Darkness Englulfing

Chapter Four

Josephine

Immediately after receiving the message from Henry, she dialed one of her bosses in DC. She would ask them to check on Katherine, and surely they would find her safe and sound. Maybe she'd made a new friend and had gone on a last minute trip before her senior year. Knowing Katherine though, there was absolutely no chance of that.

She paced back and forth, turning every time the cell phone's ring sounded in her ear. Josephine needed her boss to pick up, and when she heard the slight sound of a person on the other end, she didn't hesitate.

"I need you to go check on Katherine." Josephine began to bite her thumb nail in anxiousness. Her thoughts were running through all of the different negative things that could have happened.

"I'm sure she's fine, Josephine. We just went to Universe Greylake four days ago and we looked in on Katherine. She was fine." Josephine didn't have anything but paranoia in her bloodstream, but if she did she would've laughed that the officials decided to call it Universe Greylake. Josephine always thought they should've called it Universe Moore.

"If you're so sure that she's fine, why did I get a text message from Henry saying that he found her phone but he can't find her?" The silence on the other line did nothing to calm Josephine's nerves and her nervousness turned into annoyance that her boss didn't seem to think that anything was wrong.

Josephine sighed and put her hand on her face, her boss not even bothering to answer her question. They couldn't think of a reason not to check Katherine evidently, but it seemed that they just didn't want to.

"Fine, if you don't want to check on her, I'll come there and check on her myself. She's my cousin and even though she's not here anymore we still have an obligation to care for her as a GenU citizen." Josephine had placed the phone between her shoulder and her ear, grabbing her toiletries from the bathroom. She was going to pack tonight and leave first thing in the morning. That would give her some time tonight to reschedule the lesson she was supposed to do tomorrow. She'd teach the children about missions some other time, or they could have another agency worker come and do it. Right now all she was thinking about is Katherine.

"Josephine, there's no reason for you to come here. We'll be doing a routine check on Universe Greylake sometime within the next two weeks. If something happened, we'll be able to figure it out but tracking her mobile device. That's why we give them to travelers and officials. For cases like this." The official was very obviously annoyed with Josephine and didn't think this was a big area of concern but Josephine only got more frustrated.

"No, you don't understand what I'm telling you. Katherine doesn't have her device. Henry found it and messaged me from it, asking if I've heard from her. Which means you won't be able to track her. You'll be tracking Henry's bedroom." Placing each of her toiletries into a plastic bag, she began to pick up her other things from around the hotel room. Her laptop and charger were placed onto her bed next to the toiletries and she began to fold her clothes and place them into her bag. The only clothes she left out were her clothes that she was going to wear to the airport tomorrow.

"Josephine, you have a job to do. Trust us, we'll check on Katherine for you." Josephine had a large inclination not to believe them, even though it was their job. Josephine didn't respond, and just hung up the phone. She placed her cell phone next to her on the bed and logged into her laptop, pulling up the page for the airline she always used. She made sure to log a seat and check off the box that she was travelling for work. What the airline didn't know wouldn't kill them, and she was heading to DC so it wasn't a complete lie.

After getting her ticket and emailing it to herself so she would have access to it on her phone, she heard her cell phone vibrate. Josephine assumed that the vibration would've been from the email that she had gotten, but a quick glance at the screen proved that was not the case.

It was a message from Katherine's phone. It read, "I'm fine. No need to check on me :)" Josephine immediately got suspicious. Picking up her cell phone, she called the number.

It was Henry who picked up on the other line.

"Hello?" He sounded like he had been crying. His voice sounded rough and he sniffled a little bit after he answered.

"Henry, it's Josephine." She heard rustling from the other side of the phone and assumed that the noise was Henry sitting up.

"Have you heard from Katherine?" His voice was desperate. Josephine's blood froze. If Henry was worried, then she definitely should be. He saw her everyday, and Henry would be the first one to know if Katherine was going somewhere.

"No I haven't, but I got your message. I was actually planning on coming and visiting her tomorrow. I have my plane ticket and everything."

"You are?" There was a slight undertone of relief in his voice. Maybe he hoped that having another person there would ease some of his burden. Josephine wondered if Aaliyah was helping him. Josephine hoped she was.

"I am," Josephine replied, lying back on the bed, "But just to make 100% sure, you have absolutely no idea where Katherine is, and you found her cell phone?"

"Yeah," Henry's voice cracked a bit as he answered, and Josephine could almost feel Henry trying to calm himself down and get ahold of his emotions. Hearing his desperation almost broke her heart a little, and it was times like this when she felt bad for trying to stop Katherine from pursuing him in the first place. He would never have found a love this strong if Katherine hadn't stayed behind in the other universe.

"I'll be there at some point tomorrow. I'll call this number when I get close, okay? I'll do whatever I can to help you find her." Henry gave Josephine a few small words of gratitude, and Josephine could tell there was more that the boy wanted to say to her, but instead he hung up the phone and Josephine was left lying on the bed and running the previous moments through her tired mind.

The text that she had received from Katherine's number just a few moments before the phone call obviously didn't come from Kathrine or Henry. Henry's attitude over the phone seemed to real to fake, and Josephine couldn't come up with any sort of reason why Katherine or Henry would play a joke like that on her in the first place. The fact of the matter was that she had told some officials to look for Katherine and it was an obvious nuisance to whatever was happening there, so minutes after that she receives a text from Katherine's number that everything was fine, even though that was definitely not the case.

Josephine didn't know why the officials at the agency wouldn't check on Katherine for her, and she also didn't know for what reason they would send a fake message to her, but there was too much evidence in Josephine's mind that placed the officials as the people who had sent that message. Josephine wanted to believe that it was done to help relieve her of some of her anxieties and get her to go to her job tomorrow, but she had a terrible gut feeling that that wasn't true. Something was going on in the agency, and the moment after she found Katherine she would look into it.