A big shout out to my 100th reviewer for this story, Envied kamikaze, and thanks to everyone else as well! I really appreciate all the feedback, plus, 17 reviews for each of the last two chapters? I'm completely blown away and grateful to each and every single one of you.

Chapter 8:

"The tragedy of life is not death,
but what dies inside of us while living."

Ross was beside himself as Stasia ignored the problem and left him to stare at his daughter sitting defiantly inside the room with Bruce Banner's beast, and Natasha Romanoff, a woman who was a monster without a transformation into a monstrosity. Betty should have never been in the room in the first place and she was certainly never supposed to know what Stasia had just told her. He took a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves before he followed after the woman, whom he found moments later flipping through a folder as she sat behind a desk. "You ruined all my progress," he informed her with a growl.

Stasia chuckled as she placed the folder down on the desk and folded her hands atop it. "I find it amusing that you think that at any point during that little waterboading act, you were in fact actually in control of her," she commented with smirk.

"I was in control," Ross reminded her.

"You were never in control, Thaddeus," Stasia politely informed him, "she let it happen so that she could learn what you wanted from her, from both of them. I don't think that I need to remind you who trained her to do that and if I hadn't come in when I had then you would have told her everything. That was something I simply couldn't have."

Ross sneered at her. Stasia was cold, calculating and just downright sinister. He had learned long ago that she held his defiance twenty-seven years ago with contempt and that hadn't changed after all this time. "You could have gotten my daughter killed with that failed incentive of yours," he reminded her, "and I won't forget that."

She snickered as she tilted her head to the side and gave him an unnerving little smile, "You have yet to prove to me that your daughter is of any use to us and until you do then her life means absolutely nothing to me. In fact Thaddeus, I'm beginning to question just how useful you are to me these days."

"You have even less control over Romanoff than I do," Ross told her with a shake of his head. "She's never going to do anything that we ask her to do, not unless you find something to hold over her head," he tacked on.

Yet that smile on her face never faded with his words and that left Ross feeling unsettled and uncertain. "There was a point where you insisted this wasn't the serum's doing, that your daughter could do what Natasha can and talk the beast down, yet I didn't see any sign that could happen ten minutes ago," she reminded him with a laugh.

"You threw her in without warning! She was face to face with his monster once before with no ill-results to her. She just needs to be prepared—"

"No, you proved almost a year ago that there's no preparation necessary for what Natasha does," Stasia interrupted, "because when you had Constantin shoot Banner and turn into The Hulk on the streets of New York, Natasha had no preparation for that and yet she prevailed. No one was injured and she succeeded in turning him back into Banner. Unfortunately your daughter almost got flattened and we didn't even shoot Banner this time."

Ross could actually feel his eye twitching at her comments.

"The problem is in us needing to prove without a shadow of a doubt that it is in fact the serum that connects them and gives Natasha this control over him. Love is useless for what we need and while I used mind altering methods to make certain in her youth that she could never develop those feelings for another, Banner developing those feelings for her was not something that I could control nor was it expected," Stasia pointed out to him next.

Ross chuckled at her choice of words and shook his head. He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, then grinned before he commented, "It must have really pained you to admit you had no control over something."

Stasia did the one thing that continually unnerved him when it came to both her and Natasha Romanoff; she stared at him with empty eyes that held absolutely no emotion and ignored what he said completely as she spoke, "Love is not a luxury that we can afford to have in the way, Thaddeus, and now that I'm thinking about it more clearly perhaps your daughter is of use to us after all."

"You will not use my daughter to go and form some lovers quarrel between Banner and Romanoff," Ross warned her with a glare, "and I refuse to tell her to go in there and and cozy up to that monster."

"Oh you misunderstand, I don't need her to make Bruce love her again," Stasia assured him, "I believe she's already put a bit of a wedge between them just with her presence. Unlike you, I was watching Banner when Elizabeth went into Natasha's room the first time. He was entirely uncomfortable, and given his easy to read face, he didn't seem all too keen to trust in your daughter's sincerity."

"And as happy as I am to hear he's not madly in love with Betty anymore, how does that help you exactly?" Ross dared to question. He had given up early on with trying to understand how a sociopath's mind worked and Stasia was most certainly a sociopath in his books.

"Because Natasha does believe your daughter is innocent in all of this. She had no idea that Banner could see and hear her until he became the beast during your attempt to make her do as you wished, so that conversation with your daughter wasn't played out for any party's benefit, nor was she doing it for Banner's sake," Stasia informed him, "so you see, Elizabeth doesn't actually need to make Banner love her again, I just need her around to keep nudging that wedge further and further until one of them cracks."

He chuckled and shook his head, "You certainly have a strange way of treating Romanoff considering—"

"Considering nothing," Stasia cut him off and again gave him that blank stare, "I do what I have to do for my country just as you do yours."

Ross shook his head and snickered. It was no longer about doing things for his country, this was about making sure that alien armies could be fought off; that the Avengers could be kept in check; that robot armies created by the Avengers wouldn't almost destroy the world. "Whatever helps you sleep at night. So now that you've decided to play Anti-Cupid with those two, you do still have to get Romanoff back out of the room, the room you sent her into, just to remind you who messed that little situation up."

Stasia released a breathy little laugh as she quirked a single eyebrow up at him. "Don't you worry about that. I have a fail-safe in place, one that I've had for twenty years. So she'll either willingly leave that room or Banner will hand her right over to us, but whichever the method she'll be out of that room soon enough, right after I drive that wedge between them just a little bigger."

He was less than thrilled with whatever she seemed to have up her sleeve regarding his daughter, but given that it meant Stasia no longer considered her disposable and she wasn't planning to try and throw Betty at Banner, for now he would have to accept it. Stasia was holding too many of the cards and he needed to get a few more of his own if he was going to even up the playing field. Fortunately Stasia was also aware that she couldn't really take him off the playing field, not when he still held one ace up his sleeve that nobody else would be able to give to her.

But she was also right that love would be useless in both of their plans. While Betty being able to control The Hulk would be useful to him, it would be useless to Red Room. If Betty could do it then he would have to get Banner and Betty out of Sri Lanka before Stasia realized her plans were no longer viable. At least if it truly wasn't the serum that allowed Natasha control then Banner would still be useful to him, though it might also require him to get the assassin out as well, if only to continue to keep Banner in line. He and his beast had both proved already that either of them would follow orders to protect her.

And the beast, The Hulk...regardless of that fact he had actually hurt Natasha when she intervened, it was fascinating when he had actually apologized to her.

That was useful information even though everything else had turned out to be a failure thus far.


Bruce wasn't entirely sure how long the Other Guy actually stayed out but his other half managed to transition back to Bruce himself in a less forced way, much like he had when he had given him back control to save Natasha's life in India. It didn't hurt any less and it certainly didn't leave him with a happy feeling, but at least he wasn't left on the verge of passing out. It was a strange development between him and the Other Guy, as though they had finally reached some level of understanding of one another. He also knew exactly what it was that and the Other Guy were finally able to agree on.

Bruce looked to the side at Natasha.

She was what they finally agreed on. He noted that the red of her hair was dry with unruly waves throughout them and that Betty was fidgeting just beside her. He watched as those fiercely green eyes of Natasha studied him in return, shifted down to his bare chest, and then they slowly raised back up to meet his own eyes with the barest hint of amusement hidden within them. He also remembered that there was a time when he wouldn't have noticed that small detail in her eyes. He wouldn't have noticed the amusement hidden behind the vacancy.

Regardless of the fact that Bruce knew Natasha wouldn't be happy with it, he turned and placed his hands on either side of her face, studying the tiny cut on her cheekbone from where she had been hit by Ross earlier. He needed it, just for that small moment, just to prove to himself that the Other Guy hadn't killed her before. If she was hurt then she was hiding it well, but it wasn't the first hit she had taken from his other half and Bruce wasn't sure it would be the last; and she seemed okay. She didn't say a word or try to make him stop his show of affection, instead she watched him with unblinking eyes and he finally said the only thing his lips would offer, "Natasha..."

The smallest hint that she understood what went through his mind in that moment appeared within her expression and her eyes softened ever-so-slightly before she stated more than asked the question in a neutral tone, "You remember."

"Every second..." Bruce admitted with a frown. He wished he didn't. He wished his mind could simply block it out but instead he was seeing Ross shove her face first into that trough of water over and over again in his mind. "Natasha...you could have stopped them before they ever started but you chose not to, why?!" he whispered the question, knowing that not only was Betty just beside Natasha but that ears were likely listening in and prying eyes were watching them. It was the reason Natasha was mostly hiding behind her mask, the reason why her voice was giving no indication of what she felt.

She was quiet for a moment and Bruce knew that she was having an internal debate on what to say to him. She raised one hand up over top of his hand on her face and her fingertips felt soft as they brushed over his own before she removed his hand, followed by the other, from her face. Then she gave him an answer, "We needed to know what they wanted. Letting him think he was in control meant he would say more than he meant to—"

"So you let him tortureyou?!" Bruce growled out in another whisper.

"Bruce," his name came out of her lips in an even tone but he recognized her attempt to calm him down. It seemed unnecessary to be so hidden, not when their enemies so clearly knew about whatever was between them, but he had to accept that it was just how she operated. She was showing no weakness, not if she could help it.

"I get it. I know it's who you are, I do," he told her with a shake of his head, "and I know that you use that as part of your job but—but I can't—I can't ever watch that again..."

He almost missed it, the smallest flash of guilt that passed over her expression the moment he said it, then gone almost before he could comprehend it. Bruce never meant to make her feel guilty when she was the one who had been tortured. He closed his eyes for a moment when he heard her release the smallest of breaths, and while he understood that she was keeping that small space of distance between them because of their predicament, he hated it all the same. "I thought the Big Guy would have blocked it out," she informed him quietly, "but they want something much more than just studying the Lullaby, Bruce. No matter what it is, I don't plan on giving it to them."

"Not willingly," Bruce reminded her, "Natasha...you know what they're capable of—"

"I lived with it, so yes, I know exactly what they're capable of," Natasha pointed out with a shrug of indifference.

Betty's quiet voice interrupted them before he could give another frustrated comment. She also reminded Bruce of his and Natasha's close proximity in the brunette's presence when she spoke, "You said...or rather Stasia—Stasia said that Natasha's serum is the connection between her and...well, you."

"Not me..." Bruce insisted regardless of his and the Other Guy's new found 'somewhat' understanding with each other.

"Him then," Betty corrected, "and I'm not saying she's right, but if she is? Imagine what they could do..."

He thought a little more clearly for the first time and Betty's words hit him with a big dose of reality. "An army...they want an army they can control..." he mumbled out.

"Even if that's true, if the serum is what makes this work then on the end of making Hulks, all they'd need is to gamma radiate people with the serum in the room. But me? They spent sixteen years on me alone. Twenty-eight girls and only one comes out in the end. They would never be able to make an army in their lifetime and probably not even in the next," came Natasha's input.

"Maybe they keep all the girls—" Bruce attempted but he never got to finish.

"That would never work," she assured him, "Red Room is effective because it's kill or be killed. It would lose any semblance of working if they took that aspect away. They wouldn't get another me doing it that way, and given that I'm not dead, I'm clearly still what they want."

It came out before Bruce could stop it, "They could never make another you because they didn't make you at all, Natasha. You made yourself and you did it despite them."

It also didn't have the intended effect because Natasha merely stared at him and blinked a few times before she gave the barest of shrugs, "Considering the things I've done both for them and 'despite' them, that's not really saying all that much."

Betty seemed to know to change the subject yet again before it could turn into a debate because her question came out of left field, and though the answer to it was obvious given Natasha's appearance earlier, she voiced it anyways, "My father...he didn't just hit you, he tortured you. He really did it, didn't he?"

Bruce remained silent at that. He knew Betty had always tried to see the good in Ross but it seemed now that the veil covering her eyes was completely gone. Natasha was watching the brunette with a blank face before the dismissive response came from those full lips, "Personally, I think he could have at least put more effort into it. I hadn't showered since before he first started coming after me so at least now my hair is clean, but unfortunately that only counts for my head. Maybe for round two I'll request a complete hose down."

He recognized it for what it was; Natasha was simply being Natasha with her dark humor while also demeaning Ross should he be listening in. Betty was staring at her with clear uncertainty and Bruce couldn't help that the barest smile formed upon his lips. That sort of dismissive response and empty expression was the reason that he originally hadn't been too fond of Natasha. It was almost funny that now it had morphed into being one of the things he found endearing about her, probably because he was slowly learning that just because her face said nothing didn't mean that she actually felt nothing.

It was strange when the silence once again resounded around the three of them. Most men would be thrilled to have two women, each of them stunning, sitting by their side. Bruce couldn't find it in him to be one of of those men when he loved one of the women and years ago had loved the other. It was a downright mortifying situation that he had never once imagined himself to be in. Tony would be beside himself if he could see it. The billionaire would be making joke after joke, and that thought at least calmed him down a little. At least he could be grateful for these stupid pants that Tony and Natasha had made. It would have been truly awkward if he was forced to sit here buck naked with the two of them.

Once again he felt a fierce gaze on him but this time it wasn't Natasha's. He shifted his own eyes towards the safety glass wall and saw Stasia back on the other side. Those blue eyes were ice as she tilted her head to the side while she studied him. There was a time when he thought Natasha was the most unnerving person in the world when she would look at somebody like that but he had just been proven wrong. This was the woman who made the redheaded assassin beside him the way she was. The sort of person who would take a four-year-old child and trained her to spy and kill.

"Natasha."

Stasia's voice was as cold as her eyes and equally as unnerving, then he watched as Natasha returned that empty look with equal fervor, not bothering to give the older woman a verbal response. Bruce had never seen anything like it before in his life. The two of them stared directly at each other in a battle that he wasn't sure he would ever fully comprehend.

"I'm giving you a chance to walk out of there of your own volition," Stasia told her next.

Natasha never batted an eye but Bruce could sense the discomfort radiating off of her beside him. Whether she admitted it or not, showed it or not, Natasha was effected by the presence of Stasia. He also couldn't fault her for it, though he admired the strength of her conviction when she responded with a stern and simple, "No."

Stasia released a small sigh of obvious disappointment. "Very well," she agreed.

Bruce watched the woman step out of their sight before he glanced back over at Natasha. The redhead wasn't just effected, he could practically feel the uneasiness reverberate off of her. He could also see the uneasiness plain as day on Betty's face. It seemed Stasia made all three of them uncomfortable but Bruce's only worry was that he could actually see Natasha's in her eyes. It wasn't completely hidden this time and that bothered him on a new level. "Natasha..." he murmured, then he watched as she glanced over at him, "she's about to do something...isn't she?"

Natasha gave the barest of nods to acknowledge his question before she answered him vocally, "And at the very least I imagine it'll be more inventive than shoving me face first into water." Betty actually flinched a little at the words and just as her mouth opened to speak, Natasha made sure to cut her off with a dismissive shake of her head, "Don't apologize for his actions, Betty."

"I swear...I never knew about any of this," Betty insisted, "if I did—"

"I don't consider his actions a reflection on you," Natasha assured her, "you're not your father. I knew that the second that you first came into my room."

Betty gave the smallest nod but she didn't say another word.

Stasia walked back into their line of sight with a folder in her hands and Bruce felt his brow wrinkle as she flipped it open. She removed a sheet of paper and then flicked those blue eyes in their direction. "Did you think that the file you found on yourself in the archipelagos held the truth, Natasha?" she questioned. "Some of it was true, that way you would believe you had the real thing, but other parts were lies...and quite a lot was omitted," she told them next, "so, now do you want to leave that room of your own accord?"

There it was. Bruce could feel the anxiety coming off Natasha even if there was no visible sign, yet once more she gave the same answer with the same conviction, "No."

One corner of Stasia's lips quirked into a sideways smile as she looked back down at the sheet of paper. "I haven't done this in fifteen years and I'm a little rusty," the blonde told them, "so I hope you don't mind that I read from the sheet."

That anxiety was coming off of Natasha in waves and Bruce looked over at her. If he thought she would listen, he would have just told her to agree and walk out of the room, but he knew for a fact that she would never do it of her own volition. Then again, now that he thought about it maybe it wasn't Natasha who was the anxious one, maybe it was him. His eyes shifted to see Natasha's pinky finger just barely tapping the floor and he realized it was probably both of them. She was showing a sign. Natasha didn't give things away, not unless she wanted to, but he was almost certain she wasn't even aware of that single finger that was fidgeting.

"Viduam. Requiem. Oculos."

Bruce narrowed his eyes in confusion. Was the woman speaking Latin? He wasn't familiar with it on any level but he was at least smart enough to know that she was speaking a single word at a time. It wasn't a sentence. Stasia was reading a list of words.

"Bruce...something's wrong," Betty's words made him look back at Natasha and he saw what she meant in an instant.

The redhead's eyes were dazed and she looked like she was swaying a little in place. Bruce didn't hesitate to place a hand on her shoulder to steady her, "Nat..."

"Prope."

"What the hell are you doing to her?!" Bruce growled out the question at Stasia. Natasha's breath hitched and he turned back to her, placing his hand on her other shoulder and moving himself in front of her to put himself between her and Stasia. "Nat, look at me," he ordered, but it was like nobody was home because those green eyes, normally fierce and unyielding, were now glassy and on the verge of rolling to the back of her head.

"Somnun."

That last word seemed to be the final straw. Natasha fell forward the moment the word left Stasia's mouth. Bruce got a better hold on her as her head rested on his shoulder and he could feel his heart racing the moment he felt how shallow her breaths were on his bare skin. "Natasha..." he murmured her name but it was ineffective, just as ineffective as trying to shake her.

Betty was leaning over now, her face close to Natasha's and her hand resting on the redhead's cheek, but Natasha's open eyes never responded; no dilation of the pupils, nothing. "Bruce, she's catatonic..." she whispered.

It didn't stop him from trying to get through to her. He placed his hand on her cheek but she never once reacted. Her eyes stayed glazed and she didn't move an inch.

"Bonum nox noctis." Natasha's eyes drooped to a close and he felt dangerously close to losing control as he looked back to Stasia behind the glass. She was folding the sheet in half and tucking it into her pocket as her eyes stared directly back at him. "Now the choice falls to you, Doctor Banner," she informed him, "but the end result will be the same. You will give her to me. It's just a matter of if you do it now, or it you do it later. So you can put her by the door and let us take Natasha out of the room or you can sit and try to be defiant, but we're patient and we can wait until you realize she's dehydrating and then you'll do the same thing anyways. Would you prefer now to save yourself the headache that is very clearly growing or later?"

Bruce didn't know what to do if he was being honest with himself. Natasha's breaths were slow and even. At least that helped him to breathe just a little bit easier.

"Maybe she's lying..." Betty offered up softly.

It was possible but Bruce sincerely doubted it. A handful of words put Natasha to sleep and neither shaking her nor talking to her had any effect towards waking her. He imagined there was another set of words needed to bring the redhead back to reality, but none of this had been in her Red Room file, not that he was aware of. "What you just did, it wasn't in her file," Bruce stated as he stared at the woman.

The corner of Stasia's lips curled into a half-smile as she shook her head. "Her file? You really thought we would leave her actual records for her to find so easily?" she questioned. "We trained killers, Doctor, killers that resided in a child's body with a child's mind," she reminded him, "there needs to be a back-up should one of them become...out of control."

"You talk like they weren't people," Betty mentioned, "they were kids. She's a human being and you treat her like she's—"

"Natasha is a weapon, Miss Ross, not a person," Stasia informed the brunette, "and for our needs we've allowed her that essence of free will for the last eleven years, but that end now." Once again Bruce felt the anger flare up at the comment but Stasia was speaking again before he could say anything, "Do you believe she loves you, Doctor Banner?"

Bruce frowned in an instant. "She feels as much as she can, as much as you haven't already taken from her," he told her, "and being brainwashed for twenty years doesn't make her less human than anyone else, it makes her a better person than most for becoming good despite you."

"But you love her regardless of her rather shallow emotional capacity," Stasia said next, "I find that fascinating. You had to know or at least have some idea that she lacked the ability to return your sentiments, so I suppose that does speak well to how alluring she can be."

Bruce pursed his lips shut, staring at the older woman but not commenting on that. He supposed she hadn't really voiced it as a question but rather as a fact, so responding to it wasn't actually necessary anyways. She knew what he felt for Natasha whether he gave it words or not. He supposed his actions spoke more than words probably ever could.

"And because you love her, I don't think you're going to test just how patient we can be," she also told him.

And she was right. He couldn't just leave Natasha unconscious until she dehydrated. To be honest, he was ridiculously tired of being given no real choice. He understood now why Natasha had been trying so hard to get him to allow her to leave in India. This had been exactly what she had been trying to avoid by trying to run, trying to hide, and by attempting to leave every other person out of this. She didn't want to be used against him the way she was being used now, but he would rather have her used against him than have her dead, even if she couldn't quite believe she was worth saving.

So he started to get up, grateful when Betty helped him since he still had a hold of Natasha.

"Good, now place her here by the door," Stasia ordered.

Once he was all the way up he got his other arm under Natasha's knees and lifted her. It was something that Bruce, not The Hulk, had only done one other time back in Russia and he almost forgot just how small she actually was. For a woman who could use her entire body as a weapon, use only her legs to flip a fully grown man over and onto the ground, she was remarkably light.

It was only when he reached the door that Stasia spoke again and he looked up at her words, "You want to kill me, I can see it in your eyes, Doctor."

She wasn't wrong. It was that same feeling he had with Wanda at the Avenger's Tower half a year ago. Twice now he felt like he could kill someone without a hint of turning green and that left him more uneasy than the last time with Wanda. He had chalked that first time up to frayed nerves and leftover remnants of the vision and aftermath that Wanda had done to him, but this time—this time it was all him. "You really have no idea," Bruce informed her as he placed Natasha carefully down on the floor beside the door. The rapid beating of his heart told him just how much he hated doing this and he hesitated in leaving her there, resting the back of his hand on her cheek.

He glanced over when Betty crouched down beside them and she gave him a halfhearted smile that didn't reach her eyes as she spoke, "I'll go with her. I know that's not a huge help but at least then she's not alone..."

It was probably ridiculous that Betty's offer did make him feel somewhat better, but Natasha did seem to hold more faith in his former flame than he did and he supposed he could at least trust her instincts. "You don't have to do that," he assured her.

"She protected me," came that reminder of what transpired hours ago, "so yeah, I sort of think I do."

"Now that we've decided both of them are leaving, Doctor, I'm going to need you to go back to the other side of the room," Stasia informed him.

Bruce released a deep breath before he stood up, ignoring the painful reminder that he was getting too old to be crouching when his knees felt creaky, and he backed away to the other side of the room. Backing away didn't stop him from staring Stasia down, which seemed to amuse the woman to no end, though she never said a word. The second he reached the wall at the other end, the door slid open and it took all his restraint not to move or turn green when two guards pulled Natasha out.

Instead of letting Betty out, Stasia appeared in the doorway and shoved the brunette back inside and Bruce felt his brow wrinkle in an instant as the door closed between the two.

He watched Betty's blue eyes look back at him and then the door that trapped her with him. "Let her out," Bruce told the blonde as she chuckled on the other side of the glass wall.

"I don't need her, so no" Stasia informed him. "As long as she's in there, her father will be much more cooperative and a lot less mouthy," and she gestured to Natasha who hung by her arms between the two guards as they dragged her down the hall, "because I have the only insurance that your beast won't mow his little princess down." Stasia chuckled as she tapped the door between herself and Betty, "Don't worry dear, maybe I'll decide your useful to me in some other way."

Bruce rubbed at his face as the hall emptied of Stasia, the guards and Natasha. All he could do was sit down and try to calm himself because right now he didn't quite trust the Other Guy with Betty's life, not after the last time where he had hurt Natasha.

The gentle yet uncertain hand on his shoulder made him look at Betty as she sat down beside him. "I'm sorry, Bruce...for my father and what he did—both back then and now."

He took a deep breath before he nodded his head. "Natasha was right..." he told her, "you don't have to apologize for him."


Stalingrad, Russia
January, 2000.

The blindfold was over Natalia's eyes and her hands were tied at her wrists in front of her. There were still twelve other girls left, a total of thirteen if she counted herself among them, but she didn't. She stopped considering herself part of the group years ago. There was no room to believe she could fail, not if she wanted to live.

She counted the minutes into hours, her feet having long ago gone numb from the snow and freezing weather, but she never moved. They told her not to move. That meant you didn't sit, didn't take a step, you just stayed in place. Her ears, even against the whipping and whistling of the harsh wind around her, told her that at least two of the girls were no longer standing. To be frank, she wasn't quite sure they were sitting either. Two girls had taken off at a run shortly after they were left alone here, but given the gunshots Natalia heard not long after, she assumed that they were no longer alive.

They called it a gauntlet, though instead of surviving a harsh obstacle course, it was surviving the harshness of the Russian winter. Less than thirty minutes went by before she heard two more girls go down. She knew that meant that even if they weren't dead now, they would be when they were retrieved to go back to the facility.

She felt the pins and needles fight through the numbness of her feet as she curled and uncurled her toes continuously. It wasn't much but it was better than completely losing the feeling and winding up the next one fallen. Only a few minutes went by before she heard yet another girl fall.

They were beginning to drop like flies. Her instincts told her that any of the last six of them could be the next and last to fall. They told them that only when five girls were left standing would it be over. Of course, now that she though about it, technically they only said not to move anywhere. They said nothing about moving a single body part.

Natalia lifted her foot straight up and then swung it sideways. It met with no one and she had to assume that was a girl who was already down or one of the ones who ran right in the beginning. She planted her foot back down, raised her other boot, and did the same. Her foot connected with the shin of the girl next to her and took her down in an instant. She heard the girl curse in Russian, recognized her as Tatiana, then heard her try to scramble back up. The gunshot made sure the girl didn't.

"Remove your blindfolds."

Natalia removed hers and met the icy gaze of Madame B. The woman was smirking at her, clearly amused that none of the others girls had thought to do the same, or perhaps amused that Natalia had been the only one willing to do it. Even so she watched as Madame B waved the other girls to be taken away and now Natalia was the only girl left besides the girls quivering and shaking in the snow.

"Well done, Natalia. Now finish off the other girls and you can come home," Madame B ordered, slicing the rope around her hands with the knife and then placing it in her hands.

She tightened her fingertips around the hilt and never wavered as she went to the nearest girl. She only had to take out four of them herself, and it wasn't so hard when she told herself that she was actually doing them a favor, putting them out of their misery.

So she did it without thought, without hesitation. She would have preferred a quick death over freezing in the snow if she were them.


Natasha snapped her eyes open in an instant, instinctively reaching up and grasping her hand tightly around the throat of whoever's hand had just been on her. Her heart was beating rapidly as she squeezed her fingers tighter. It wasn't just self-preservation now.

All she could see was red.

All she wanted to do was kill.


On a side note, this time I can't blame writing on my tablet. I sort of got distracted playing the new Star Ocean game. Had to convince myself to stop playing it and finally finish writing this for you guys. Sorry about that!

On another side note, happy 4th of July!

And credit for Natasha's comment on her hair being clean goes to Black Victor Cachat xD