Escaped (Shadows Landing: The Townsends #5)

Prologue

Forrest Townsend set the wrench down and smiled. That was, until his little sister, Penelope, screamed from the bathtub upstairs.

“Forrest!” his mother yelled. “Did you change the water pressure? You about shot your sister through the back of the tub.”

Forrest grumbled and pulled the wrench back out. Water pressure was always an issue in their small house. He’d just tweaked it a bit. Maybe too much? He was only eight, after all. How was he to know there was such a thing as too much?

Rowan, his twin brother, snorted with laughter. “Good thing it wasn’t Olivia. She’d make you sit through a big, long lecture on liability, whatever that is.”

“Forrest!” their father suddenly bellowed from the kitchen. “Did you tinker with the oven? It just burnt my pizza to a crisp and it was only cooking for ten minutes.”

Forrest cringed as he looked at Rowan. “I guess there is such a thing as too much and too fast.”

Rowan laughed, but shrugged his shoulders as if it weren’t a big deal. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

Forrest put the wrench back down and grabbed the tools he’d borrowed from his father’s workbench. “I guess I'd better figure out the oven.”

The house was too quiet as Forrest scanned the list of colleges that he wanted to look into over his last two years of high school.

Several of his older siblings were out of the house now.

Kane was in his senior year of high school, he and Rowan were juniors, and Penelope was already a sophomore.

The family was half the size it had been growing up.

Damon still lived at home, but it was more symbolic than anything.

He was the eldest of the nine Townsend siblings.

Once he turned eighteen, he’d converted the attic over the garage into his own apartment.

He worked as a mechanic, but his own motorcycle customization business had been growing steadily.

Stone, the second eldest, was a professional hockey player.

Hunter, the third eldest, was in the military.

Olivia, Forrest’s older sister, was in law school and Kane was in college.

“Why do you look so upset?” Rowan asked from where he was reading in their joint bedroom as Damon walked in.

“I’m looking at college requirements. I have the grades, but I don’t have anything to set me apart from other applicants.”

“You’re a freaking genius. I think that sets you apart,” Damon said in his typical older brother voice as he took a seat on Forrest’s bed.

Damon and Forrest were complete opposites in terms of looks.

Damon was built like a man. Muscles, a mature hardness to his face, dark hair, and grey eyes that could be as dark as night or as grey as storm clouds.

Forrest was still growing. He was lanky and lean and his eyes were as blue as blue could be.

“Everyone applying to these colleges are geniuses. It wants me to describe my hobbies. How do I describe tinkering with things and that I enjoy the outdoors?” Forrest practically lived outside. It was the only place he could go when he’d wanted some privacy growing up with eight siblings.

“Sure, you have a thing,” Damon said with confidence Forrest wished he had.

“To be fair,” Rowan said, jumping into the conversation, “we don’t have our own things.”

“What do you mean?” Damon asked as if he’d never heard such a thing.

“Well,” Forrest started. “When we were younger, we went to all of Stone’s games and practices.”

“Then we went to all of Olivia’s debates and academic bowls,” Rowan put in.

“And then to all of Pen’s ballet practices and recitals,” Forrest finished.

“It didn’t leave us any time to do the things Forrest and I wanted to do,” Rowan explained.

Damon frowned as he crossed his arms over his chest. His expression was one of pissed-off contemplation. “You both feel this way?”

Forrest and Rowan nodded.

“Okay, let’s fix it.”

Rowan snorted. “Kinda late for us to find our hobbies.”

“It’s never too late,” Damon said as if there was no room for argument.

“Rowan, think about what you want to do and what you’re interested in. Forrest, I have an idea.”

“What’s that?” Forrest asked, seeing the determination on his brother’s face.

“I know a guy who runs a survivalist training business in Canada. It’s summer break and you have time to do this. I’ll give him a call and see if you can attend his lectures on protecting the natural world and survival camp this summer.”

Forrest’s nose crinkled. “Why would you think I would want to do that?”

“Because, not only does he teach how to live off the land—something you love—but he also teaches you how to build things out of what nature provides. It’s basically nature-based engineering. I thought that would be right up your alley.”

Forrest found himself nodding along as Damon spoke. “Yeah, that is. I get to be outdoors and I get to tinker?”

“That sounds perfect for you,” Rowan agreed.

“Yeah, okay. Can you call him?” Forrest asked.

Damon nodded and pulled out his phone. Ten minutes later, Forrest found himself packing for the summer away in Canada.

That summer in Canada changed Forrest’s life.

He’d learned not only about survival, but he learned engineering from the most basic natural level up to more advanced engineering that could benefit nature instead of tearing it down.

He’d been taken to remote parts of Canada where people were living off the land as their ancestors had.

There he’d learned how modernization could be accomplished in such a way that helped people but didn’t hurt the environment.

His experiences there shaped Forrest’s whole future.

In college, he learned city planning, agriculture, and engineering.

He didn’t want to halt progress. He simply wanted to make it compatible with Earth and the people living in the affected areas.

He also wanted to help people. That’s where his tinkering came in.

He rented a storage unit and tinkered all throughout college.

Soon he was filing for patents on a new material that could be used to build houses from recycled plastics.

Governments and non-profits bought it in tons to use to build tiny houses for homeless shelters in the poorest nations, which made him more comfortable financially and gave him more money to tinker with.

Now his lab was much larger than a storage unit. Forrest started his own company while still an undergraduate and had contracts with governments, non-profits, while also working on independent projects of his own. The goal was the same—to help people without hurting nature.

He had moved to Colorado for a couple of years until Damon called one day.

Only this time Forrest wasn’t home. He took the call on his satellite phone in the middle of a forest in California working on a new natural chitosan-derived spray to help prevent wildfires.

Obviously, he couldn’t spray the entire forest, but he could spray his invention at the places most at risk for fire, and where firebreaks should be to prevent the fire from endangering residential areas to lessen the risk of out of control fires.

“Where are you?” That was Damon for you. He wasn’t much for small talk.

“A California forest, why?”

“I think Olivia is in trouble.”

That got Forrest’s full attention. The Townsends had been scattered for years.

The second they turned eighteen, they’d all left home except for Damon.

He’d stayed until Pen had left for college.

Then he’d moved full time to his garage near New York City.

Sure, they were still tight. Hell, Damon, Stone, and Hunter had helped pay for Forrest’s college.

But they hadn’t lived in the same city or even state for a decade.

“What kind of trouble?”

“She has a powerful client, and just bought a house near his in South Carolina. I think he’s using his wealth and power to make her more than his lawyer.”

Forrest frowned. “You mean she has a boyfriend?”

“One that won’t marry her. He’s just setting her up next door to him like a trashy mistress who isn’t good enough to take out on his arm.

” Forrest’s frown deepened. They were all very protective of their two sisters.

“Stone is getting himself traded to the Charleston hockey team. Hunter might be reassigned to the military base in Charleston, too. Kane is also on his way. When can you get here?”

It wasn’t a request. It was a demand from Damon.

The older brother had taken care of them all as they grew up.

In many cases, Damon was more of a parent to them than their own parents.

Not that they didn’t love their parents, but their father worked two, sometimes three jobs to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.

Their mother had taken care of Forrest and Rowan and Pen the most as Damon took care of the older siblings.

However, once Forrest and Rowan reached the wild-boy teenager phase, Damon took over.

And when Pen got old enough to go to school, their mother took on part-time work to help the best she could with house and education bills until just recently when all the siblings surprised them with a house in Arizona.

Now they were living up their retirement in a way they’d never been able to live while raising them all.

“I’ll finish here in two weeks. I have a lot of land to cover, a paper to write, and a monitoring system to put in place. Then I can be there.” Forrest paused as his lips ticked up into a soft smile. “It’ll be nice to be all together again. I miss everyone.”

“Miss you too, brother,” Damon said, the edge of his deep voice softening just a bit. “It’s time for the Townsends to be together again.”