Chapter 13

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

An hour and a half later, Heidi watched as they pulled up to an ordinary-looking ranch-style house at the end of a long lane in the middle of the woods.

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't this.

Stephen stopped in front of the attached garage and put the van in Park. "Trevor, another colleague, secured this place for us. We should be safe here for a while."

For a while? That indicated there might be an end in sight. But Heidi doubted that.

It seemed this would only end in one way: death.

Maybe hers. Maybe Stephen's. She wasn't sure.

Either way, she shivered at the thought.

"Let's get inside," Stephen said. "We can talk more there."

Heidi was grateful when he waited for her outside the van. That he took her arm.

She wasn't sure she could stand on her own right now. All her muscles felt wobbly, and her head was spinning. That wasn't to mention the fact she smelled like smoke. White dust was sprinkled across her nose—and probably other places. She'd discovered a small scratch on her arm.

All those things made her realize just how close she'd come to losing her life.

As everything sank in, Stephen escorted her inside.

The house was plain with the bare minimum of furniture and no notable decorations.

That was fine. It didn't matter.

They just needed somewhere to regroup.

As soon as they were inside, Stephen led her to a small kitchen table. He didn't let go of her arm until she was seated.

Stephen and Gage sat across from her. She observed Gage a moment. He was probably Stephen's age, with dark hair and grayish eyes.

He'd been in the military also, hadn't he? Except he hadn't left with Rafferty. That was her best guess.

Stephen wasted no time getting down to business. "We need to figure out what's going on."

"I'd love nothing more than to do that also. I don't even know where to start from here." Just as she said the words, her phone rang.

She grabbed it from her pocket and glanced at the screen. Her pulse kicked up a beat.

"It's Rafferty," she muttered. "What should I do?"

Stephen's gut clenched. "I didn't realize you had your phone. You need to turn it off. Now."

Heidi's eyes widened. "I . . . I would have earlier. But it's untraceable. And?—"

"Who told you it was untraceable?" Stephen took it from her hand and slid the battery out.

"Rafferty . . ." As the word left her lips, the conviction in her voice faltered.

They all knew Rafferty couldn't be trusted. Just because he said something was untraceable didn't mean it actually was.

"Even if it is untraceable, we need to buy some time." Stephen set the lifeless phone back on the table, praying Rafferty hadn't already tracked them. "Let Rafferty think someone grabbed you."

"You don't think he'll suspect it's you?"

Stephen exchanged a look with Gage before they both shook their heads.

"He shouldn't." Gage ran a hand through his hair, tension in his gaze. "We've been careful to cover our tracks. There's no way he should know we're with you."

"Especially now that the tracking devices have been removed from our shoulders," Stephen added.

Her eyes widened at his words. "What?"

Stephen nodded grimly. "We were subject to different kinds of experiments. One of them was having GPS trackers planted inside us so our every move could be monitored. As I mentioned earlier, we also had devices implanted near our hearts. We were supposedly living free, but we weren't actually free at all."

"I can't imagine," she muttered. "It's horrifying to think these people did those things without your permission."

"We're still uncovering everything that was done to us while we were in ‘training' for Project Elevate," Stephen said.

Heidi tilted her head in confusion. "What's Project Elevate?"

Stephen and Gage exchanged another look.

"We were handpicked for certain experiments the military wanted to do on an elite group of soldiers," Stephen explained. "They purposefully chose people who didn't have any strong community connections."

"Why would that be important?" she asked.

"Because without any connections, if something went wrong, there would be fewer people to notice and to keep them accountable for it," Stephen said.

"That explains it . . ." Heidi slowly shook her head.

"They were trying to develop a super soldier, of sorts," Gage continued.

"I've heard about stuff like that, but I thought it was only fiction." She paused. "I figured you guys were Special Ops or maybe even Black Ops."

"We were . . . kind of." Stephen frowned. "Only Rafferty took it to the next level."

Heidi sighed and leaned back. "How many of you are there?"

"We're not sure about that either," Stephen said. "We're still trying to uncover everything. Rafferty was initially the scientist in charge of the program, but he was fired. When that happened, he took some of his guys with him and started his own security firm."

"Blackstone." Heidi slowly nodded as she took in each detail.

"There could have been other groups of soldiers who came through before my group," Stephen said. "We're not sure. Gage and his crew came later."

She glanced at Gage. "What happened to the rest of you?"

"We were recruited into the program under a different leader," Gage said. "Most of us stuck with the program and did covert missions. Missions where, if we were caught, the government would claim no connection with us."

"They can do that?"

Gage nodded. "They can, and they did."

"That's awful." She shook her head. "Who even approved this program?"

"We never questioned it," Stephen said. "We knew it was all top-secret and were taught not to ask questions. We were almost brainwashed into thinking that way."

"Eventually, the program was shut down," Gage continued. "The guys who trained with me went to work for a man named Alan Larchmont."

"Does this Larchmont guy have answers?" Heidi asked. "Someone needs accountability for all this."

The events of the past few weeks replayed in Stephen's mind. "Maybe he does have answers, but apparently he also had a device implanted near his heart. He's still in ICU in a coma, so we can't ask him any questions right now."

Silence stretched a moment, and Heidi shook her head. "None of this seems real, yet I know it is. I learned early on that it was better not to ask too many questions. So that's what I tried to do. Now I can see that was a mistake."

"You couldn't have known," Stephen murmured. "None of us did. None of us knew the extent of what was going on."

Heidi let out another sigh before sitting up straight again. "So what do we do now?"

"That's an excellent question," Stephen said.

Heidi's eyes lit. "I forgot. I have an update for you. With everything else that's happened, it slipped my mind."

"An update?" Maybe this would be something useful.

Even more than that fact, Stephen felt satisfaction stretch through him.

Heidi was beginning to trust him even more.

That was exactly what they needed right now—to trust each other if they were going to get through this.