Secret of a Good Bad Girl

Chapter 2

I open the glass door of the huge glass building. I am dragging two suitcases and a backpack behind me. I walk up to the front desk and the woman behind it says, "Name?"

"Sarra Garat."

"You here for the training program?"

"Yeah."

"Katara here will escort you to where you will wait."

A man steps forward and takes my suitcases. I follow him. Should I have said thanks? Should I say something now to Katara? So many directions I could go in. I wouldn't know what to say, so I say nothing.

He takes me to a room where a bunch of people are waiting, sitting on couches or staring out windows. I walk in and Katara leaves, taking my suitcases away. I walk into the room. Some people are talking like they know each other while others are sitting alone. I pause for a brief second, considering what Sarra would do, then casually walk up to a large group of teens and immerse myself in their conversation.

"My mom made me sign up for this thing," one of the girls is talking, "saying I needed the training." She's blond and beautiful. There is a tall dark-haired boy next to her with his arm around her.

"I had to beg my parents for this," another girl, this one brunette, says.

"My parents don't care what I do as long as I don't kill anyone," a boy says.

"My parents would let me get away with murder," I say. I have murdered people. Lots of people.

"Woah. Who are you?" A girl asks.

"I just got here. I'm Sarra." I wait to see if she wants to shake my hand but she doesn't.

"I'm Carolynn," the blond says.

"I'm Jake," the boy next to her says.

"I'm Drakey," the brunette says.

"Nathan."

"Helenn."

"Fred."

Names fly around and I engrave them all in my brain just like I've been trained to do.

I talk with my new friends until a woman calls everyone's attention. She starts talking, welcoming us and I listen in my subconscious for anything important.

"What's your favorite color?" Drakey asks me quietly.

I hold out my arms and gesture to my body. "Isn't it obvious?" I'm wearing green shoes with neon green laces. Bracelets of different shades of green cover both of my arms almost to my elbows. My shirt is green and I have green highlights in my hair. My earrings are green as well.

Maybe I overdid it.

She laughs. "I like purple." She's wearing jeans and a blue lace shirt with a purple tank top underneath. Her shoes are black and she has black eyeshadow.

I smile in response and start listening fully to the woman.

"-won't be easy," she is saying. "Much of your training will be difficult but feel free to withdraw whenever you want."

This is so different from the Office's welcome speech. The trainer told the four of us that there was no going back. He outlined the whole program. Two weeks in solitary confinement, two months of physical training (including combat, resisting torture, acrobatics, and more), a month of learning things like language basics, logic, and so on. The training continued for three years. By the time I was thirteen, I knew English, French, and Spanish pretty fluently. I could kill someone in a hundred and five different ways. I could send a grown man to his knees with a few simple moves. I could make up a lie and be believed. I could memorize a whole essay just by reading it once. I could smuggle, disarm, and do pretty much anything. When I turned fourteen, the last of us four to do so, I started accompanying an agent, agent HK to be exact, on his missions, watching and learning.

My first solo mission was right before I had turned fifteen. I was the Carrier of a part of a bomb that was supposed to go off in New York City. I successfully delivered the piece, but the mission was a failure. The Agency thwarted our plan.

The woman outlines the training for us. Over the course of six months, we would train physically and mentally. After that, half of us would be let go and sent home. After three more months, another half would be sent home, leaving us with exactly fifteen people. I multiply the numbers quickly and find that there are sixty of us here. A quarter of us will get to actually become agents. I will tie for first place.

According to my application, I've taken Karate and some other self-defense classes.

"Now, we will show you to your rooms. You can choose who is in your rooms, but only a maximum of five is allowed and no mixing genders." The woman continues.

"Do you want to be in the same room as me?" Drakey asks me.

"Sure." I force a smile. "Who else?"

"Carolynn is my best friend, so her."

"Two more."

"Nah. Just one. They said maximum."

"Too bad we can't get a boy," I say.

"I know, right?" She laughs.

Carolynn makes her way to us, a small, dark-haired girl following her. "This is Laeva. Are you fine with just four?" she asks Drakey.

"Yeah. Sarra is with us too."

"Perfect," Carolynn says.

"Now, follow me and pick a room. Boys on the left, girls on the right." We follow her into a long hallway with doors on either side. Each door has a different symbol on it. We choose one with a leaf-shaped symbol. Inside are five beds against one wall. Each one has a different color of pale sheets. I choose the green one. Laeva gets a pink one, Drakey gets a purple one, and Carolynn gets the yellow one. The blue one is left. There are also five dressers, five little bedside tables, and another door leading to a bathroom with two showers, two toilets, and two sinks.

"Let's rearrange the beds," Drakey suggests.

"Yeah," I say. With a little grunting, we move two of the beds to one side, Drakey's and mine, along with two of the tables and two of the dressers. We mirror this on the other end of the room and then make a sort of wall in the middle using the extra bed, table, and dresser. Each dresser has four drawers so we put our belongings in the extra one. I am the second tallest, so I get the one below the top one. Laeva gets the bottom one.

I dump the contents of my backpack inside my drawer and then lay on my bed.

The sheets are too brightly colored for my taste. The walls are too white. The light is too bright. Everyone here is happy and I'm afraid it will drive me insane.

Nine months. I have to stay here nine months. I hope I don't forget myself.

The rest of the day, we tour the training facility. I see the dining hall, the classrooms, the combat room, the gymnasium, the weight room, the bathrooms, the hospital wing, and the library.

It turns out each room is a team and the symbol on the door is their symbol. One of the boys took a room all for himself but doesn't seem to regret it. I learn his name, Hank. I will watch him.

I study all the other trainees, guessing who will be eliminated first and who will be my competition. Of course, no one here is as good as me at anything because they've had normal lives up until now.

At the end of the day, we find our suitcases in our rooms and unpack. My suitcases will gather dust beneath my bed.

When we finally turn the lights out at twelve twenty-five, I find I can't fall asleep. I can hear three others breathing in the same room. I feel the unfamiliar pajamas around me and miss the knife and suicide pill. The sheets aren't red and, though I can't see them in the dark, I sense their brightness. I find myself feeling homesick. The Office was my home. It always felt that way, even though we moved headquarters every six months.

I find myself even missing HK.

"I am 36. I am 36." I whisper this to myself over and over so softly no one will be able to hear it.

That is how I fall asleep.