CHAPTER 8
BLACK AND BLUE
Charlottesville, Virginia
The Russell Home
February 25, 2003
10:30pm
He was worried about her. Parker was getting in over her head. Those Children were Lyle and Raines' pride and joy. Years had gone into the creation of those children.
For the past two weeks Jarod had been studying the children's files. The files Jarod had were much more detailed than Parker's was. And they should have been. He stole them from Lyle's office. Yet Jarod knew little more than Parker did. He had learned that the oldest child Jake was the leader of the children. Jarod also learned that each brother was extremely protective of his sister. Yet all of the children were protective of one child in general. Alex, the youngest of the Black Files. She had been beaten with in an inch of her life when she was three years old. She had been in a comma for two weeks. Every since at least two other children were with Alex at all times.
The reason the girl had been beaten –not that there was a good one- was because her brothers had refused to corporate with Lyle. To teach the boys a lesson, Lyle grabbed Alex and proceeded to kick her until Sam knocked Lyle out cold. For saving Alex's life the Centre spared Sam's.
Jarod had to suppress the urge to vomit when he saw the pictures of Alex. It curled his stomach to see photographs of a bloodied and batted three-year old. Jarod could not fathom how some one could harm such a beautiful, innocent child.
Alex was not the only one of the Black files who had spent time in the infirmary. Because of the bond she shared with her brothers, Michael and Michelle they too were in a coma, but for only a week. Not that her brothers, and her cousins hadn't spent any other time in the infirmary. On average each child spent three weeks out of the year in the infirmary, suffering from injuries caused by Lyle.
For the past week Jarod had been trying to come up with a plan to get the children out of the Centre. He knew that there was no way to get them all out at the same time. He also knew that security would be increased around the remaining children making it difficult -if not impossible- to rescue them.