Behind Bars (Complete) -EDITING

Chapter 22

Every person, every group, and every government has its own secrets. This was the best-kept secret from everything and everyone. No person known to the public knows of it. Those who do, suddenly are no longer known to the public. The Society hides in the shadows. Hides in suits behind the walls of the white house. Hides in everyday clothes as the parent next door. Then there are those like Ophelia and her parents. Heir to something that made them invisible to the world. Something that gave them more power than the president, the queen on England, and the richest person alive combined. Her secrets weren't just her own. They were completely the secrets of another world.

"Sectatores Et Heredis has been around since ancient times. Long before even the first known secret society. When America was discovered the society moved. It's rather large and constantly changes. The only thing that never changes is the leader. Like Kings and Queen's, you're born into the right to lead it. If a daughter's born, you name her queen. If a son's born, you name him king. That's why I didn't have a birth certificate when I entered the system. In the eyes of the world, I didn't exist." Ophelia said.

"What is Sectatores Et Heredis? What purpose does it serve?" Vincent asked. Ophelia crossed her legs keeping her self-comfortable. She glanced at Kane who held his place on the bench in the back. She passed him looking to Eli. He just kept his eyes on her and she knew he was there for her.

"My middle name is Scelus. It means crime. The Sectatores Et Heredis deal with crime. They create the best criminals...murders...and all of them hide in plain sight. Not just anybody though. Think about the worst person you ever have known. Sex traffickers, serial murders, and even mob people. Until you find out that it's the politician making the decisions for your home state or your doctor. That what the best of them do. The rest is all over the place. That with the proper heir." Ophelia had a knife in Kane's gut. She then twisted it with that last comment and she knew he felt it. The anger no longer hiding but showing clear as day on his face.

"How does one become a Follower?" Vincent asked.

"Every member looks for potential in someone. Someone take their place once they let go of the lifestyle. Happens about every forty years. Like an apprentice. Searching in all the right places, teens rebelling, foster homes, and general bad situations."

"Growing up in a secret society like that...what was it like?" Ophelia remembered it all. The countless hours of training. Never being out of sight from someone. Learning several languages at the same time. At the time...it was her normal. That's how she thought everyone lived. 

She had playtime but she also had fighting time. She had weapons training but she also played dress-up with her mom.  She remembered the moments that her mother made her father seem like another man. She could see him with the men and he would be mean, cruel even. With her and her mom...he was sweet, kind, and a dad if not a little absent. Trying to figure out who he really came more of a challenge to her than Calculus. He had days where she would be with him as he "worked" once she got a little older. Now older and she knows what was really her father preparing her to lead. Preparing her to be a person she doesn't know she could have been. Still, she never understood how a woman as kind and pure as her mother fell in love with a man like her father. A man who on the inside...was dark.

"It was my normal. Growing up, I was trained. That's why I can fight. By the time I was eight I was taking down my own trainer. I can use a weapon better than the military trained soldiers. I was raised to guide and survive. My being smart just happen to move everything along that much faster. I was constantly guarded by someone. Protected. That was my normal. Like coloring with your kids at the kitchen table is normal. I didn't learn about the truth of what they did until I was almost six. They kept me from it for as long as they could." Vincent turned and gave Ophelia an apologetic face. The question he was about to ask was one she's been preparing herself. A night she didn't want to relive but she knew she had to.