The Helping Hands

The kidnappings of seventy-one children began the legend, but five friends with troubled pasts and courageous futures created it. Melanie O'Conner was known as the seventeen-year-old bad-ass delinquent of Knoxport, California. A drug dealer, a junkie, and a criminal, she had earned her reputation through the leadership of the much-feared rebellious gang called the Hell Hounds. But there was more to her than met the eye, the side she kept hidden from others with her rough-and-tough exterior and relentless sharp green eyes. Her past, filled with the pains of foster homes and cold-hearted guardians, had created within her a deep, undying devotion to saving the lives of children who were victim to child abuse. Bringing them to a secluded island called the Treehouse, Melanie and her gang fed, schooled, and cared for them all, leaving to the parents nothing more than a message claiming that their child had been taken. Now, four years into the project that had been given the name The Helping Hands by the members of the cover-up gang the Hell Hounds, Melanie has to fight to keep the nosy, self-interested television reporter Stephanie Mathews from exposing the truth behind the Hell Hounds. And Melanie is willing to do anything to save the lives of the children from their abusive parents, even if that means risking her own.