Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
This was way before Ike Monroe took over and the place was a mess down there. Of course, it’s always been run by a Monroe, but Ike’s father died young, and it was his uncle, Zeb, running things at the time. He was a terrible city manager. That’s how Olive’s real mother got out. Came up some secret elevator and just took off running through the woods.
I’ve read this story hundreds of times, but it’s been a while. So I pause the vid of Olive, age eight, and open her written file up, scrolling down as I skim the report of that inciting incident. Her mother gave birth at the Creed house, then took off, leaving Olive behind.
It was a good plan because there are a lot of governing documents related to who can do what inside Trinity County, and Disciple, West Virginia, specifically. That’s why no one came for Olive. Zeb Monroe declared the girl dead. But when your daughter runs away with your first and only grandchild, there are residual feelings about that. Olive Creed’s mother was the daughter of one Pike McGill. That’s who came for her on that fateful New Year’s Eve. That’s who Collin killed. Pike tried one other time when Olive was very young, about eight months old, but he was caught before he got out of Blackberry Hill and Zeb had him locked up.
Good ol’ Pike, though? He never did forget about his granddaughter. He was released from prison New Year’s Eve day and that very night he made his move.
His last move, as it turns out.
A move that flipped Collin Creed’s plans of playing college ball at Ohio State upside down and six months later he was an intelligence operative for SILENCE, the black-ops side of the US Marines.
It had been over two decades since anyone in Trinity County was conscripted into the dark military. There was a formal exit from the program after Jim Bob Baptist completed his mission and was rewarded with a new contract for the trio of towns.
To say that CORE was surprised when Collin Creed ended up as covert intelligence operations would be an understatement. They had underestimated Jim Bob.
I guess CORE decided that if SILENCE was going to put Collin on the game board, they would counter with Olive.
I press play on the laptop vid and listen as Mrs. Creed cries hysterically. They’re at an intake facility not far from where I’m sitting, actually.
In another room sits Mr. Creed. Pastor Creed. He’s not crying, he’s angry. As any parent might be, I suppose, upon hearing that the baby they kinda-sorta stole eight years ago belongs to a covert military operation. He’s yelling.
In a third room sits eight-year-old Olive. She’s cute. Thin and a bit gangly. Not graceful like a ballerina, but lean like a runner. She looks like any other kid her age, wearing jeans, and a t-shirt, and sneakers. The chair is just high enough for her feet to skim the floor as she kicks them back and forth. She’s unaffected by the development, chatting happily with her intake officer as she is told that these people are not her parents.
She takes it all in stride. She’s kind of excited. So when the intake officer asks if she’d like to see where she comes from, Olive is more than willing to go.
There’s no footage of this visit to the underground version of Blackberry Hill, but there are notes and I’ve read them all.
The mind control started that very day. She was behind. In CORE, they start the kids around age two for the most part. There are some exceptions, but two is standard.
Olive was very behind, but so well adjusted to the real world that this sparked a revamping of all the internal protocols when it came to how to bring the children up.
Olive Creed is more than a CORE operative, she’s a test case.
And she’s failing.
All because of a man called Shep.
It’s a bit ironic, I think. Considering who he is, not to mention what he’s done.
And I don’t really understand how it happened. I don’t get it. She did everything right. It should not have turned out this way. But it was like… she took one look at him and all those tight stitches that were holding her together over the years started unraveling. For no reason at all.
It’s bizarre.
But also very serious.
I’m losing her.
And if that call from my grandfather is any indication of what comes next, I’ve already lost her.
And honestly, it hurts.
Olive and I were supposed to be together forever. At the very least, until someone killed her in the field. She wasn’t supposed to flunk out! She’s SIO 2.0. The mistakes of the past were dealt with. Fixed.
But I missed something.
Somewhere along the way, I missed something.
Letting out a long breath, I start thinking back on my own childhood. My training began at the standard age because I was born into the Sinclair family and there were no runaway daughters in that mansion. My mother was a high-ranking, dedicated officer in CORE. My great-great-grandfather was part of the initial CORE Directive back in the forties. My great-grandfather ran hundreds of operatives in the sixties and my grandfather did the same in the eighties and nineties.