Secrets of the Harts

I'm Not Perfect

Same day, 21 December 2009

I was kept in a room, typically where Agents interrogated witnesses or harmless targets. It was sparse, with two uncomfortable stools and a table in the middle. Unlike police interrogation rooms though, there was no one way mirror. Instead, there was a camera at the corner of the room, so tiny that it was impossible to find.

I had been in this room ever since Owen drove me away from Tia and Luke’s engagement party and back to Headquarters. He didn’t know where I should go so I willing went to the interrogation room. Three hours later, another Agent whom I hadn’t seen before gave me news about Dylan’s arrest at the nearby airport.

Of course, I hadn’t met many of our Agents but the fact that Calloway would send strangers and keep me in an interrogation room meant that she was trying to send me a message—I was very alone.

I couldn’t help but to keep turning Dylan’s words over and over again in my head. I tried to weigh the truth in his words against what I knew about the Agency. But the truth was, I knew very little and even less about Calloway.

Dylan had gotten some of his essential facts correct though. Kendra Calloway had adopted me after my father’s death. I had been put in a children’s home while the state was trying to find my mother, who was listed as Alessandra Zeta. But after a few months of trying and no leads, the state had given up and put me up for adoption. Calloway adopted me without having met me and from then on, I lived with her in this Agency.

Calloway was very different from my warm, casually honest father. She spoke in half-truths, waiting for me to decipher the facts and when I did, she behaved as though testing me was normal. She hired private tutors for me, ensuring that I was carefully educated but always lacking companionship. Sometimes I wondered if she was conducting an experiment. Namely, how far did she have to go in order to replicate herself in a child?

Living with her for the first few years were tolerable, only reminding me of the father I had lost. But I started to get restless when I hit fourteen and I had tried to test her patience by rebelling. She pretended that she didn’t notice what I was doing, which only made me more frustrated and gradually, I stopped trying because she didn’t give me what I really wanted from her—her attention.

When I turned fifteen, I had chanced upon Owen.

The door to the interrogation room opened, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up, expecting an Agent delivering news but found Calloway, calmly watching me.

She closed the door behind her soundlessly and sat in the chair opposite mine. She smiled gently, as though she had not been watching me in this interrogation room for the past few hours, and said, “How are you doing, Kristen?”

“Fine.”

There was a lull of silence as she eyed me and I stared at her blankly, trying to keep my heartbeat normal.

“Aren’t you interested to find out how Tia and Luke are doing?”

I shrugged, determined to keep my calm façade on for as long as I could. But once again, Calloway had proved her intelligence by bringing up my friends instead of Dylan. I needed to reconsider everything I’d thought I knew about Dylan but I definitely knew that I cared about Luke and Tia.

“Both of them must have received notice from Dylan that Mr. Fuller has been arrested because the party had been called off. They were hurriedly placed in a limousine, which was driven to the airport. They are now on board a flight to Switzerland as we speak. But we’ve received some interesting news about Luke Ouverson.” She paused, gauging my expression. “Both Dylan and Luke knew about your identity. Luke had helped Dylan to plan on how to befriend you, how to make you eventually fall for Dylan and how to manipulate you into your death.”