The Red

Chapter 14

After leaving me alone for several hours, Cathy brings me a small suitcase, which easily holds all of my possessions.

No one bothers me as I pack. Cathy's probably been shooing them away.

I can't tell Jill. I can't.

Cathy says I don't have to. That she'll figure it out. But that feels wrong. Still, it's what I'm going to do.

I just can't believe this is happening. I don't even dare to hope I'm dreaming.

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Cathy weeks me up about two hours before the usual 8 o'clock. She says she'll deal with Jill, and I'm grateful.

Everything is a blur. Disbelief has clouded my senses. Yesterday the thought of leaving didn't even cross my mind. This was on such short notice. Stupid time. It can do so much to a person.

Cathy and I eat a small breakfast silently. She does tell me that Stephano and Susan are leaving today too, but I just nod.

The doorbell rings and Cathy has to go through a few different rooms, with me following her, to answer the door.

Standing outside the door is a woman - probably in her twenties - with blond curls pulled up into a ponytail. She wears a navy blue suit identical to Susan's.

"Hi Cathy!" she says, and then looks at me. "I'm Wendy! You must be Natalie! I'm here to take you to your new family!"

New family? Guess I never thought of how the agency was supposed to adopt me.

Cathy pushes me through the door. "Natalie," she says, "this is what you were meant to do."

I turn around to look at her and see a tear glistening on her cheek. I give her one last hug before turning myself in to Wendy.

Cathy hands her the stack of papers from the filing cabinet. She probably made copies of them this morning.

"Come, Natalie," says Wendy, putting her hand on my back. She leads me to a black car parked out front.

"Bye, Natalie!" Cathy calls. "Visit soon!"

Visit? How can I do that? How can I face Jill when I didn't even have the guts to say goodbye?

Guilt tears at me because of it.

Wendy takes my little suitcase and walks around to the trunk while I sit down in the passenger seat. Then she gets in and begins to drive.

"Questions?" she says.

"Strangely, I can't think of any at the moment," I tell her.

She smiles. "You're just shocked. I entered the agency as a sixteen-year-old orphan, too. I know how it feels.

Stephano and Susan were the ones who were sent to spy on me too. I went to the same orphanage, but it was called Madame Charlotte's."

"What happened to Charlotte?" I ask finally having a question.

"Um.... She mysteriously disappeared. We think it may have been an early case of The Red."

She looks at me and my confused face and inhales. "I'm gonna try to explain to you! All of it!

I'm twenty-six. The agency's been hunting The Red for ten years, since I was sixteen. Well, Charlotte disappeared when I was sixteen, right after I left. The agency adopted me for more recruits. The agency is twelve years old, but it's when these mysterious murders started happening that they needed more detectives. So they adopted me. But then the sticker came out, and The Red was nicknamed The Red. That's when we officially made it our main case; we hardly investigate anything else."