Page 39 of Iron Princess
“Don’t apologize. In fact ...” I pull a small notebook out of my pocket. I never go anywhere without it. “Let’s leave him a note. You never know if he’ll come back.”
“What should we say?”
“Do you know how to write his shorthand language too?”
She nods.
I step closer to her and tear out a page, then offer it to her with a pen. “Tell him you’re safe, but you want to talk to him. You need to know he’s okay.”
She turns to use the side of the boat as a desk, then hands both back to me. I glance down at the paper and find the writing looks like complete gibberish.
“Really?”
She stiffens. “I didn’t make it up. I just learned what he taught me.”
“I’m not judging. It’s handy, being able to write something that’s essentially a code no one else can break. I’ll be right back.”
Her lips press together as I duck back into the cabin, doing one more sweep before I tack the note to the wall with a stray nail.
You better call, motherfucker. If you care about your sister at all ...
With another silent order, I turn and leave.
24
Temperance
“Turn right here. It’s the second driveway on the right. The mailbox is attached to an exhaust manifold.”
Kane raised an eyebrow when I told him there was somewhere else I needed to go after we returned the airboat to the bait shop, but he didn’t argue. Maybe it was the tone of my voice when I asked, or maybe it was because I was subconsciously promising sexual favors. Either way, we were on our way to the scrap yard, and at least for a few hours, I could forget how big of a bust my idea to track down my brother was.
“This one?” He slows when Elijah’s mailbox comes into view.
I still remember the day we made it, and his dad backhanded him for using parts he could have sold. His dad died six months later, and not a single funeral-goer cried. Elijah and I come from the same kind of people.
“That’s the one.”
Before, I would have cringed at the thought of bringing Kane here, but we’ve already been to one of my brother’s cabins in the swamp. He’s experienced my airboat-driving skills and doesn’t seem to be looking at me any differently, so I’m going to chance it.
I’m willing to chance a whole hell of a lot to get my hands on a welding torch and some metal. Like a junkie rediscovering an addiction, I need my fix.
He drives through the open chain-link gate. “So, this is how you got your start? Welding metal together in a scrap yard?”
As he scans the rows of busted cars, I wonder if he sees them as potential, like me, or garbage, like most everyone else.
“Something like that.”
“I’ve spent a fair bit of time at scrap yards over the years. Can’t always find the parts you need to restore something old in a brand-new box.”
Something about his comment fills me with the strangest hope.He sees possibilities.
“Follow this track around to the metal building. We can park beside it.”
He nods, and we slowly roll through the aisles. “Oh, sweet. Did you see that Wagoneer?” Kane brakes. “It’s in rough shape, but I bet it has some good parts to bring another one back to life.”
“Who restores your vehicles?”
“I do a lot of the work myself. As much as I can, anyway. I don’t love rebuilding the engines, so I’ll farm that work out sometimes.”
