Special Place in Hell

Chapter 1: Hi! I’m Divya! Hi! I’m Special Agent D. Jayde. Hello! My name is Divya Jayde. I’m the new Special Agent assigned here. Ugh! I sound stupid no matter what I say. Why do first days have to be so awkward? Why do I have to be so awkward? Sure, I graduated from college at 19 and from Quantico at the top of my class, but I’ve always been so weird around other people. Except my sister. She seems to bring out the best in everyone around her. I guess that is why at 20 she is the brightest rising star in the News business and I’m working for the FBI. She is completely opposite of me. Always making friends no matter where she goes. That’s why it didn’t surprise me when she landed her dream job as an Investigative Journalist for News Channel 7, New Orleans favorite watched news channel. I tried to get away from this God forsaken city by going away to college and then joining the FBI, but the longer I was away the more I missed home. So when I graduated the Director offered me any post I wanted, perks to being the star recruit I guess. So I came home. Home is different after Katrina, but the people’s spirit is brighter than ever. Many pieces of the city have yet to be rebuilt fifteen years later and the trees seem to want to reclaim their home. The home before people, but the people of New Orleans are refusing to give up and go away quietly. After the waters receded the Voodoo Doctor and Priestess said the land was tainted with so much pain that it would never be the same. That was enough for many people to stay away. Now some places look more like a jungle than a neighborhood. “Oh my goodness! I have to get going!” I had been so busy thinking about what was and could have been I am going to be late for what is and might be. “Checklist commence: keys check, coffee check, gun and badge check and check, clothes and comfortable yet appropriate shoes check. I think I am all together. Be good Bells! Give mama a kiss for good luck!” As normal my Pit Bull Bella was giving her best couch potato impression laying on her back, feet in the air and her head hanging off the side of the couch snoring. She looked like Stitch from the Disney movie Lilo and Stitch when she laid like that. I gave her a quick belly rub and blew her a kiss as I walked out the door. Quickly I went back in for my keys and coffee and back out to my trusty rusty Jeep. She looked like hell, but has always been good and reliable for me. I took a moment to gather my thoughts, I hate driving, turn down the radio which was blaring a new Katy Perry song, and pulled out to start the first day of my new life. It was a short-ish drive to the New Orleans field office. My new house was just north of I-610 in Gentilly. It is a quiet neighborhood and my house is fairly small, but it is perfect for Bella and I. It isn’t much different than the house Shaila and I grew up in. Dad worked for McDonogh 35 Senior High School on Cadillac Street. It’s a beautiful campus, changed by Katrina, but still in it’s own way it’s beautiful. He was a ninth grade Science teacher and loved his job. He always said he had two biological children, but thousands of children. He was one of the favorite teachers. Every student looked forward to taking his AP Chemistry class after Freshman year. The legend of my father grew every year with his experiments. This was the time when he was the biggest kid of them all. Mom had worked at the Norman Mayer Library before she got sick. She was as much of an adult as my father was a child. They were a perfect pair. We didn’t have a lot growing up, but we always had love. Even at such a young age, Shaila and I knew no matter what, we had our family and that was all we needed. As I pulled into a parking spot the gravity of it all hit me like a ton of bricks. I did it, I had actually did it. I was a full blown real FBI Special Agent. Despite everything, I had did it. Daddy would have been so proud of me, of both of us. Shaila was living her dream of being a journalist and I was a real life crime fighter. Mom had died when we were very young from cancer and we lost Daddy during the storm. He refused to leave the home that he and Mom had built and we had grown up in. When the water came he tried to save it, but the house, the memories and he himself were all lost. He had sent Shaila and I to our cousins up north in Ohio. I remember the day we left like it was yesterday. A car came with people we had never met, loaded our suitcases into the trunk, asked Daddy if they could change his mind and when he refused they put the dogs and us into the car and drove away. The last time I saw him was through the back end of a minivan. The storm hit faster and harder than anyone thought it would. Power and phone lines had been out so quick that we never even got a chance to talk to him again. We only found out what happened from a neighbor who had been rescued from their rooftop. They said they never saw him come out of the house. I think Daddy had made his choice to die in the house so he could be with Mom again. He had tried to be a good father, but when Mom died he was different, sadder. His smile was duller, his eyes always had a far off look to them. After we were allowed to come back, our house was gone. There was only a concrete square where the house had stood. When the levees broke, the water surge had hit the house with enough force that most of it was taken with the wave as it continued on its path of destruction. Our whole lives were gone. So Shaila and I had made a pact to not only always follow our dreams, but to rely on one another. Life was too short and unpredictable to do anything else.