Chapter 13 - The School Without Names
My cooperation earned a temporary transfer under federal custody.
I was not released.
A tracking device remained locked around my ankle, and four agents accompanied me to Vermont.
The boarding school stood deep in the mountains behind stone walls and iron gates. Its official name was Northstar Academy.
No students were registered with the state.
No parents were listed.
Hayes showed me satellite images.
“Children arrive under false identities. Some leave after months. Others disappear from the records.”
“Experiments?”
“We do not know.”
Bruno traveled with Hayes.
When he saw me for the first time in five years, he pulled free from his handler and knocked me backward.
He was older. Gray fur surrounded his muzzle. But his strength had not disappeared.
I held him against me.
“You were supposed to stay.”
He licked my face.
Elena appeared from behind the vehicle.
She was twelve now.
Taller.
Healthy.
Angry.
“You told them not to tell me.”
“I wanted you safe.”
“I am part of this.”
“You are a child.”
“I was a child when they put me in a coffin.”
There was no answer to that.
Mateo and Sofia had reluctantly allowed her to come only as far as the command center, not inside the school.
Bruno sniffed the photograph of the unidentified girl and followed a trail toward a drainage tunnel beneath the wall.
The tunnel opened into the school basement.
Children’s voices recited numbers in unison.
We entered a hidden observation room.
Behind one-way glass, twenty children sat at desks while instructors showed them photographs of politicians, judges, and criminal leaders.
They were being trained to memorize faces and conversations.
“Human recording devices,” Hayes whispered.
A voice came from behind us.
“Children notice what adults ignore.”
Sebastian Rourke stood in the doorway.
He was nearly eighty but moved without assistance. His white suit looked untouched by the dust.
Agents raised their weapons.
Rourke smiled.
“I invited Dominic.”
“You also kidnapped children,” Hayes said.
“Rescued them.”
“From whom?”
“Families who sold them, abandoned them, or placed them in danger.”
“You erased their identities.”
“I gave them useful ones.”
Bruno growled.
Rourke looked pleased.
“The famous dog.”
“Release the children,” I said.
“They are free to leave when their education is complete.”
“Then open the doors.”
“No.”
Hayes ordered agents forward.
Metal shutters dropped over every exit.
Gas began entering through the vents.
Agents put on masks, but there were not enough for everyone.
Rourke wore a respirator hidden beneath his collar.
“This compound is harmless,” he said. “It merely encourages sleep.”
I remembered Elena’s coffin.
I covered Bruno’s nose and mouth with my jacket.
Hayes broke the observation glass.
We climbed into the classroom while alarms sounded.
Teachers fled.
Children panicked.
One girl remained seated.
The girl from the photograph.
She looked at me.
“Dominic Moretti?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Rourke said you would come.”
“What is your name?”
“E-17.”
That was Elena’s Harbor Light designation.
“No. Your real name.”
She stared blankly.
“I do not have one.”
We evacuated the children through a maintenance passage before the gas reached dangerous levels.
Rourke disappeared.
In his office, we found files explaining Northstar’s purpose.
The children were selected for exceptional memory, observation, or language skills. They were placed near powerful families as foster children, assistants, or scholarship students.
They collected secrets without understanding them.
Project Lantern had used children as spies.
One file belonged to Elena.
Rourke had planned to recruit her because she remembered every word she overheard in Mateo’s office.
Salvatore chose to silence her instead.
Another file contained my childhood records.
SUBJECT D-1.
Leadership conditioning.
Stress exposure.
Attachment suppression.
My father had allowed Rourke to study me.
Memories returned.
Tutors who asked strange questions.
Locked rooms.
Tests involving loyalty.
My father had not simply prepared me to inherit power.
He had allowed someone to shape me into a weapon.
A video waited on Rourke’s desk.
My father appeared on the screen.
“Dominic,” he said, “if you are watching this, Sebastian has decided you are ready.”
He explained that our family’s criminal organization was only one piece of a larger network. Politicians and corporations needed unofficial systems to move money, silence threats, and control neighborhoods.
Rourke designed those systems.
My father believed I would one day lead them all.
“You were not chosen because you are cruel,” he said. “You were chosen because people follow you even when they fear you.”
The video ended.
I felt sick.
Elena stood in the doorway.
“You didn’t know,” she said.
“No.”
“Then it isn’t your fault.”
“What I became was still my choice.”
She looked at the nameless girl sitting beside Bruno.
“Then help her choose something else.”
The girl watched Bruno with cautious curiosity.
Elena offered her hand.
“My name is Elena.”
The girl hesitated.
“I know.”
“What name do you want?”
No one had ever asked her.
She looked through the window at falling snow.
“Winter.”
Elena smiled.
“Then you’re Winter.”
Agents prepared to move the children to safety.
Hayes entered with a phone.
“Rourke released a message.”
He had hacked every major network.
His face appeared on screens across the country.
“Dominic Moretti has taken children from Northstar Academy,” he announced. “He intends to rebuild his criminal empire using them.”
Once again, the world saw me as a monster.
But this time, Rourke added something worse.
He displayed documents proving dozens of children had been placed inside influential homes.
Then he threatened to reveal their identities unless I surrendered.
If the names became public, the children could be killed by those they had unknowingly observed.
Rourke gave me six hours.
May you like
And one condition.
I had to bring Elena.
