She was tied up, her hands behind her back bonded with rough rope. Her eyes were closed—no, can't lie to you—her eyes were only slightly open. Open enough to see light and light distortion, but closed enough to give the illusion that she was still passed out.
She heard slightly heavy footsteps pass her. She waited. The person came back a few minutes later. She waited again. The person walked by again. However, he didn't come back after the few minutes. She heard a series of voices. Men voices.
"Do we kill her?" an American voice inquired.
"Naw", a voice said. He sounded like he was from the Rocky Mountain area.
Oh, well, that's sweet, the woman thought.
"We'll keeeell later if she doesn't offa any information." The men laughed.
What? The woman almost stood up and yelled at the men, but remained on the ground and then thought, Well, truth be told, I would do the same.
"I'm surprised she survived the explosion. Her friends dedn't", said an Austrian voice.
The woman sighed; she was going to escape. How, she did not know yet. She'll figure that out as she goes. She heard the man walk back over, his commanding officer most likely told him to stop socializing and to guard the prisoner. He walked over to the side where she was going to escape. She could see it now. They were in a clearing in the woods. Trees all around them. The side where she was going to escape had a fallen tree that had enough room beneath it to allow her to slide under. She would wait for the man to return back to his comrades and then she would jump up, and, escape, bullet-free.
The man slowly walked back to his friends. The woman jumped, ran towards the fallen tree, and easily slid under the tree, making a mud mark on her pants. She heard shouting and shooting behind her. She laughed. She jumped over her bound hands so that they were in fount of her. She smiled until she saw a dark man, carrying a bloody baseball bat, walking towards her, not really to her, but in her general direction. It looked like he had no idea what was going on until he saw his comrades running towards him, their arms in the air. That's when he saw the black haired woman.
He threw his right arm out, as to punch her, to stop her. She ducked. He had a face of surprise when she slung her hands over his head and placed the rope firmly on his neck, like she was going to strangle him. She was behind him, tilting him back to reach him and to see over his heavy shoulders.
The group of men, seeing that their comrade had been taken hostage, stopped and placed their arms by their sides. The leader, the woman supposed, pushed through the group of men. He was a tall, lean man, with a thin brown moustache, and a brown pompadour. He had a rather large scar on the base of his neck that looked like he attempted to cover up with a dull blue scarf and an old brown leather jacket. He narrowed his hazel eyes to the woman.
"Now, let's not be rash", he was the one with the Rocky Mountain accent. "Let go of ol' Donny and you can be on your merry way."
"You're honestly not going to let her go, sir?" the hostage said, his Boston accent creeping into his words.
"Shut up, Donny", the man said curtly, "I'm trying to negotiate."
"Oh, you're in no position to negotiate", the woman said, in a mixture of accents, she then motioned to herself. "I'm the one holding all the cards."
"Okay, I'm not in a position to negotiate, but am I in a position to suggest?"
"Shut up."
"Sir, I'm in a position to die, could you hurry this shit up?" the hostage said. His eyes were bulging out of his head as the woman walked back a few inches.
"You shut up too", the woman said to the hostage, her mouth only a few inches away from the man's ear.
"Now, Lady, if you think that you can escape here, alive, you're kidding yourself", the Leader said, flashing a cocky smirk.
"Oh, please", the woman rolled her eyes, "I've escaped situations more dangerous and less to bargain with than this. This is nuttin'!"
"Try", the leader said, walking forward, prompting the woman to go back. "I dare ya."
He was right, and she knew it, although she would never admit that. She would have to run south, but her target was in the northern direction. The woman sighed and set her jaw, "Let's talk."
The leader flashed a smile. "Let go of Donowitz first."
"This guy?" the woman motioned to her hostage.
"Yeah."
"No", she said simply. "What I said still goes, until I say so."
"Fine, keep Donny."
"Alright." The woman flashed her eyes to Donny. "Who are you?"
"You don't know who we are?" the Leader asked the woman, his ego bruised.
The woman smiled and rolled her eyes, "Sorry, haven't been out much, I've been sooooo busy lately. Now, as I was saying, who are you?"
"We're the Basterds."
The woman narrowed her eyes toward the leader, "I think I've vaguely heard of you. Rand, right?"
"Raine, actually, m'am."
"So sorry", the woman said. "This must be the 'Bear Jew', right?"
"Yes", Donny said, his fingers inching his way to the rope, "Now, will you please let me go?"
"Let the grown-ups talk, Donny", the woman said to Donny, in a teasing voice, "And I'll consider letting you go."
"Now, who are you?" Raine asked the woman.
"Me? I'm called many things by the Nazis. The Bitch, The Witch, La Chica, The Ghost, or simply, Assassin."
"You got a name, don't cha?" Raine asked the woman.
"Uh, let's go with….um…Natalie", the woman said. "Natalie."
"Well, Natalie, if that's your real name"—
"It's not", Natalie said, interrupting Raine.
"—Would you mind letting Donny go?"
Natalie wasn't a fool; far from it, but she had a feeling she could trust him. "Will you promise not to attack me?"
"I promise", Raine said, holding his hands up.
"On your mother's grave?"
"Yes! On his father's, sister's, aunt's, and uncle's fuckin' grave! Just lemme go!" Donny shouted.
"Fine", Natalie released Donny. He walked towards his group, rubbing his neck as he went. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way." Natalie started northward.
"Where ya going?" Raine asked her, walking towards her.
Natalie looked him straight in the face and told him, in a monotone voice, "Classified."
"We just let you go. That warrants some info."
"I'm on a tight schedule", Natalie continued walking and started smiling. She then threw her hand in the air to say goodbye. "Can't stop to have tea with you ladies", Natalie suddenly felt a pain surging through her chest. "Oh." She grabbed her chest. "Ow, ow, ow." She sat down on the leafy ground.
The Basterds come running up behind her. "Are you hurt?" a young, boyish American voice asked.
"Oh no, getting blown up doesn't hurt at all", the woman said to the lad, venom in her tone. She put her head to the ground, her teeth clenched, and her eyes closed, trying to push the pain away. "Pain is just a figment of the imagination", she mumbled quietly to herself. "Just a trick of the mind."
She felt arms roughly grab her by the shoulders. They pulled her up and started their way back to their camp. "You can't go anywhere before you're treated", Raine said. "Hate to find a woman like you dead a few miles ahead."
Natalie looked up to catch a glimpse of her handler. He was a German looking man; obviously he had had a hard life, with chopped brown hair and a rough face. "Easy, easy", the woman said to him. "I'm not a sack of potatoes."
The man brought her to a foldable chair, which she sat on, next to a foldable wooden table with a first-aid kit. She glanced around. Raine came over towards her. "Raine?"
"Yeah?"
"Did your men find a black sort of safe in the wreckage?"
"Yeah."
"Good, may I have it? It has my spare clothes in there." The man, who carried her, dropped her box in fount of her. "Thank you—? God, I don't even know your name, how terribly embarrassing."
"His name is Hugo Stiglitz", Raine said. "Doesn't talk too much."
"Stiglitz?" the woman crinkled her brows in thought. She spoke to Stiglitz, "Aren't you the guy who killed those SS officers?"
Stiglitz nodded his head slowly.
"I was a fan of yours for a few days and then I got shot." She moved her eyes toward the sky. "And then I completely forgot about you until now."
Stiglitz nodded his head slowly, again.
The woman sat on the ground and put in the combination. It clicked open. Natalie pulled out a bar of soup, a towel, a lump of white—most likely her undergarments, Raine thought—a pair of black Chuck Taylor's, jeans, a white wife beater, a dull blue button up, and a gray suit's coat. "Isn't there a river west of here?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks" she stood up with her clothes in her arms. "Oh yeah, there's three chocolate bars, a couple of comic books, a case of cigarettes, a bottle of vodka, and a bottle of wine in there. Knock yourself out; just leave a pack of cigarettes for me." She walked away towards the river. She heard him call to his men about her gifts.
