The chapters switch from Natasha to Clint, so yeah. I couldn't figure out a good place for Clint to be, so PM me if you have something better than Iraq and I'll fix it! :)
I didn't know how long I'd been there. I'd been lost for so long now. She was right. Natasha. She was always right. The faint sunlight didn't even reach me through the dark bars of my prison. Hours passed slower through every day I waited. The silence was almost unbearable at times, but through it I could sometimes hear the voices of Natasha. We were best friends and at times, our relationship seemed to slip into love, but she made sure that never happened. Never. It made me sad, really, because I did love her. She just didn't fall in love with me the way I wanted to.
I shook off my thoughts as I began to think about how sore my back was. I stood up as tall as I could with my hands chained behind my back, stretching out everything and when I was finished, I slumped back down into the uncomfortable posture I'd been in for the past long while. I'd lost count of the days. Maybe I was at twenty. Maybe I was at two hundred. I didn't know. I didn't really want to know. The think that made me want to hack up my lunch, though, was the fact that the men that had captured me and hung my bow on the ceiling that I couldn't reach. If one arm was free I could probably reach it, and that would be all I needed to free myself. I didn't even know where I was.
"Tasha!" I found myself screaming every once in a while, but...nothing. She never answered me. My wrists were sore and my back still ached, but that was okay. Once a month – if I counted the days – I would find that three men came into me cell – two with guns – to interrogate me. They would try to find out information about America. Plus, the men spoke English.
"I'm not telling you anything." I spat every time they asked me the slightest question. They would just tighten the chains around my wrists, making them bleed even more. Whenever I tried to shift my wrists around, I would find that the scabs that had stuck to the metal were just tearing off every time. But then that day came. They took off the chain connecting the ones around my wrists to the wall so I still couldn't function my hands, and they threw me outside into the dirt.
"I ask you again!" the only man without a gun shouted. I suspected that he was the captain of the crew.
"I'm not telling you anything!." I snarled. That's when he took out a knife and held it to my throat.
"Tell me or I'll kill you." he growled into my ear.
"Why should I tell you?" I asked in a mocking tone of voice. He pressed the knife harder and I felt blood trickling down my neck.
"Fine." he said. He yelled a command to a few other men and they nodded, running off to go get something.
"Let's do this old fashioned, eh?" he whispered into my ear. He grabbed me by the back of my neck and he threw me face first against a wall. I stumbled off, coughing. In a daze, I felt him do something to the chains on my hands. After I'd recovered, I realized that he' moved the chains to the front of me. He took my hands and put them against the wall, taking a nail and hammering it through a rung in the middle. He smacked the rest of it with the hammer so it bent up all the way. He was making sure that I wouldn't escape. I was now facing a wall with my hands above my head. The man took a knife and he cut my shirt off, slicing me in some places as well. I forced myself not to groan in pain.
The men that I'd seen run off earlier came back with what looked like...whips? I felt the blood running down my back but I ignored it.
"You have one last chance to avoid all of this and just give me a little information." the man growled. I didn't say anything.
"You choose your own death." he said, a grim smile spreading across his face.
"Begin!" He yelled, and I felt my flesh tear. At first, I took it lightly, my face scrunching up maybe a little when I felt the leather cord tear against my skin. After twenty minutes, I screamed every single time. I counted all of the whips even though it was hard to concentrate, but by the time I finally heard the man yell, "Stop!" I'd counted over three hundred. My back was wet with blood and I saw a pool of it around my feet. The thing was, no matter how limp I laid, the chains would always hold me up. I was slumped in an awkward angle and my entire back felt like it was on fire, but there was nothing I could do about it. I'd rather die for my country than give this place an advantage over it. I knew my death would break Natasha's heart...just not in the kind of way mine would have.
"We have ways of making you tell us." The man whispered in my ear. I could see that his shoes were stained with blood. I could feel the tears running down my cheeks, too, but I couldn't wipe them away. I looked up at the man.
"Tell us." He said. I moved my lips but no sound came out.
"Tell us!" He screamed, slapping my face back down to where it hung limply over my chest.
"No." I said firmly.
"So be it." he said, making a gesture to the men. I turned my head around to see what they were doing. They were getting guns.
"You're going to kill me?" I asked. He shook his head.
"No, no. We're going to cripple you." He replied. Then I heard a gun fire and a sharp pain right in the place where my knee bent told me that yes, they were going to cripple me. The shot maybe seven times before I hung limply from the chains. I couldn't stand. If they released my I wouldn't even be able to walk. I screamed out for Natasha to come and the man laughed, grabbing my face, wrenching my head around to face him.
"Who is this Natasha?" He asked. "Little girl waiting at home for you to come back? Because that's not going to happen if you don't tell us."
I stayed quiet. There was no way on Earth that I would tell these idiots anything about my country.
"As you wish." He said, taking the butt of his gun, smashing it into my temple. Then everything went dark.
