“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