Page 24 of Twilight Tactics

“Each night, they left and went deep into the woods to talk or have their arguments. Dad would never stand for the others to know he and Mom were out of sync with each other. They put up a good front during the day, but at night? When everyone was required to be in their living spaces? They’d leave. Anyway, I was tired of the tension and not knowing whether Mom was winning the argument or not. So, one night I followed them.” She shrugged, but the tightness in her shoulders said she wasn’t as unaffected by the telling as she might want him to believe. “I overheard a lot. Basically, Dad said he wondered if Mom needed some reeducation to make her see reason.”

“Reeducation?”

“Yes. It’s basically a fancy word for torture. They have a compound jail. You stay there and are exposed to loud music,fluctuating temperatures, and a constant barrage of how one is supposed to submit to LaRoche and so on.”

“A cult. Brainwashing?”

“Yes. Maya calls it a cult. It didn’t start out that way, but I guess in the end, yeah. That’s the only word for it. Anyway, after Dad said what he did about the whole reeducation thing, Mom broke down crying. Dad apologized and hugged her. Then he stepped back and said Mom could go, but he’d never let us kids go. We were to stay with him.”

“What about your sister? Did she want out too?”

“At this point, no. Though she was only seventeen, she excelled at everything and LaRoche was promoting her, giving her special privileges and such. She was enjoying the power and she would get mad at me if I even brought up the idea, so I quit talking about it.”

“Understandable. So, did your mom leave?”

“Yes. One day she was there and the next she was gone.”

“Oh wow. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not. She was gone for two weeks, and when she came back, she woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me if I still wanted to go with her. I did. And much like the night she snuck me to the hospital, we left.” Elena frowned. “She knew of a cave—a tunnel—that led outside the compound. She’d taken me out that way to get me to the hospital, but that trip was pretty hazy. I remember darkness and being scared out of my mind at the thought of being caught, but once again, she managed to bypass all the guards and get me out. We spent that night at Broken Chains Ranch. That was the first time I met Maya and her family. Mom and Maya’s grandmother had become friends. Apparently, they liked to ride their horses early in the morning and got to know each other. Anyway, that night at the ranch, before I fell asleep, Mom said she had a place for me to go whereDad and LaRoche would never find me if I wanted to do it. She’d gotten it all arranged during the time she was gone.”

“Where was that?”

“An exclusive boarding school in Maine. She said she couldn’t stay with me because, while Dad might eventually accept us leaving, LaRoche would turn over every stone to find us. I’d have to go under a different name and I’d be in hiding until I turned eighteen. She had a new birth certificate, passport, and Social Security card for me. Everything.”

“So your real name isn’t Elena?”

“I was named Eleanor Higgins when I was born. But I’ve been Elena for half my life now. It doesn’t really matter what a piece of paper says. I’m more Elena than Eleanor at this point.”

“Wow.”

“Anyway, Mom said I wouldn’t be able to have any contact with her until it was safe.”

“At what point did she think it would be safe?”

“She said when I turned eighteen, but even then, it might be iffy because LaRoche and others don’t care about age. They do what they want. And they were going to be furious that we left. Anyway, she said she would find me whenever she determined that to be. She would have to disappear too. I said yes, I wanted to do it. I would have done just about anything not to have to stay on the mountain. So that’s where she took me.”

He let out a low whistle. “That’s not cheap.”

“Nope, but Mom had quite an inheritance sitting in a bank account she never told Dad or LaRoche about. She knew they’d take it. She took me and dropped me off and paid for my four years of high school.”

“And you and Maya wound up serving together in the Army? That’s wild.”

“I know. One of those weird things that you can only chalk up to divine intervention. Maya emailed me that she was starting the program at the ranch and wanted to know if Iwas interested in helping. Since I’d already been thinking of coming back to the area, it wasn’t hard to accept the invitation to stay at the ranch. I’d been going to school nonstop, trying to stay busy earning my degrees and working. Between the two, I didn’t have time to think about life.” She sighed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think in the past six months.”

She pulled Harley to a stop and held up a hand.

“What is it?”

“Saw another something I was looking for.”

“Care to share?”

“A signal. They know we’re here.”

And he had a feeling, that creeping-up-the-back-of-his-neck feeling, that he had a gun aimed at his head. “So...”

“So, we’re not dead yet. That’s a good sign.”