Cecy had realised, as she screamed, that she was going to be brainwashed. She had seen enough victims of the Faustus method while working with Fitzsimmons to know what was going to happen to her. She knew that she was going to be taken to the brink of exhaustion to break her mentality completely, and after that point she couldn't be saved. She would no longer be in control of her own thoughts or actions, which petrified her.
So, she had devised a plan.
She would go through all the stages that the Faustus method victims would go through – the defiance, the anger, the exhaustion and finally the acceptance. She decided to go through the motions – only sped up a bit.
So when Ward looked into her eyes and asked her to comply, she accepted, and hoped she was convincing enough because she didn't know how much longer she could have held out for.
Ward looked straight into her eyes, looking like he could see right through her. She gazed back as vacantly as she could. He opened his mouth to say something, but another bang sounded and this time it shook the walls as well as the floor. Ward undid the contraption that was holding her eyelids open and her hands tied back, and she fell to the floor, feeling dizzy and weak. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and never wanted to open them again. However, that was no longer her decision to make.
"Open your eyes, Agent," Ward commanded and Cecy immediately opened them again. He stared into them again and seemed satisfied with what he saw there. "Hail Hydra."
"Hail Hydra," Cecy replied, tasting bile in her mouth.
Amanda smiled widely. "Finally!" she exclaimed as she hugged Cecy. "We did it, Grant, she's on our side!"
Ward grinned back and swung his arm around her. "Yes we did," he agreed as he kissed the side of her forehead. "But we're not done yet."
Almost as soon as he said this, the whole room shook so violently that Cecy saw various objects come tumbling off shelves and tables, before they were plunged into darkness. A few seconds later the emergency lights kicked in, and Cecy suddenly realised that she had no idea what day or time of the day it was.
The door banged open and a breathless HYDRA agent stood in the doorway, holding a rifle tightly in his hands. Behind him Cecy could see other agents racing through the corridor and shouting as alarms went off above them.
"Sir, they've taken out the power, our defence is severely compromised," he gasped, "We can't hold out for much longer, we need to get out."
"Thank you, Stevens," Ward replied as Amanda looked at him in confusion, "But I believe we have procedures in place for situations such as these-"
"Sir, please-"
"Tell the defence department I've authorised the use of Blacklock," Ward commanded.
The already pale faced agent went sheet white but nodded. "Yes sir. Hail Hydra."
"Hail Hydra," Ward replied and he left, slamming the door behind him.
"Grant, what's going on?" Amanda asked as Ward began to pace the room, pulling weapons and guns from the most unlikely of hiding places, and passing them to her.
"SHIELD and the Avengers are trying to take the building," Ward informed her distractedly.
"But how did they find us?" Amanda asked in confusion.
"Ask your sister," he replied and they both turned to Cecy.
"Cess?" Amanda asked doubtfully.
"Yes?"
"How do SHIELD and the Avengers know where we are?"
Cecy automatically put a hand to her ear. Her earpiece was still in. She slipped it out and held it, palm up, in her hand. "It has a tracker in it," she heard herself saying.
"But the electromagnetic pulse I sent out should have short circuited it," Amanda protested.
"Stark technology, combined with Fitz's old prototypes. The tracker isn't electronically based, it's biologically based, so it can't be destroyed electronically."
"Leopald Fitz is behind this?" Ward asked as he took the earpiece from her and examined it carefully.
"And Tony Stark."
Another HYDRA agent burst into the room. "Sir, it's worse than we thought," he exclaimed, "They've hit both our other bases now too. Sitwell sent a message from London. Everyone there has been either killed or arrested, and it's the same in Atlanta."
"Right. Take me to the defence department" Ward commanded, and he started after the other man. "We need to hold this base." He turned back to Amanda at the doorway. "Stay here and watch her," he commanded. He pushed a gun into her hands and kissed her hard on the lips.
"Be careful," she whispered as she rested her forehead against his.
"You too." He smiled at her, kissed her forehead and took off after the other agent.
Amanda shut the door behind him and sat on the ground with her back to it, holding the gun into her chest, her head down.
"You sure the safety's on?" Cecy joked.
Amanda looked up at her with over-bright eyes.
Cecy sat down next to her sister and Amanda put her head on her shoulder.
"What's going on, Mandy?" Cecy asked as they heard more agents rushing up and down the corridors, shouting and yelling, and the reoccurring bang that shook the room. They were getting less and less frequent now, and Cecy hoped it meant that the Avengers had the upper hand.
"What do you mean?"
"As in, why bring me here? What's my "new meaning and purpose" and all that?"
Amanda sighed and sat up. "I'll show you. Come on."
She stood up and held out a hand to Cecy and helped her up too. They walked over and faced a big metal bookcase. Amanda gestured for Cecy to hold on to the shelf part and, in full on James Bond style, she pulled the third book in on the top shelf and they swung around with the bookcase until they were in a completely different room. It reminded Cecy of an old style interrogation room – it was dingy and dimly lit. There was a table with files and sheets spread out on it, a whiteboard mounted on one wall and a blackboard mounted on the opposite, full of maps, diagrams and notes, joined together with red string. Where the boards ran out of space, the wall was used instead, and boxes of more files lined the walls too.
Cecy brushed her hand along the table in amazement, recognising Amanda's handwriting on the walls and on notebook pages dispersed all over the table. "What is all this?" she asked in amazement.
"How we're going to take down SHIELD," she answered with a grin, as she pushed a file into Cecy's hands, titled "The Winter Soldier."
Thanks for the reviews and follows and stuff, haven't been able to update as often as I thought I would, sorry!
I know this chapter is short, but I felt bad for not updating in a while!
Hope you all enjoyed! :)