LJ turns to face us. “What Project?”
“This is not some random message,” I say to Wes. “Someone knew we would be here in this exact spot at this exact time. They wanted me to find it.”
“Why you?”
“I don’t know. Because I’ve already met him?” I rub my hand against my forehead. “He was talking about a rebellion. I wonder if this has to do with it?”
“Whatever it is, it’s connected back to your grandfather.”
“The disk.” I look up. “I think we need to see what’s on it.”
Wes takes it from his pocket and hands it to a pale LJ. “Open this for us.”
LJ looks confused, but slips it into his disk drive anyway. A folder pops up and he clicks on it.
A text-based document opens. Page after page of information appears. There are two words near the top: The List.
LJ scrolls down. It is a list of names and next to each is a brief description and then a set of numbers. It takes me a minute to realize that the numbers are actually dates, and there are always at least two of them. Sometimes three.
He keeps moving through the names. But then he stops. “Lydia . . .”
“Oh my god,” I whisper. Because there, in neat black letters, is my own name.
CHAPTER 15
Lydia Katherine Bentley: great-granddaughter of Dean Patrick Bentley. Montauk, New York, I: April 4, 1995. Montauk, New York, D: July 30, 2012.
Wes grabs my shoulder and squeezes hard.
“The first date is my birthday. But what does the other one mean? Could it . . .” I pause. “Is it when I die?”
Wes’s grip has become almost painful, biting into my skin. “No one can know that. Don’t panic. We’ll figure this out.”
“Okay, okay.”
His hand slides down my upper arm. He’s almost touching the small raised scar on my skin. It’s the same scar that matches his.
Something impossible starts to turn over in my head.
“LJ, let me see your list.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.
He hands it to me, and moves away from the computer so I can sit down. I match up some of the names. Timothy Martinez. Alisha Parks. They’re all on both lists. By the time I’m done checking, my fingers are shaking.
“Wes . . . is your name here too?”
Seeing my expression, he walks to the computer and leans over me. He taps down until he reaches the Ws. There are a hundred names, but no Wes. “Every person has a middle and a last name listed too,” he says softly.
“And you don’t know what yours is.” I think of his pocket watch, and the initials etched into the side. It’s a long shot, but I hold the watch up anyway and read the inscription again: With love, WLE. “Try the Es. See if there’s a Wes or Wesley as a first name.”
He scrolls quickly through the names. “Wait, stop.” I slide my finger across the screen. The static on the glass crackles against my skin. “Wesley Benjamin Elliot.”
Parents: Jane Marie Simmons and Lawrence Jonathan Elliot, both deceased. New York, New York, I: January 18, 1984, D: January 18, 1984.
“Does that date mean anything to you?”
He answers without looking at me. “It’s the date I was taken by the Project.”
“This is a list of people who have been disappeared.” I can’t keep the horror out of my voice.
“You don’t know that.”
“All the names match up.”
“But what do these dates and random letters mean?”
“My I date is my birthday. But yours is the same as when you were taken, so it can’t mean our births.” I think out loud. “Maybe—”
I feel LJ grab my arm and I turn my head, suddenly realizing how much we’ve revealed.
“There’s an explanation for this.” I am ready to do damage control, though I have no idea how to explain away everything he just heard.
But LJ’s mouth is open as he points at two entries not far above Wes’s name. “Christopher Enriquez and Jesse Enriquez.”
I look up at him. “Do those names mean something to you?”
“That’s me. And my older brother, Chris.” He lets go of me and takes a step backward. “Why is my name on this list? Why is yours? What’s going on?”
But Wes is back to ignoring him. “Lydia, look at the dates.”
I stare at the top name.
Christopher Jonathan Enriquez: son of Juan Franklin Enriquez and Judith Nicola Enriquez [terminated March 15, 1986.] Queens, New York, I: June 6, 1973. New York, New York, D: September 21, 1986.
I turn to LJ. “Is June sixth his birthday?”
His olive skin is chalky and his eyes are wide, making him look like a little kid. “What’s going on? What is this?”
I get up from the computer, taking a step toward him. “LJ,” I say sharply. “Are those dates significant?”
At my voice he shudders a bit and visibly regroups. “The first date is Chris’s birthday, and . . .”
“The second date is when he disappeared,” Wes cuts in quickly. “Tag says he was about thirteen when it happened.”
“And the dates for you? Is October third, nineteen seventy-five your birthday?”
“Yeah, yeah.” LJ nods frantically. “It is.”
“The second date is September sixteenth, nineteen eighty-nine,” Wes tells me.
“That’s in one month.” I stalk across the small room, then back again, repeating the same steps over and over. “The second date is when everyone’s taken. The D before it could stand for ‘detained.’” I fight the nausea that’s rising in my throat. “It means they’re planning on coming for me.”
Wes abruptly straightens from the computer. His eyes are narrowed. “No. They can’t take you. Not after what we went through to keep you a secret from them.”
“Maybe it wasn’t enough?”
He grabs my hands, forcing me to stop pacing the room like some kind of caged animal. “It was enough. We didn’t cause this.”
“But . . .” I hesitate, thinking of the scar under my skin, of my grandfather screaming at me. “Wes, when did you get the scar on your arm?”
He gives me a strange look. “What?”
“The scar on
