Manhattan. June 1989.
Alyona Marakova was happy, genuinely happy for first time in far too long. Sat at the window of their small apartment, she overlooked the bustling neighbourhood of Washington Heights. By no means was their new home a grand one, in fact it was the farthest thing from - only two bedrooms with a tiny bathroom and a kitchen that doubled as a living room. The neighbours were noisy during the day and their cats were noisy at night, but it was safe, safer than St. Petersburg had ever been. Nikolai and Alyona were no longer on edge every time they heard sirens in the distance. She couldn't deny that she'd been paranoid for the first few months, always glancing over her shoulder out of sheer habit but the small family had eventually settled into their new life in New York.
The sun was beginning to set behind the tall buildings in the distance and instead of the silence she was used to in Russia, Alyona could hear children playing and teenagers walking the street carrying heavy speakers on their shoulders, playing unfamiliar music. The air always smelled of a different kind of cooking food that vendors sold all day on the street corner. As she breathed a sigh of contentment, Alyona stroked her growing stomach in a soothing fashion, calming the baby that began to kick at the same time every day. Nikolai had been thrilled when she had told him, it was truly the start of a new chapter and to be at peace was a wonderfully simply thing.
Alyona's attention was pulled from the sunset and to the sound of her daughter giggling to herself on the sofa. Elena was engrossed in a child's TV show that had become an integral part of her daily routine two years ago when Senator Warren had handed them the keys to their new home along with new passports and identities. Alyona hadn't been able to hide her discontent at their new given names, Ellie, Nick and Allison were far too American for her liking. Yes, she was grateful to the US government for giving her family a second chance at a normal life, but she missed Sochi, with its warm summers where she spent her childhood at the beach. She even missed St. Petersburg, a year-long winter wonderland. Alyona hadn't had the opportunity to tell her mother she had left, and she would never get that opportunity – whilst one part of her regretted the decision to not even write a letter to her mother, she knew that the KGB would interview her first once they noticed they were gone and it would be safer if she genuinely knew nothing at all. Not that it would make much difference, if the KGB decided you were guilty of something, that was your sentence as well as your accusation. Alyona knew her mother would understand, once you have them, your children are the most important thing in the world and Alyona would do whatever it took to keep Elena safe from those who wished her harm – she could only think of the possibilities that America could offer her daughter, and the sibling that would soon join her. That was priceless.
Nikolai arrived home at 6pm precisely, the same way he did every evening. Alyona had noticed that Nikolai was a happier and healthier man in New York. The past two years had flown by in peaceful Sunday mornings and family board-game evenings that had never been interrupted by lengthy phone calls and suspicious letters. Christmas, Fourth of July and Halloween were celebrated with street parties after they had been welcomed with open arms by their neighbours and Elena had made friends at her pre-school that she had quickly bonded with within a few weeks.
Pulling his tie loose and shrugging his jacket from his shoulders to drape over the kitchen chair, Nikolai pressed a kiss to his wife's forehead and one to her swollen stomach before joining his daughter on the sofa and pulling her onto his lap, pressing a kiss to her temple as well. Elena still had her arctic wolf teddy that she refused to part with, though it had been looking considerably worse for wear over the past few months, mainly due to its repeated journeys into the bathtub but Elena was little like a child in most other ways. She had easily risen to the challenge of learning English and was equally fluent in it as she was in Russian and had taken on the role of translator where her parents still hadn't quite adjusted to the new dialect. It was a nice, new and simple life. One they had never imagined would be possible before now.
But nothing lasts forever.
June 17th was a warm evening; the day had been baking hot and the heat hadn't subsided when the sun sunk below the horizon, but Nikolai and Alyona knew that this anniversary was the last they would be able to celebrate without having a young baby to look after. They hired a babysitter to look after Elena and though they shared a look of scepticism at the young teenager as she popped pink bubble-gum before smiling widely revealing cheap lipstick stains on her teeth, they knew that Elena would call them if anything went wrong.
Elena waved goodbye to her parents as they left for their dinner reservation and turned her attention to her guardian who had quickly made herself at home and was rummaging through the refrigerator. She popped another mouthful of bubble-gum and smiled again before settling on the sofa in front of the TV. Elena silently retreated to her bedroom, pulling her curtains closed and switching her lamp on so she could read one of the many books she had collected since arriving in New York. She disappeared between the pages of a fantasy world where three young children moved to a new house and found a magic forest with a magic tree where all kinds of odd creatures lived and there was a different world at the top of the tree every day. She could hear the muffled words of the TV programme her babysitter was watching through the wall and when her eyes were heavy from reading too much and yawns interrupted her breath, she folded a page over and pulled her duvet over herself, falling asleep to the sound of an audience laughing and game show music.
Elena woke violently, in a similar way that one might wake up from a nightmare, where your skin is slick with sweat and your pulse is racing, but after a few seconds of intense adrenalin, your breathing will slow to normal and your heart will stop hammering in your chest when you realise that your safe and it was all in your head.
This wasn't like that.
She sat up in bed unable to pinpoint what had pulled her from her deep sleep. Her book was laid over her feet and as she pulled her covers back it and slipped out from under them, it fell to the floor with a thud. She yelled in fright when her bedroom door flew open and a man stood in the doorway, blocking out the light from the living room and kitchen. He said nothing, standing for a few moments in daunting silence before he reached down and took her by the wrist and dragged her from her room. Her silent protests turned into screams of horror as her eyes fell over the bodies of her parents, sat at the sofa as if they were watching TV. They were placed perfectly, like the dolls lining Elena's shelf. Her mother's makeup was still perfectly intact, her father's suit as neat as when they had left, the only difference was the blood from their foreheads that trickled down past their open eyes and down their cheeks, dripping from their jaws, into their neatly folded hands. Tears stung at her eyes as she found she couldn't look away from their lifeless forms, their skin had gone grey and begun to sink in on itself and the shine was gone from their eyes.
Elena's voice escaped her as she saw three more men, all dressed in the same uniform that used to clothe her Father. Their expressions were indifferent as Elena was tugged violently through the place that had become her home and out into the hall. She expected neighbours to be at their doors, questioning the unusual sounds so late at night but everyone stayed firmly locked away, out of sight. Behind her one of the soldiers shouted something in Russian but her mind was moving too fast for her to process what they had said, as she turned to try and look at him a sack was pulled down over her head and her world was plunged into darkness.
Cold air bit at Elena's skin, goose bumps erupted over her arms and legs, through the thin pyjamas she had gone to bed in. They kept the sack over her head, preventing her from seeing anything in detail but when she was roughly awoken she could see light through the stitching in the rough fabric. She didn't know how long she had slept for, had they drugged her to make her sleep longer? Were they still in New York, or had they left America entirely? Questions raced through her mind faster than she could process her surroundings, but one was answered when she heard a public announcement tannoy, the voice was in Russian and with a deep feeling of dread she knew she had been brought home. At times, she had missed Russia, the foods and the parties she would attend with her parents when her Father was being honoured for his service to the country. But as she was made to stand barefoot in the snow, feeling her feet go numb, she wished for nothing more than to be at home with her parents, watching pointless TV and listening to the sound of the music from the streets of their neighbourhood.
Elena was not a stupid child in any capacity. She had known what her parents had done the night they had left Russia under the cover of darkness. She had slept for most of the journey but had woken briefly at the airfield to see her parents loading their bags into a small plane whilst a thin man set several controls in the cockpit. He had spotted Elena awake and smiled a mainly toothless smile at her, causing a feeling of unease to rise in her stomach, she had quickly closed her eyes and not awoken again until they had landed in Paris. Her parents had explained to her, once they had moved into their new apartment, that Russia had become dangerous and that they had no choice – they had to leave. They hadn't gone into detail, but Elena had known it concerned her to some extent but being a child, she didn't think they could reach her in New York, that Russia's threat didn't expand beyond its borders.
She was so wrong.
The cold air burned her lungs as she inhaled deeply, trying desperately to make sense of her surroundings. She was lifted off her feet again and placed in the back of a truck that jolted violently as it slowly drove down a poorly maintained road. She could smell the heavy pine trees and guessed they must be driving through a forest, forests meant predators that would kill a small, skinny five-year old. Best to stay in the truck. Forests meant somewhere hidden, a secret place that not a lot of people would know about, which also meant the likelihood of escaping and simply running to a police station highly improbable. Eventually the truck stopped, she was lifted from it and marched to a building, she could see it block out the sun through the sack. It had been well over a day since she had seen the outside world in any detail and she couldn't even be sure it existed anymore, but she knew that her little world in her New York apartment was long gone. Elena couldn't help but wonder what would happen when the police would find her parents body, would Senator Warren be called? Would they look for Elena? She doubted they would find her and any tiny hope that they would vanished entirely when the sack was pulled from her head and she was facing a scientist in a white coat holding a clipboard. The heavy metal door she had been led through closed behind her with a bang that echoed off the bare concrete walls. A strip of bright white lights lined the ceiling the entire length of the hall she was in, a vast, grey room with the Soviet flag hanging like a great medieval tapestry. The scientist looked down at her and smiled a sickening smile before turning and walking away from her, but the soldiers holding each of her soldiers pushed her forward, making her follow him.
Her teeth were chattering with the cold and her toes were blue as she examined the building with a mix of fear and curiosity. There were few windows apart from a few that lined the tops of the walls, far too high to reach and even then, too small to climb out of. There were no other people to be seen but Elena was sure she could hear the distant sound of fighting, it reminded her of the film The Karate Kid, but she somehow felt this was distinctly different in a very bad way. The lights overhead cast thick white beams onto the concrete floor and Elena found herself counting them as her legs began to go weak and the soldiers began to drag her the length of the hall, holding her roughly under each arm. She chose to ignore the pain in her feet as her toes scraped along the rough ground, even when they began to bleed they were too numb for her to feel it. Everything washed over her in waves, her exhaustion the only thing she was constantly aware of.
Eventually, another heavy door was opened, and Elena almost sobbed at the sight of a bed, the soldiers dropped her onto it and she clutched the scratchy grey blanket with the remaining strength she had. The bed was a simple metal frame with a thin mattress that she could feel the springs through and a flat pillow. There were five sets of clothes at the foot of the bed, a white vest with a red square on the chest with a set of golden wings and black shorts, a white nightdress, what looked like a school uniform with a red necktie, a military jacket and long skirt, emblazoned with the Red Star and a black leotard with a pair of pink satin ballet slippers. The soldiers left the room in perfect synchronization and the scientist returned. He had round glasses and thin hair that was receding back from his hairline and was held firmly in place with an acrid smelling product. His teeth were a sickening shade of yellow as he smiled at Elena, curled up on the uncomfortable bed. It was not a genuine smile, but instead the one you might receive from someone who doesn't like you but is trying to pretend otherwise. Elena said nothing, trying to keep her expression as neutral as possible, the fear was obvious, she couldn't hide it, but she wouldn't give away her weaknesses. He sighed, opening a pocket watch, noting down the time and clicking it shut again.
"There will be enough time for formal introductions later." He said, his smile was gone and a auror of professionalism had taken over, as if he was at work. "You're not going anywhere, so there's little point in rushing through these things. For now, sleep. Tomorrow, you begin your training." He looked down at her almost with pity before heading for the door, turning back briefly as he stood in the doorway.
"Welcome to the Red Room Academy, Miss Marakova. We've been looking for you for a long time."