Chapter 398: 1-2

“How did you all escape the facility?” images in his head showing us that in reality they didn’t so much as escape as Kieran released them. “Some of us had privileges… based on how well you followed directions. Kieran had more rank and honestly we don’t know… one day he just opened our cells and said we needed to run. But he had no memory of anything – or where to go… we didn’t know where else to go, but I could remember Kieran talking about his family so we tracked them down. We – Frances DeAnna, Lynne, Alexis and Bryant – might have family of our own like he did but we couldn’t remember them…” Chelsea was stiff but her frame was shaking, “So Kieran-” “His time there was different-” “You both have the same tattoos,” Chelsea pointed out. “Yes, but that’s because we were the only ones that seemed to survive their experiments…” Mack countered. “Which was?” He shrugged, “I can’t tell you it’s not like they told us specifically what they were going to do to us. We were treated as animals, they didn’t speak to us, and they didn’t speak around us, just instructions. Stand. Sit down. Lay down. Stand up. Bend over. Left arm. Right arm. Open wide,” Mack says in an eerily robotic fashion. Liam comes in and as for his time in one of the facilities he knows even less than Mack had, but it’s unfortunately similar. Remy and I sit, trying to unencrypt the files finding nothing like we had of the video, only that it was tag success. “I know you don’t want to speak to Kieran, but I think… Gabriel I don’t understand how he was able to free them. Liam escaped after studying his surroundings, but Mack said that he was able to just free them, even if we don’t want to force him to speak about such things, I would at least like to know what happened? I mean did he study his environment and then decide to help them escape? And Mack said that there were others in the facility but Kieran only freed the people that had the same R43 tattoo that he had…” Chelsea says pacing from one end of my office to the other. “Mack – he said something,” Remy interrupted Chelsea’s pacing, “he said that they weren’t told anything, just given commands,” taping away on her keyboard for a few moments the same video we found comes on again, “Okay, look at the little boy after this happened, he doesn’t look like he’s aware of what just happened. I – I saw the marks on Mack’s arms, they are identical to the boy here,” Remy said. I nodded, this was what I had been thinking when we were in the Hereafter, “And – and what’s more is I know – I’ve seen these two faces Boss,” she puts the computer on the table walking to the screen, she taps on two of the children, before they are slaughtered. “Do you remember when I was searching for missing children back when Chelsea was kidnapped, you were in the forest surrounding Russell’s home?” I nodded. “Well these two are human children – Kai, pull up the missing persons images,” Remy commanded and next to the video still are two of the children, one missing from Florida missing since June, the other North Carolina and missing since September. “I’ve found the missing boy as well, he’s from one of the group homes… reported as running away,” Remy spat angrily, “Do you know how old he was when he supposedly ‘ran away?’” she asked stiffly, standing as straight as a board, “He was five… he ran away to where?” I slunk back in my chair, thinking of myself when I was just over six years old, I had ran away, I wanted to search for ‘mines’ Anya hadn’t come back and I was getting anxious, we had Audrey but she wasn’t ‘mines.’ “I – I can see how – or maybe why the reports say that though,” Chelsea said coming over to Remy and I, “I mean from the perspective of the ones running the home… he could have ran to where he thought his family was… not understanding that they were gone-” Chelsea said as she went to Remy’s computer reading from the notes that were written. “See,” she pointed showing Remy, “They wrote that themselves, that he continued to ask for his family, saying that he needed to find them, it would make sense that they thought he ran away-” Chelsea stopped speaking when Remy faced us her eyes sad. “Remy why… why don’t you take a break… go spend some time with Jeremy and Emmalynn,” Chelsea offered, knowing that when it came to this – kids and death – Remy was putting on a brave face, trying to help with the decoding, but still mourning the loss of her own baby. Her eyes closed, and she shook her head, “I’m not – I’m okay,” she lied, “I mean, the Elders are – they’re treating children like their disposable, how – how do we stop them?” she asked beseechingly, her blue eyes wide, waiting for an answer that as of now, we had no definite option to give her. “We gather information, we train, and we come up with some sort of plan, because well… I’m not saying I don’t want to save whomever the Elders have that we don’t know, but they have Unseen… Devotees, Researchers… so many people in their pockets, whatever we do, we need to make sure that we have a plan in place to handle all these people-” “I saw we slaughter anyone who took part in any of this, harming children,” Remy spat that desolate look no longer in her eyes. “I mean – if we can’t do that, then how about we just build a large prison and lock them up for life-” “Yeah… but how long would that be? Some of these people are supernaturals, they have an indefinite life span,” Chelsea added, calming as well, thoughts of what to do with these people once we found them racing along her mind. Going to the door, she opens it before anyone knocks and ushers Nonno and Violet inside, “You called us?” Nonno asks standing. “Yes, Remy thought about when I went missing… Gabriel had shown me that you two drew facial composites of the people that Angel had dreamt, that he had seen as well?” Chelsea asked. The two nodded in confusion.