Thirteen

Chapter Nine

The brief walk down the hallway that PJ and Jack shared ended at an older looking wooden door, with the room number "145" printed right above it on a faux gold plaque. Jack could hear a voice, which sounded female, singing sweetly from the other side.

PJ extended his arm and knowcked on the door, momentarily silencing the voice behind it.

"Come in!" The voice called out, the volume of those words starkly contrasting the soft tones of song coming from inside just moments ago.

PJ and Jack complied, the former reaching for the worn out handle on the door and opening it inwards, where they were greeted by the sight of a woman sitting at a desk. She looked to be in about her mid-twenties, with dark brown hair pulled up into a bun, a dark complexion and warm chocolate coloured eyes. The desk she sat behind was covered in a multitude of papers, all of which were scattered about in a highly unorganized fashion across the surface, and various different writing utensils of all different colours and sizes. There was even a pair of rather large scissors at the corner of her desk that still had a piece of paper wedged between them, as if someone had been cutting something and then mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the act, leaving the project unfinished and abandoned.

The woman gave them both a smile, which seemed genuine, but tired and worn-out at the same time. Like she was exhausted but didn't want to be rude, and so was forcing herself through the pleasantries.

"Ah, PJ," she said, the tone of her voice matching that of her smile. Kind, but tired. "What a pleasant surprise. I haven't spoken to you in awhile. How've you been?"

"Good. Working on those newest case files, the same as you, and you know how stressful that gets." The woman gave PJ a knowing nod. "But everything else has been great."

"Glad to hear it. We can discuss those case files later, as I've got some information I need to share with you, but for now," she suddenly turned her attention to Jack. "I think it's only polite to get acquainted with our guest here."

"Hi," Jack started, feeling awkward in a conversation for the umpteenth time that day. "My name's Jack. Or, Sean I guess. Jack is a nickname, but you could call me either."

Jack was a bit less skeptical of this woman than he was of those two siblings they'd encountered back in the hall, so he'd decided to give her his real name as well as his nickname. Though whether or not that was a good idea, he had yet to discover.

"He's a new recruit," PJ explained. "I was assigned to inform him and all that."

The woman nodded uncertainly to herself for a moment, as if trying to remember something, before her eyes lit up with recollection.

"Oh, yes, you're McLoughlin! Sean McLoughlin! I was trying to input you file into the database earlier, but we didn't have much information on you, and I couldn't figure out why." She laughed to herself. "I suppose I should've checked the 'date added' at the top. That would've been smart. I've been a bit scatterbrained lately, as you can see."

The woman gestured to the miscellany of office supplies blanketing her desk.

"Anyways, my name's Sarah," she continued, sticking her hand out across the desk, which Jack shook in response. "I do administrative stuff. I used to be a field agent, but I ended up losing most of my lives on investigations and missions-"

"And the one time you leaned back to far on your desk chair," PJ interrupted, much to Sarah's displeasure. She glared at him, but then rolled her eyes in a joking fashion and continued speaking.

"So now that I'm on my last life, I do something a bit safer."

"I mean, you never know," Jack said with fake uncertainty. "You could get hit by a rogue stapler. Or you could get a really bad paper cut."