Chapter Forty-Six

Harper smiled as the door swung open, laughing when Rylee pulled her inside. "Get in here immediately." She practically pulled Harper into the living room, pushing her down on the love seat. "Stay there," she demanded as she fast-walked out of the room. Harper took off her jacket, laying it on the edge of the couch and setting the bag with Rylee's belated Christmas gift down next to her, as Rylee came back in, a wine bottle in one hand, two glasses in the other.

Harper chuckled. "Isn't it a little too early to drink?"

"Um, no. Not when I haven't seen my friend in weeks and every time I hear from her, with a two-line text, mind you, her life has exploded again."

Exploded.

Not an exaggeration. Harper still felt shell-shocked.

"I'm sorry, Ry. You're right. So much has been happening, I've just been trying to keep up." And she'd been singularly focused on Jak and falling head over heels in love with him, she could admit that too.

She gave Rylee an apologetic look. "And I'm not going to be able to stay too long. Jak is with Agent Gallagher, but I told him I'd be waiting when he gets back."

"That's okay. I'll take what I can get." Rylee winked at her and poured them each a glass of wine and handed one to Harper. Harper took it, taking a sip and then letting out a deep breath.

Rylee had taken a sip of her own wine and now was looking at Harper over the rim of her glass. "You're in love."

She smiled, sitting back. "I am. Ridiculously in love, Ry." And despite the recent upheaval, she felt at peace inside, for the first time in what felt like forever.

Rylee smiled, looking like she might be about to cry. "I'm so happy," she whispered. "And I want to meet him immediately."

Harper grinned. "You will. He's coming to live with me." She held up a hand when Rylee opened her mouth to ask if she thought that was a good idea, Harper could tell. "I know it's sudden. But…it's right. Jak needs to figure out his own life, and he knows that. But we're going to do it together. It feels right."

Rylee watched her for a second and then smiled. "It must because I've never seen such peace in your eyes."

Harper grinned, taking another sip of wine. "There are still some loose ends as far as what exactly happened to Jak," she said. "But those questions will be answered eventually, or they won't. Either way, he's good. He's the strongest man I've ever known."

Live! The words he'd said to her on the side of that cliff a lifetime ago rang through her head as they'd done before—down deep in her subconscious and floating to the surface now and again, the rallying cry not to give up. And she hadn't. Because of him.

Then she told her friend what Agent Gallagher had discovered, what she and Jak had discovered after he'd disappeared into the woods, back to the one place that still felt like home to him, though she vowed she would change that. She would be his home. From that day forward. And he would be hers.

Rylee sat, mouth gaping. "Do the police think Driscoll killed your parents too? So that he could kidnap you and make you part of his study?"

Harper frowned. "They don't know. And I might never know. But yes, it's the best theory as of now."

"Good lord," Rylee said. "I can't believe something that demented was going on right here in Helena Springs."

"I know. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all." And that would likely take a while. But she was a survivor. She always would be. Was there any reason to know the why and how about her parents? About why she had been chosen? Not really. It wouldn't bring them back. It wouldn't change the outcome of their lives. I lived.

And Jak was the greatest survivor of all time as far as she was concerned. Her hero. Her love. Her forever mate.

"So what happens from here?"

"Agent Gallagher is still working the case, trying to figure out who killed Driscoll. And he's trying to identify the bodies found on Driscoll's property." A shiver went through her—how close she'd come to being nothing but remains on Driscoll's land. A red X on his hand-drawn map. She took a deep breath. "But while that unfolds, I'm going to be taking some psychology courses in Missoula. I want to understand why people do the things they do." She wanted to work in the criminal justice field someday, helping agents like Mark Gallagher out on cases. Everything that had unfolded had been terrible and tragic and mind-boggling, but seeing the case being worked from up close had inspired her to do the same type of work. And she knew she'd have an advocate in Agent Gallagher.

In the meantime, she and Jak would run her guide business. To say he'd be a natural was an understatement. Who knew the wilderness better than he did?

Harper and Rylee talked for another half hour, exchanging Christmas gifts, laughing, and reminiscing, and when Harper got up to hug her goodbye, she felt even fuller. Being in love was a wonderful miracle, but having a community surrounding her and Jak would enrich life for both of them.

Harper smiled to herself as she walked down Rylee's steps, turning into the covered parking area, eager to get home and wait for Jak's arrival. Just as she was removing her key from her purse, she sensed movement behind her, turning halfway as someone grabbed her from behind. She opened her mouth to scream, inhaling a big breath of something sweet and noxious as a hand went over her mouth. Terror spiked through her. She tried to lift her arm, to hit, to flail, but her body was too heavy. The world wavered, faded. Blinked out.

***

She couldn't see. She could barely hear. Her head roared, and it was several minutes before she realized it wasn't coming from inside her own mind, but rather, it was outside, somewhere beyond the darkness. She listened, her brain clearing, memory returning piece by piece. Water. It's water.

She'd been leaving Rylee's house. Someone had come up behind her. Taken her. Her heart raced, the brain fog clearing.

Whatever had been covering her head was removed suddenly, and she let out a short yelp, the sudden light blinding her. She opened her eyes, the smell of nature meeting her nose—trees and dirt and rushing water.

I've been here before.

She was standing on a cliff, a river flowing next to her, spilling into what she immediately recognized as Amity Falls.

"Beautiful up here, isn't it?"

She whirled around so quickly, she almost stumbled over her own feet.

A large, tall man with graying streaks in his mostly black hair stood in front of her, smiling casually. Next to him was an equally tall young man with bronzed skin and dark eyes, his expression blank. "My favorite place in all of this godforsaken wilderness." The older man smiled. "I'm Dr. Swift, by the way." He walked toward her but not too close. She gaped at him, her mind searching frantically to put this into context. What is happening?

"This whole thing started out with a ceremony, albeit an interrupted ceremony, and…it'll end with one." He smiled. "Of sorts. Though not in the same location, exactly. Isaac picked the first one. But he's not here anymore to choose anything, is he?"

"Isaac?" she murmured. Isaac Driscoll chose the first location. The first ceremony ? The first time she'd stood on a cliff like this. With Jak. And two other unnamed boys.

Hazy pictures filled her mind, things she'd always thought were dreams or nightmares or bits and pieces of her fighting her way through the wilderness…the voices of the hikers who found her maybe…her fear, the cold. It'd all swirled together in her child's mind, creating confusion and too much that was unknown or out of context for the adult Harper to begin to understand.

His voice though. She remembered his voice. It drummed through her, triggering her brain to connect bits of memory, creating context.

"You," she said. "It was you. That night." He'd taken her…shot her parents? "Why?" she asked. "Why me? Why my family? What did you do to them?"

He let out a long-suffering sigh as though the whole ordeal was so terribly taxing. For the first time since Harper had opened her eyes, anger raced through her, mixing with the dread. This man. Right in front of her. He had killed her parents. Taken them from her.

"Because, Harper, your father, the sheriff, was looking into some missing kids— our missing kids—and getting far too close for comfort. We had to eliminate him."

Eliminate him? He said it like it was nothing. Like it had been as easy as swatting a bothersome fly.

"What happened to them?" she choked.

"Oh, don't worry, they didn't even know what was coming. One of my men shot your parents while they were driving, causing the car to crash. We didn't expect you to be there, but there you were, unconscious in the back. You'd survived. We put chloroform over your mouth so you'd keep sleeping and decided you would join the others. We knew they wouldn't search where we were taking you." He waved his hand around. "A million acres of wild land. A better hiding place doesn't exist."

They'd pushed the car into the canyon, hidden it so it'd never be found. And it wouldn't have been, if not for Jak. Her mind whirled. But how did I get the pocketknife? Had her dying father slipped it into her pocket somehow? At the thought, her chest ached because it was really the only explanation. The way her father's remains had been turned. Toward the back seat. Toward her. Her father's dying thought was to protect her.

Dr. Swift turned for a moment, and Harper considered trying to run at him and take him down, but he was too far away to be taken by surprise, twice her size, and she didn't have a weapon. Not to mention the younger man, who hadn't been introduced was there too, presumably Dr. Swift's security protection. Dr. Swift turned back toward her.

"Against all odds, you got out of the wilderness that night." He looked almost amazed for a moment. "We watched you closely for a while, but you didn't remember anything. Lucky for you. After that…we knew it was far too risky to attempt to take you again. By that time," he sighed, "there was only Jak. Our experiment had gone terribly awry." He smiled, looking beyond her, out to the falls. "But Jak…ah, Jak. If only we had a thousand just like him. Driscoll had begun to find out how he'd react to being introduced back into society. He was doing so well. Mentally strong and impressively…civilized. We were so close to being able to debrief him, enter him into more specialized training. Weaponry, hand-to-hand combat fighting…it would only have been a matter of a year, maybe less, before he could be put up for bid. I can just imagine the offers that would have come in for him. A shame. A waste. " Deep sadness passed over his face before he inhaled a long, slow breath. "But it wasn't meant to be."

Her head spun with what had been done to Jak. Debrief him. Meaning, tell him his life had all been a terrible lie? Put up for bid ? Horror clawed at the inside of her chest. If only we had a thousand just like him? Who was we? He and Driscoll? Or were there more? The twisted magnitude of what she was hearing made her feel lightheaded.

"You have no idea of the significance of what we're doing, Harper. No idea. I'm sorry I'm going to have to hurt you. But we simply cannot have loose ends at this stage, nor can we risk the others. There's far too much at stake. We should have taken care of that—of you—years ago, but now we can only learn from our mistakes, only be more…efficient in the future."

She shook her head, bewildered. Horrified. "What do you mean by others ?"

"I mean we have programs set up all over. We have others like Jak who have already been such great successes. My protector, Daire, is a perfect example. My prodigy. Only nineteen years old." He looked back at the young man still standing stoically behind him. "Isn't that right, Daire?" Daire's eyes moved to him, and he nodded, his expression unchanging. "And," Dr. Swift went on, "there are even more who show much promise. I'm not the only one who supports the copious benefits of our overall program. There are many benefactors and bidders who understand that the unwanted children of addicts and thieves only bring forth a society's downfall. It's already happening. Look at our inner cities. How the government is addressing the problem is not working. It's only making things worse. We strive to improve society. Unfortunately, our first study failed for all intents and purposes. But we learned, adapted, and now, now such exciting things are happening. Survival stories like you'd never believe, skills of all sorts being exhibited from throwaways. " He laughed, a joyful sound that even the wind didn't want. It rang out around them, loud and spine-chilling.

Harper swallowed. Our first study failed for all intents and purposes. Our first study. Her. Jak. The other two boys. They had been the subjects of the first study. And it had failed. So now this man was going to tie up loose ends. Two of the boys were already dead, so that meant her.

And Jak? Another wave of horror washed through her, and she groaned, but it was snatched by the roar of the falling water.