THE SEVENTH CHILD WAS NEVER REPORTED MISSING
Chapter 12
They escaped through the basement.
The tunnels beneath the sheriff’s office connected to the old courthouse.
Nobody had used them in decades.
Noah led them through the darkness.
“You know this place?”
He nodded.
“They made us memorize the town.”
Sarah stopped.
“Why?”
“So we could escape.”
Ethan looked at him.
“Did the others escape?”
Noah shook his head.
“Only me.”
“Why?”
Noah looked down.
“Because I remembered something they didn’t.”
“What?”
“The first place.”
Sarah crouched.
“What first place?”
“The building where the program started.”
Ethan understood.
“The medical center.”
Noah nodded.
“But it’s gone.”
“No.”
He looked at them.
“It’s under the hospital.”
They reached the old medical center before sunrise.
A hidden elevator took them underground.
The doors opened.
A corridor stretched into darkness.
At the end was a room filled with photographs.
Thirty-two children.
Seven circled in red.
Noah walked toward them.
He touched the photograph of Emily.
“She told me to remember.”
Sarah looked around.
“Remember what?”
Noah pointed toward a metal cabinet.
Inside were recordings.
One showed a meeting.
Several men sat around a table.
Daniel Reed was there.
Sheriff Dalton.
Several doctors.
And one person sitting at the head.
Sarah recognized him.
Her own father.
He had died when she was nineteen.
She stared at the screen.
“No.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What?”
“That can’t be.”
Her father’s voice came through the recording.
“We don’t need to erase the children.”
He looked toward the others.
“We only need to make sure nobody believes them.”
Sarah stepped backward.
Her entire world seemed to collapse.
Then the recording revealed one final name.
PROJECT DIRECTOR: MICHAEL MITCHELL.
Sarah’s father.
