parents were coming back for them? Were they afraid? Hungry? Angry? Depressed?
A book sticking out from the edge of one of the beds interrupted her troubled thoughts. She crouched down to pick it up and swept the dust from the cover. When she cracked it open, she found the loopy scrawl of a child’s handwriting. She thumbed through the book of combat techniques and experienced a wave of sadness. This wasn’t right. Children shouldn’t be treated like this.
Her thoughts turned to Terror. Like every other Harcos male, he had been sent away to the Academy at the age of five. He had probably been plucked from the ranks of first years and pushed into a program that trained assassins and spies. He had been shaped and molded in a place just like this, exposed to intense pressure and pain to become the hardened warrior he was today.
Yet, he somehow had such tenderness in him. Once she had earned his trust, he had gifted her with his love. He had made himself vulnerable and opened his heart. He hadn’t allowed a cold, harsh education like this to ruin him.
Thinking of him up on that roof, tinkering with the equipment, spurred her into action. She had promised to be quick and thorough in her search for Devious and Kris and any clues about her parents. Lingering here would be a waste of time. She considered taking the book but decided it belonged here and put it back where she had found it.
Leaving the dormitories, she carefully climbed the staircase to the third floor. Half of the floor had fallen along with the roof, sliding out into the courtyard and leaving a giant hole. From her new vantage point, she could see the building where Terror had taken the chip. She caught a glimpse of his jacket and leaned closer to the cracked wall for a better look. He ducked under a transmitter, and she backed away from the hole.
Reassured he was safe, she skirted the edge of the broken section, making sure each footstep was firm before applying her full weight. There were only two rooms up here that were still intact. Both had doors hanging off their hinges.
She entered the first room and discovered rows of filing cabinets. It seemed odd that the records here would be paper, but perhaps they were trying to keep this facility a true secret. Maintaining analog records completely off any sort of easily accessible digital network would be more secure. Burning shredded paper was easy enough in the event of an evacuation.
So why hadn’t they destroyed these records? She glanced toward the ruined roof and the obvious signs of destruction surrounding her. Had the facility been bombed? Or perhaps there had been some kind of natural disaster? It must have been evacuated before the damage occurred because so far, she had found no signs of bodies in the rubble. There would have been bones or tattered scraps of clothing if people had died here.
The files were alphabetized and separated by gender. She opened the cabinet she needed and thumbed through them until she found her mother’s name. Hastily tugging it out of the cabinet, she placed it on top of the other files and opened it. A photo of her mother as a child stared back at her. This wasn’t the smiling face she had known growing up. The little girl in the photo looked desolate and broken, her eyes hollow and despondent and her body painfully thin.
Her chest seized as she turned the pages and read the notes. Her mother was described as angry, obstinate and rude in her first days at the facility. The instructors applied techniques to break her down and force compliance. Maisie’s stomach turned as she read about the cold showers, exposure to the elements, denial of food and the beatings her mother endured.
She closed her eyes and shut the file. If she kept reading, she would become lost in the trauma of her mother’s childhood. Later, there would be time to dissect and digest the contents of the file.
Before she closed the cabinet, she noticed a green tag on the side of her mother’s folder. She checked it more closely and noticed it corresponded to another file. She looked at the cabinets and found the green labeled drawer.
When she opened it and began to thumb through the files, she realized they were for personnel. She glanced at the tag again to get the correct file number and finally found