Shards

chapter 18

Chapter 18:

I never wanted to see another file. The only problem was, that was about all I could see. A few aisle over, I heard the creek of a step ladder, that meant one of my companions thought they'd found something. Since I wasn't exactly able to climb anything, I'd been assigned to the great duty of figuring out where we should look next. I was terrible at it. They were almost finished finding all relevant articles from the days surrounding Sophia's death.

In my mind, I was still unable to call her my mother. It was just to surreal, but I couldn't think about that right now. Right now, I needed to remember when I'd first arrived at the Compound. I didn't know the exact details, but I knew that I'd been Sophia's daughter and that I'd somehow ended up at the Compound. If I eliminated the thought that she had something to do with it, that meant I'd been kidnapped.

Using one of the shelves for support, I lowered myself to the ground. If I combed through the flashbacks, maybe I could find something, some reference. I tried to remember the youngest child I'd seen. The night of my eleventh birthday, I remembered thinking something about the six and seven dorms. But how could I know if children were brought in all at the same time? Going over them in such detail was beginning to hurt my head, especially when my concentration kept being drawn away by flashes of my friends.

That was it! I was thinking about this much too hard. I knew Ian had been with me from the very beginning, or near to it. I didn't know how I knew it, but I did, with absolute certainty. I'd been eight years old when I'd met him. It only stood to reason that I'd arrived not long before.

“Hey you guys,” I yelled, struggling to my feet.

“Yes?” James peeked his head around the corner.

“I think I know where we should look next.” Erica appeared as well. “I think I was taken from my mom around the age of eight. If I was kidnapped, don't you think there would have been some articles?”

“But we already searched that,” Erica protested. “Don't you think we would have had the kidnapping of an FBI agent's daughter on record?”

“Remember,” I pointed out, “Chris said to use hard copies.”

“Alright.” James stared intently off into space. “So let's assume you're fifteen. That would mean you were born in two-thousand... two-thousand-one. That means you were eight in two-thousand-eight, two-thousand-nine.”

“Great!” I exclaimed. “That means we know what time period to look in. Erica, you did research on Sophia right?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you find out if she's always lived in New York.”

Erica nodded.

I smiled. “We've got time and location, that's all we need! Right?”

The three of us made our way through the maze of shelves. Erica indicated when we'd reached our destination. The two of them quickly drew over ladders and began to unload boxes off of the higher shelves, while I began sorting through anything within reach. Something told me I'd find nothing in the New York times. That was too easy. Instead, I began to search through the boxes of more obscure papers.

I almost missed it. By the time I'd made it to the August, two-thousand-nine section, I'd already sunk into a type of stupor. Erica and James were still months behind me, and I was left alone to allow the words to sink in. The picture was of Sophia... my mother... shielding her face from the camera. FBI agent's daughter, kidnapped, was the title, written in huge, block letters. I attempted to read the article, but my eyes were drawn to another photo, and it's caption. Jaylee Rechard, age eight. She smiled back at me, so happy.