Here is the second part.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Previously"They recruited you when you were 8?" she said disbelieving.
Zara sighed and controlled her emotions before she spoke "I was part of an experiment. I was the youngest, there were 8 of us ranging from 8 to 14" she looked at the ground "I'm the only one left now, Edek was killed six weeks ago on a mission. He was just 16" Her hands became fists and she picked up a twig stripping it of branches and bark. Sydney and Vaughn shared a glance.
"What was the experiment?" asked Sydney after a minute
"We were trained like adults and they watched us as we went around and how we killed and reacted to other people" she sighed "They put us into school but one kid Matthias attacked a teacher and nearly killed them so they pulled us out but carried on the training. Whenever we did anything wrong even talking back we were punished and if we refused to do something they tortured us and also made us invulnerable to it at the same time"
"Can you tell us the names of the others?" asked Vaughn taking a notebook and a pen out of his pocket.
She nodded "Matthias Anderlohr, Helen Smith, Olive Sperelli, Anya Vanisovitch, Shen-Lei Sying, Jacque Hagg, Edek Licht and me." Her face was expressionless "They died in that order" she sighed.
"Where is your family?" asked Sydney.
"My parents are dead I…I know that for sure" she closed her eyes and snapped the twig "I pretty sure at least one of my two older brothers are dead and I have no idea about my sister. I haven't seen any of them since my parents died three years ago."
"How did your parents die Zara?" Sydney asked gently.
"They were killed when I refused to do something, they told me not to. They died and I…" she took a shuddering breath calming herself down falling into an stoic state "I had to watch. That was the real moment that I knew that they weren't CIA or any other organisation for good. We've been trying to find a way to bring them down for about three or four years now."
"We?" asked Vaughn
"Me and the other kids that weren't dead" she looked at him "But we couldn't stop doing anything they would have killed us if they found out. I used to make I injured instead of killed when I could, all of us did"
"Did they ever find out?" asked Sydney. Zara shook her head,
"They got suspicious sometimes but we put it down to not be able to cope which just meant more training and their… experiments to see why."
"Who are the Covenant partners?"
She started to rattle off names and Vaughn wrote them down. They asked more questions for about an hour or so and Zara answered them fully all except ones that directly involved her family and sometimes what had happened. They didn't press her, she was getting more expressionless each time they asked them.
Vaughn went out of the clearing first and it was only to get some coffee before they went back to the headquarters. Zara went out before Sydney and sat on a bench close to the trees. Sydney followed her and touched her shoulder as she reached the bench and sat down next to her. Zara looked at her then back out over the park.
"It's amazing isn't it?" she said and Sydney frowned.
"What?"
"Well Ms. Bristow I should be in school right now. If I were…at home I would be studying for my SAT's or actually more likely mucking around with my friends" she gestured to the people in the park "Like these people. They don't know how lucky they are do they?" she looked up at Sydney.
"I know what you mean" she said sighing "And Zara call me Sydney or Syd if you want, calling me Ms. Bristow makes me feel old" Zara smiled. "You know I'm going to help you find your family"
"Why?"
"Because everyone deserves to have some kind of family. I know more than most what a dysfunctional family feels like"
"Your mother is Irina Derevko isn't she?"
"Yes" Sydney looked at her "How do you know her?"
"Oh it's alright she isn't part of it" said Zara reading more into Sydney's question "I know about her from them telling me about your father and some of the ex-KGB talk about her too."
"Have you ever met her?" Zara shook her head. There was a weighted pause which Sydney broke "Where has Vaughn got to?" she asked looking around.
"No idea" she said and then looked closer at Sydney "You were as well weren't you" she said with wide eyes. Sydney just looked at her in shock "That proves it. How did you come out alive?"
"I don't know" Sydney said "I was with them for 2 years but I don't remember anything"
"You're lucky then" she said and leant back stretching against the bench.
"Only the dreams to contend with" muttered Sydney thinking out loud by accident but Zara heard.
"Yeah they are…mucked up" she said "To put it lightly" Sydney chuckled and nodded. "There are months of my life I simply can't remember. I think I deliberately blocked them out. They buggered your life up don't they?" she asked "That's why you want to take them down as well as them being evil bastards who enjoy bringing pain"
"How can you read people so easily?"
"6 years of having to work out whether or not you should kill someone gives you a good insight into that" she said a wry smile on her face.
"Yeah I suppose it would" she sighed then jumped slightly as Vaughn put his hand on her shoulder.
"Calm down Syd" he said smiling at her and she just pulled her shoulder away from him and stood up. He sighed and looked at her with sad eyes. Sydney couldn't even look at him. "We have to get back" he said and they all followed him to her car. The ride back was silent and they all seemed to prefer it that way. Once they got back to headquarters Zara was whisked away quickly down to the cells so no one could see her. She was put in one of the high security cells oddly enough opposite Irina. She looked surprised as the young girl was put into the cell.
"Hello" said Irina and Zara looked up in shock she hadn't realised that there was anyone else here.
"Ah hello" she said looking through the glass at the older woman.
"What are you here for?"
"Information" she said looking around.
"Ok" said Irina looking at her as she looked down at her feet "Are you ok?"
"Oh yes" she said looking up with a slight smile. "Excuse me but who are you?"
"Oh sorry I didn't introduce myself, my name is Irina Derevko" Zara looked at her 'I should have known' she thought to herself 'Sydney looks just like her'. Irina asked a question "What is you name?"
"Uh Little" she said quickly deciding to keep to her nickname here.
"Little?" said Irina with raised eyebrows
"Yes I don't like my name so everyone calls me that" she said shrugging hoping she would drop the subject.
"Ok" she said "How long are you staying here then?"
"I have no idea" said Zara. At that moment Sydney walked into the room carrying a few files. She put them on the floor and turned to her mother.
"Hey Mum"
"Hello Sydney" she said putting her hand against the glass as Sydney did the same.
"How are you?"
"I'm ok. Are you?" and Sydney nodded "Have you met my new cell mate?" she asked and pointed at Zara who looked up and waved.
"Yes we met this morning" she said "Oh and Little I have the photos for you to identify"
"Oh ok" said Zara as Sydney motioned to the guard who opened the door and trained his gun on Zara as Sydney put the files on the table.
"This should be over soon" she said smiling at the younger girl who seemed uncomfortable in this environment.
"It's better than most" she said with a small smile "And I'm safe here" Sydney smiled and walked out. She talked to her mother for a few minutes before leaving. Zara sat on her bed and looked at the files.
"They aren't going to bite you know" said Irina with a chuckle as Zara jumped and looked at her.
"I know they aren't" she said getting up and walking over to the table. She picked up two of the files and sat on the floor with it.
"You can sit on the chair"
"I know, I like the floor better though" said Zara looking straight at her. Irina was taken back by the intensity of the young girls gaze.
"Where are you from?"
"Originally," she thought "Australia but I moved to England when I was six months old then to Russia when I was five then back to England when I was eight." She sighed "After that all over the place"
"Your parents must have moved around a lot then" she said.
"Yeah" she said opening the folder "Something like that at least" she really didn't want to talk about it anymore. Irina didn't ask anymore questions just watched the girl neatly pile the photos into a pile then look hard at each one. She set them down in three piles. One's she'd seen, not sure and no.
After an hour the no pile was a lot bigger than the other two put together which she was glad about. The other two were at any time not just them being Covenant. She drew the not sure pile closer to her and then lay back with it beside her she looked at them again then decided that they were all ok. She picked up the ones she had seen and looked at them again.
"You, I've seen before but where" she said looking at a picture of a thin man with blonde hair "I tried to kill you" she shook her head and put it down she did the same with the others and they were all people she had seen on brief tapes or tried to kill in a few cases but she had another folder to go through yet. She sighed and stood up stretching before neatly putting all the photos away into the files.
She decided to have a break before starting on the next two files. She put the two she was holding on the table then took her sweatshirt off leaving a loosely fitting blue t-shirt. She stood in the middle of the room and closed her eyes before going into fighting stance. She still had her eyes closed as she started to move with very precise movements occasionally flipping onto her hands and spinning round. Irina watched this with interest she was well aware that the kind of moves that the child was doing took many years to master. She was surprised with how comfortable she was with the moves she was with it. At that moment she was on her shoulders and then pushed herself up twisting in the air to land with her feet together facing Irina. She didn't even stumble. She opened her eyes and blushed as she saw the older woman watching she had forgotten that she wasn't alone.
"Where did you learn that?" asked Irina.
"Around" she said and put her jumper back on.
"Oh no you don't. You don't just pick that up off the streets I know that"
"Lessons from the age of four" she said and picked up the other two files before sitting on the floor again.
"And you do that as a break?"
"Keeps me in practice" she shrugged "And I enjoy the art itself I don't like fighting but you have to be prepared"
"Very true" Irina replied and Zara pulled out all the photos and again piled them up.
As Zara was looking at the photos Sydney and Vaughn were taking it in turns to watch her. Sydney was watching at the moment and had seen her impressive display.
Everything was fairly quiet in the office, only the four of them knew of Zara's real identity. They had kept it on the low at the moment and sent the word round was that she was a Covenant contact that was willing to talk. People wanted to talk to her all day but no one was allowed in except the Bristow's and Vaughn. Lauren was pestering Vaughn for information but he wasn't telling her anything.
Weiss, having gotten bored, wandered over to where Sydney was sitting and leaned on the back of her chair.
"What you watching?" he said and looked up "Oh interesting" the sarcasm evident.
"Shut up Weiss"
"But it is you're watching your mother and a kid, gripping TV" he said and smiled at her. She shook her head and laughed slightly.
"I have to watch her" she said "She's identifying people"
"She's having as much fun as us then" he said. Sydney just shook her head again then looked at Weiss.
"Don't you have any work to do?"
"I was told to come and help you" she raised her eyebrows.
"Really?"
"No I'm just sick of Lauren pestering me to see if Mike has told me anything he hasn't told her" Sydney sighed. "She's being really annoying, Mike looks as if he's going to go mad" At this moment Vaughn was coming towards them looking angry "Look" said Weiss pointing at him.
"I see what you mean" she said as she looked over at him. He looked up at caught her watching, she quickly looked away but he kept looking at her and then started to walk towards the two of them.
"He's coming to find solace" said Weiss
"Shut up Weiss" said Sydney hiding her embarrassment and hitting him on the arm.
He yelped "Syd jeeze was that necessary" he jumped up from beside her and holding his arm.
"Get a bit tougher Weiss" she laughed but stopped as soon as Vaughn walked up to them.
"Anything?" he said and Sydney shook her head.
"She's been through the first two folders and she's pretty impressive fighter" Sydney watched the screen instead of looking at him "You should ask for the tape. She wasn't lying" Vaughn looked closely at her thinking how much he still cared for her loved her even. He noticed her stiffen and her eyes widen suddenly and his flicked up to the screen.
"Shit" he said and they both ran to the cells not caring if they hit into anyone just having to get there.
TBC
Hope you like. Again constructive criticism welcomed.