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“He can manipulate metal,” Troy quietly explained.
“How do you know Horatio is behind this all?” Collin asked with disbelief. “Doesn’t he just want a world where the gifted can be free? Where we didn’t have to live in hiding anymore?”
“That’s his ultimate goal, in a way,” Will said quietly from the doorway. “But first he needs likeminded people to help him eradicate or convert the ungifted. He ran out of people willing to work for him. After I worked with him, I realized our goals were different. I want a world where we can peacefully co-exist, and he wants power.” I was shocked to see Will wasn’t alone. Remy, Jace, Drake, Jaxson, Gavin, Jemmy, and Rachel were with him. “Adults are harder to convince, but if you had young impressionable minds like, say, children, they can be trained to hate. Trained to want to follow whoever rescued them.”
“That doesn’t make sense!” Collin insisted. “How can he abuse children and then expect them to willingly work for him?”
“When they are taken from their parents, or bought from their parents,” Will patiently explained. “They are given to nefarious individuals. Eventually they are moved to another facility, where they are ‘rescued.’ They are fed, clothed, and given pretty much anything they want. They are groomed to the point that they are willing to do pretty much anything for Horatio. After all, he rescued them.”
Collin paled and stumbled to find a seat. I suspected that he had seen some of these children. “How-” his voice broke. “How do you know all this? How do I know that this isn’t all lies?”
“They aren’t,” Rachel finally spoke up. “My father could not be bought. Horatio tried to convince my Dad and brothers to work for him on several occasions, and when we wouldn’t, he blew up my house.”
Collin rubbed his eyes wearily and then looked up at Will. “You know, don’t you?” The unspoken question was clear. He wanted to know if Will knew that he was working for Horatio.
Will nodded.
Collin looked over at me, I could see he felt ashamed. “After I injured myself...I couldn’t play football anymore. I had a taste of that rich life. I loved that life. Horatio found out I could block people. Make people unable to use their gifts. Occasionally, I would be asked to go sit outside of a house and use my gift. Then I would get a phone call and be told to leave. I was never told why or whose powers I was suppressing. I never saw what happened after I blocked powers. I just received a nice transaction in my bank account. I didn’t think anything of it. When they asked me to block you, Blake, I thought it was an easy gig. I had a crush on you in high school. I had always been curious to know what it would have been like to be with you. You were different when I saw you again. You were more confident, more carefree, more beautiful than I remembered, and you had a voice of an angel.”
I looked down at my hands. “Did they tell you why they wanted you to use your gift against me?”
Collin nodded. “Your dad felt it was right if you took your rightful place by his side. If you fell in love with me, and I introduced him to you, then you could see that his idea of us being free to be who we are, without fear, was a better concept than hiding. We have a large community here, but we are still forced into hiding.”
I stared at him in stunned silence. “My father?” I asked quietly with dread.
He nodded. “Yeah, Horatio. At least, that’s who he says he is.”
It was my turn to stumble. I was glad Troy was nearby to catch me before I fell.
Chapter 13
I was walking on auto pilot as we went to a private lounge room. I was shocked into near paralysis. I sat down in an oversized armchair and folded my legs to my chest and hugged my knees. Everyone took a seat on the other pieces of furniture or on the floor, facing each other.
“Is he my father?” I asked Will. Somehow, I knew he would know.
He nodded. “Considering recent events, Judge Myers has decided to get involved in your case. He has been helping me try to figure out your story. He had met your mother through the court system. He had met your uncle through the court system. Since he has met you, he feels more compelled to get to know you.
“When Horatio, Greg, and I were young and dumb, we decided to mess with genetics, in a way. We wanted to reinvent the wheel. We wanted to find out why some gifted were sterile or restricted to producing only one or two children. We couldn’t understand how two gifted people were producing non-gifted children.
“My goal, when we got together, was to fix our current problem. Horatio’s focus was to create children with stronger gift levels.
“Judge Myers found out Horatio was finding homeless gifted people on the streets and paying them to carry his children. He didn’t care if they were minors or unable to make a decision like that. Fifty women were inseminated with his children over a 5-year period. They would get paid at the time of the insemination. Then they were paid when the woman went to one of his medical facilities and confirmed pregnancy. After that, they would move into another one of his facilities and receive all of their medical care. When the child was born, he would pay them to sign all their rights away to him.
“In the event that he had a child, he had a lawyer who helped couples who were desperate for a child. He would have his child adopted by another family. These families were so desperate for a child, they would sign any type of adoption. With their adoptions, the biological parents—in this case Horatio—could come back into the child’s life and have contact with the child at any time.
“Somehow, and I don’t know how, he was capable of having 10 children. Some of those children were tested through the institute. He continued running the institute after I left.
“After you were taken, Blake, my boys weren’t the same. I knew, because of my actions, I was driving my own sons away from me. They were all that I had left. I had to leave him. Especially after Greg was murdered.
“I think Greg, our best friend, was suspicious of Horacio’s activities. Before Greg died, I think he tried to warn me. I’m not certain.
“Your sister, Ashlynn, went through the institute, years after I left. I had heard rumors about her abilities, but I didn’t know she was his. She was the only child of his to show signs of a gift. She was 13 at the time. While she lived with her foster parents, she was supposed to find other gifted people. She was supposed to help him bring the gifted over to his side.
“He didn’t know of your existence. He hadn’t realized that your mother had gone through his office, twice, for a payout. She had used two different aliases. I think when she went in the second time, she was desperate for the money like she had been the first time, but we believe somewhere along the line, she decided to keep you. She never went back in to confirm her pregnancy.
“She had you. On her own. One of the nurses found some discrepancies with her paperwork and called the police. Your mother had a police record. She called your uncle to get you, but he didn’t get the message in time. She was taken away, and you were put into the foster care system.
“Your uncle fought for five years to get you. The courts were leery about placing a young girl with a young, single male.
