Page 49 of Unnatural (Men and Monsters #2)

The muted doorbell echoed inside the white, two-story house with the small front porch. Autumn’s gaze went to the freshly painted dark green shutters and then to the flowered wreath hanging on the door. The occupants obviously took pride in their home.

The door was pulled open, and a man about her age stood there, wearing jeans and a button-down shirt. “Autumn.”

She smiled, stepping back as he pushed the screen door toward her to allow her entrance. “Hi, Kaden.”

He smiled in return. “I almost feel like I should hug you or something. Would that be weird?”

She laughed. She felt the same way, and she had since the minute she’d heard his voice on the phone, and he’d confirmed who he was.

An immediate connection. It’d been surprisingly easy to find him since he still lived at the address in his file.

A quick Google search at the library she’d stopped at that morning, and she had him on the phone ten minutes later.

They hugged quickly, and when they stepped back, Kaden said, “There are other ADHM survivors, I know that, but you’re the first one I’ve met in person. Please come in.”

Autumn stepped inside. It smelled like some sort of toffee candle, and she could hear a child’s voice coming from upstairs, followed by a woman’s. “Thanks,” she said. “Your house is lovely.”

“That’s all my wife. Ashtyn. She’s putting our daughter down for a nap, but she’ll be down in a few to meet you.

Come on in here,” he said, leading her to a living room that featured a large tan sectional and baskets near the windows filled with toys.

Autumn sat down at one corner, and Kaden sat near the middle, turning to face her.

“I’m so glad you called me. I went online once a few years ago to see if there was a message board or somewhere I could connect to other kids like us, but… ”

He didn’t have to finish that sentence. “They’ve mostly passed,” she said. “The few of us who remained are scattered.” She bit at her lip momentarily. “Or they don’t choose to revisit that time. There’s a stigma.”

“There is.” Kaden ran a hand through his short brown hair. “They did so many public service campaigns and put out so much information about the disease, yet the idea that ADHM babies are contagious or…”

“Dirty.”

Kaden gave a quick nod. “Damaged.”

“I know. I’ve experienced some of it. I think it’s disturbing to a lot of people.

You know, just the whole idea of tumor-riddled babies.

I also think there’s this fear that the disease will somehow be passed down to our kids if we have them.

” Her eyes widened slightly, going quickly to the baskets of toys and then back to him. “I mean—”

“You can speak completely freely here,” he said.

“And you’re a hundred percent right. I think those are the main fears.

Even Ashtyn’s mom, who is the nicest woman you’ll ever meet, took her aside before we married and asked if there were tests that could be done to ensure no concerning genetic material would be passed to our kids.

” He paused. “I mean, the truth is there really isn’t any guarantee, you know?

The oldest survivors are just a few years older than you and me.

The group of us are just beginning to have kids. ”

She nodded, her brow dipping. She’d had regular checkups even after she’d been declared healthy. There had never been anything unusual on any of her tests but…Kaden was right, there was no guarantee. Above and beyond that though, she might never have had it in her system at all. Suspected ADHM.

“I still have effects,” Kaden went on, “but my doctor says it’s likely more to do with the medication. And they’re mostly mild: joint issues, some tinnitus, stuff like that. I accept those trade-offs happily though considering it’s what saved my life. What about you? Any lingering effects?”

“No, thankfully. But that’s actually part of the reason I wanted to meet with you.”

A pretty brunette woman walked in the room. “Hi, Autumn? I’m Ashtyn.” The woman bent down, gathering her in a quick hug the same way her husband had. “I feel like you’re already family. Joined by such a rare and miraculous circumstance. Did Kaden offer you something to drink?”

“Oh shit,” he said. “Shoot. No.” Ashtyn swatted at him jokingly, and he gave a self-deprecating shrug. “See, she’s the one with all the social graces. When she’s not around, I’m useless.”

“Oh, you have your good points too. Autumn, would you like a glass of water? Iced tea? We have plenty of snacks too if you’re hungry. They’re mostly things appealing to a picky two-year-old, but let’s be honest, no one knows good snacks like a toddler.”

Autumn smiled. “No, I’m good, but thank you.”

Ashtyn took a seat next to her husband. “You said you got Kaden’s name through a contact at social services.

I didn’t know they’d give that kind of information out.

I wish we’d known.” She glanced at her husband.

“We’d have asked ages ago. Like I said, in a way, you’re family simply because of that shared experience. ”

“I feel the same way,” Autumn said. She felt slightly nervous about disclosing how she’d come by Kaden’s name.

In actuality, she’d put off deciding whether she was going to admit to having stolen his file, even if accidentally, until she’d met him.

But now that she had, she felt safe doing so.

“And actually, social workers won’t give out that kind of information.

At least not the ones I’ve spoken to.” Begged.

Cajoled. Over years and years. To no avail.

Ashtyn and Kaden wore matching expressions of concern. “So then…how…”

“I found my birth mother,” Autumn said, the picture of that dank room appearing front and center in her mind for a moment before she shoved it forcefully away. When would that image cease to bring on an immediate depression? “She told me she’d never taken the drug.”

Kaden and Ashtyn glanced at each other.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Autumn said before they had to figure out a diplomatic way to suggest her mother was being less than truthful to absolve herself from blame or regret.

It wasn’t an off-base assumption. Autumn had strongly considered it too.

Until… suspected ADHM. “She could have been lying. She could have forgotten or been wrong. But then I stole my case file from a social worker.”

Their eyes widened. It really was almost comical how in sync they were. Autumn told them about taking the file from Chantelle’s file cabinet, how several others had come with it, and how she hadn’t had time to put the others back.

One of which was Kaden’s.

“I’m sorry that I invaded your privacy,” Autumn said. “But it’s been like pulling teeth to get answers. Even so…I wouldn’t have stolen anyone else’s file on purpose, but…well, I’m hoping maybe we can work together to try to come up with some answers.”

“I’m glad you’re here, however that happened,” Kaden said. “But what do you need help answering?”

She reached in her purse on the floor next to her and removed her file and his, then flipped hers open on the coffee table in front of them. “Well, here”—she pointed to the place where the words were written—“it says suspected ADHM.”

Kaden leaned forward, looking at the place she’d indicated. “So they thought you were born positive but weren’t sure?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Autumn pulled Kaden’s file from beneath hers and flipped it open. “The other files I took list a positive ADHM diagnosis. But yours says the same thing as mine. Suspected ADHM.”

Kaden’s frown deepened as he sat back. “Suspected ADHM,” he repeated.

She watched him process that for a moment. “Is there any indication your mother never actually took the drug?” she asked gently.

“I don’t know. I mean, I never heard that that was a possibility.

” His gaze shifted for a moment, obviously thinking.

“I was only at Mercy for six years before my aunt came for me. She’d had her issues too, but she got her life together and petitioned the court to adopt me even though she knew how sick I was.

It was a bit of a battle, from what I know, but she prevailed, and I came here to live with her.

” Kaden glanced at his wife, the worry lines on his forehead growing deeper.

“Tammy, that’s my aunt, had turned into sort of a homeopath.

She credited herbs and detoxes and who knows what else for helping her kick drugs. ”

“She took you off the medication,” Autumn whispered.

“Yeah. She did. And I immediately felt human. ”

Oh God. At the news, Autumn barely managed to hold herself upright.

Her stomach clenched. She knew exactly what he meant because she’d experienced the same thing.

My special, beautiful girl. Grow strong.

Oh, Salma. For all intents and purposes, someone had “taken” her off the medication too.

Thank you, Salma. Oh, thank you. If Salma hadn’t put the idea in her mind, she wouldn’t have done it.

And then she wouldn’t have been released, wouldn’t have gone to live with Bill…

She couldn’t consider it. She blinked away the tears suddenly burning the backs of her eyes.

Kaden had paused, but now he continued. “I started thriving. I gained weight. I could eat. I could sleep without more meds. I could focus at school.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

He glanced at his wife. “Not for a while. I was young and I trusted my aunt, or maybe I just felt so good I didn’t want to question it, but in any case, she suggested I don’t mention it to my doctor, so it was a good year before he realized why I was doing so well.

He said we were being reckless and insisted I go back on the medication. ”

“Did you?”

“No. Tammy fought it. She was a fighter, and I think she’d lost enough times that she simply wasn’t afraid to toss it all on the line. For herself. For me. For anyone she loved.”

“God rest her soul,” Ashtyn said softly, and Kaden gave her hand a squeeze.

“Anyway, I hadn’t developed any tumors. I was feeling great and doing well in school. The doctors were amazed. They ran test after test.” He paused for a moment. “Then Dr. Heathrow came to the house to see me.”

“Dr. Heathrow?” That surprised Autumn. Why would Dr. Heathrow want to be involved in the treatment of a boy who was no longer at his hospital?

“Yeah. He talked to my aunt, asked for an exact account of side effects I’d experienced and how those had lessened or gone away entirely.

” He frowned. “I remember him patting my head like a dog and saying, ‘I wanted to see the miracle boy,’ which sounded kind of nice, but the look on his face was something else. He didn’t look happy at all.

I remember his expression as barely contained anger. ”

A shiver went down Autumn’s spine as she pictured the man, his face still clear in her mind though she hadn’t seen him for almost a decade.

Kaden went on, “Anyway, the next day, I got called into my doctor’s office and was declared healed. No more tests, no nothing. That was it. Thinking back, it was abrupt. Strange. But again, I was ten.”

Autumn nodded slowly. She was disturbed, still confused, the pieces coming together in a way she wasn’t sure she was ready to acknowledge just yet. “My story is similar, at least as far as the abrupt declaration that I was healed. I’d gone off my medication on my own.”

Kaden raised his brows. “At the hospital? You must have had to sneak.”

“I did. The hospital staff never said that they knew I was no longer taking the drug cocktail.” But now she wondered.

Had they suspected? Had they caught her on camera sneaking around the other facility as she’d once believed?

Both? In simple terms, was she suddenly more trouble than she was worth?

“Kaden, did you ever have dreams of being in the woods?”

He looked briefly confused. “What woods? The woods surrounding the hospital?”

“Yes. Or…general woods. Any woods.”

“No. I did experience the very vivid dreams that felt real. Those were all the drugs though, because I don’t have those now.”

“Yes, I experienced those too,” she murmured. They sat there for a moment, both quiet, going over their own thoughts.

“Okay, I’m just going to come out and say what I know we’re all considering,” Ashtyn said. She glanced at her husband and then looked at Autumn. “Is it possible they knew you didn’t have ADHM but put you on the medication anyway?”

Kaden looked at her, his face draining of color. “Why would they do that?”

“Because they needed a control group,” Autumn said, voicing what had been slithering through her mind but that she’d only put into words right that moment.

“That can’t be true,” Kaden said, but Autumn heard the note of doubt in his voice. “That would be pure evil.”

Yes, yes, it would be. But so would being left alone and defenseless in the woods so children could practice being monsters.