“What happened to your head?” he asked.
“The doctors cut me.Put me with the other kids in the closet.It was quiet for long time.I pushed door open,”he said in broken sign.“My head hurt.Everyone was gone.I was hungry.Got out of window.”
“You got out through the window?” asked Eric.The boy nodded.
“I took food.”
“I think it’s okay that you took food,” said Eric.“Son, do you understand that the other children couldn’t eat.They’re not alive any longer.”
The boy looked away and didn’t look back at him for a long moment.Then he turned to see all four men in front of him.
“I woke up.Maybe they wake up.”
“This kid has survived whatever they did to him, the death of his friends, and stole food for more than a year, living in this hellhole,” said Hex.“I want to kill someone.”The boy tapped Hex’s hand.
“Doctors killed enough.No kill.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You boys always know how to challenge me,” said Dr. Bordelon, the parish coroner.“This one will challenge my heart.I’m not gonna lie.Their skulls were opened.All of them.And some of them were not sutured back together.I can’t tell you anything else until I examine them all.It’s gonna take me a while.”
“What the fuck were they doing to these children?” muttered Luke.
“Luke?Come here, honey,” said Riley.
Luke walked over to where Riley, Jane, and Kelsey were standing near the boy they’d found.Keith was signing to him, showing him new words and they seemed to be connecting, as he knew they would.
“What’s up, Riley?” he asked feeling defeated.
“I’m not sure how this boy has survived,” she said shaking her head.“I think they expected him to die like the others.”
“Can we help him?” he asked.
“I believe we can but we’ll have to operate on him again and I’m not sure he’ll sit still for that.Keith is a tremendous help.They damaged the side of the brain that controls his movements to his right side.The misshapen head was due to having an open wound, and probably brain swelling when placed in that room.By some unbelievable miracle, the wound closed but while the brain was swollen.Which, by the way, should have killed him as well.”
“Well, it didn’t so let’s figure out why and be grateful.If he doesn’t have family, we’ll keep him with our own children.One more will just add to the love.”
“I love that you sound like your grandmother.Luke, he keeps asking for paper and pen,” said Kelsey.
“We’ll get him as much paper and as many pens as he wants.For now, let’s just get him somewhere safe.”
Keith, Hex, and the medical team traveled back to Belle Fleur with the boy, while the others stayed to help with the removal of the bodies and conducted a sweep of the entire place with a fine-tooth comb.
At first they were certain that they would find nothing.But when Luke stared at the volumes of medical texts on the wall of one room, he tilted his head sideways as if hoping something would pop out.
“What’s wrong?” asked Eric.
“When we were little and wanted to hide a bad test paper from our parents, where did we hide it?” asked Luke.
“In a book,” nodded Eric staring at the wall.
Carefully, the two men took one book at a time, thumbing through the pages.Occasionally, slips of paper with names, phone numbers or addresses would fall out.They placed them in a stack on the desk and continued around the room.
Eric stared up at the top shelf of books and frowned.
“Hey Luke?How many pages were in theIliad?”
“I don’t know, five-hundred or so.Why?”
