Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(44)

The world was no longer the same as it had been when they’d arrived that morning.

A thought of Andrew wormed its way through. She wondered what he was doing right now. Her heart stung as she remembered how soon he’d be gone…and what Brenner had implied. If he could send Andrew off to war, then what couldn’t he do?

“Later,” Alice said.

“Come on, ladies,” Ken said, and Terry realized they’d fallen behind the group. She looped her arm through Alice’s and marched them forward. Once they hit the outside, she inhaled the fresh air like it was perfume.

Nothing more was said on the drive home as the landscape rolled by in a dark blur. Terry caught the orderly looking at her in the rearview mirror twice, and pretended to sleep. It wasn’t hard with fatigue weighing her down. Maybe she even drifted off.

When they reached the campus parking lot, the driver hopped out and opened the door for them. They’d gotten back later than usual, and there weren’t even the usual few stray students buzzing around. Still, Terry didn’t want to risk the van returning if they tried to talk here.

“We should go somewhere,” Alice said after it pulled away. “Andrew’s?”

Terry shook her head. “I don’t want to put anything else on his plate.”

“We could go to my parents’, but I’m afraid they wouldn’t leave us alone long enough to talk,” Gloria said. She glanced at Ken. “And Terry and I aren’t allowed to have men in the dorms.”

“And I’m not allowed to have women,” Ken said.

“Or any guests this late.” Terry searched for somewhere else.

“We can go to my uncle’s garage,” Alice said. “I have a key.”

No one objected. And so they made a caravan, Gloria, Terry, and Ken riding together in Gloria’s sedan, following Alice and her muscle car out past the edge of town.

“Is Alice going to be okay?” Terry asked Ken.

She desperately hoped he had an answer, and a positive one. If she was honest, the opportunity to ask was the main reason why she’d volunteered to ride over with Gloria and Ken.

“I don’t know yet. I wish I did.”

“Me too,” Gloria put in. “We’re here.”

A giant, dinged-up metal sign at the end of a dirt driveway pronounced their arrival at JOHNSON’S HEAVY MACHINERY REPAIR, MAINTENANCE, AND SCRAP.

Terry had never bothered to imagine the garage where Alice worked, but she’d expected something like where she took her car to be repaired. This was an enormous warehouse, surrounded outside by tractors and bulldozers in pieces and parts. Trucks with wheels that could crush her own car. Eerie, like a graveyard of machines in the quiet dark.

She shook her head. You’re losing your grip. Get it together. Then again, maybe it was just the remnants of the day’s drugs. And the fact that she’d witnessed something impossible.

Shadows draped the front of the warehouse, the lone security light no match for the evening. Alice must have known the way by heart, because she didn’t hesitate a step. Terry watched as she approached the building in front of them, and then moments later a broad door swung open and lights blazed inside.

“After you,” Ken said.

Terry and Gloria entered first—the door was wide enough for both—and Terry let out a low whistle. Inside were more of the behemoth machines, towering high, seeming even bigger with a roof over them. The cavernous workshop smelled of oil and grit and sweat.

Alice fixed these. She worked on these. She truly was some kind of genius.

“Alice, this is…This is really something,” Terry said.

Alice had her arms folded nervously in on each other. “I know it’s not college, but…”

“This is incredible,” Gloria said.

Alice rolled her eyes. “Flattery is unnecessary.”

Gloria shook her head. “There’s a science to this, too. A lot of it.”

Alice nodded, at last releasing her hold on her arms. She must’ve been worried they’d poke fun at her. Their tough, fragile Alice. Affection for every single one of these strangers who’d become her friends surged through Terry. There was no one on earth like any of them.

Terry, get yourself together.

“Remind me: I’ve got a radio I need to you to fix,” Ken said and winked at Alice.

Alice held up her thumb and forefinger and rubbed them together. “Sure…for ten bucks of filthy lucre, you got it.”

The mood lightened a touch.

“I’m afraid I don’t have many chairs to offer you.” Alice swept a gaze around the workshop, where Terry saw exactly none. “My uncle says they just encourage people to stick around and pry in your business.” She gestured to the concrete and sat, propped against the wheel of a bulldozer-like machine.

The rest of them eased off their feet. Terry chose crisscross applesauce, propping herself up with a hand to the cool floor at her side. Gloria stepped up and took the padded seat of a medium-sized tractor. Ken crossed his feet at the ankles alongside Terry.

“Well,” Terry said, when no one spoke, “we’re here for a reason. Brenner knows something. He…threatened me. He made it sound like he had something to do with Andrew…”

“He couldn’t have, though,” Alice said. “It was a random lottery.”