Secrets of the Harts

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.”

“You’re lucky that Mr. Fuller had gotten impatient with their progress. The original plan was for you to join them for Christmas where Mr. Fuller would have turned up, get the information he needed from you and then arrange for your death. But he decided that it would take too long and wanted Dylan to invite you to Luke and Tia’s engagement party. Dylan should have arranged for you to be alone in a room, with some convenient excuse about how Tiara ‘needed you’, but Mr. Fuller would have cornered you instead. Owen saved your life today.”

“I really don’t care-”

“I’m not done yet, Kristen. You really have got to keep your temper on a tighter rein.” She smiled condescendingly at me and continued, “I know you and how much you treasure your friendships. Even though you seem to have misplaced your faith in Luke Ouverson, you’ll still care about his life. The Agency can very easily arrange for his extradition simply based on information about his attempt on your life. Luke will probably end up facing a death sentence. But you can save him.”

I licked my suddenly dry lips, realizing where this conversation was going and disliking it. Calloway wanted something from me. It was the only reason why she would even bother trying to cut a deal with me now.

“The only thing Dylan told us is he’s planted a bomb in the airport before he got caught,” she said, “but because he won’t speak to any of us, we can’t do anything about it, except for you, Kristen.”

I didn’t know what made her think that I could get anything out from Dylan. But in any case, I clarified, “In exchange you’ll leave Luke alone?”

She relaxed. “Yes, of course.”

“How will I know you wouldn’t go back on your word, like the way you did when you sent Owen?”

There was a barely noticeable flicker of some emotion on her face before she went, “I give you my word this time.”

“Is that all?”

She smiled at the progress that she made with me. “Alright, I will give it to you in writing tomorrow, Kristen.”

I nodded, waiting until she stood up and left before I laid my head on the table, waiting for my heartbeat to slow down. I didn’t let myself wonder if Luke would’ve done the same for me, because I guess I knew the answer deep inside.

He probably wouldn’t.
***
It was Owen who escorted me from my interrogation room to Dylan’s room.
“How’ve you been holding up?”

I glanced at him before turning my gaze back to the ground. “I’m fine.”

He gave me a once over and said, “He’s got you pretty torn up, hasn’t he?”

I ignored him, resolutely studying the ground.

“What I don’t get is why you care so much about him. He seems like a douche to me. And yet, you seem to like him.”

How far away was Dylan anyway?

“Kristen, stop ignoring me. You always keep things inside... Talk to me?” His tone was different this time, quieter and more sincere.

This was the Owen I knew. It was this boy who I have fallen for, the one who honestly cared about me and not just about making snide comments, the way he had been for the past few days.

He stopped suddenly and so did I.

“Kristen.”

I finally looked up at him, feeling like I should say something, anything at all, but I remembered what I had learnt about the corridors. They were always watched and I couldn’t admit any weakness to Calloway.

“Are you okay?”

I couldn’t bring myself to smile and so I only nodded.

Owen sighed and continued walking.

We reached the room a few minutes later, Owen didn’t bother knocking before pulling the door open and allowing me in.

I didn’t look at Dylan until I sat on the chair opposite his.

“Hey, princess, nice place you have here.”

Despite his casual words, I could see that something was wrong with Dylan. His eyes looked tired, not yet defeated, but worried. I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat, remembering Sean Fuller for the first time and wondering what had happened to him. If the Agency really was filled with contract killers…

But he tried to kill me as well. I didn’t need to feel guilty.

“I must say this place isn’t as fancy as I thought it’d be. I mean, you guys are earning so much from people who need contract killers but your headquarters is so drab.”

“Where’s the bomb, Dylan?”

He gazed at me quietly and as quick as a flash, I saw that there was no bomb. There had never been any bomb. Still, I didn’t rise and report this to Owen, who was probably guarding the door outside.

“You know Code 56 was really good,” said Dylan, leaning forward until his face was barely an inch away from mine. “Thanks.”

Putting on a ruse is more effective sometimes. My breath caught in my throat.

He smirked at my stricken expression and leaned back.

When I finally found my tongue, I asked, “What do you want, Dylan? What was the point of telling me all that about the Agency?”

I could imagine Calloway frowning in her office upstairs, not anticipating that our conversation would head this way and perhaps radioing Owen to get me out of the room. But for once, I didn’t care.

“To let you know the truth.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t to distract me so that you could’ve escaped?”

“You’re good.” He nodded once. “But the main idea was to let you know the truth. And now that you do, what are you going to do about it?”

Do about it? I wasn’t going to do anything.

Dylan’s expression turned hard. “I’m disappointed in you, Kristen Hart. I thought that a girl who cost my father’s life would be worth the trouble.”

I could feel the moisture gathering in my eyes, causing my vision of Dylan to blur. But I blinked them away. I wasn’t the sort of pathetic girl that cried because of harsh words and I wasn’t going to start now. “Your father was a criminal.”

“And so he deserved to die without a fair trial?” He eyed me with contempt. “Nobody’s perfect, Kristen Hart, especially not my father. But the least he deserved was a fair trial.”

I understood what he wanted now, or at least I thought I did. He wanted his father to have gone through a trial.

“You see the word in black and white. Truth is, there are a whole range of greys out there. And your boyfriend, Owen, is probably the worst out of that range.”

Anger bubbled up in my chest, making it tight. “Don’t talk about Owen. If anyone’s grey, it’s you. Why should I believe a word that comes out of your mouth? You tried to kill me.”

“Yeah, I did. But I didn’t succeed, did I?”

I clenched my shaking fists, afraid of what I would do if I lost control of my temper. “If you don’t anything else to say, I’m leaving now.”

“My father was grooming an apprentice before he got caught. He didn’t choose Vic to succeed him. It was someone new, young. Now that he’s…” He didn’t say the word and I didn’t want him to. “I don’t know how the news is going to travel but I have a feeling that it’s going to chaos and that man will try to seize control at this moment. And everyone will, of course, fall in because he was my father’s chosen one. But he cannot be trusted… I want your help in finding the apprentice. In exchange, I’ll help you find your mother, Alessandra Zeta.”

“What makes you think I want to find my mother?”

“If my mother was still alive, I would find her.”

I folded my arms, hoping that he wouldn’t notice how my fists were still shaking. “And what would you do after you’ve found the apprentice?”

“Kill him.”

“And you think that I’m going to help you do that?” I felt like laughing.

“No. You’ll let me kill the man who hired the Agency to get rid of my father. He was after the information that you have; the info that you, in fact, still have because you haven’t had the chance to hand it to Calloway yet. After you have, he will get the info that he wants.”

I stared at him, wondering where all these reserves of information were coming from. “You’re assuming that I actually believe you about the Agency loaning out contract killers and that there is an apprentice to begin with. And that you know more about Alessandra Zeta than the government did.”

He shrugged, in a mock humble way. “Take a leap of faith.”

I didn’t know Dylan Fuller very well. But I did know that he had expected me to do something about how the Agency had tricked me and that by doing this, by helping him, I was exacting some sort of payback. He was manipulating me again.

But this time, I was going to make my own choices because Dylan was right about one thing. Nobody was perfect, least of all him.