I’d often watch Susannah. She seemed to like spending her time on the balcony, perched on the railing. Literally. She’d hop onto it, her toes lengthening into talons as they curled around the railing to keep her in place. She’d sit like that for hours, smelling the breeze, cocking her head at unnatural speed when she seemed to detect movement below. Even though she’d sit like that with only her toes transformed, her behavior was clearly anything but human.
A few times she transitioned into a bald eagle. I never saw the actual transformation, but she was hard to miss once she was flying. For one, she was huge. Her wingspan had to be at least twelve feet. She dominated the skies. Smaller birds and vultures disappeared when she soared above. She was breathtaking to watch.
Luckily, her aggressive anger when she’d woken initially in the living room was short lived. Once Luke explained to her what happened and who we were, she calmed right down. She wasn’t exactly loquacious, however. For the most part, she kept to herself and would spend hours outside listening to sounds and smelling the fresh desert air. Sometimes I’d catch a smile on her face. She seemed content, as if all she ever wanted was to be free.
It made me wonder how much human was left in her and how she would ever live in society. Given how she acted right now, it didn’t seem likely she would ever fit into the normal world. But that was a problem we would have to solve another day.
Edgar on the other hand, seemed more human than otter. Luke was right about the water. Edgar took baths a couple times a day, spending hours at a time in the tub. Apparently, he wasn’t allowed to do that in the warehouse, but since he could do as he pleased now, that was where he chose to spend a lot of his time. He said it made him feel calm and happy.
“Like a ‘lil kid a’ a candy store,” he said with a smile.
Another strange thing about him? He spoke with a cockney accent. None of us knew why. Luke would shrug, saying Edgar had always been a bit peculiar. Apparently, being British was the nationality Edgar decided he identified with after watching Mary Poppins as a little kid.
As for Luke, he had asserted himself into our group as if he’d been with us from the beginning. Of the three we had rescued, he seemed the most normal and our only hope of learning anything about O’Brien. Neither Susannah nor Edgar would talk about Marcus, Albert or the pharmaceutical company. The few times we tried to talk to them about it, they had shut down like virus infected computers, their faces blank and quiet. Father instructed us to not ask them again. He felt their psyches were fragile. I had to agree. Too much added pressure and one of them could crack.
Thankfully, Luke was not fragile. When we asked him about Marcus, he got growly and his eyes flickered, but he still answered all of our questions. From what he told us, Marcus was still actively involved in Project Renatus. However, there was no talk of kidnapping new children. Apparently, the new CEO of O’Brien Pharmaceuticals didn’t share the beliefs of his father, the man who’d been CEO when Father, Marcus and Albert began the project. The current CEO forbid any further progression of Project Renatus. It was the only reason Marcus and Albert hadn’t continued kidnapping and experimenting on more children over the years.
“So it was just Marcus visiting you for the past few years?” Di asked one night.
It was dark out. I craned my head to look out the dining room window. Susannah was on the balcony again while Edgar was down the hall with Amber watching a movie. The rest of us sat around the dining table, getting more info out of the werewolf. Even though he wasn’t a werewolf, that’s what all of us had taken to calling him since he didn’t seem to mind. It was certainly easier than calling him a genetically enhanced lupine male or whatever Father had said Luke’s file was labeled.
Luke nodded. “The other ones, three guys and a woman, stopped coming to the lab years ago.”
Father rattled off who those people were. “They were all in Marcus’ group. They were his assistants. So as Project Renatus became dormant, fewer and fewer researchers were allowed into the warehouse?” Father asked Luke.
“Yeah, at least from what I could gather. For the past few months, there were only two guards with us. There used to be more. It seemed with each passing week, fewer people came in.”
“What about Albert Darlington?” Father asked.
“Albert who?”
“The man in charge of the elemental group?”
“Oh, that guy. He disappeared years ago after his entire group died. Those kids were given more drugs than any of us. None of them could hold up to them.”
Father paled. With shaky fingers, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
Since I barely remembered anyone from the other groups, I didn’t actually know who had died. Father, however, did. For all I knew, he had helped find those ten kids that Albert had experimented on.
“When . . .” Father cleared his throat. “When did the last . . . child die in that group?”
Luke scratched his chin. A few days’ worth of stubble coated it. It sounded like scratching sandpaper as he rubbed his cheeks. “Hmm . . . had to have been at least ten years by now. Weren’t there only seven or eight kids left in Albert’s group when you disappeared with your group?”
Father nodded. “Two died in one month after Albert gave them all the same drug. That’s when I knew I needed to get everyone out.”
Luke’s eyes flickered. “The rest died within a year or two after you left. Albert kept drugging them.”
For a brief moment, a memory came crashing back. It was of Flint and me watching Breaking Bad in the barn behind our cabin in the Forbidden Hills. It was a recent memory. I’d been nineteen, Flint twenty-three. Father had bought all five seasons of the show for us to watch. Scratchy hay rubbed against our limbs on a warm summer night as we cuddled in front of the laptop. We had been on season two, and the episode was about the little redhead boy, living with his drug addicted parents in their filthy home. His parents would leave him for days at a time as they combed the streets for their next hit.
Images of that filthy boy swirled through my mind. Perhaps that was how we lived before Father kidnapped us from our neglectful, abusive parents.
I hated the word, kidnapped. It made what Father did sound so vile and evil. Father was anything but that, although Marcus and Albert seemed to represent those words quite well. But still, who knew how any of us would have ended up—living in circumstances like the ones we were born into. I often thought about it. What kind of adults would we have been? Drug addicts too? Inflicted with horrible mental illness from all of the horrific abuse we’d have suffered? Perhaps brain damaged or heavily scarred from the physical blows our parents had dealt us?
It didn’t justify what Father, Marcus and Albert had done. They had stolen us and drugged us. There was nothing noble about that. In a way, it was simply exchanging one form of abuse for another. I shivered as I remembered those cold underground rooms in the subterranean level. Our deplorable homes above ground had only been exchanged for cold ones underneath.
However, it had been Father’s hope that we would all have better lives. All thirty of us. Not just those of us in his experimental group. If Marcus and Albert had not been so bent on forming the perfect drug, if they had been more interested in helping the children under their care flourish into healthy, capable adults with enhanced abilities, it could have turned out so much better.
All of them could have turned out like us. Healthy. Happy. Whole.
My heart clenched at the thought of those children dying in that place. It was wrong. So, very, very wrong. Albert and Marcus needed to pay. We needed to stop them from hurting anyone ever again.
“I’ll be back in a minute.” Father stood and walked out of the room, his arm trailing along the wall as if to steady himself. Grief made his cloud flow heavily behind him.
I watched him go as another thought struck me. Perhaps Project Renatus was never intended to give us better lives as the project’s pioneers. Perhaps that had only been Father being naïve and foolish. Orig
inally, the entire purpose of Project Renatus had been to derive drugs that made humans better . . . more. Those drugs were intended to be sold privately, marketed to the rich and elite. Only, that goal was unattainable. Ultimately, adults could not survive the drug’s demands. With that downward descent, the project grew out of hand. Marcus and Albert had basically turned into mad scientists. Desperate to create the perfect human, they’d become drunk on their own ambition, experimenting on children at any cost. Only Father’s intentions stayed pure.
Flint watched Father leave. Flint’s expression was hard, his cloud unforgiving. It still saddened me that his opinion of Father hadn’t changed. I thought maybe, just maybe, he’d start to view Father differently, but if there was one thing Flint was good at—it was not forgiving those who’d hurt him.
Nobody said anything after Father disappeared. Luke’s eyes would flicker every now and then as he drummed his fingers against the table. Faint noise from the movie Amber and Edgar watched occasionally drifted into the room. Everyone else sat quietly, staring out the windows or looking lost in thought.
Mica finally broke the silence when she stood. “I’m gonna get a drink. Anybody want one?”
Jet’s eyes lit up. “Is it alcoholic?”
“It can be,” Mica said.
“Count me in,” Jet replied.
Jasper stood. “Let’s see what else the cellar holds.” The three of them left the kitchen, their footsteps trailing down the stairs as they descended to the basement.
That left me, Flint, Di, Jacinda and Luke in the dining room. Jacinda watched the latest newcomer with sideways glances. If I didn’t know her so well, I wouldn’t have noticed her curious stares at Luke. However, I wasn’t the only one who picked up on it.
“Something you’d like to know?” Luke asked in a deep voice. A small smile tugged on his lips. He turned his golden eyes on Jacinda.
My sister visibly jumped.
“Oh, um, I . . .” she stammered.
Luke turned his upper body toward her and draped an arm over his chair. His massive chest and shoulders were practically the width of two chairs. His voice dropped. “Yes?”
Jacinda clasped her hands. A rosy pink filled her cheeks. “I was, ah . . . wondering how it is that you’re so . . . normal?”
“Normal?” Luke’s eyebrows rose.
Flint smiled. He put an arm around my shoulders as he, Di and I watched the exchange.
“You know,” Jacinda said. “You’re not like Edgar or Susannah.”
Susannah still perched on the railing, the cold winter breeze ruffling her long, black hair.
Jacinda pursed her lips. “They both seem rather . . . different from you. You know, quieter and less . . . well . . . less confident.” Her cheeks were now bright red.
Luke grinned, a glint coming into his golden eyes. “Well, beautiful, I was his favorite. Marcus treated me better than he did the others. Not nearly as much torture. Maybe that’s why I’m so normal.”
Jacinda blushed when he called her beautiful. Actually blushed. I’d never in my life seen Jacinda rattled by any man. It wasn’t until a second later, that I processed what he said.
My head snapped back. “Torture?”
Luke leaned back in his chair. “Albert especially, from what I remember. When the kids in his group started dying, he seemed to believe they were doing it on purpose. That they were dying to defy him.” He snorted. “What a crock. That guy was as bad as Marcus. Neither seemed to care when kids died, but Marcus did seem to like me for some reason. I never did find out why.”
I shuddered. The kids in Marcus and Albert’s group would have definitely been better off left on the streets.
“So I guess that’s why I’m normal. Four months or so every year, I got out to run. I think that’s why I’m not so whack-a-do. The others,” he nodded to where Susannah perched. “They only got out a few days here and there.”
“How cruel,” Jacinda frowned.
A noise sounded on the stairs. Mica, Jet and Jasper returned. Jasper carried a six pack of beer. So did Jet. They popped the tops off the beers and returned to their seats.
“What are you guys talking about?” Jet asked after taking a long swallow.
“Yeah, what’d we miss?” Mica’s fingers curled around some German beer with a name I couldn’t pronounce.
“Luke was telling us how Albert and Marcus tortured some of the kids in their groups.” Flint’s energy picked up, but his expression gave away nothing.
“Tortured?” Mica visibly flinched.
“But Luke got to run for a few months a year, outside,” I said. “He was free from O’Brien during that time. That’s why he’s normal.”
Luke met Jacinda’s gaze again. “If I’d known all I had to do was run to Colorado to find someone as gorgeous as you, I would have found you years ago.”
Jacinda swallowed audibly, a flush staining her cheeks.
Mica’s earlier horror seemed to die away as she laughed. She snorted a few times. “Luke, how can a wolf, who’s been held captive most of his life, be a womanizer?”
Luke’s eyebrows rose. “What’s a womanizer?”
Mica and the twins almost fell over laughing. I found myself smiling too, despite the horrors Luke so casually spoke of. The twins and Mica always had a way of lightening the mood.
“You’ve got some serious moves, bro.” Jet clapped Luke on the back.
Luke simply shrugged, as if he had no idea what they were talking about.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Amber burst into the kitchen.
“Guys!” Amber shrieked. “Quick! Come see this!” She turned on her heel and sprinted out of the room.
Our laughter and smiles died. We all rushed after her. She ran down the hall back into the theater. Edgar still sat on the couch, a bowl of popcorn sitting haphazardly in his lap. It looked about to spill at any second. Father appeared in the doorway too.
“What?” Father asked. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Look!” Amber pointed at the large screen on the wall. An image on the TV showed the burning warehouse in Chicago.
“Turn it back up,” Amber said to Edgar.
He fumbled with the remote. When it became obvious he had no idea how to use it, Di whisked it from his hands. A second later, the sound came on.
The images on the screen flipped back and forth to footage of the burning warehouse and O’Brien’s headquarters. It was a news segment. A newscaster’s voice talked in the background, highlighting the explosion.
Amber trembled in her seat. “I flipped the news on after our movie ended. This was on.”
The image on the screen shifted back to the newsroom. An anchorwoman shuffled papers before saying, “Authorities are still looking for the group responsible for the explosion at O’Brien Pharmaceuticals last week. Video surveillance cameras showed this van—”
The screen flipped to a still image of the van we’d driven. A fuzzy picture of Di at the driver’s seat was visible. My stomach sank.
“The woman driving has not been identified, but authorities believe as many as eight people were involved in the explosion and are asking the public to come forward with any information.”
The camera shifted again, this time to a man in an expensive suit and tie. A scuffed bruise marred his cheek. Other than that, no one would ever guess he’d been thrown fifty feet from a building only six days ago.
I shuddered. Luke growled. Father’s sharp intake of breath made me turn. My eyes widened when I saw Father’s face. All color had drained from it.
Marcus stood in front of a building. A sign behind him read O’Brien Pharmaceuticals. Steel gray hair was expertly cut around his head, but his eyes were the same as they’d been six days ago. Cold and dead looking.
Marcus looked directly at the camera when the newscaster asked him what the company’s reaction had been to the explosion.
He spoke in a cold voice. “Our company is working with authorities to track down the perpetrato
rs. I have no doubt we’ll find them, and when we do, justice will be served.”
The cold way he uttered the words and the direct way he stared at the camera made me feel as if he was speaking directly to us.
His determined gaze and cold smile said one thing.
He was coming for us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A cold winter breeze rolled across my cheeks. The pitch black sky stretched above with its dazzling array of stars. Flint’s warm side pressed against mine as we gazed upward.
The fountain had finally turned off. With its silent winter hibernation came a feeling of death and isolation. It was quiet now in the backyard. The only sounds were the wind, our breathing and the occasional shifting of pebbles beneath our blanket. Flint held me closely to his side. Ever since that news segment earlier this evening, a general feeling of anxiety had strummed in his cloud.
“He’s not going to stop, is he?” I said quietly.
Flint took a deep breath. In that sound, I heard the weight of the world. “No.”
I pushed up on my elbow and settled my chin on Flint’s chest. Marcus’ image kept swirling through my mind. First, the outline of him in the warehouse, his long trench coat swaying around his legs. Then, the image of him on TV when he promised to enact revenge. And last, a distant memory of him when I was a little girl. He’d held me down on a metal gurney before plunging a needle into my arm. His black menacing cloud had pulsed around him.
I shivered.
Flint wrapped his arms around me. I lay my cheek on his chest and listened to his strong heartbeat within. “We’re strong, though. We can beat him. I’m not a little girl anymore and none of us are weak.”
“I know.”
I pushed up so I could see him again. “So why are you so worried? We rescued Luke, Susannah and Edgar. All of us escaped alive and well. And, every day we become more in tune with our abilities. We can beat him, Flint. I know we can.”
The Complete Lost Children Series Page 50
