“It’s my main form of transportation,” Conroy said. “It’s the only way I’ve ever left these Hills. Believe it or not, it’s the most discreet way to get in and out of these mountains.”
“But how did you get a helicopter?” Amber asked.
“I own it,” Conroy replied.
Jet’s eyebrows shot up. “You own it?”
“So you have money,” Di stated. “Lots of money, obviously, if you’re the one who left us the funds in our bank accounts.”
“Yes,” Conroy answered.
“But if we’ve been living in seclusion, how did you get the money?” Di drummed her fingers on the end table. “If what you’re saying is true, you couldn’t work living in seclusion out here. So where’d you get the money to fund all of this?”
Conroy cleared his throat. “I did work actually. I never stopped working. That’s why I had the lab downstairs created so I could continue my research, but I also come from a wealthy family and have invested well over the years. Money has never been an issue in my life. Ever.”
“But money leaves a trail, right?” Jasper said. “So if this so called group of yours, was really looking for you, couldn’t they track it? Through money withdrawals or whatever? Surely they could have found you that way.”
“My investment firm handles everything for me,” Conroy replied. “That and most of my funds are kept in off shore accounts. They’re not as easy to track.”
“How much money do you have?” Jacinda asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
Conroy shrugged. “More than any of us could ever need.”
“But that still doesn’t explain how you got us out of the cabin, into a helicopter, with only the help of your lawyer and pilot,” Di replied. “That’s eight of us versus three of you. Surely we would have fought when you tried to drug us? Or did you slip it in a drink or something?”
Conroy shook his head. “No, neither of them helped get you out of here.” He hung his head for a minute. “I’m not proud of this, but I lied to you all. I told you we were going on a trip. I took you all to one of my homes in Montana and drugged you there. After that, it was merely a job to carry you back to the chopper, which is when my lawyer and pilot stepped in. We took you all to your various cities from there.”
Everyone stared at him, silent. “I guess money really can buy anything,” I said.
“Yes, Galena,” Conroy said. “It really can.”
The heat off Flint escalated. A muscle clenched in his jaw.
“By the way, why do you keep calling me that?” I blurted. I put my hand on Flint’s thigh, hoping the change in topic might distract him from his almost palpable rage. “My name’s Lena.”
“Lena’s short for the name I gave you, which is Galena,” Conroy answered.
“And you named Di, Diamond and Jacinda, Jacinth?” I asked.
“Correct. We never knew your birth names, or if your parents ever named you, so the group gave you names. Your group was named after natural elements. Diamond, Flint, Jacinth, Galena, Amber, Mica, Jet and Jasper. Your names are all derived from rocks, minerals and gems. I named you all.”
“Oh,” I replied, stunned. That was another clue we’d never put together. I hadn’t realized our names were connected.
Everyone else remained quiet, brooding expressions on their faces.
It was a lot to take in.
Leaning back, I crossed my arms. Switching my vision, I again studied Conroy’s cloud. It was so colorful and vibrant. However, like all colorful clouds, I couldn’t firmly read it. Was Conroy really as honest and kind hearted as he claimed to be?
I remembered my initial reaction to him in the clearing. My gut had told me to trust him. Had my gut ever been wrong?
No.
If what Conroy said was true, he had only ever meant us well. He took us from homes in which we surely would have died from neglect, or been so horribly abused we would have been shells of the people we were now. And as soon as he found out what his O’Brien group was truly capable of, he took us from them too, even though it had meant giving up his own life in the process.
Flint’s energy pushed into me. A dark expression covered his face. I could tell he wasn’t reaching the same conclusions as me.
I listened to my gut feeling again. It told me that Conroy was good. He meant well.
Uncrossing my arms, I relaxed back into the couch. Conroy had spent fifteen years in hiding with a group of sensory enhanced kids. Fifteen years away from everything he’d ever known, simply in hopes of keeping us safe. And while giving us a drug six months ago to make us forget wasn’t ethical, I agreed with Flint on that one, Conroy had once again only had our best interests at heart. He was trying to protect us and give us back the lives stolen from us.
Di stood and paced a few times. “Is our situation really as dangerous as you claim? Everything you’ve done has been so extreme. Are we really in that much danger?”
“You’re all living proof of the unethical and illegal activities that transpired within O’Brien,” Conroy said. “So yes, our situation really is that dangerous.”
Di stopped and stared at him. “So you created your memory drug, hoping we’d make safe lives in the real world?”
“Yes.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Were we supposed to survive off that money you left us?”
“That was there as a backup. However, you’re all educated and have exceptional gifts. I taught you all myself. If you’d chosen to get a job, that wouldn’t have been a problem.”
Flint snorted. “Without a diploma that seems doubtful. How would we get jobs?”
“Jobs were arranged for all of you, if you chose to take them,” Conroy said. “You all would have received a letter stating your new positions of employment if you’d stayed in your cities.”
“But we didn’t stay,” Di said. “All of us felt an urge to return to Colorado. Something inside all of us led us back here.”
“I realize that,” Conroy said. “Which is also why I tattooed you. I gave you the clues necessary to find me and this place if needed.”
“And you’ve been living here ever since?” Mica asked.
“Yes,” Conroy replied.
Jet smirked. “What were you planning on doing, retiring here?”
Conroy frowned. “You’re not the only one O’Brien’s looking for, and my lab’s here. Essentially, my life is here and has been for the last fifteen years. It was easy enough to stay and keep working, and I knew when all of your tracking devices went blank, except for yours Galena, that I had to stay until I found all of you again. I couldn’t leave here if there was a possibility any of you would show up. I kept the door unlocked every day in case I wasn’t here when one of you returned.”
I thought about the triple dead bolt on the door. No wonder it hadn’t been engaged.
Jet raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you implant GPS locators under our skin? Wouldn’t that have been easier?”
Conroy either chose to ignore his sarcastic tone or didn’t pick up on it. “I considered it, but I couldn’t risk it. If O’Brien ever found any of you and found a GPS device under your skin, they could potentially derive a way to track the devices and hunt the rest of you. I figured cell phones were the safest option.”
That matter-of-fact comment made everyone go silent. It almost didn’t seem real what Conroy was telling us. It was as if our lives were plucked right from a science fiction movie.
“So now what?” I finally asked. “What do we do from here?”
Conroy eyed me with a grim expression. “That is a very good question. Only it’s a question I don’t have an answer to.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The eight of us talked long into the night. After lots of arguing, discussing and more arguing, we eventually decided we had two options. We could either continue living in hiding for the rest of our lives, essentially staying in this cabin and going back to the lives we’d left. Or we could leave and face the consequence
s of O’Brien hunting us.
The next morning, a somber mood hung in the air, similar to the gray clouds that rolled in overnight. Distant thunder sounded.
Di stood by the fireplace, arms crossed. “We can’t keep running, and we can’t spend our lives in hiding.”
Flint and I sat on the couch. I curled my legs tighter underneath me while Flint tensed at my side. From the way Conroy described O’Brien, it was as though they had spies all over the country, but that wasn’t possible. Or was it? I thought about Conroy choppering us out of the Forbidden Hills, about the unlikelihood of that. It seemed a lot of impossibilities could be done with money.
“What do you suggest?” Flint asked his sister.
Di placed her hands on her hips. “We have to find out what they’d do to us and whether or not other lost children are still alive.”
Everyone grew silent.
“Won’t they kill us if they find us?” Amber’s fingers clenched the couch pillow tightly.
“But we can’t stay in hiding forever,” Jasper said. “We’ve done nothing wrong. Why should we have to pay the price?”
“Even if that price is our lives?” Jacinda said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m ready to get out of Timbuktu and get into a city, but that was before I knew all of this. I quite like being alive.”
“Even if it means we’re prisoners inside our own home?” Di countered. “For the rest of our lives?”
Jacinda frowned. “Maybe. I don’t know. I wish I knew more about this group.”
“Exactly!” Di said. “We need to learn more about them. At the very least, find out what they want.”
“But how?” Jasper asked.
“Conroy,” I replied. “He knows who they are and where they are.”
Flint scowled heavily. He put his arm around me and pulled me close.
“But will he help us?” Mica asked. “It seemed like he wanted to stay under the radar. I can’t see him walking through the front doors of O’Brien, asking where his old buddies are.”
“No,” Di agreed. “But if he’s too afraid to go back than we’ll have to. Or at least I’m going, even if none of you are.”
That statement made me grow cold. We’d never done anything without the entire group agreeing, but now Di was saying she’d go alone if she had to. I chewed my lip. Our lives were about to change. I knew none of us would agree to be split up. We were in this together, come what may.
“Does that mean we’re going back to O’Brien?” I asked.
“How about we handle it like we always do, with a vote?” Di said. “Those in favor of finding this group, raise your hand.” She, of course, was the first to raise hers. I was the second.
Flint inched closer. “I go where you go.” He raised his hand.
“We’re in,” said the twins.
“No way I’d miss this.” Mica’s hand came up.
“Jacinda, Amber?” Di asked. Fat rain droplets fell against the window. The sound drummed through the room. “Are you in?”
Jacinda glanced at Amber with raised eyebrows. Amber nodded, wide-eyed. “Okay, I’ll go.”
“Me too,” Jacinda responded.
“Go where?” Conroy stepped out of the bathroom, toweling his hair off. Steam rolled into the living room.
“Back to O’Brien,” Di replied. “And you’re going to take us there.”
Conroy dropped the towel. His face turned ashen.
I sank against Flint. I needed the secure and safe feeling his presence evoked. We were going back to where it all began, no matter what we may find. I felt Flint’s gaze on me. For the first time since I’d met him, something in his gaze made me pause. The protective look he always had was still there, but fear now lingered as well.
The rain fell harder. It pelted against the windows, sounding loudly in the room.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Flint whispered into my ear.
“What choice do we really have?”
He stared at me, an anguished expression on his face. He wrapped both arms tightly around me. We sat like that for a minute as everyone continued talking around us. But it was as if everything became a blur. I closed my eyes, listened to his heartbeat and cherished his unique smell as the rain drummed down on the roof.
I clung tightly to him and wondered if there would come a day when I’d no longer be able to feel him like this, love him like this.
He squeezed me harder, as if he’d been wondering the exact same thing.
REMEMBERED
The Lost Children Trilogy
Book Two
THE LOST CHILDREN SERIES—BOOK TWO
CHAPTER ONE
“What do you think will happen if O’Brien catches us?” Mica’s brown eyes narrowed when she glanced at Conroy.
I tensed from where I sat in the backseat and tucked a long strand of dark red hair behind my ear.
Conroy’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. His gaze stayed trained on the road ahead. High mountain desert landscape flew by as we traveled down the interstate. Soft road noise hummed in the cab. Northern Arizona was beautiful. Pine forests and rolling hills intermixed with desert. It wasn’t a bad place to escape to as we planned our return to O’Brien Pharmaceuticals.
Mica cocked her head. “Would they kill us?”
“I think they may,” Conroy finally replied. “It’s why hiding is safest.”
“But we’ve decided not to hide. If we do, the other lost children will never be free.” Mica picked up her bag and rummaged through it.
Conroy took a deep breath and gripped the wheel tighter. His knuckles turned white.
The lost children.
That’s what the men in Conroy’s old group, Project Renatus, named us when they stole us from our parents almost twenty years ago. It was ironic in a way. None of us were lost. They’d kidnapped us and experimented on us like lab rats. Yet to them, that’s what we’d become. The lost children.
Now, the eight of us lived outside of O’Brien Pharmaceutical’s walls and were grown adults. All of us were in our late teens or early twenties, and all of us were fighting to be free from the corporation.
Nerves churned my stomach. How much our lives had changed in twenty-four hours. Meeting Conroy in the Forbidden Hills in Colorado. Learning about him and his part in Project Renatus. Discovering that men from that project, governed by O’Brien Pharmaceuticals, wanted us captured or dead.
It seemed too crazy to be true.
Flint’s hand rested on my thigh. He squeezed my leg as I leaned closer to him. The rough fabric from his flannel brushed against my cheek. With it, came his subtle scent. Spice, wood and tangerines. I inhaled and clung to that scent. I needed the safe feeling it always evoked.
Mica pulled a bag of trail mix out of her pack and began munching. “Di will have a plan to get the other lost children back. She always has a plan.”
Conroy didn’t reply.
I wished I could adopt some of Mica’s endless optimism. Dread followed me ever since we left the cabin in the Forbidden Hills. As much as I tried to leave that foreboding feeling in my wake, I couldn’t help but feel bad things were to come.
I glanced over my shoulder. The rest of our unlikely family followed in the Suburban. Even from a distance, Di’s face was visible as she held the wheel. From her grim expression, I guessed she mulled over everything Conroy had revealed to us two days ago. Either that or the twins were driving her crazy.
“When are we gonna stop for a bathroom break?” Mica polished off the remaining peanuts, her crunching chews audible.
Conroy nodded to a sign that flashed by the window. “There’s a gas station a few miles ahead. We can stop there.”
“Good.” Mica brushed crumbs from her top. “I feel like I’m gonna burst.”
“Galena and Flint?” Conroy’s gaze drifted to the rearview mirror. “Does that work for you?”
“Sure.” I dog-eared the paperback mystery that lay forgotten in my lap. “I could use a stop too.”
“When will we reach your house?” Flint’s words were clipped.
I winced. Unlike some of us, Mica and I included, Flint hadn’t been so easily won over by Conroy.
“We’re a few hours away. We should be there by nightfall.” Conroy always replied politely to Flint. The older scientist didn’t seem fazed by Flint’s hostility.
I wondered if Flint and Conroy had always had a rocky relationship. Of course, I’d never know. Memories of my life only went back six months. Frustration bubbled up inside of me. While I now understood why I had no memories, thanks to the drug Conroy administered to me and everyone else six months ago, I still hated that I didn’t know who I was.
Flint leaned forward. “So how do you know this house of yours is safe?”
“I know it’s safe because I purchased it a month ago, under one of my aliases. The only person who knows I own it is—”
“Let me guess,” Mica cut in. “Your lawyer?”
Conroy nodded. “Exactly.”
“Humph.” Mica raised an eyebrow. “I still can’t believe everything we’ve learned. It’s kinda crazy you know.”
“Which part?” I asked. “Where O’Brien Pharmaceuticals stole us off the streets when we were babies from our drug addicted, prostituting parents or how O’Brien kept us locked up while we were experimented on?”
Mica chuckled as a strong push of Flint’s energy hit me. Flint’s jaw tightened. I laid my hand on his thigh. His warmth seared through his jeans. Right. Maybe it was a little too early to joke about that stuff.
“When you put it like that, it sounds rather barbaric,” Conroy said.
Mica’s eyebrows shot clear to her hairline. “How could you ever think it wasn’t barbaric?”
Conroy sighed. His hands tightened on the steering wheel again as we sailed around a turn. “If you could have seen the conditions in which you were born.” He stopped, his voice growing quiet. “I’m not saying it justifies what we did, I see that now, but at the time, I was young and hopeful. I’d been passionate about science since I was a boy. The possibilities of untapped chemical creations fascinated me. You have to understand, I was very young when I joined O’Brien. I was naïve and blinded by my ambitions to better the world. At the time, I truly felt as if I was doing the right thing. I thought I was helping all of you. That I was making your lives better.”
The Complete Lost Children Series Page 27
