Breaking Out

By S.E. Walker

With each day at Aunt Pippa’s compound, sixteen-year-old Finn James breaks further out of the small, confining box society, and her parents, forced her into at a young age. Spending time with the gifted people her aunt had collected helps her connect with her many special and varied skills.

Saving a life brings government agents Donner and Watkins back into her life. When the agents take her mother and Finn from the compound instead of her, Finn is willing to sacrifice herself for them. Finding herself fully embracing all that makes others think she is the Millennial Child, Finn decides it is time to go on the offensive and rescue those dearest to her. At the same time, she has the council of elders put out feelers online to see if there might be others like her.

Are there other with gifts and talents similar to hers out there? Will Finn remain at Pippa’s Texas Compound? Is Finn really the Millennial Child?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight Teen
• Release date: Nov 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780369500922

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Published by Evernight Teen ® at Smashwords

www.evernightteen.com

Copyright© 2019 S.E. Walker

ISBN: 978-0-3695-0092-2

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: Melissa Hosack

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To the helpers, the caregivers, the volunteers who would give the shirts off their backs, the last dollars in their pockets, and the blood in their veins for those in need.

BREAKING OUT

Millennial Child, 2

S.E. Walker

Copyright © 2019

Chapter One

It’s time to wake up, Finn. There is work to be done that only you can do.

The voice pulled me to a half-sleeping state. That state where most people have dreams that they remember once they wake fully. A state I rarely entered, or at least one I never remembered being in. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t remember the dreams. Whenever I did remember my dreams, they ended up as a foretelling of some future event.

Today’s voice came out of the darkness. There was no dream, no vision to remember. Just the voice in my head.

It was a sweet voice, one of those that sounded like it belonged to the nicest woman in the world. The tone and gentle timbre of the voice brought a smile to my lips even as the words sent a shiver of fear through me.

I did not want to wake up. For the first night since Dad announced I was going to Ashburn Military Academy, I had been sleeping well. Deep, dreamless, and without jolting awake with some wild thought to worry over. Rolling to my side, I pulled the covers over my head. Though it never worked with Mom and Dad, but maybe the voice, whoever it belonged to, would go away and let me sleep a little while longer.

I had been so tired when Taber and I arrived at Aunt Pippa’s house the day before, I barely made it through dinner before excusing myself and heading to the bedroom I had been given on the third floor of the big, old farmhouse. Taber was staying next door and Mom was just downstairs if I need them. Right now, all I wanted to do was sleep.

Finn, it is time to wake up. There is work to be done that only you can do. This time, the voice was a little more emphatic, but it still remained sweet and gentle.

Wondering who had gotten into my room since I had locked the door the night before, I pulled the covers down and forced my eyes open. Looking around, I found the room was empty.

And dark.

The world outside the window was dark as well. A glance at the alarm clock on the dresser across the room explained why. The red numbers glowing in the dark showed it was only three-fifteen in the morning. I’d been asleep for hours, but after weeks of insomnia, I felt like I could easily roll over and sleep for a few more.

I was obviously alone. So, where did the voice come from? Had it broken through from unconscious dreams to conscious thought? Or was someone screwing with me and hiding in the closet or out in the hall or something? Or was something else going on altogether?

Frowning into the darkness, I did not know whether to give into the insanity of the moment and ask the silent room what was going on, or roll over and attribute it to a crazy dream due to weeks without decent sleep. Curiosity got the better of me.

Who are you? I whispered.

I was almost relieved when there was no answer. I lay staring through the dark as I let my mind drift over the past weeks and months. So much had changed in my life, but I still felt that I was being kept in the dark about something. Something big. Something that was going on in my life and yet no one was explaining things so I could understand.

As the daughter of a professional solider, I had been raised to require proof that could be seen, touched, and felt. Which may be why the news that I might be this Millennial Child everyone seemed so interested in had yet to really sink in. I needed more information. I needed something more than a vague referral to a legend from thousands of years ago.

But more than information about what the legend said, I needed to know why Mom, Aunt Pippa, and the government agents that had chased me from Tennessee to central Texas thought I was this person. And why they had kept my identity from me all these years.

If I was this legendary Millennial Child, shouldn’t someone have been training me, teaching me whatever I needed to know to save the world? And where did one go for such training? I had seen the movies about superheroes climbing through the Himalayan Mountains to reach a Buddhist monastery only to fight for their lives to escape once they finished training.

Yeah, no. Not gonna happen. I don’t climb mountains. Nor was I in good enough shape to take on a roomful of crazy men no matter how well I had done during physical training at Ashburn Military Academy where Dad had dumped me for the last few months.

I preferred to think a problem through and find a non-confrontational solution, if at all possible. Though, at sixteen, I had yet to face any life or death situations that called for such drastic measures.

I hoped I never did.

Rolling so my back was to the clock, I plumped my pillow up, resettled the covers around my shoulders, and closed my eyes. I needed more sleep so I could be clear-headed when I started my search for answers. Later, like after the sun came up.

The only problem with my plan was my brain had woken up and would not be shut back down again. Finally, I gave up. Lying in bed would be great, but my body was now nearly as wound up as my mind. I needed to move around instead of just lying here brooding.

Pushing off the covers, I sat up slowly. I did not leap out of bed as I had been trained to during my time at Ashburn. Instead, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and spent a moment stretching my back, my arms, and the rest of my body as I debated what to do at such a crazy hour. It was too early in the morning to do much without waking everyone else in the house. Reaching for the nightstand by the bed, I turned on the small light there. Blinking, I said a quick thank you that it gave off a soft glow instead of a harsher, brighter light.

Even with the softer light, it took a few seconds of blinking for my eyes to adjust. Once they did, I looked around. My backpack and the plastic bags Taber had filled with the rest of my belongings from Ashburn sat in a neat row along the wall across the room.

Taber must have brought them up before I crashed. My watchdog had stuck close all evening, even going so far as to walk me up the stairs when exhaustion had finally caught up with me.

I’d never had a steady boyfriend before. Dad had laid down the law when I was twelve that there would be no boyfriend until I was at least sixteen, though he preferred I wait until I was thirty-five. His reasoning was that he wanted me to stay focused on school in order to be become the best educated, most developed practical me I could be.

I had no clue if Taber and I would ever be more than friends, but it felt good knowing he had my back.

Then I wondered if Taber would stay with me on this journey.

Would he play a role once I became the Millennial Child? Would he remain by my side, fighting for the future of humanity? Would he be a sacrificial lamb, giving his life so I might live? Or would he simply stand in the background holding my backpack while I became a metaphysical superhero?

Not sure I was happy with any of those choices, in that secret knowing place next to my heart, I was certain he would be by my side to the end, no matter what that might be.

Taking a deep breath, I decided to continue working from a one day at a time philosophy. Focus on the here and now. Don’t stay stuck in the past or worry about what might happen in the future.

In the here and now, I needed a bathroom, something to eat, and a computer with internet connection.

Crossing the room, I found the bag holding the cleanest of my clothes. I untied the knot and pulled out a t-shirt, jeans, and appropriate underwear. After changing, I took a moment to make the bed. I grinned as I realized that Ashburn had rubbed off on me. Never before had I been such a neat nick.

Opening the first of the three closed doors around the room, I found the bathroom on the other side. It reminded me of the bathroom back at