Whatever had been covering her head was removed suddenly, and she let out a short yelp, the sudden light blinding her. She opened her eyes, the smell of nature meeting her nose—trees, and dirt, and rushing water.
I’ve been here before.
She was standing on a cliff, a river flowing next to her, spilling into what she immediately recognized as Amity Falls.
“Beautiful up here, isn’t it?”
She whirled around so quickly, she almost stumbled over her own feet.
A large, tall man with graying streaks in his mostly black hair stood in front of her, smiling casually. Next to him was an equally tall young man with bronzed skin and dark eyes, his expression blank. “My favorite place in all of this godforsaken wilderness.” The older man smiled. “I’m Dr. Swift, by the way.” He walked toward her, but not too close. She gaped at him, her mind searching frantically to put this into context. What is happening?
“This whole thing started out with a ceremony, albeit an interrupted ceremony, and . . . it’ll end with one.” H
e smiled. “Of sorts. Though not in the same location, exactly. Isaac picked the first one. But he’s not here anymore to choose anything, is he?”
“Isaac?” she murmured. Isaac Driscoll chose the first location. The first ceremony? The first time she’d stood on a cliff like this. With Jak. And two other unnamed boys.
Hazy pictures filled her mind, things she’d always thought were dreams, or nightmares, or bits and pieces of her fighting her way through the wilderness . . . the voices of the hikers who found her maybe . . . her fear, the cold. It’d all swirled together in her child’s mind, creating confusion and too much that was unknown or out of context for the adult Harper to begin to understand.
His voice though. She remembered his voice. It drummed through her, triggering her brain to connect bits of memory, creating context.
“You,” she said. “It was you. That night.” She shook her head. He’d taken her . . . shot her parents? “Why?” she asked. “Why me? Why my family? What did you do to them?”
He let out a long-suffering sigh as though the whole ordeal was so terribly taxing. For the first time since Harper had opened her eyes, anger raced through her, mixing with the dread. This man. Right in front of her. He had killed her parents. Taken them from her.
“Because, Harper, your father, the sheriff, was looking into some missing kids—our missing kids—and getting far too close for comfort. We had to eliminate him.”
Eliminate him? He said it like it was nothing. Like it had been as easy as swatting a bothersome fly.
“What happened to them?” she choked.
“Oh, don’t worry, they didn’t even know what was coming. One of my men shot your parents while they were driving, causing the car to crash. We didn’t expect you to be there, but there you were, unconscious in the back. You’d survived. We put chloroform over your mouth so you’d keep sleeping, and decided you would join the others. We knew they wouldn’t search where we were taking you.” He waved his hand around. “A million acres of wild land. A better hiding place doesn’t exist.”
They’d pushed the car into the canyon, hidden it so it’d never be found. And it wouldn’t have been, if not for Jak. Her mind whirled. But how did I get the pocketknife? Had her dying father slipped it into her pocket somehow? At the thought, her chest ached because it was really the only explanation. The way her father’s remains had been turned. Toward the backseat. Toward her. Her father’s dying thought was to protect her.
Dr. Swift turned for a moment, and Harper considered trying to run at him and take him down, but he was too far away to be taken by surprise, twice her size, and she didn’t have a weapon. Not to mention the younger man, who hadn’t been introduced was there too, presumably Dr. Swift’s security protection. Dr. Swift turned back toward her.
“Against all odds, you got out of the wilderness that night.” He looked almost amazed for a moment. “We watched you closely for a while, but you didn’t remember anything. Lucky for you. After that . . . we knew it was far too risky to attempt to take you again. By that time,” he sighed, “there was only Jak. Our experiment had gone terribly awry.” He smiled, looking beyond her, out to the falls. “But Jak . . . ah, Jak. If only we had a thousand just like him. Driscoll had begun to find out how he’d react to being introduced back into society. He was doing so well. Mentally strong and impressively . . . civilized. We were so close to being able to debrief him, enter him into more specialized training. Weaponry, hand-to-hand combat fighting . . . it would only have been a matter of a year, maybe less, before he could be put up for bid. I can just imagine the offers that would have come in for him. A shame. A waste.” Deep sadness passed over his face before he inhaled a long, slow breath. “But, it wasn’t meant to be.”
Her head spun with what had been done to Jak. Debrief him. Meaning, tell him his life had all been a terrible lie? Put up for bid? Horror clawed at the inside of her chest. If only we had a thousand just like him? Who was we? He and Driscoll? Or were there more? The twisted magnitude of what she was hearing made her feel lightheaded.
He shook his head. “You have no idea of the significance of what we’re doing, Harper. No idea. I’m sorry I’m going to have to hurt you. But we simply cannot have loose ends at this stage. There’s far too much at stake. We should have taken care of that—of you—years ago, but now we can only learn from our mistakes, only be more . . . efficient in the future.”
She shook her head, bewildered. Horrified. “What do you mean there are others going on?”
“I mean, we have them set up all over. We have others like Jak who have already been such great successes. My protector, Daire, is a perfect example. My prodigy. Only nineteen years old.” He looked back at the young man still standing stoically behind him. “Isn’t that right, Daire?” Daire’s eyes moved to him and he nodded, his expression unchanging. “And,” Dr. Swift went on, “there are even more who show much promise. I’m not the only one who supports the copious benefits of our program. There are many benefactors and bidders who understand that the unwanted children of addicts and thieves only bring forth a society’s downfall. It’s already happening. Look at our inner cities. How the government is addressing the problem is not working. It’s only making things worse. We strive to make things better. Unfortunately, our first study failed for all intents and purposes. But we learned, adapted, and now, now such exciting things are happening. Survival stories like you’d never believe, skills of all sorts being exhibited from throwaways.” He laughed, a joyful sound that even the wind didn’t want. It rang out around them, loud and spine-chilling.
Harper swallowed. Our first study failed for all intents and purposes. Our first study. Her. Jak. The other two boys. They had been the subjects of the first study. And it had failed. So now this man was going to tie up loose ends. Two of the boys were already dead, so that meant her.
And Jak? Another wave of horror washed through her, and she groaned, but it was snatched by the roar of the falling water.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Jak crept through the forest, the sound of the rushing water drowning out the other sounds around him. Meet me, the note had said, at the top of Amity Falls. They know you’re guilty, Jak. They know you killed Driscoll. I can’t let them put you away. Let’s disappear together, back into the forest.
At first his heart had dropped. She thought he was guilty? Of killing Driscoll? She knew that wasn’t true. He’d told her . . . everything. What they had shared . . . the plans they’d made . . . Let’s disappear together. It didn’t make sense. He’d gotten a ride from one of the police officers who had come to Thornland when his grandfather was taken to the hospital. He’d rushed to her door, wanting to tell her everything that had happened. But she was gone, missing from her apartment where she told him she’d wait.
Something was wrong.