Chapter 11-Natasha
Natasha smiled as the number 5 written on the left of her paper signified the ending of her little game.
She didn't even have to think before she wrote, 'You're the only good thing in my life. '
[8 years earlier, Budapest]
Natasha stood at the window of the shophouse, on the bank of the Danube River.
In a few hours, she was to set off for the Budapest Opera Ball. Thirteen diplomats were there. All thirteen were enemies of Russia. All thirteen were her targets.
She was supposed to be prepping herself, to be running her undercover alias through her head, but she wasn't. She stood at the window, looking outside.
Outside, throngs of people moved to and fro, in and out of her range of vision. Innocent people.
Not that it mattered to her.
She was a cold-blooded killer. Not in the least innocent. That was long time ago. She didn't even remember the last time she smiled or laughed. Not that there was anything to smile at or laugh world just wasn't her friend. If it was, why would it take her parents from her, and leave her with nothing but a broken heart?
She felt a tug at the corner of her eyes, but she blinked a few times and it went away.
"Hands up, Black Widow. "
Her heart lurched. This was it.
She whipped around and found herself staring into a knife...no not a knife...
An arrow.
Someone was pointing an arrow at her. She wondered which idiot would kill with a medieval weapon, but medieval or not it was going to skewer her.
Then her gaze flicked away from the arrowhead, and straight into a pair of slate-grey eyes. Cold, hardened grey. The eyes of yet another fellow killer. Another person trained to lie, hurt and murder.
But deep under the solid greyness, she could barely make out something...different. Something human, something good, even. Something the young, grey-eyed assassin was obviously trying to hide.
He kept the bowstring tense, but it soon became clear that he was at war. At war in his mind, at war with himself. Natasha couldn't take it. She was trained to fight, and eventually to die, so why not make it quick?
"Just do it," she growled, her voice sharp and harsh like icicles.
Then, it was as if time slowed down. Her stomach clenched. The man's fingers quivered and unfurled. The The arrow tore through her line of vision.
Then it embedded itself on the wall.
This assassin, this man destined to live a blood-stained lie...he spared her. He let the arrow fly away and he did the first good thing she'd experienced. The first good thing anyone had ever done for her.
His eyes met the ground.
Then he said wearily, "Tell you what; why don't you come work for us instead?"
[present day]
Budapest. Where she realised, for the first time in her life, that there were good people on this earth, that not everyone wanted to use her like her handlers did.
