had had a chance to de-brief you, you would have understood your purpose, found pride in the suffering you’d endured.” He looked very disappointed for a moment but then smiled. “Ah, well. What’s done is done.” The man thought Jak had killed Driscoll. He had left the note in Harper’s apartment.
Jak’s eyes met Harper’s, hers wide with fear, searching. Trusting. She knew it wasn’t true. Knew he didn’t kill Driscoll. She’d trusted him that night, too, he realized. She’d put the pocketknife in his hand because she’d trusted him to do something. He glanced to the man with the gun, too far away to rush before he could shoot them both.
In front of him was the gun, behind him were the deadly falls. Trapped. They were trapped.
“Dr. Swift, wha . . . what did Driscoll and his Spartans have to do with any of this?” Harper asked, her voice shaking. Trying to keep him talking. Giving Jak time so he could figure out what to do.
Dr. Swift sighed. “Driscoll was obsessed with history, with the Spartans.” He waved his hand as if that didn’t matter. “We like to give our camp leaders room for creativity.” He turned slightly toward the man behind him. “Daire knows all about that, don’t you?” Daire didn’t answer, but Jak saw something flicker in his eyes. But with a blink it was gone. Dr. Swift turned back toward Harper and Jak. “But see, the Spartans brought up one very important fact. Driscoll was right: there’s much to be learned. See, they started with the children. It’s where our idea was first conceived. We try to alter adults, change people who cannot be changed. Study them, put them through useless programs that show dismal results. Nothing changes, do you see? It’s all backward. And so the cycle continues. Your own mother was proof of that, Jak. Born to a junkie herself, raised in the system. What does she do? Becomes a teenage mother, hooked on drugs, willing to sell her child to feed her habit. And the cycle continues.” He made a disgusted sound in his throat.
“What do you think would have become of you, Jak, if she had kept you? The same thing, that’s what. You’d have eventually been placed into a group home, either ended up a menace or an inmate—either way, a complete drain on society, only to go on and create more just like you. You think it isn’t true? Read the studies. Society has set up a system that incentivizes the breeding of degenerates, criminals, and predators.”
Dr. Swift looked off into the distance for a moment before speaking again. “Isaac was right on another front. Jak was taken from his mother and raised by a singular caregiver in the vein of the Spartans. It seems to show the best success. But of course, they knew their stuff, didn’t they? You’re understanding all this, aren’t you, Jak?”
Yes, Jak understood. At least enough to feel sickness turning in his stomach.
“Just so you know, Jak, I tried to convince Isaac he should teach you how to make fire at the very least. But he said no. He liked discovering what you would come up with to trade for matches.” He shook his head, lips together.
Make fire? The world spun. His heart dropped to his stomach. He looked at Harper and her expression . . . it looked like Dr. Swift’s words made her want to cry.
“It’s a sort of irony, isn’t it, Harper, that you entered the foster care system, the one we deem a useless failure, because of us.” He smiled but his smile only made Jak feel sicker. “But because of it, you should understand better than anyone that the system doesn’t work. Would it have been worse, Harper? To live out here? Free? Not listening for every bump in the night?” He looked at her, stared, like he knew what had happened to her as he swept his arm around. Harper looked down, her face almost as pale as the melting snow. Jak took a step closer, two.
Free? he thought. There was no freedom in being set up, watched, used, and lied to.
“So what are the applications for these programs, you might ask?” Dr. Swift went on as he paced one way then turned. Jak took the moment to meet Harper’s eyes. It’ll be okay, he wanted to say, if only to comfort her.
The river to the left, woods far off to the right. No way to run to either before