26.
*Katelyn*
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. OH MY GOD!
I stood there for a full two minutes, just staring down at the pregnancy test. At the two pink lines that declared that I had a baby growing inside of me. Joe's baby.
Oh my God.
How was I planning to deal with this, you ask? Excellent question. Because I had no plan. Nothing. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. This hadn't been in any spy books that I had ever read. A Highly Trained Operative's Guide to What To Do When You Find Out That You're Pregnant and The Baby Belongs to Your Secret Husband just doesn't exist. No matter how much I wished it did.
Oh my God. I'm pregnant.
So I did what any sensible person would do. I went back out into my room and got the other test. My hands were surprisingly more steady this time when I opened the box and I had the test done in no time. I set it down to wait and then went back into my room, packing up the old stuff into the brown paper bag that it had been put in at the store. I knew that I had to get rid of it. All of it.
The last test was positive, too. Instead of freaking out, though, I went into operative mode. My mind went onto autopilot as I put the last test in the bag and then headed out of the house, towards the woods that surrounded it. I buried it there in the woods, where no one would be able to find it. Then, I went back into my house and up to my room.
I'm pregnant.
It was still just so surreal. Part of me hadn't accepted it yet. Most of me, actually. I just couldn't be pregnant. I couldn't.
You are.
And I knew that. Still, though, I wondered how I was supposed to deal with it. I mean, obviously nothing like that had ever happened to me before. But, I did know one thing for sure that needed to be done.
I needed to tell Joe.
*Joe*
"Motivation," I said as the junior class took their seats, albeit slowly. Sometimes I wondered how they could move so slowly. Other times, I just attributed it to the fact that they were essentially teenagers and teenagers are lazy. I was sure that I had been lazy at some point during my teenage years, too. And actually, my teenage years hadn't been that long ago. I wasn't even over thirty yet.
"It's why people do the things they do," I said, using the simplest definition that I could come up with. I tried to communicate to them silently that this lesson was important. "What, ladies, is almost always tied to why. There are six reasons anyone does anything." I remembered Katelyn naming those six things in class one day. "Love. Faith. Greed. Boredom. Fear." I was ticking them off on my fingers, but I paused and took a breath. "Revenge."
It seemed like no one in the room was breathing. All eyes were on me and I knew that they understood that this lesson was important. All lessons that I gave were. "We have gadgets," I continued speaking, using the same words I had used with Katelyn's class that day of last year. "We have comms units and trackers and satellites that can photograph the wings of a fly, but make no mistake, we practice a very old art. Six things, ladies. And they haven't changed in five thousand years."
I turned to the board to continue class. I did happen to notice that Cammie Morgan wasn't really paying attention, but I couldn't bring myself to call her on it. I was sure that she had plenty on her mind. After all, she'd been caught on a train by her Aunt Abby after sneaking off of grounds – which she had been forbidden to do after the first incident with a boy – and someone was after one of her best friends and roommate. Or, so she thought. Zach still hadn't dug up any information on who the Circle was really after. And I have to say, I was quite anxious to find out. As for the information on Matt – what little he had drawn up – I didn't know what to think of that.
The bell was about to ring, so I gave them an assignment to do for homework and then dismissed them right as the bell rang. They filed out and then I knew that I had a few minutes before the next class. I erased the board and when I turned around, Leah walked into the classroom, smiling. She'd been looking a lot better since she'd gotten to see Katelyn at the wedding the previous month.
Wow; we've been married a whole month.
"Good afternoon, Leah," I greeted with a smile at her. "How are you?"
"Good," she replied. "How are you?"
"Good, thanks."
She held out a postcard, which confused me. Who in the world would send me a postcard? "This came for you in the mail this morning."
"Thank you. Go ahead and take your seat."
"Oh, I had a quick question about the assignment."
I got Leah's question answered and then I looked down at the postcard in my hands. On the front, was a picture of the Eiffel Tower, its lights illuminating the darkness around it with a brilliant sort of glow. Truly beautiful. I flipped it over and on the back was an anagram that took me several minutes to crack.
By the time I had cracked it, class was starting. I set the card aside, but I was anxious for class to be over, which only made it last longer. Finally, the bell rang and I picked up the card again to read the message.
I need to see you as soon as possible. It's an emergency. – Katelyn
Oh no.