Page 68 of Hidden Justice
The first boy in the family—Tony—and the first child to leave our home as a teen—Gracie—rejecting, for all intents and purposes, our way of life. And, of course, Bridget who always seeks to taper our more aggressive practices.
Bridget and I have stopped moving. As if we both know this conversation has grown serious, we stand together in the front hall. I tell her, “Problems are to be expected. It’s a mansion full of kids. A mansion full ofdamagedkids, sorted into units based on age, not when they were adopted. So, someone adopted for six years could be in the same unit as someone who’s been here for six months. That’s why we have weird rules that evolved over decades. Which isalsowhy supervised fighting is encouraged. As is speaking your mind.”
“Speaking your mind?” She raises her eyebrows to make her point.
In the hall, the echo of Vampire Academyteens running around upstairs crashes down the steps.Whoa. Bulls at Pamplona up there.
“You think those kids are shrinking violets?”
Bridget glances up the steps as if she can see the offenders. “I’m not sure we’re doing right by any of them. Are you?”
She can’t be serious. “Hell, yes. We saved them. Taught them to fight. Taught them not to be victims. Where would they be without Momma and The Guild?”
Bridget’s cheeks grow red. “I know. I agree with that. It’s just… The violence. They’re so young.”
Young in age, maybe. “Each kid here has been through some serious shit. For them, self-defense isn’t violence; it’s empowerment.”
She purses her lips, and, without saying a word, her chin drops toward the floor. She’s pointing out that what goes on below groundisviolent. Still…
“No one under ten is allowed below for training. No one under eighteen goes on missions. And before they do either, they’re given a choice. We all have the choice. You did.”
“Do they? Did I?”
What? My mind skips to the past. Bridget—her chosen, not given name—was adopted from Laos when she was ten. Eight months later, I came to the family. I was six. Still, she and I went below ground together four years later, when I was ten and she was fourteen. Granted, she’d been living in a toxic home, addicted to drugs by an addict mother who’d died, leaving Bridge ripe for exploitation, so she had a lot to deal with when she came here. But was her delay more than that? “I remember riding Elevator X with you, and you seemed as excited as I was.”
We’d held hands and had fallen on our assess, laughing.
“Of course, I was trained to want it, like all of us. Going underground was exciting.”
A buzzing reminder of Bridget’s earlier words zips through my head:If something makes you uncomfortable, pay more attention.
Bridget’s always been less enthusiastic about the family’s more violent leanings, but that’s never bothered me. In fact, I thought of it as a good thing. We could use her Lisa Simpson to balance out our aggression. But could she regret all of it? Could she be trying to expose our covert ops or make Momma feel threatened enough that covert ops are stopped?
“What would you have us do differently?”
Her lips thin and tighten, like the boom gate falling across a train track. For a moment, I’m sure the conversation is over, but her lips unclench. “We could shift our practices, take people’s emotions and personalities into account. Units are made of people. They’re not soldiers.”
I’m on the defensive, I know it, but I still can’t stop myself. “We have three therapists living on campus and working in Internal Security. They’re chipped, know The Guild, and work exclusively for our family. We have care staff that have been here as long as Momma has been adopting. They’re family, too.”
“Yes, but children become what you teach them to become.”
“So, we should teach them only good, happy thoughts.” Realizing my voice is echoing and I’m on the verge of shouting, I bring it down. “That didn’t keep them safe. Whatwedo keeps them safe. The price is that they have to turn around and help others. You think that’s bad?”
“No. That’s not… I believe we should also teach them how to do a mental detox. The same way we teach them to avoid bad food, drink, substances, we can teach them how to step away from destructive, patterned thoughts. Thoughts create our worlds.”
Oh. Boy. How come when people go all cosmic interface, they forget what’s weird? “Bridge, we’re a school. Meaning, our job is to teach kidstothink. We can’t go around teaching kids hownotto think.”
Her lips tighten again. A firm, disappointed line on a face that’s usually bright and open. She fiddles with the black belt around her gi. “You know, sometimes you act like what I do makes me a pie-in-the-sky hippie, but you’re wrong. Meditation allows me to see a macro view, not just of my own thoughts, but of the thoughts of people around me. It’s incredibly enlightening. It’s almost a superpower.”
A cold knife of fear unsheathes itself and presses to my throat. That’s a very creepy statement. “So, you’re smarter than the rest of us?”
Could macro-viewpoint Bridget have plotted against the family to show them the error of their ways? Under all her kindness and equanimity could there beat a Machiavellian heart?
“Not smarter, just less attached to the thoughts that might keep your mind looping, keep you from seeing the bigger picture. You are very much a product of The Guild.”
“Keep me from seeing the bigger picture? Like we should just hold hands with sex-slavers?”
“It’s not like that.” Bridget looks down, sighs lightly, then shakes her head. “It’s like with your humanitarian—there are other ways to help.”