Page 59 of Unbound

“He’s right,” Antonio says reluctantly. “We don’t know why Vivian wanted this girl. Our best guess is still a guess.”

“I know.” My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to. “I know there’s a lot happening right now, and somehow I’m at the center of pretty much all of it.” Tears suddenly sting my eyes. I think it’s some combination of exhaustion and the fact that I’m the only person in this room who truly knows what it feels like to be ripped away from your family, experimented on, and discarded like garbage when you stop being useful.

Theo comes back into the room. From the look on his face, he heard enough to know what we’re talking about. And he looks just as concerned as the rest of us. He would probably rather walk into direct sunlight than admit that, though. Instead, he holds one hand out dramatically and pretends to check his watch.

“We have a business meeting to attend,” he says, raising his eyebrows at Xavier. “Or did you forget?”

“I didn’t forget,” Xavier says patiently. For the first time, I’m genuinely impressed by the way he deals with Theo. There is no chance I could tolerate either of my brothers for seven hundred years. Then again, I did watch Xavier snap Theo’s neck once.

“You go deal with that,” I tell Xavier. He gives my thigh a squeeze. “I want to keep going through these files. I don’t really have anything else to do right now.”

“Okay.” He kisses the top of my head.

Zeke joins him, and the three of them leave with Theo. I don’t think my nervous system can handle any more stress, so avoiding coalition drama for the next hour sounds ideal. “Don’t drive yourself crazy over this,” Devon says. He takes Xavier’s spot beside me and hands me a stack of papers. I look down at the date.

Claire had just turned thirteen. This was her intake report. She was asked about the behavioral problems that supposedly made it unsafe for her to continue living with other children. But she couldn’t come up with a single concrete example. She couldn’t even name one of her adoptive siblings. The therapist notes that Claire seemed frightened and that her answers sounded rehearsed.

The next several months of notes follow the same pattern.

Claire is sad.

Quiet.

But agreeable.

She never causes trouble.

Never steps out of line.

And her story never changes. The therapist repeatedly notes suspicion that Claire has been told what to say. As the months go on, I can tell the therapist starts to genuinely care about her. The notes become a little less clinical. A little more personal. She never directly says it, but the implication is obvious. She thinks it’s heartbreaking that Claire has been labeled such a difficult child when nothing in her behavior supports it.

Because of that label, no one even considers her for adoption.

“She was fifteen the first time she ran away,” I say, finding the note.

“She didn’t get very far. But she told the therapist she had a dream that her mother had the same name she did and told her to go home.”

“Do you think that could actually be true?” Mabel asks.

“Yeah.” I keep reading. “Even if Claire hadn’t figured out how to tap into her own power yet, spirits visiting through dreams is absolutely possible.”

The therapist had apparently checked the address Claire gave her. It belonged to the Bellamy family. The same family who had given her up through a closed adoption. The final note from that session says the therapist intended to ask Claire the next day how she knew the address. I flip to the next page.

“She says the information came to her in a dream,” I read. “That her mother wants her to go home. That her family has something to tell her.”

My stomach twists.

“The therapist reminds Claire that she was given up in a closed adoption and repeatedly questions how she could possibly know anything about her biological family.”

I keep reading.

“Claire became tearful and appeared genuinely distressed at being accused of lying.” The next couple months don’t give us much. Claire seems to fall into a depressive state. Barely speaking. Barely eating. Eventually, she’s put on a heavy dose of antidepressants.

My heart aches for her.

Did she always sense that there was something different about her? Something that made her feel like she didn’t belong with everyone else? I always felt that way. Though, in my defense, I was actively treated like I was different. I flip forward several more months.

Then stop.