Chapter 2
Bella woke up with a stiff body and a complaining stomach. She rolled out of her thin blanket, frowning when she could feel the pain starting again. It was showing up early today, fortunately it was not so bad as it could be, she could take it without having to get more pills (which was good because she didn't have a lot of those). She limped to the bathroom carrying her backpack along, hitting the lights, her eyes immediately going to where the mirror would be reflecting her image, if she hadn't blocked it with duct tape and a torn piece of a box she found. Her image was not something she liked to see.
She undressed and took a shower, changing her underwear, but not her clothes, since she used those until she had to throw them away and get others. After being clothed, she started cleaning the place, careful to get cleaning gloves over her bare right hand (her left one already was gloved anyway). The parts where she had touched or that could have her DNA, cleaning the whole place would be an impossible task.
She left the mirror for last, taking off the tape and cardboard from the front of it and cleaning anywhere she might have touched when covering it in the first place. Her eyes locking into the eyes on the broken surface of the mirror.
A too pale face stared in the pieces, right back at her, honey-colored eyes framed by dark circles and an oval skinny face. And the left side, scarred.
The burn scar climbing from under the collar by the left side of the neck, reaching the middle of her cheek and the bottom of her ear. Almost reaching her mouth and her eye, fortunately it didn't and she could still see and move her lips without problem. A small part of where she used to have hair was gone too, from behind her ear, but not much, very little, if someone would look at it, they would barely notice it. But she noticed, she was very aware.
Bella raised her hoodie and continued cleaning, not looking at the mirror again.
She again thought about letting her hair grow, to cover it better. But quickly changed her mind, long hair was more work, more water, more product, more time. She didn't want the nuisance. She always had short hair, she was not sure she would get used to it. And, of course, no one would ever see. She was always alone, and when she was not, her hoodie or whatever other piece of clothing she had, would cover it.
When she was done, with everything packed, her precious computer too, she left the apartment, taking the electrical pieces that she could take from the parts she had fixed.
She had to get food and see if she could buy or steal some parts she needed.
Then she would go to whatever place she could get a ride to and continue to look over a very interesting thing she had found. Whispers that Hydra was doing something. Making something destructive. It definitely sounded like something she would love to go against.
It had been a few weeks, and Maria Hill still had not been able to pinpoint an exact location on Bella. In moments like this she really missed SHIELD resources, in special people, the Avengers had tech, but SHIELD had a lot of agents, and they could be assigned to single missions, like finding someone.
Maria knew the cyber vigilante continued looking into Hydra, given the amount of 'gifts' law agencies had been receiving all over the world about the terrorist organization's allies and agents.
She could not find where Bella was, the girl had no bank accounts that she could trace money transfers from. She always used cash, she knew how technology could be used to track her and how to live of the grid in order not to get caught, and had no problem sleeping in broken down places, that were not possible to track. Even when Maria had several agents around the world to help her, it was hard to find Bella.
Hill could hope that Bella would stick solely to investigating, not actually getting in trouble. She hoped, but something was telling her that Bella would not be away from a mess.
