Between Universes

Chapter Nine

AN: This chapter is a little bit longer than the others... Only four more chapters until the end of the book! The second book is currently in progress so that is exciting! As always, thank you so much for reading, it means a lot!

After a long scolding from Josephine the night of the dance, Katherine found herself walking in the early mornings. Her nose was running and she couldn't feel her fingers, but she couldn't stop thinking that she had ruined Kat's life after the dance a few weeks ago. School resumed in a few days, and Katherine and Henry hadn't stopped talking since their shared kiss. Katherine assumed that it meant that they were in a relationship, but she was too afraid to ask Henry for confirmation.

The walk helped to clear her mind. The freezing breeze on an equally freezing morning brought a clarity to her mind that she had never had before. She let her mind think about the mission at hand. People from GenU were trained not to change relationships or the storyline when they arrived in a different universe. Of course, that is why a person's first mission is to replace someone not crucial to their plot. Katherine knew the officials had made a mistake. This shouldn't have been her starting point.

Katherine had messed up when she had apologized to Henry. Kat and Henry's relationship was full of hatred at best, and now Kat would have to return and either fall in love with Henry, the thought of which hurt Katherine's heart even though they were technically the same person, or Kat would break up with Henry and break his heart, which hurt Katherine's heart just as much. There was no good ending to her and Henry's story, and that was the thing Josephine was trying to teach her all along. Katherine was stupid for not believing her.

She was torn out of her thoughts by tripping slightly as she accidentally stepped off of the trail. She was surrounded by trees that didn't have leaves. She knew the area well enough to not get lost. She shivered and ran her hands up and down her arms, hoping to bring some warmth to her body. Her eyes caught something a few yards off of the path, and she made her way over to it, thinking it might be a bag that someone had left behind.

Katherine wasn't wrong. It was a bag. However, she screamed as she got closer, covering her mouth. The bag was in the hand of a dead body. A fresh one. With a stab wound right in the heart.

Katherine had been prepped for this as she learned what missions were about. Many storylines in universes revolved around melodramatic murder plots, and she knew when she got here that seeing a dead body was a possibility. She wasn't expecting to find one, though, and quickly called emergency services. She left the scene before the police got there. She may not be traumatized, but she was still freaked out and didn't want to look at the body longer than she had to.

Continuing to walk on the path, away from the body, she pulled out her cell phone and facetimed Josephine and Aaliyah, who were together as usual.

"What's going on, Kat?" Aaliyah questioned, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Not a ghost." Katherine said, "A dead body."

"What?" Aaliyah's eyes widened.

"You found a dead body?" Josephine seemed to be listening now from where she sat next to Aaliyah.

Katherine nodded, taking a deep, shaking breath. Her eyes burned slightly. She knew that this was a possibility, just like she had told herself before. She couldn't get the picture of the body out of her brain. It seemed as though it was burned into her vision.

"Are you okay?" Aaliyah asked.

"I think I will be, but right now I'm really overwhelmed." Both of the girls on the other end nodded in understanding. Katherine watched as they glanced at each other and seemed to have a silent conversation that ended with Josephine shrugging.