“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.
“In your foster home, you started exhibiting signs of a gift. Your foster parents were freaked out. They started taking you to different medical facilities. Someone who was independently working for Horatio, let him know about you. He was able to convince your foster parents to allow him to continue your testing at the institute.
“The institute was created to protect the gifted, to test the gifted, to make the gifted stronger. I didn’t realize it was also a cover for Horatio to bring in his children. To test his children. He had no clue you were his child when you were in the institute.
“Your uncle finally got the opportunity to get closer to you. He was tired of waiting. He knew you didn’t ‘exist’ anymore. Horatio had started the process of making sure Amanda Lynn Cornwall never existed, just in case your foster parents wanted to get you. He didn’t know about your uncle’s persistence.
“Your uncle got a job working for us. He waited for the perfect time to take you, and he did. He went into hiding. He changed your name. He had hidden you so well, that Horatio couldn’t find you. Whenever he got close, your uncle was able to use his gift and hide you once more.
“He was able to finally find your uncle, but he never found you. He killed your uncle out of anger. Your uncle wouldn’t let him know where you were. He wanted you because of your gift, not because of who you are.
“Recently, he was able to get a DNA sample from you and found out you were his daughter. He went delving into his old files. He found out you carried the same DNA as Ashlynn. It shed new light on his experiments. He must have seen the picture attached to his files. You look like your mother.
“I believe that you and your sister are strong, not because of your father, but because of your mother. Your mother, Rachel’s father, and maybe some other people we are not aware of yet, may be the answer to our sterility issues. They may be the answer to producing higher level gifted children.
“Now it’s a matter of finding and securing your other sibling before he harms and uses them and then find out how he found out about them.”
We all looked over expectantly at Collin. He looked even more disturbed by the recent revelations. “I don’t know. I’m not that far up on his food chain. I never gave him any DNA samples of Blake, and I wasn’t even aware of her other siblings, blood siblings,” he clarified. “Other than…”
“Ashlynn, or should I call her Bridgette?” I stated quietly, seeing varying degrees of surprise. “He must have been made aware of my gift through Tom. Maybe he started connecting the dots. My gift is rare. He could have had Tom use anything of mine for a DNA sample.”
“Bridgette’s a memory eraser,” Collin explained to the guys. It seemed it surprised everyone save Gavin, Rachel, and Will. “Her job was, is to make sure you never remembered Blake. So, in the off chance you met her, she can make you forget. Horatio knew that one or two of you had to be her connected, but he thought he would try to cover all his bases. He knew he could never win Blake over if she had an emotional connection to anyone.”
“She was my student for the last couple of years,” Jace finally spoke up. “I still remember her.” His eyebrows knitted. “One day she was in my class, and the next she wasn’t. Just like Bridgette.”
“What is there to remember?” Drake asked quietly. Looking at his eyes, I think he already knew the answer. Noah knew about my scars without me telling him about them, again. Troy had a dream about something we had done together. I could only guess that maybe Drake had remembered something too.
“Therein lies the problem with mind erasers,” Will said quietly. “Our minds are so vast, that in theory, it should have been an easy job. They never considered that an emotional bond could defeat a mental one.”