“Do we think it’s Horatio?” Jace asked as he grabbed my pack from my hands. “Why don’t you go find the children and meet us down there? We’ll pack up their bags and bring them all down there.”
“We think it is,” Will confirmed. “I’m going to get stuf
f together for the kids as well.”
Our living room shook, and I braced myself in the doorway. “Can someone call down to agriculture and ask them to keep Alex down there?” I asked trying to keep the worry from my voice.
“I’ll call before I go get Micah and Ella. They should still be in music,” Remy stated.
“I’ll go get Kade,” I added.
The loud alarms started to go off, and the red lights were flashing.
“Shouldn’t we have had some type of drill before this happened?” Jaxson asked anxiously as he came out of his room carrying his bags. “Alex is probably frightened out of his mind.”
“I’ll go with you,” Lincoln stated grimly as he followed me out into the hallway.
I felt anxious, plus I felt compelled to explain to him what was going on. This wasn’t the greatest welcoming party for him. Talk about trial by fire.
“Horatio is my biological father. Again, this is a recent revelation for me.” I explained as I opened the door to the stairway. There was no way I was using the elevator. “Horatio has a major God complex. People like Pops and Greg are content living as we have been, in secret, or in our communities if we choose to. Horatio believes that we shouldn’t live in hiding and wants us to lord our gifts over the Nons- nongifted, normal people,” I hastily explained at his puzzled look. “Horatio is a sick and twisted man.
“He has been trying to recreate Hazel’s experiments and build stronger gifted individuals. He doesn’t realize her experiments caused dire consequences for those affected by it. He’s abducted, lied, and paid women to carry these experiments. He’s kidnapped and bought children to build his own gifted army. We also think he’s been getting Nons and trying to make them gifted.”
“And here I thought I didn’t have a normal childhood,” he said cryptically. “You’re full of surprises.”
I laughed with no humor. “You only hear the half of it,” I said enigmatically.
The mountain shook once more, and I felt myself falling. I wasn’t prepared for it, and I should have been holding onto the railing.
I was snatched back and up before I face planted into the ground. “Thanks,” I laughed self-deprecatingly. “I did warn you that I am a magnet of upheaval. Catastrophe follows me wherever I go.”
I was surprised that he didn’t let me go as he hoisted his duffel bag over one shoulder and slipped his arm around my waist. “Who exactly are we looking for?” he asked wryly as I opened the door to the next level.
“My past, like me, is slightly dysfunctional,” I explained. “Remember when I said that we could only have one or two children if we weren’t deemed sterile? My mom and Mr. Moore- you’ll meet him later- were also products of Hazel’s experiments. They were capable of having more than two children. My connections and I have custody of three of my five siblings. That doesn’t include Ella.” When he looked mystified and went to open his mouth, I quickly added, “Long story. Another time. Kade is the oldest of my younger brothers.”
I rounded the corner and held my hand up to my mouth. The walls and ceilings had collapsed in. “The training room is down that way,” I stated as I pointed to the rubble. “My brother is down there!”
I ran forward and began removing as much debris as I could.
“Blake!” I heard Rachel’s brother Herman call me from behind.
Herman had been one of Horatio’s lab rats and had been used in the most heinous way. They had forced him to produce semen and blood samples on a daily basis. He was just getting to a point where he wasn’t as skittish and had started to come out of his shell. He had put on some weight, cut his long hair, and shaved. He was actually pretty attractive now.
“We should be heading downstairs,” he informed me.
“I know, but Kade and the other children were still in the training room doing martial arts,” I stated as I continued to pull at the rubble.
“Are you sure?” Herman asked as he began to help Lincoln and I lift pieces away.
“Chow doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes,” I stated as I glanced down at my watch. “Knowing the older teens, they would have stayed into the training room until then.”
Kade has proven to be a positive role model the last couple of weeks, and his new-found enthusiasm for martial arts had spread among some of his peers. Training ended over a half an hour ago, but they liked to stay back and continue practicing until dinner time.
“Are you guys creating your own child army?” Lincoln stated with a frown.
“Hardly,” I scoffed perturbed by his assumptions. “This facility wasn’t originally designed to entertain children. They had a handful of children but not many. As their numbers grew, boredom set in and they started acting out. We decided to keep their little behinds busy. In one of our missions, Horatio sent out some children- well, eleven to sixteen-year-olds- they were horribly brainwashed and reconditioned to believe in his cause. We were only able to reconnect a handful of them back with their families. The others were sold or had no families.
“We have been rehabilitating them, and the ones that don’t seem as troubled or in danger of regressing have been slowly added to our routine here. They have school from eight until two unless they’re in high school, plus planned activities every day.