The Merge

By KC Royale

What happens when you wake up from the nightmare called your life to find out that everything you ever knew was a lie? What happens when everyone you ever knew was not who they claimed to be? What happens when your entire world is turned upside down in a matter of days?

Life for Kaitlyn O'Brien was always simple and very structured. She was a very smart girl who was taking life one day at a time. But she always knew that there was more for her life... but she had no clue what that was exactly. It was very hard for her, growing up in a house that lacked love, communication and most of all freedom. But Kaitlyn was special, very special, especially to an organization who has had more control of her life than she ever knew...and she was about to find out exactly why that is.

***This book is a thriller and is intended for all audiences young and older.***

• Language: English
• Publisher: KC Royale
• Release date: May 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463753637

KC Royale

KC Royale started writing at the tender age of nine years old. Being the only girl in a house with four brothers, she used writing as a way to occupy her time. Her curiosity grew into her creating poems and short stories in various genres, which then grew into a love of writing all types of stories. Having grown up in the Washington Metropolitan Area, she got a lot of her inspiration from life, love and nature. She currently lives in Maryland with her family and her ever present laptop. When she is not writing she enjoys watching movies, theatre, cooking, traveling, and listening to soft rock music. She is also an avid reader who enjoys a good romance, erotica or thriller novel to pass the time. www.royaleinK.com

Book preview

We had finally reached the entry gates of the gated community that held us hostage, and there were three guards patrolling near the exit. One of the guards was on the phone and the other two were keeping watch, they looked so mean and dangerous as we peeked from the street corner. We then went around the house next to the entry point, and into the backyard of one of the other houses. We sat and watched the guards through the fence, wondering what our next step would be. I couldn’t believe what had transpired in the last few days of my life, who knew that so much was happening right under our noses. We were kept in the dark about everything, our lives up until this point were a complete lie.

I always knew that I was different, it just took me a good while to figure out just how different I really was. Life to me seemed like a blur at times. To be so young it almost seemed like I’d already lived it and was just revisiting. I learned to deal with what I was given the best way I could, and that proved to not be so easy. Growing up wasn’t as easy as it should have been, I knew in my heart that there should have been more. So much more. My name is Kaitlin O’Brien and I am 5’6" 110 pounds, very slim, with hazel brown eyes and very long wavy red hair. I was an only child. I wasn’t very close with my parents; I actually didn’t like them very much. They stopped trying to get to know me a while ago and so did I. It became hard growing up in a house that lacked love, communication and most of all freedom.

Over the years I’d realized that I just didn’t have as much in common with my parents as I thought, even though they were responsible for my birth. From the reddish hair it seemed I acquired alone, to the very slim figure I possessed. My parents were the complete opposite of me, both being short, overweight and with coal black hair. Sadly, I didn’t have many friends. Mainly because my parents were very strict and I wasn’t allowed to but also, I just wasn’t very social while at school. I felt somewhat like an outcast; I was someone who just didn’t fit in. Most people just didn’t get me, and I was okay with that, until one day I realized how alone I really was. I sighed as I sat in my bedroom, looking at a blank page while holding my pen. I tried to figure out what to write today. I stared at this blank page in my journal until some words finally came to mind. It had become such a past time for me to write, I could express my inner thoughts the only way that I knew how.

I wouldn’t draw pictures as most kids drew, or doodle in my journal. I used it for something much more meaningful to me. I would write down highlights of everything that happened each day, including what my parents did. I would keep it to a one paragraph maximum and I kept it very brief. It was an idea that came to me after I realized my parents were very unusual, and probably have been lying to me for years. It became a very tiring and invasive routine, but I kept to it for the last two years. I didn’t know why I did it, but it felt good to do it every day. My parents kept very strict routines for me and themselves, they were predictable for as long as I could remember.

Well that was until three months ago, when I received the surprise of my life. One day after I got home from school, my parents sat me down to talk. They then informed me that they changed their minds on a few things recently. And those few things would primarily affect me their, only child. Not only would it affect my life but theirs as well.

The course for my life would never be the same after that year, and every day there’s new and uncomfortable words written on my journal pages because of it. With a three-week countdown on my clock I sat on my bed and stared out the bedroom window. I knew things were going to drastically change and didn't have a choice, but was I ready for it to happen so soon? But what choice did I have. I didn’t quite understand why I was being taken out of school; but I was told I had no choice in the matter.

Most kids would have been excited or pleased to be withdrawn from school, but those were the kids who hated school and that wasn’t me. I loved school so much especially my school, it was great place to learn. The thought of learning something new every day and being challenged made me happy, and I excelled at it. It was always comforting to see different people and especially my only two friends, I loved seeing them every day it always excited me. Even though we’ve only been friends for a little over half a school year now, because we only talked at school. I wasn’t allowed to hangout outside of school, even though they asked me all the time. I really liked them and trusted them somewhat, but I never told them that. Her name was Lydia Green and his name was Ethan Green they were twin siblings also the only classmates I’d conversed with recreationally. They were special to me and I loved going to school to see them, they were my only friends.

I also loved learning how to exist in the world, it was very interesting to me. It was what a child my age was supposed to be doing, from what I was told. That next week I found myself called down to the main office on the school’s intercom for the first time.

Once inside I sat there quietly while the counselor and principal continued to talk amongst themselves as if I wasn’t there. They used big words and verbiage I had no clue of the meaning, but I could still somehow follow their conversation about me. They looked at me occasionally and knew I had the answers they desired, answers to all the questions they had. Then they stopped talking and started to ask me all sorts of questions, questions I was told to never answer by my parents. Such as: What does your house look like inside? Is it safe? Do you know why they’re doing this? Why are they really taking you out of school? Are you happy living with your parents? Have they hurt you? Who are your parents? Tell us about them?

As the answers arose in my head, I started to wonder also. Who were my parents, really? They seemed weird to me, and very hostel. They kept to themselves a little too much, it was as if they lacked any parental instincts. They never had any friends come over or had any date nights, they were the opposite of the happy couples I would read about in books. They seemed to be so tense and stressed, so I tried not to bother them as much.

I would read books and study the minds of others, which was fascinating to me. They continued to question me about why my mother was taking me out of school to home school me. I was only fifteen years old and I knew as much as they did, and I didn’t have that answer. I was a smart child, and everybody knew it, especially my school. They wanted me to be in all kinds of programs and to really explore my abilities to learn quickly and progress. I was so far ahead of my classmates; I had gotten the attention of the faculty and they started to push me academically and I excelled.

I never really understood why I was so much smarter than everyone else in my classes, but I embraced my learning abilities. My mom told me it was nothing major; I just had a really good memory like my dad. As I approached my sixteenth birthday, I started to highly doubt a few things in my life that was supposed to seem normal. I was born premature, so I was told by my mom how lucky and special I was, and it made me not question my abilities too much. So, I would believe what my parents said even though I didn’t trust them most of the time, but they were all I had. They were careful about what they did or said, they were overly cautious, almost as if they were children scared of being chastised. Their decision to take me out of school didn't sit very well with a lot of my teachers, it seemed they were trying to stop it. Before I knew it, the superintendent had come down to talk with the teachers and then my parents. She tried to help them understand how intelligent I was and continued to try and convince them to allow me to stay in school. I already knew their plans were set in stone; my parents never changed their minds on any decision they made. I would begin home schooling for the remainder of my high school years, and it was final.

Late last year when they told me that by my sixteenth birthday I would be withdrawn from my school, I believed them. It wasn’t too hard to believe them, since they had so easily ignored my immediate pleas and objections about it. They forbid me to say anything about it to anyone, so I kept it a secret from everyone. Nobody knew until my mother came to the school and informed them, a week ago. A little part of me thought if I did exceptionally well in school, they would change their minds… well they didn’t. It seemed everyone had plans for me and my life, but me.

I knew I was smart but being at school was more to me than just learning, it also was my outlet and freedom to explore a little. At school I was one of the smartest in the entire student body, and I was very outspoken in my classes. I loved to participate in gym and outdoor activities, to be active and have an outlet, but my life at home was extremely different and now I had to accept the facts. One fact in particular being that the one place that I called home, a house that was already gated, would very soon become my prison. Going to school for eight hours was great for a girl like me who was not allowed to have a life outside of school and home. Now being a teenager who was soon being taken from her school and her friends by force, seemed detrimental and very strange.

I had to accept that I was going to be there even more now with home schooling, and the thought made me angry. My parents are William and Kathy O’Brien and I was an only child whose life never seemed normal. In my family, happiness was not on the menu, especially with my parents. My face appeared to be a happy face on the outside, but it also held some dark secrets on the inside.

I was told I could do anything I wanted, and that I have a very bright future ahead of me. Sometimes I believed that, and other times I really didn’t. Writing in my journal for the first few months was great and very freeing, after a few more months it became more than an outlet. It became a way of documenting the strange and very unusual patterns of my parents. After some time of writing in my journal, I realized that I knew my parents’ routines.

Every week was the same things on the same days, and after further documentation I found that it was every month as well. I never understood it once I realized it, I had no clue what was going on. We lived in a gated community, where there was one entry and exit gate that circled the entire compound. There were very strict security protocols to enter and exit the community, cars would get searched and there was a no visitor’s policy. You would have to be an active member with a house inside and have a special ID bracelet to gain entry.

When I went to school it was located out of the community and when the school bus returned us, a guard would come and scan the id bracelets on the bus and one by one we would be escorted to our houses by a guard on a golf cart. We were told there were bandits loose that wished to do harm to our community and we needed the extra security to protect the compound. There were no playgrounds, pools or community centers, and there were no ways of socializing for the kids whatsoever.

School was the way kids would see each other and it wasn’t as easy to fraternize there with the heavy workloads. Most of the kids that rode the bus with me were no more than fifteen years old and the rest were from one other school, a junior high school. There were never any kids who were over sixteen years of age on the bus, which seemed odd to me. The parents had a community house where they would meet three days a week, while the kids stayed locked in at home. I thought the security protocols were a bit much, but at least we were safe. Before I turned sixteen everything was somewhat normal; meaning what I was used to.

All that started to change a few months before my birthday. As my sixteenth birthday approached, my parents started preparing to withdraw me from school, and I was crushed. I didn’t understand why that needed to happen and nobody would give me an explanation, so I was angry. I didn’t want to be trapped at home all day, every day.

My friends and most of my classmates didn’t live in The Telak Gated Community, so the only way of seeing them was at school. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere but school and home anyways, that was it. That was my life in a nutshell. I was told it was for my safety, so they left me home when they did leave the house on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. I couldn’t get out even if I tried; not with double locked doors that stayed locked and a high wooden fence barricading the house. I couldn’t go anywhere, I was always locked in. They told me I didn’t have a choice in the matter, the rules of the compound were for our protection. By the age of thirteen I wanted to earn my own money and was promptly denied. Later my mother told me