HARD FAL (9 page)

Thankfully the
Hofbräuhaus
was a straight shot down Carson from the Federal Building. And no potholes.

She pulled alongside the Cheesecake Factory, hoping to find a parking space. The
Hofbräuhaus
was directly in front of her. Beside it was the terraced amphitheater where summer concerts were held. The concrete steps that served as seating also led down the steep hill to the Heritage Trail that ran alongside the river and the boat landing. On either side of the steps were zigzagged handicapped accessible ramps and there were large concrete planters with small trees and shrubs scattered throughout the plaza.

No joy with parking, she’d have to circle around the block or hit the garage on Carson. As she pulled up to the stop sign on Water Street and signaled her turn, a group of people emerged from the
Hofbräuhaus across the street
. June and the others.

Seth had his arm around June’s waist but he was in earnest conversation with Oshiro. June tilted her head up, her gaze searching the clear blue sky, hair ruffling with the March wind. There was supposed to be a storm front moving in later today but right now the sun was shining. June broke away from the men, her fingers trailing down Seth’s arm, squeezing his hand before wandering off to perch against a nearby planter. The way she closed her eyes and stretched her body, basking, it was as if she hadn’t seen sunlight in ages.

Seth and Oshiro continued their conversation, bodies angled toward each other, shoulders and heads hunched like football players huddled together on fourth and long. Walden spotted Lucy and sprinted across the street, coming around to her driver’s side window. In his hand was a plastic bag, hopefully brimming with food for her and Taylor.

She rolled down her window. It was breezy, in the fifties—not bad for a Pittsburgh March. Walden leaned in. “Knew you wouldn’t make it. Don’t worry, I have you covered.” He raised the bag, releasing the enticing aroma of
Jagerschnitzel
into the Forrester.

“Thanks. I lost track of—” Motion from the group across the street caught her attention. No. Not the men standing at the curb waiting for Walden to return with the car. Rather a motorcyclist speeding down Water Street. The street was clear of traffic, yet he swerved directly at Seth and Oshiro. “What the—”

Before she could finish her thought the motorcyclist raised a hand and aimed a gun at Oshiro and Seth Bernhart.

Chapter 10

WALDEN DROPPED THE
food and sprinted across the street as Lucy shouted a warning to Seth. Oshiro spotted the weapon and spun to push Seth down. The gun went off.

The motorcycle jumped the curb, ramming Oshiro, the largest target, knocking his feet out from under him, and pushing him into Seth as he fell. With both men down, the motorcycle, a large, wide-based Harley, screeched as it changed trajectory. The cyclist wore a visor, darkened to hide his face so it was impossible to get a look at him.

Lucy gunned the engine, swerving the SUV to stay out of Walden’s line of fire as he aimed his weapon at the motorcyclist. There was no clear shot because June was too close, pinned between the six-foot wide concrete planter and the motorcycle.

The shooter saw his chance to grab a human shield, hauling June across the body of the motorcycle. At the sight of Walden standing, aiming his pistol, a motorist on Water Street slammed his brakes. The car’s fender clipped Walden, spinning him around and sending him sprawling to the ground.

Lucy only had time for a quick glance in the mirror to check on Walden as she twisted the steering wheel—couldn’t ram the motorcycle and risk injuring June, but maybe she could get in front of him, block his escape on Water Street.

The motorcyclist had another plan altogether. Instead of veering back onto the street to make his escape, he swerved down the nearest ramp leading past the amphitheater and to the river.

Oshiro struggled to get up, blood covering his face and something obviously wrong with his arm. Seth crawled out from under him, calling June’s name.

Lucy scanned the terrain in front of her. No way would the Forrester fit on the handicapped ramps and the steps were too steep. But adjacent to the plaza was an undeveloped parcel of land covered in dirt and weeds, surrounded only by a plastic mesh snow fence. She pressed down on the accelerator, twisted the steering wheel, and sent the SUV flying over the curb and through the fence.

Mud and decapitated plants churned the air as she raced through the lot, dragging stray lengths of bright orange plastic fencing material behind her. She aimed for the corner of the lot that overlooked the trail leading to the river, praying that her memory was correct. If it was, then the slope of the trail meant that the paved path lay only six to eight feet below the parcel she was speeding across—the SUV could make that drop, as long as it didn’t roll over.

Of course, even if she was right and the pavement was only a few feet below her, not the twenty some feet it was on the opposite side of the plaza, then she still had one more problem—how to turn the SUV to stay on the path without it sliding down the hill and into the river.

Already planning her trajectory, she angled the Forrester and tried to gauge a speed fast enough to make the leap but slow enough to maintain control. Beside her, she spotted the helmet of the motorcyclist as he zigzagged down the ramp. The sharp turns and June’s struggles had slowed him down. Good, she could still beat him to the riverside path. He must be planning to take it downriver to make his escape.

Or maybe he had a boat waiting at the landing? But that meant accomplices and planning—could they have put this all into motion during the hour that June and the others had been inside having lunch?

The ground sped past too fast for her to finish her thoughts. Then she was out of time and flying through the air, her height enough to spy the dark waters of the Monongahela beyond the large concrete wall that suddenly appeared in front of her. Damn, she knew she’d forgotten something. Guess that solved the whole what was going to stop her from driving into the river problem.

Now it was a how was she going to keep from slamming into a concrete wall when she finished flying off the side of the slope and hit the ground problem.

The Girl Who Never Was: Memoirs of a Survivor

by June Unknown

Why Your Real World Wasn’t Ever Mine

EVER SINCE THAT
night in the mall, just about every adult I met who knew my truth acted like they’d rescued me.

Hellhole. Prison. Dungeon. That’s what they called my home.

To me it was the world for the first ten years of my life. And for the next nine years, I tried desperately to go back—at first literally, and then when I understood that was a lost cause, figuratively.

I hated this “real” world. Everything moved too fast, sounded so loud I’d be exhausted from my constant startles and jerks. Space made no sense and I got sick every time I rode in a car or elevator.

And the people. So many people. Strangers all of them, yet they crowded against me, sometimes touching me, talking at me with words I didn’t understand, asking me things I didn’t know how to answer. Often they’d just stare at me with the look Daddy used to get when I was a Bad Girl and disappointed him, made him re-do a picture or video or just didn’t act like a Good Girl should.

Daddy would usually just shrug and ruffle his fingers through my hair, tell me “it’s okay, Baby Girl,” (unless I was really, really Bad, but I don’t like to remember those times). Not these people. They’d get that look, frown, then talk above me, over my head to whatever adult was around, as if I wasn’t even there.

But they’d never leave me alone.

And there were so many rules that I didn’t know about and no one told me. Like wearing Dress Up clothes all day and night. All those buttons and zippers and laces and layers—inside out, backward, I had no clue what to do with them all. When it was time for Dress Up, Daddy always dressed me, gentle pushes, arms up, turn around, hold still, there you go, beautiful.

Here, all I got were yelling and spankings and laughed at.

Clothes were just the start. Social Worker and the grownups in the houses I went to—a new one over and over with new daddies and mommies and sometimes other kids, they were the worst, knew I didn’t belong and made me pay for it every minute—they all talked to me about Good Touch and Bad Touch, but when you have no idea of the difference between private and public, and the only touch you’ve ever had came served with declarations of love, I didn’t understand.

Just like I didn’t understand about closing the door when using the toilet or being in there alone—I hated being alone almost as much as I hated being with these noisy, smelly people—or taking a shower by myself or not walking in when someone else was in there. Daddy and I did everything together. He was never, ever out of my sight, day or night, always within reach, except when I was a Very Bad Girl and he locked me in the basement, which was almost never.

Being sent to my room or forced to sleep in my own bed, all alone, all night long—these were torture. I needed to be with someone. Not all these people, not go outside and play with the kids (what was play?), I just needed that one person to protect me, keep me warm and safe, make me feel like everything would be okay.

I needed my Daddy.

They looked at me funny every time I asked for him. Looked at me even worse, like I was going to make them cry, when I finally answered all their questions about Daddy and what it was like back home. Even then, they never went to get him or brought me back home. So I stopped talking.

Then I got sick all the time. I couldn’t ever remember being sick back home with Daddy. The first time it scared me, I thought I was dying like people on TV. The mommies told me to stop being a baby, it was only a cold. But they still kept taking me to the doctor where Bad Nurses gave me shots if I didn’t have a fever, but then a day later I would have a fever and feel even worse.

Sometimes at night, finally in quiet but all too alone, I’d let myself cry, making myself more miserable because one of Daddy’s rules was Baby Girls Don’t Cry, and I’d hug myself and pull my fuzzy blanket over my head to block out the rest of the world and I’d try so very hard to pretend it was Daddy holding me tight and keeping me warm and that he’d still be there in the morning when I woke.

The adults all acted like I should thank them, like they were heroes for taking me away from Daddy. Before I met Dr. Helen, a lot of them said it was okay if I was angry and hated Daddy.

How could I ever hate him? He loved me and I loved him. He kept me warm and safe and away from these crazy people and doctors and nurses who stuck me with needles all the time and social workers who wanted me to talk about things they didn’t understand and from the new daddies and mommies who got so mad at me (one even hit me!) and the kids who said mean things and tried to take my fuzzy blanket and make me cry but I wouldn’t let them.

I was safe at home with Daddy. Even the few times when I was a Very Bad Girl and we’d just see about that and give you some time to think about what you did and how you can be a Good Girl, I never felt scared.

Not really. Well, maybe a little. When I was a Very Bad Girl, Daddy would lock me in the basement with no lights I could reach to turn on and the house would go cold and quiet, so quiet, and I knew he was gone and not coming back until I figured out how to be Good again. I’d drink from the sink near the washer and eat cans of tuna fish he kept down there and sit in the dark and think about how to be a better Baby Girl.

The first time it was scary—not the dark, the being alone for the first time ever. All my life Daddy was right there, close enough to touch, every second of every single day. I thought I might go crazy that first time, left alone.

I cried, I couldn’t help it, but then, finally, after a long, long, longest time, the door at the top of the steps opened and the light hurt my eyes but there he was, so big and strong, glowing like the sun and moon, like he was my whole wide world and I ran up and leapt into his arms.

He always came back. Always. And when he did, he always said the magic words, the best words in the whole wide world, the words that no one here will ever say, not the way he did, not the way that made my insides glow like a light bulb had been clicked on so bright the light leaked out of me like a song coming straight from my heart.

When Daddy came back, he’d pick me up, give me a hug and say, “I love you, Baby Girl.”

No matter how much time has passed, no matter how I know I should feel now that I’m grown and know the truth, how can I ever hate that man?

Chapter 11

IT WASN’T LIKE
in the movies where stunt drivers were able to miraculously steer flying cars simply by wrenching the wheel and hanging on, jaw clenched. Thankfully, Lucy’s memory of the topography had been close enough that she’d sent the Subaru off the side of the hill at an angle that pretty much aimed her where she wanted to go.

The few seconds she was in the air seemed to defy the laws of physics, the concrete wall looming in her windows, filling her vision. But then gravity worked its magic and the car fell back to earth, slamming into the pavement hard enough to send an explosion of pain through Lucy’s foot and to jerk her body against her seatbelt, but not enough to make the airbags blow.