CHAPTER 25
The Children Fight Back
“Welcome to Carter House.”
Then I pulled the trigger.
The first man through the smoke fell backward into the doorway.
The second moved behind a stone column.
Karen fired from the opposite side of the hall.
Shay covered the staircase.
Serena stood near the basement entrance holding the original key.
Tasha stayed with Jayce and Amaya behind a concrete wall.
Nesha leaned beside me, barely able to keep her eyes open.
Twenty-three children moved through the hidden passages of Carter House.
Not one carried a gun.
I made sure of that.
The older boy who had spoken to me earlier stopped beside the security panel.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Eli.”
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Eleven years.”
My stomach tightened.
“What can you control?”
“Doors, lights, elevators, sprinklers, cameras.”
“Any exits?”
“Three.”
“Open all of them.”
“I can’t. Emergency transfer locked the property.”
“Can you trap the people coming inside?”
Eli studied the security monitor.
“Yes.”
“Then do that.”
He typed quickly.
Steel doors dropped behind the first group of Circle men.
Six were trapped inside the entrance corridor.
The sprinklers activated.
Water filled the hallway.
Eli pressed another button.
The floor beneath the attackers flashed blue.
Electricity rushed through the water.
The men dropped.
Jayce watched from behind the wall.
“You shocked them.”
Eli looked at him.
“They killed the old headmaster that way.”
“You killed him?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Eli glanced toward the upper floor.
“His assistant.”
The woman in gray.
The same woman who brought me inside.
She had killed Harris—or helped him disappear.
“Where is she now?”
Before Eli could answer, every television inside Carter House turned on.
Agent Harris appeared on the screens.
Alive.
The background looked like the administration office.
“Keyshia,” he said. “You continue to mistake access for control.”
“You continue to mistake breathing for winning.”
His shoulder was wrapped.
Blood stained his shirt.
But he was alive.
He had removed the monitor.
The headmaster announcement had been a lie designed to activate the transfer.
“I’m leaving Carter House in five minutes,” Harris said.
“With my children?”
“They aren’t yours anymore.”
I fired at the television.
The screen shattered.
His voice continued through the speakers.
“Every child inside this facility has been legally transferred into federal protective custody.”
“You kidnapped them.”
“I rescued them from a criminal organization.”
“You are the criminal organization.”
“The archive shows I spent nine years investigating the Circle.”
“It also shows you took four million dollars.”
“Operational funds.”
“You sold out Terrence Carter.”
“An unfortunate necessity.”
Serena stepped forward.
“He knows the archive evidence can be explained away.”
“So we stop explaining,” I said.
I looked toward Eli.
“Where is administration?”
“Third floor.”
“Can you get me there?”
“Main stairs are blocked.”
“Another way?”
He opened a hidden panel behind a painting.
A narrow service ladder ran between the walls.
“It ends beside the headmaster’s office.”
“Good.”
Tasha grabbed my arm.
“You’re not going alone.”
“You’re staying with the kids.”
“Stop deciding where I’m staying.”
“Somebody has to protect Jayce and Amaya.”
“They have Karen.”
My mother looked toward her.
“I’m going after Harris.”
“Then they have Serena.”
Serena shook her head.
“I need the key near the main system.”
Shay fired toward the entrance.
“I would love to join the family meeting, but more men are coming!”
Bullets tore through the front windows.
Glass covered the floor.
I pushed Tasha behind the wall.
“Fine. You’re coming.”
“I was coming anyway.”
Nesha tried to follow.
I stopped her.
“No.”
“Don’t start.”
“You just left surgery.”
“So did you.”
“You can barely stand.”
“So can you.”
“I need you here.”
Her face hardened.
“To watch the children?”
“To protect my babies.”
The anger disappeared.
“Don’t make that sound like a small job.”
Nesha looked toward Jayce and Amaya.
Then she nodded.
“I’ll keep them alive.”
“I know.”
Tasha and I climbed into the wall.
Eli sealed the panel behind us.
The space smelled like dust and old wood.
Gunshots echoed through the house.
“Are you sure you can do this?” Tasha asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
“Why is that good?”
“Because if you said yes, I was going to slap you.”
We climbed toward the third floor.
Below us, Carter House became a battlefield.
Eli and the other children controlled the building.
They locked Circle members inside empty classrooms.
Turned off lights.
Opened hidden walls beneath guards’ feet.
Released fire extinguishing foam into the east hallway.
The children had memorized every system because the Circle trained them to defend the house.
Now they used that training to protect each other.
A young girl’s voice came through my earpiece.
“Ms. Carter?”
“Who is this?”
“Naomi. Eli said I should watch the cameras for you.”
“How old are you?”
“Nine.”
I closed my eyes.
Nine years old.
Monitoring armed men through a security network.
“Naomi, stay somewhere safe.”
“I’m in the wall.”
“Good.”
“Two men are waiting near the top of your ladder.”
Tasha looked up.
“How do they know we’re here?”
“They don’t,” Naomi answered. “They’re guarding the office.”
“Can you turn off the hallway lights?”
“Yes.”
“Do it when we reach the top.”
We climbed the final section.
Darkness covered the hallway.
Tasha opened the panel.
The first guard turned toward the sound.
I pulled him into the wall and struck his throat with my gun.
Tasha kicked the second man’s knee.
He fell.
She hit him twice until he stopped moving.
“You’ve been waiting to do that?” I asked.
“Since the bank.”
We entered the administration office.
Empty.
Harris had been there seconds earlier.
Blood drops marked the floor.
A wall of monitors showed every room inside Carter House.
Serena stood at the central terminal.
Karen and Shay defended the lobby.
Nesha crouched beside the children.
Monica remained zip-tied inside the nursery.
Another screen showed vehicles moving around the property.
The attacking convoy had split.
Half came through the main gate.
The others traveled toward the airfield behind the house.
One white transport van stood near a private plane.
A child pressed both hands against its rear window.
Laila.
“Rome,” I whispered.
I called him.
He answered immediately.
“I’m two miles out.”
“Laila is at the Carter House airfield.”
“I knew the Glasgow location was a decoy.”
“White van near the plane.”
“Keep it there.”
“How?”
Rome ended the call.
The woman in gray stepped from behind the office door.
Gun aimed at Tasha.
“Move away from the controls.”
I raised my weapon.
She pressed the barrel against Tasha’s head.
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Dr. Wells.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“Child-development specialist.”
“You mean brainwasher.”
“I prepare exceptional children to survive powerful families.”
“You put ankle monitors on six-year-olds.”
“Security prevents kidnapping.”
“You are the kidnapper.”
Her eyes moved toward the original key on the monitor.
“Serena has no right to that device.”
“Neither do you.”
“I ran this house for twelve years.”
“For Victor?”
“For the children.”
“Everybody claims they hurt children for the children.”
Tasha looked toward me.
Then toward the water bottle on the desk.
I understood.
“You killed Harris?” I asked.
Dr. Wells smiled.
“Agent Harris is not easy to kill.”
“But you helped him escape.”
“He promised federal protection.”
“He promised to move these children into another prison.”
“A safer one.”
“He activated Jayce and Amaya as Circle heirs.”
“He identified their potential.”
My anger rose.
“My children aren’t investments.”
“Every child is an investment.”
Tasha grabbed the water bottle and squeezed.
Water struck Dr. Wells’s eyes.
She flinched.
Tasha drove her elbow into the woman’s stomach.
The gun fired.
The bullet struck the ceiling.
I tackled Dr. Wells.
We crashed against the monitors.
She was stronger than she looked.
She drove her knee into my wound.
Pain blinded me.
She reached for her gun.
Tasha kicked it beneath the desk.
Dr. Wells grabbed a letter opener and swung toward my neck.
I caught her wrist.
The blade stopped inches from my skin.
“You don’t understand what happens to these children outside Carter House,” she hissed.
“They get to be children.”
“They become targets.”
“Then we protect them.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Nobody can protect them forever.”
“No.”
I twisted her wrist until she dropped the blade.
“But they can learn how to protect themselves without becoming monsters.”
I struck her with the letter opener’s handle.
She went limp.
Tasha took zip ties from the desk and restrained her.
Naomi’s voice returned.
“Ms. Carter, Mr. Harris is in the helicopter room.”
“Where?”
“Roof.”
We ran toward the stairs.
???
Harris stood beside a helicopter when we reached the roof.
Two guards aimed at us.
He held a laptop beneath one arm.
The surviving heir registry.
“Put the guns down,” he ordered.
“Where are you taking those children?”
“Washington.”
“Circle House One?”
His face changed.
Serena had been right.
The master facility existed.
“Give me the laptop,” I said.
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
“You stole my babies.”
“You recovered them.”
“You put a bomb vest on Jayce.”
“That was Monica.”
“You activated his profile.”
“To protect him.”
“If one more person uses that word, I’m going to shoot them.”
Harris glanced toward the helicopter.
Its blades had begun turning.
“You destroyed a system you don’t understand.”
“I understand enough.”
“The sixty-eight remaining children are scattered across twelve facilities. Without centralized control, their identities will go to the highest bidder.”
“Then we erase them.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
“The master server requires the original key, three bloodlines, and the final command.”
“We have all three.”
“No.”
His smile returned.
“You have Serena’s key. You have Carter blood. But you don’t know the final command.”
“Serena does.”
“Serena has spent thirty years trying to decode it.”
The guard beside him stepped closer.