The Hunt: The Oakmont Saga, Book 2

When I woke up, I was covered in sweat, my mind still playing the weird dream, over and over. I knew it was one of those dreams that was real, and I knew I was responsible for twenty more deaths, on top of the ones from the cabin. I had never known how many people I had killed there, but now I did and apparently I had killed others as well.

As I was sitting there, thinking about the dream, reliving it, the hispanic EMT came into the room. He had a smile on his face, and also a look like he had some big surprise. There was obvious anticipation in his expression.

“We are going to check you out today. If it is alright with you, I will let you stay with me and my family. I have a daughter about your age, and two younger boys,” he told me.

“Are you sure you want to put your family in danger like that?”

“I talked to my wife and she said we had to do it. It is the right thing to do,” he replied. The right thing to do would be for me to decline the offer, but I found myself lowering my face and mumbling, “thank you.” I was suddenly choked up, thinking about the kindness of him and his family.

“Why so sad?”

“Because I’m putting your family in danger,” I told him.

“We will take the chance,” he said, not allowing further argument.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Here is what we are going to do. You are going to be checked out to your aunt, as far as the records are going to say. Only a very few will know you are going with me. When you are recovered enough, we will see if we can find your family,” he told me. Although I knew better, I’d let things go as he planned for now. I didn’t have any other ideas, so I didn’t really have a choice. For the first time in a very long time, I was truly alone.

“I need to warn you of some problems I have,” I said.

“What are those?” he asked.

“I am addicted to a drug that the doctors gave me. If I see any orange liquid, I’ll go crazy trying to get it,” I told him, and could feel myself beginning to shake, just thinking about it. With a lot of effort, and no small amount of time, I managed to get myself under control. I sat there for quite a while, with my eyes closed, gritting my teeth.

“It is that bad?” he asked. I could only nod my head.

“You won’t bring that kind of stuff into my house, will you?” he asked.

“I can’t get it anymore, but if I get bad enough, I might try and get the stuff that it’s made of,” I admitted.

“And what stuff is that?” he asked.

“Cocaine, heroin and sodium amytal,” I replied. He stared at me for a long time, at my admission of being a druggie.

“We will try and help you control this,” he said, confidence in his voice.

“If I really fight, you can’t control me,” I warned him.

“We will help you,” he insisted.

“Thank you,” I replied, a few tears escaping my control.

“I have nightmares sometimes...well, a lot of times,” I said.

“That is okay. Nightmares aren’t unusual in children,” he replied. He had no idea of the nightmares I had, but there was nothing more for me to say. He was willing and eager to deal with me.

“I will go take care of the records and we will leave. I will be back in a little while,” he assured me.

True to his word, he was back in less than thirty minutes. He helped me out of bed, and into a wheelchair, after the doctor looked me over and gave him instructions for my care. He then wheeled me to the emergency room, and loaded me into an ambulance, where two other EMTs were already waiting. I recognized the woman from when they were working on me, but the other man was new to me.

“This is Arnie. You probably don’t remember him, looking at your reaction. He was there when we found you. My name is Sarah, and your temporary guardian is Diego. We’ve all agreed to try and hide you and help you heal. When you’re fully recovered, we’ll try and find out how to get you home, wherever that is,” she said.

Tears sprang into my eyes at their kindness. “Thank you, but you’re putting yourselves in a lot of danger to help me,” I told them, repeating the arguments I used with Diego earlier.

“If we didn’t do this, we wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves,” she replied, to which I couldn’t argue. So, I simply nodded and leaned over and hugged her. Pain throbbed in my stomach when I did that, but right then, I didn’t care.

“You’ve ripped your stitches open,” she said, looking at my stomach when we separated. There was blood on the hospital gown I was still wearing, which explained the pain I felt.

“You guys get going and I’ll take care of her,” Sarah said.

When we got to Diego’s house, the three EMT’s helped me out of the ambulance and into the house. It was a fairly large house, but wasn’t very fancy looking. Once inside, I saw a home that looked well lived in. There was a small amount of clutter, but it wasn’t too bad and would be expected in a house with kids. Diego led the way to a bedroom near the back of the house, and they placed me on the bed once Diego had the covers pulled back. He then placed them on me.

“May I remove the covers?” I asked.

“Are you warm?” he asked in return, and I nodded that I was.

“I’m from Alaska,” I told him, to which the other two chuckled.

“Good luck Ramirez,” Sarah jibed.

“It’s okay. We’ll live a little cooler while she is here,” he said.

“Please, let everything stay like you normally have it and I’ll be okay with the covers off,” I told him, thankful for his kindness.

“Why do you look so sad?” Sarah asked, sitting on the bed beside me.

“She’s looked sad since we found her,” Arnie commented, the first time I’d heard him talk, as far as I could remember.

I looked at my hands in my lap, which were tightly clasped together. “I killed a bunch of people and I’m a monster...and you’re being nice to me. I don’t deserve it,” I told them, tears threatening to fall from my eyes.

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Sarah said, as if she knew what had happened.

“I killed twenty people at that gas station, nearly thirty when I first escaped and I just found out there are others as well,” I told them, wiped the tears from my cheeks and continued. “There were two kids at the gas station,” I said very softly, horrified at what I’d done. All of them looked at me like I’d slapped them.

“You don’t know that,” she tried to argue.

“Yes I do,” I almost yelled, but I was trying to hold my emotions down, since these people were being nice to me.

“Sweetheart, you’ve been through more than any child should ever experience. Anyone you killed probably deserved it,” she said and I cut her off.

“Most of them were just FBI agents that were probably sent to rescue four kids. They probably have families, maybe kids of their own. Now those kids don’t have their fathers or mothers, because of me. And there is no defense for the kids that were there. I murdered them and their Daddy,” I said, unable to stop the tears anymore. They had begun flowing in rivers down my cheeks.

“How could you blow up the tanks, anyway?” Sarah asked.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you...but I’ll show you,” I replied, making a rash decision. Why was I doing this? Even though they already knew more about me than they should, the more they knew the more danger I put them in. “Do you have a metal trash can, or something that can resist fire?”

“We have a fire pit in the backyard,” Diego replied. As I started to get up, Sarah immediately pushed me back down.

“We’ll carry you for now,” she informed me, with a firm look on her face, although she was also smiling. “However, before we go, you need some real clothes on.” She said that with what I could only call a gentle smile.

The men left and she helped me get dressed in some clothes that Diego, or maybe his wife, already had laid out for me. It took a little while, since Sarah was being super careful with me, but we finally got me dressed. It was actually a loose fitting dress, not what I’d normally wear, and I didn’t think the colors were good for me, but it was pretty. Oddly, it was a thicker material with long sleeves.

There were some loose pants, kind of like leggings to go with it. Sarah kind of laughed as she looked at them, and said, “I don’t think you’ll need those.”

Finally done, Sarah lifted me in her arms as if I weighed nothing, and we proceeded to the back yard, where she set me down on a metal bench. In front of me was a rock lined fire pit, where I was expecting one of those metal bowl looking things. Diego had already started putting wood in it, knowing I was going to start a fire somehow. He was about to spray lighter fluid on it, as I was set down.

“You don’t need that,” I told him, before he sprayed any of the stuff. He stopped, but didn’t move from where he was. “You should back up. I can’t always control how much power I put into things,” I said. Arnie and Diego both stepped further from the fire ring, but I was afraid they were still too close. In my current condition, I had no idea what was going to happen. “A little further,” I urged them.

I was almost scared of using the power, the images of twenty faceless people in my mind, two of them kids. Tears began leaking from my eyes, but I forced myself to continue what I had started.

I closed my eyes, and started feeling that pool of energy, the wonderful feeling of it infusing me. I opened my eyes, with a feeling of incredible pleasure, in spite of my fear and guilt, and the nagging headache that was starting. Tears ran freely down my cheeks, but all the painful emotions seemed to melt away as the energy flowed into me.

It was as if my vision had gained a golden hue. The world was lit up, although it was getting dark. I then looked at the wood in the fire pit and let the energy stream go. It flowed through me, coursing through my veins like the blood that flowed there. It was as if the golden hue in my vision poured into the fire pit.

It was incredible. I’d never felt this good before, although I’d done this many times. I saw the flames dancing in my vision, like some kind of moving art. It was incredible and mesmerizing. With an effort, and with Sarah putting her hand on my shoulder, I forced the flow to stop. It was as if the world had become flat and boring suddenly. The golden hue was gone.

Looking at the fire pit, I was amazed to see all of the wood completely gone and the rocks glowing red. The inner rocks almost looked like they had oozed a little. Arnie and Diego looked a little redder than they had been, and maybe a little singed. “I can’t do that again. I’m having more and more trouble stopping it.”

“You looked like it felt good,” Sarah said, with an odd tone and an odd look.

“It’s the most incredible feeling I’ve ever had, except maybe the SHD, but I’ll never get that again.” Oddly, I didn’t feel the need for it like I normally did whenever I thought about it.

“Is the SHD the drugs they gave you?” Sarah asked, and I nodded.

She pulled me in close to her, her arm holding me tight. It felt good, and I wished more than anything to have Mom or Dad with me, but I wasn’t sure that’d ever be possible again. I had thought that before I escaped Oakmont, but now it was more likely than ever to be true. They had figured out how to get past Dad’s protection, something I had always worried would happen.

As I was pondering what I was going to do, or where I might be able to go, an olive skinned, dark haired girl that looked maybe ten years old, but more than likely nine, came outside. Along with her trailed two younger boys, with the same coloring, and a woman. The girl went straight to Deigo and hugged him, kissing him on the cheek before parting. The boys went to the swing set further back in the yard.

“Is this Melanie?” the girl asked, looking at me.

“This is Melanie, Emilia. Melanie, this is my daughter Emilia,” Diego said, in that hispanic flavor.

“It’s nice to meet you, Melanie,” the girl said, sticking her hand out. She was definitely more outgoing than I was. I shook her hand, exchanging the normal greeting.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” I replied, sounding much too formal for my taste.

“What do ten year old girls do these days?” Sarah asked me, trying to break the ice, I guess.

“I was trying to escape when I was ten, so I’m not going to have a good answer.”

“How old are you?” she then asked, looking a little surprised at my reply.

“Almost thirteen,” I told her.

“I’m sorry. We thought you were a bit younger,” she admitted.

“Everyone does. No worries. I’m kind of used to it,” I said, with a smile.

“Where’d you escape from? That sounds cool,” Emilia, said, excitedly. I looked up at Diego, hoping for some help, but he was playing with the rocks, using a long metal poker. They were way too hot for anything else.

“I’m sorry,” she said, when I didn’t answer immediately.

“It’s okay, but I have a lot of bad memories from that. If it’s alright, I’d prefer to leave them alone,” I told her.

“That’s okay. We’ll make new, good memories together,” she said. Without warning, tears sprang up in my eyes, pouring out faster than I could fight them.

“What’s wrong?” Sarah asked, seeing the water running down my face.

“All of you are being so nice to me, and I think I could like Emilia, but I won’t be able to stay very long and it hurts.”

“You can stay as long as you like,” she argued.

“No, I can’t. As soon as I am able to move again, I have to leave. They’ll find me eventually. If they find out that you’ve even talked to me, they’ll lock all of you up forever.”

“It won’t be that bad,” she tried to convince me. The problem was, I knew exactly what they were capable of.

“You don’t get it,” I said, my voice rising and I couldn’t stop it. “They have experimented on people and killed them. They view me as a subject, a number, like they do all of us kids that they’ve done this to. We’re not people to them, just lab rats,” I said.

“How many kids are there in this program, with your abilities?” Arnie asked.

“I don’t know. Hundreds, I guess, but none of them have the abilities I have.”

“Dear God!” the woman I assumed was Diego’s wife exclaimed.

“I don’t want to put you in danger. I’ve already killed too many people and put many more in danger, just by talking to them,” I continued.

“What can you do? How can you live your life, with them hunting you, like you say?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know. I thought I was safe at home, but Dad was wrong and now they have him, Mom, Uncle Collie, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mike. Anyone that knows about me has been arrested,” I stated.

“I just can’t believe that our own government would do something like this,” Diego said. I didn’t bother saying anything else. I had told them everything that I could to try and convince them. It was up to them to recognize the danger, but their kids were a different matter, and I already had the blood of kids on my hands. I didn’t want anymore.

“I think I need to turn myself in,” I finally said, very quietly, and not happy about my options.

“You can’t do that,” all of them said together, and rather loudly.

“It’s the only way to stop more people from getting hurt, and maybe it’ll let Aliyah, Ben and Eliana get away and maybe live a nearly normal life,” I said, beginning to know what I really did need to do. I still needed to recover first. I couldn’t let them know where I was, and who had helped me.

“Are they friends of yours, telepaths?” Sarah asked.

“Ben’s my brother and Aliyah and Eliana are my cousins,” I told them.

“Are they also telepaths?” Arnie asked, to which I nodded.

“How did they do this to so many kids from your family?” she asked.

“They gave the stuff to our fathers, which gave us our abilities and they got me in the program by claiming that Oakmont was some really great school, where I’d get the best education in the country or something, but it was all lies. They were trying to train us to be weapons, or spies, and they couldn’t teach me anything,” I told them.

“If this is so dangerous, why are you telling us everything?” Arnie asked. I was wondering when that question would finally be asked, and I had thought a lot about my answer. I finally knew the real reason.

“Because I’m tired of having to lie about something I had no control over. I didn’t choose to be this monster that I am, but I have to live with it. Maybe someone can figure out how to use me to fix the problem. They shouldn’t be able to do this to people.” I stared at the glowing rocks for a little while, unable to stop the tears flowing down my cheeks.

“Can I get up and walk?” I asked, deciding I needed to get away from all of them, at least for a little while.

“Be very careful, and take it slow,” Sarah instructed me. She probably shouldn’t have let me walk, but I suspected her mind was distracted by what I’d told them.

“Would you help me?” I asked Emilia. Her face brightened up, now that my story was over and she had an opportunity to be a kid.

We went into the house, leaving the grownups to talk about me, and the trouble that I presented to them. Emilia led me to her room, which was the room just before mine. Of course, my room wasn’t really my room, but for now I considered it to be.

In her room, she had a number of dolls arranged in different places. I’d never really had the opportunity to play with dolls, not having an exactly normal childhood, and I was now too old for them. But at that moment, I was willing to do almost anything to take my mind off of the real world, my world.

She surprised me when she didn’t immediately go to them, though. She helped me sit on her bed and propped me up, with her pillows supporting me against her headboard. She then sat on the bed beside me.

“Has your life really been that hard?” she asked, looking kind of shy asking the question. I nodded, unable to put into words what I felt. “What would you like to do?” she then asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“I don’t know what there is to do,” I replied. She giggled a little. It was a very endearing sound, coming from her almost angelic face.

I hadn’t really paid attention to her before, but she was a pretty girl. Not beautiful, but pretty. She still had a little of the childhood pudge about her, but she wasn’t fat. I had a feeling she’d be quite pretty as she got a little older. Her hair was wavy and black, her skin had that deep olive complexion common to the people of Central and South America. What was really striking about her though, was that she had an infectious smile. You almost couldn’t help but smile with her.

“I’m sorry if I scared you, or frightened you out there,” I said.

“You didn’t really, but it was a little scary. What grade are you in?”

“I guess I’m in seventh, but I’m homeschooled, so I don’t really know. My grade doesn’t really matter anyway. The schools can’t teach me anything,” I said, and realized that it sounded like I was boasting.

“That didn’t sound good. I meant that I’m above anything they can teach me,” I tried to correct myself. “Crap!” I exclaimed, realizing that my correction wasn’t any better.

Emilia started laughing at me, and before long I was laughing too. I absolutely couldn’t resist her infectious happiness.

The laughing started hurting, and the more it hurt, the more I laughed. I couldn’t stop myself. Finally, the pain got to be too much, and I forced myself to calm down. Emilia was still smiling, but she was looking at me like I was a crazy kid.

“You’re fun,” She stated.

“Not always,” I said, getting somber again.

“Wow, your mood changes fast.”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“What TV shows do you like?” she asked, changing the subject again.

“I don’t watch TV.”

“It’s not really TV, but I stream a show that’s really good. It’s a mystery show, set in the 1800s. Momma and Daddy probably wouldn’t like to know I’m watching it, but it’s not that bad. You want to watch?” she asked, looking hopeful.

“Sure,” I agreed.

She brought a couple of extra pillows from her closet and settled herself in beside me. It wasn’t long before I was completely immersed in the Murdoch Mysteries. It really was a good program, to me.

Without realizing it, I had fallen asleep on Emilia’s bed. I only knew it because I started having nightmares.

At first, they were cutting my skull open, with me strapped to some gurney. They hadn’t deadened my head, or anything. Then, Aliyah, Ben and Eliana were all strapped on medical tables, with probes being stuck down their throats, like what had been done to me.

They were about to be injected with the orange stuff. God, not them! Me being addicted to that crap was bad enough, but not them. “Oh God, please help us!”

The dream shifted, and something was shaking me. I attempted to brush it off, as I tried to find a way to help them, but it wouldn’t stop. What was this infernal thing shaking me, when I needed to help them?

Then my eyes opened and I was looking into Emilia’s face, her parents both standing beside the bed, looking worried. “I’m sorry,” I said, realizing what had happened and knowing I’d awakened the entire house.

“It’s okay,” Diego’s wife said, sitting on the bed beside me, and running her hand over my hair. “It was just a dream, and you’re safe now,” she tried to assure me. The problem was, I knew the real world could be as bad as my dreams. I curled up, angling into her, trying to get control of my emotions and eventually drifted back to sleep. The last thing I remembered was her hand gently stroking my hair. Although I had more bad dreams, none of them were as bad as that had been, and none of them woke anyone else up again, except for me.

The one that kept coming to me, was seeing two faceless kids, being consumed by the fireball I had created at the gas station. Although it wasn’t as bad as the dream with the doctors getting Aliyah and the kids, or the one with me having my head cut open, it was bad enough.

As was normal for me, I was up long before anyone else. When I woke up, I carefully and slowly walked to my room, grabbed some clothes and went to the bathroom, where I even more carefully washed myself in a tub only barely filled with water. Washing and conditioning my hair was a trial, since I knew I needed to avoid getting my stitches wet. When I finished, I laid back in the shallow water for a long time, praying for God to let me out of the nightmare of my life. As was normal for me, though, I eventually had to accept that He wanted me to stay for a bit longer.

Getting out of the tub, I gingerly dried myself off and got dressed in another loose fitting dress, again with springtime colors. This one was more pale blues, rather than the more yellow one from the day before. I thought the yellows made me look washed out, considering how pale I already was.

“Good morning,” Emilia said, when she woke up and saw me sitting at her vanity, my hair already brushed.

“Good morning,” I replied, trying to look pleasant for her.

“You went to sleep pretty fast last night.” As usual, she was smiling.

“I’ve had a pretty hard time getting sleep lately.”

“It must be exciting being chased, and living on the land and all,” she exclaimed, excitement in her voice.

“You don’t ever want to experience it. Enjoy a quiet life, if you can.”

“Can you really read my mind?” she asked, shocking me with the question.

“If I wanted to, but I don’t. It’s an invasion and I don’t do it unless I really need to.”

“Would you read my mind,” she asked, kind of nervously.

“I’d prefer not to.” I could see the disappointment in her face at my refusal. Although she was nervous about it, she wanted the experience, which might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“I really don’t like reading people’s private thoughts, but there’s something else I can do that you’ll probably like,” I said, a smile actually forming on my face. She looked back at me very hopeful.

I very gently sent a probe into her mind, and then opened the connection. Can you hear me? I asked. Her eyes got really wide before she nodded her head.

“That is so cool,” she almost yelled, barely keeping her voice down.

Still speaking in her mind, I said, Try and imagine speaking to me. If it works right, I’ll hear you. I could tell she was trying to figure out how to do what I said.

Did I do it, I heard, and I smiled at her and nodded. Oh my gosh! This is so cool!, she exclaimed in my mind.

Emilia, don’t ever let anyone know you’ve done this. No one can ever know. Not your parents or your best friend. If the people that are after me ever find out, you really will be locked up and they’ll fight even harder to get me. They don’t know I can do this. She nodded understanding, and then we had a long conversation about nothing in particular. She was having too much fun with this new toy, and I didn’t want to take it away from her.

Maybe an hour later, we heard the call to breakfast. “Emilia, Melanie, Jose, Javier...breakfast,” came the call. Emilia helped me walk down the hall to the dining room, where there was an amazing spread of food on the table. Some of the dishes I’d never seen before. The rest were cooked in ways that were new to me.

The eggs had what looked like peppers, maybe some kind of herb, tomatoes and onions in them. They actually looked really good. There was also a plate of waffles, but the waffles looked a little different and I didn’t see any syrup anywhere. There was a bowl with some stringy looking meat soaked in a red looking sauce.

Diego and his wife were watching me and smiling, as I surveyed the table. “This is a somewhat traditional meal where our families come from,” his wife said. I’d never learned her name, unfortunately.

“The eggs have cilantro, jalapeños, onions and tomatoes in them. The waffles are a cornmeal waffle and you put the pork verde on the top,” she told me.

“I’m really glad I don’t eat kosher,” I said, my mouth beginning to water.

“Are you Jewish?” Diego asked, looking a little worried.

“No, sir. I’m Messianic,” I replied, to which they both looked confused.

“We believe in the Messiah, Yeshua, but we observe the Hebrew roots of our faith. We keep the Sabbath, as it was instructed and celebrate the feasts of God. To the outside, we look Jewish,” I explained, still looking at the food. I couldn’t get my eyes off of it.

“Well, let’s eat, then,” Diego said, and we all sat down. He led us in a prayer, and they all did the Catholic crossing thing over their chests once he was done. Trying to be polite, I sat patiently, while the family started serving food to themselves.

“Are you going to eat?” Diego’s wife asked me, looking a little concerned.

“Yes, ma’am. I was just waiting for everyone else before I helped myself,” I replied. She stared at me for a moment, a small smile forming on her face.

“You are such a polite young lady,” she acknowledged, making me blush and lower my eyes. I felt self-conscious when given compliments, especially for things that were what everyone did or should do.

I finally began serving myself and got a generous helping of the eggs, along with one of the waffles with a nice portion of the pork stuff on top. It was the best meal I had eaten in a long time. I was in heaven.

I ate seconds, and when there was still more on the serving plates and no one was getting more, I added another helping to my plate. When done with my thirds, I looked at everyone else for a minute. They all seemed comfortably full so I got another helping. I hadn’t eaten this well in over a week, or however long it had been since I left home.

“How are you so small, eating that much?” Diego asked, once I was happily content, and slouched back in my chair.

“I’m lucky, I guess,” I answered, with a contented sigh.

“I would assume you like my food,” his wife said.

“Uh-huh,” I replied, somewhat dreamily.

Then I realized just how much I had eaten, and knew I’d been a pig at the breakfast table. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have eaten so much. That wasn’t very polite,” I said, trying to be apologetic and straightening up in a flash, my stomach area rebelling at my sudden movement.

“Melanie, we made this meal for you. We normally eat much smaller breakfast, and usually cereal,” she replied. “Not only that, we ate all we wanted.”

“Please forgive me, but I never heard your name,” I said to her.

“I am Alejandra, but most people call me Alex. We are the Ramirez’s,” she replied.

“I don’t know if you want to know, but they’re saying that the gas station was set off by a faulty gauge in the fuel tanks,” she said to Diego. I looked intently at the table for a while before answering.

“I know the truth,” I said very softly.

“You were defending yourself,” she insisted.

“But the kids couldn’t defend themselves, and I killed them,” I said, tears beginning to pour from my eyes again. I could see Diego looking at Alex, not happy about her bringing that subject up, but it was too late.

“Emilia and the boys will be going to school soon, but we don’t know what to do with you,” Alex said, very deliberately changing the subject.

“I can’t go to school,” I replied, without thinking.

“No, you can’t go to school, but you should probably still be learning,” she said.

“No one can teach me,” I said, trying to elaborate. “Crap, that sounds bad, again,” I exclaimed, bringing a bit of giggling from Emilia.

“Why can’t we teach you?” Alex asked.

“My answer will sound like I’m bragging, or talking too big of myself.”

“Go ahead and say it anyway.”

“I’m too smart,” I replied, feeling bad about saying that.

“I am actually a school teacher,” she informed me, not that it really mattered. “Diego is very good at math, since it was required for his degree and I am good at social studies,” she said, and paused to let that sink in.

I almost smiled at the shock she was in for. The problem was, I felt like I was letting my pride get too big. “Between us, I think we can teach you for as long as you are with us. We have both taken today off, to help you get settled in. Let us see what we can do with you, if you are okay with us trying,” she said, with a knowing smile.

“Okay,” I agreed, but knew it wouldn’t succeed.

“Excellent!” she exclaimed.

“Good luck,” Emilia whispered, as she headed back to her room, leaving me to my fate. I suspected she thought her parents would be hard on me, and maybe they would be. I was okay with whatever they did because they could never be harder than what I’d already experienced.

I wanted to help clean up, but I wasn’t mobile enough to do anything and they wouldn’t let me anyway. Once Emilia and her brothers were gone, Alex and Diego sat at the table and put paper and pencil in front of me, along with a laptop.

“We need to get some kind of an idea of what your education level is, before we can know what to try and teach you. What grade are you in?” Alex asked.

“I’m not really in a grade. I’m homeschooled, but I think Mrs. Stone is trying to get me college credit for my work,” I said, which brought about a look of curiosity from both of them.

“Well, we’ll see what your current level is, and go from there. Regardless, we will struggle a little with science and even more with English, but we’ll figure that out.” She then opened the laptop and pulled up a website that I’d seen before. It was an assessment of educational knowledge, typically used by adults.

She turned the laptop toward me and I dove into it. I was done in just over an hour. “That was fast,” she stated, when I turned the laptop back toward her. I hadn’t press the button to perform the evaluation of my answers.

“Your scratch paper is blank. Didn’t you try to do the math, or the science?”

“I finished it.” Rather than ask anymore questions, she clicked the button to evaluate the test. It did it’s thinking for a while and then returned the results. I was a little surprised when I saw my scores had actually dropped. The last time I had taken the assessment, which was before I left for Oakmont, my scores in every section were a little higher.

“These scores are...incredible,” she observed, looking at the results.

“They’ve dropped since the last time I took it,” I told her.

“When was that?” she asked.

“Before I went to Oakmont.”

“How long ago did you go to Oakmont?” she then asked.

“I was ten when I left, but I turned eleven there. I’m almost thirteen now,” I said.

She sat there staring at me for a little while, completely silent. “You really are as smart as you said.”

“Unfortunately.”

“This is incredible. Why would you say that?”

“It’s hard always being alone. Kids don’t like someone that smart, and I never fit in with anyone, and that was before I became a freak,” I told her.

“Oh dear,” she said, wrapping an arm around me, trying to comfort me. This time, I didn’t need the comfort. I had found Aliyah, and she had filled that hole in me. She was that friend I always needed, but now she was gone.

“It’s okay. I met Aliyah at Oakmont and she was my friend.”

“Is she not your friend anymore?”

“She’s my cousin, and I guess my sister. When we escaped, my parents adopted her. Her Dad is my Mom’s brother.”

“Then she is more than a friend,” she stated, delighted at her understanding.

“But I need to leave her now.”

“What for?”

“They will chase me and forget about her.”

“I think they will not forget about her, or the other two,” she told me. My heart sank at that thought, because I knew she was right, even though I had been denying it in my mind.

“Right now, let’s see what we can do for you. You were right that we cannot teach you, as incredible as that is. I’m curious, what is the last math you worked on?”

“May I,” I asked, indicating the computer. She slid it back in front of me and I went to Dr. Stuben’s second thesis, which was even more complicated than the one I had worked on at Oakmont.

“Dr. Stuben let me help him with this,” I explained, as it came up. She immediately slid the computer to Diego, who glanced at the screen and then started scrolling through it.

“Alex, I have no idea what this is and she’s credited as a contributor on it,” he said.

She took the computer back and looked at the credits. “Good gosh. This is a doctoral thesis,” she stated.

“He wanted me to look at it before he published it to see if he had any errors in it. He argued with me over a few places that I found some problems, but he eventually understood it and fixed the problems. He said putting my name on it might help me in the future, but I’m not sure how,” I told them.

“Diego, we can’t teach her,” she said, repeating her earlier statement.

“What is the log base 64 of 4?” Diego asked.

“One third,” I said replied. He got a calculator and entered his problem, then looked up at me.

“I’ve never known anyone that could do logarithms in their heads. How complex can they get before you need a calculator?” he asked.

“I don’t use calculators.”

“Never?” he asked, with emphasis.

“No, sir.”

“Well, I guess we just let her watch TV or something,” he remarked, looking back at Alex.

“I don’t really watch TV. Last night was different.”

“Why was it different?” she asked.

“Because Emilia wanted to do something with me and it was all she could think of. I didn’t want to disappoint her. She’s nice,” I told them.

They stared at each other for a little while, probably trying to come up with ideas of what to do with me. “Could I help tutor math at your school, at least until I heal enough?”

“Is that a good idea?” Diego asked.

“If there aren’t any cameras, I’ll be safe, I think.”

“How will a bunch of high school girls react to being tutored by a girl that much younger than them?” Diego asked.

“I will speak with Sister Paulina. Her students would accept any help, I think. They are more motivated, and anyway, she’s not that much younger than them,” she said.

“She looks a lot younger though,” he commented. They sat back and looked at me for a little while. I had no idea what to say or how to act, being stared at like that.

“Tomorrow, she goes to school with me, if you think she’s up to it,” Alex finally said to Diego.

“If she is very careful, and you help her move around, I think it’ll be alright. Someone will have to bring lunch to her. I don’t want her going to the cafeteria. Too much risk of her being bumped into or something, and she might rip the stitches by stretching or something,” he replied.

“Then that’s what we will do,” she stated. I smiled at them, knowing I’d enjoy that.

The rest of the day was spent reading teen fiction on the internet. Thankfully, there were sites I could go to that were free and didn’t ask for any kind of information, so I was anonymous. It was easy for me to lose myself in the books, imagining something close to a normal life.

“She disappeared,” Gabe said, when he returned the next morning.

“What do you mean she disappeared?” Aliyah asked.

“The FBI didn’t come get her, or anything. She just disappeared. No one knows where she went,” he replied.

“I’m going to keep looking, and hope she’s seen by my people before she’s seen by their people,” he said, with a sardonic expression.

“Do we have any idea how bad her injuries were?” Aliyah asked.

“They weren’t life threatening, other than the possibility of bleeding too much, but she’s probably in a lot of pain. The rod went all the way through,” he told her, his expression changing to complete seriousness.

“Where’s Mel?” Ben asked, tugging on Aliyah’s sleeve, his face looking very crestfallen.

“We don’t know, but we’ll find her,” Aliyah promised, looking back at Gabe.

“I’ll find her,” he said, reaffirming the promise. Without saying anything else, he left.