Chapter 1: A Fire in Her Soul
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p class="MsoNormal"span lang="RU" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; background: white; mso-ansi-language: RU;"зведа/spanspan style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; background: white;" моя – My Star/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"папа – Papa/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"Дядя Иван – Uncle Ivan/span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"Девочки – Girls /span/p
p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"Да мадам – Yes madam/span/p
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p class="MsoNormal"span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"strongStalingrad, Russia, 1934/strong/span/p
p class="MsoNormal""папа!" Natalia cried out among the burning blaze that was once her home. "папа!" She cried once again before being muffled by a large strong hand from behind her. She kicked and writhed around before hearing a familiar voice. "Hush little one," She looked up at the man through tear filled eyes. "Дядя Иван?" He placed her gently down in the snow. "Yes Natalia, it is me." She jumped into his arms again. "папа is gone, папа is gone," she wailed. "I know, I know. But there is no time to cry now." He lovingly wiped the tears from her eyes. "I am taking you to live a place where you will learn many skills and help your country." She looked up at him confused. "Where is that?" "It's a big place where you will learn to become a ballerina. There are many other little girls there also." She began to smile. "It sounds like a lovely place." She determined with a twinge of excitement in her voice. Ivan put her down, took her hand, and led her to the place that would change her life forever./p
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p class="MsoNormal"strongRed Room, Soviet Training Facility, Russia, 1940/strong/p
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"Natalia!" Barked Madame B. "да Madame?" "Explain how your em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"fouettés /emare so wobbly?" Natalia swallowed hard. "I- I am not sure." The woman frowned. "See that it doesn't happen again." With that Madame B raised her hand, indicating for the girls to start again. They were only 15 minutes in to their hour-long exercise and her toes were already bleeding, the scabs from previous exercises breaking open upon the stress. Natalia and the other 15 girls began to twirl, this time she did not falter. The pain in her feet was excruciating, and she desperately wanted to drop but she knew better than to do so. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanLast week, Jelena collapsed during their exercises and even after regaining consciousness, refused to get up, claiming that she quit. Her bed was empty that night and had remained so for all this week. All the girls knew that Jelena was not coming back. This motivated Natalia to try even harder. She wished more than anything to not be eliminated- to survive. She managed to make it to the end of the class with no more flaws. After ballet practice, she marched to lunch with the other girls. One boiled egg with em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"kolbasa/em on toast. Not particularly palatable, but it supplied sustenance./p
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"After lunch the girls went to weaponry lessons. They learned how to fire a gun, switch hands and still hit the target. Today, Natalia came first. She was the youngest of all the girls in the Widow program; all of which had been selected at 7 or 8 except for her. She had been brought to the Red Room at 6, making her the youngest and the smallest. But what she lacked in size or age she made up for in skill. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanShe was fast, agile, flexible and calculating. She had something about her that gave her an edge above all the span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"other girls. Despite the cold hostility from Madame B, all the girls knew Natalia was the favorite. "Excellent work /spanspan lang="RU" style="font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; background: white; mso-ansi-language: RU;"зведа/spanspan style="font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; background: white;" моя/spanspan style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"!" Ivan exclaimed as he entered the shooting arena. Another man in a lab coat was there with him as well. Madame B gave him a small smile. "Yes, Natalia is preforming well above what we expected." She moved closer to the man in the lab coat and lowered her voice. "She may be an excellent candidate for the project." The doctor rubbed his chin in thought and looked through her file on his clipboard. Ivan began to describe her. "From the time she was six years old, she could outrun the girls twice her age. She displays the most effort in all her fighting practices and had the most balance and precision in her weaponry. She is the most compliant when given orders and the most enthusiastic about her work. She spends her free time training or studying her languages." Natalia paid close attention to the conversation going on at the back of the room. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /spanBut she never missed any of her shots. Madame B frowned and turned her attention back to the girls. "Alena!" The girl winced at the harsh calling of her name. "Shooting at the shoulder? Your target could use his free hand and shoot you in the heart or head. The Red Room has trained you better than this!" Alena gritted her teeth and replied. "I will try harder Madame." "Yes, you will."/span/p
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"When weaponry finished, the girls filed out the door but Ivan and the doctor stopped Natalia. "/spanspan lang="RU" style="font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; background: white; mso-ansi-language: RU;"зведа/spanspan style="font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; background: white;" моя, Madame B has told us about your work in the program. It is outstanding!/spanspan style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"" Ivan proclaimed with glee. "Dr. Volkov has approved you to become the first enhanced Black Widow!" em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"Black Widow? I wanted to be a ballerina. /emNatalia thought to herself. When she first came to the facility at age six, they gave her ballet lessons, language training, and social studies. About 6 months later, she learned how to throw a knife and hold a gun. 9 months in, the 30 girls she had been with was now 25. She swallowed hard as she thought of a fight between Misha and Yana. It was brutal and both girls fought bravely. Finally, Misha kicked Yana off her feet by hooking her arm around her inner thigh. She fell to the mat, and tried to roll away but Misha pinned her down at the throat and began to choke her. She waited for her to tap out and looked at Madame B for further instructions. "Finish her," the instructor commanded. Misha wiped a tear from her eye and tightened her hold around her neck. Yana coughed and wheezed until her once red face and body went limp- life had left her. Tears flowed down Misha's cheeks; she had only been 8 years old when she had to kill her friend. Her lip was bloody and she was covered in bruises, but before she went to medical Madame B made an announcement. "девочки, what you have seen today is a mere glimpse of what will happen in the future. You will have to fight and kill to protect your country Russia. At this point you can tell that this is more than a ballet school. It is a training facility to make you the best equipped to protect this nation." She turned to Misha and continued. "Yasha was going to be removed weeks ago but we decided to keep her for another purpose- to become a teaching illustration. Let this be an example for you all to work harder to become the greatest Black Widows this program will ever have." "Да мадам!" The girls replied in unison. "You will need to go to medical with Dr. Volkov to begin the procedure," Ivan continued, drawing Natalia out of her daydream. She drew herself to her full height, looked him in the eye, and replied. "Yes sir."/span/p