Free A Girl Undone by Catherine Linka

watching Mom go through hell, but not being able to help her; Mom crying for more painkillers and the nurse snatching the pills out of my small hand.
    I wish you’d tell me what you need from me, Luke. I wish I knew how to help you.
    I pictured Sarah’s angel face, and Jonas in his cowboy hat. If the feds hurt them, Luke would never forgive himself. And if they hurt Nellie and Rogan, he’d never forgive the feds.
    The highway ended at the interstate, and Selena merged into a string of eighteen-wheelers. The big trucks walled us in back and front. The sun was hidden behind thick pewter-colored clouds. Hills of scrub went on for miles, uninterrupted by billboards or houses. Mountains loomed in the distance, but I couldn’t tell if they were five miles or twenty miles away.
    I stayed tucked behind the curtain and out of sight. Patrol cars passed us, but the sheriffs inside didn’t glance our way.
    When the dogs started whining, Selena pulled off at a truck stop. We put sweaters on them and leashed them by twos, then Luke walked them around the gas station parking lot before we crated them back up. Even though we hurried, it took thirty minutes with all three of us working together. We ate carnitas sandwiches, standing up, and the pork was spiced with cumin and jalape ñ o, but I could barely taste it. We still had a hundred and fifty miles to go before we were off this road.
    We were only an hour from Laramie when the traffic began to slow up ahead. A few minutes later, both lanes were at a crawl and the left lane was merging into ours. Selena leaned out the driver’s window. “ Dios mio. It’s the police.”
    My heart started to pound. You can’t freak. You have to stay focused.
    “What are they doing?” Luke said.
    “I don’t know. Maybe there’s been an accident.” I strained to see. Red and blue lights flashed, reflecting off the steel body of a trailer truck up ahead.
    A moment later we were stopped, stuck in the line of traffic with no exit for miles.
    “I’m going to take a look,” Luke said.
    I followed him out. Black highway patrol cars lined the shoulder. “There’s more on the other side.” Luke pointed through a gap between two trucks.
    “I don’t see any emergency vehicles.”
    Our eyes met. “This isn’t an accident,” I said. “It’s a roadblock.”
    We crept alongside an eighteen-wheeler. A couple hundred feet ahead, troopers surrounded a car. The driver and passengers got out, and the troopers lined them up along the shoulder.
    People were reaching into their pockets, and I saw a man offer a trooper his wallet. “They’re checking IDs.”
    Luke frowned.
    A trooper pulled a semiautomatic out of the car trunk, and suddenly, all five passengers were standing spread-eagle, being patted down.
    Holy crap. I pressed against the side of the truck and scanned the land along the highway. It was flat and open with low scrub and no cover for a quarter mile to the south and more to the north. The snow was deep enough to lead the law right to us.
    “Bad spot to try and make a run for it,” Luke said.
    “Yeah.” I swallowed, trying to push down my fear. Luke and I turned toward a chop-chop sound. A helicopter was flying up the line of cars.
    The troopers finished with the car they were inspecting, and moved on to an SUV. Light bounced off the telescopic mirror a trooper was about to pass under it. The passengers unloaded boxes and suitcases from the rear, and the troopers ordered them to open them.
    “We can’t hide in Selena’s RV,” Luke said. “We’re going to have to bluff our way out.”
    “Right.”
    We turned back toward the RV and had gone just a few steps when Luke said, “I never thanked you for climbing up that ridge and saving my family back in Salvation. Not many people would risk their lives like that—”
    A chill blew through me and I yanked his arm hard so he almost tripped. “No. You do not get to say good-bye to me. Not here. Not now. You need to tell me you think