ask again, woman. You been sleeping with that pencil-pushing dick?”

“I ain't telling you shit, you no-good excuse for a man. It make you feel tough, beating up on women?” She looked down at Shea on the floor. “See what you got to look forward to, Shealene? Nothing but—”

Ralph swung the knife, slicing open Mama's throat, sending a spray of cranberry blood across Shea's face. Mama crumpled and fell on top of her. Shea struggled to cover the wounds with her hands, but the cut was too deep and wide. Slick blood flowed through her slender fingers. Mama lay gurgling and gasping, eyes wide with shock until…until there was nothing left of her.

Shea's final memory of that day was looking up at Ralph's blood-spattered grin. She didn't want to believe he'd done it. He'd been her hero. But there he stood with the knife, gloating over Mama's lifeless body. It was the last time she'd called him Daddy.

On the other side of the poppy field, the hillside grew rockier. According to the GPS, they were two miles from the road. Shea plodded in silence, lagging behind Wendy, who groaned and grunted with every other step.

Shea remembered her fury watching Oscar hurt her sister, and her satisfaction hearing his cries as the knife pierced his neck. The darkness spread deep into her chest, a black hole swallowing up all light. Maybe they were more alike than she wanted to admit.

After another mile, Wendy stopped on the crest of a hill and stared down at something. The rain had eased to a steady drizzle. The roar of rushing water drowned out the patter of the rain. Shea caught up to Wendy and saw what she was looking at.

A ten-foot-wide stream raced down the mountainside, cutting across their intended path. During most of the year it would've been a dry wash. But now it churned with muddy water and debris. Even if it was only a foot deep, the current could knock them off their feet, carrying them downstream.

“What now?” Wendy asked.