Chapter 7


Staleness of winter permeated through the air, flickers of amber light reflected off the stone walls. She at the long wooden, mahogany varnished table, long polished lime green fingernails tapped absently over the stem of the wine glass.

The nefarious and lethal Madame HYDRA, sat rigid in the high back chair, her translucent eyes darkened with malice, and shifted to the piles of folders marked with black imprint of HYDRA. The room was deathly still, and the ambiance of fear hung over the entire room like a thick cloak. She flexed her jaw, and stared eye leveled at the man fashioned in a choral gray business suit, with glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

She settled her changeless emerald colored eyes on him, observing his stern expression. She finally decided to cut the silence.

"The child shows potential. She carries much complacence that can't be easy broken with our methods," she affirmed, glancing at the folders on the table; her with a twist of an obscured smirk holding over the corners of her dark shaded lips. "I know she has a weakness that we can penetrate. The assent is her comfort and someone that she feels safe with, I suggest if we can make the Soldier deceive her then, the bond will commence and HYDRA will have a new daughter. A new bloodline for our reformation."

The director gave her a curt of a regal nod, "Her mind is already damaged from the loss of her parents. She will become easy to control once we take away her innocence."

Madame HYDRA stared at him for a long moment and locked a firm gaze his way, the taste of power seeped over her soft lips and trickled down the raw walls of her throat. She remained unspoken, conceiving her thoughts and discarded her concern for the latest victim. Her eyes glinted against the shadows veiling over her pale skin. Wickedly, she licked the sweetness of the wine off the curved edges of her lips before giving her piece of observation. A spiteful husk carried out the words cultivating in her cunning, debased mind, "The girl will learn every aspect of fear, her mind and body will become immune to submission for her handlers. She is a young omega, weak and useful to break under our commands."

Narrowed dark blue eyes looked over the documents clutched in his wrinkled hands, "Is she strong enough to sustain function after the injections?"

She sneered instantly at his gruff words and gave him an inhumane glower. "She has survived this long." she admitted, before adding to her statement with mildly growl, "She doesn't know how to react to pain. Each injection feels like a wasp sting to her pathetic body. Soon her arms will become numb and she will feel nothing...Dehumanized into perfection molded by our hands."

"The asset will stay with her until she no longer feels attachment to humanity."

With a short nod and a licentious smirk, she replied, "What if he gains his existence back?"

The director shook his head. He pursed his lips and dropped the folder on the table, "I don't need him out in the field with the others. He has completed his missions, but his services will become needed once things have started in motion back in America ... We have limited access to the tools we need to rebuild this empire. The parasites have already infiltrated, it's just a matter of time and patience until everything becomes devoured and old enemies are compromised."

Rubbing her lips, and smacking them once, Madame HYDRA, reached for a folder, pulling it closer, and stared with intent green eyes at the printed names and photos of the targets. "Just tell me,, how we are going to bring them to ruin and leave only ashes?" she questioned, scraping her index finger nail over the photo. A red and white shield with a star in the middle of blue paint in the center.

Human.

He fought against the weaving folds of silence hanging over his stoic frame. His muscled legs tucked against his pectorals, chin resting on his right knee, and the arch of his plump lips rubbed over the leather material of his pants. His ghostly eyes hardly stared at the doorway; faint squares of light became trapped in the chasm of piercing azure as he passively roved his unnerving stare, intently glancing at the girl huddled underneath blankets. She was beautiful in the shafts of morning light, pure, frail and innocent. The marks of abuse etched in the skin of her small limbs, dark mahogany strands had fallen limply over her still face as he acutely listened to the soft whimpers of distress. He rued silently that the child probably needed food, and refused to allow weakening form to starve.

"I know that you're not sleeping..." He said in a roughened and raspy voice, his changeless gaze looked directly at her, watching her delicate pale lips curve into a playful smirk. She pulled the blankets over her face, and wept with shattering breaths as tears drenched the cotton of the sheets. He straightened to his full height, and advanced closer to the bed in slow and hushed footing, the echoes of his heart prompted him to engage over the obstruction of shadows.

He unclenched his teeth, and paused on the bed side, lowering his metal hand, trying to control the contortion of the metal plates as he gently tugged on the blanket. "I gave you the order not to cry. You've been disobeying the commands I have given to you." he affirmed in a direct undertone. The covers peeled off, as he narrowed his feverish blue eyes down at her, fixing his intense glower on the tears streaking over her ashen cheeks.

Unsettled, he mashed his teeth, into his bottom lip, waves uncertainly jostled over him, rattling his bones as he reached an impasse between emotion and order. He blinked out the red haze, the crimson hue that always veiled over his vision. He felt the drills circulate through the ivory of his bones when he subjected to feeling his humanity butchered into pieces and reconstructed into a devoid of a desensitized weapon. Something flickered in his soul, the moment locked his protracted gaze on her face, and he instinctively settled his real hand over the side of her face, sliding his thumb gently underneath her bleary eye, and swiped away the wetness. "You need to stop crying. They will hurt you." he aforementioned, trying to ease her pain with a warm brush over his fingers against her blemished skin, and he sighed, deeply and broken. "I know you're scared and that you can feel pain ... You need to show no more emotion around them."

She grasped his arm with a thrust of her hand, holding on to him as if he had become her life line. "The woman with green hair has my locket..." she panted out frantically, ignoring the growls of hunger erupting from her bony, thinned stomach. «It belongs to me." she dragged out with a weak breath, tension creeping fast in her throat. She needed the locket, needed to stare at the photo of her parents. The only treasured memory that she could keep, and help the damaged part of her mind to remember their faces and names. "It was a gift from my mother. I need it back."

He felt her little body cling onto him. The girl's face buried into his shirt of frayed black as his hand lowered on her shoulder, "I do not know if I can get it for you," he whispered, stiffening his lips into a tight grimace. His icy eyes systematically moved to the door. He twisted his torso, dark strands whipped against his tensed face as set his glaring blue daggers lethally at armed operative mounted in the division of light and shadow. The man was carrying metal tray of food gripping in his gloved hands. The Winter Soldier dropped his gaze on a green apple, and instantly strode to the door. "The apple," he demanded, holding out his metal hand, and clenching his chiseled barked out, "NOW!"

The operative nimbly gave him a quick nod, and threw the apple into the air. The assassin caught it with a quick reflex of his arm, and scalded at the young dark haired Russian, turning on his boots and moved back to the girl.

"Leave us," he growled lowly; effortlessly scooping her trembling frame in his arms, hoisting her off the bed and settled his body on the floor; pressing the muscular planes of his rigid back against the mattress. Placing his hands against her sides, he held her securely, bringing his knees apart and giving her more room. He pulled out his knife, twiddling in between his fingers, with efficient movements of his knuckles and sliced the blade through the white, juicy flesh of the fruit, cutting the apple into small rectangular pieces and handed them to her. "Here, eat this."

She shook her head, stubbornly, "I'm not hungry." she cried softly, her arm clutching around her waist, disregarding the apple slices. Her body trembled with trepidation. He stroked his metal fingers with her shorted locks, calming her down with a tender gleam in his focused and haunting blue eyes, he was aware of her sickness, high fever and churning stomach. The lingering stench of torture reeked over her skin, wavering in the air between them. She was fading, and becoming weaker each time they removed her from the room. He had to save her.

"You are starving yourself." he intoned with a concerned husk in his voice, and he contemplated on forcing her to eat or giving her a choice. He pursed his lips, fighting against the vicious and toxic programming the emerged from the dark recesses of his marred mind. Glitches of compassion barely stayed, but he managed to withstand the violent urges, and cautiously lift his hand up to her face, dabbing the slice of the apple against her chapped lips, allowing her to feel the cool juice. "I want you to open your mouth," he said in a tentative pitch, looking directly into her uneasy brown irises. "This will help you feel better."

No response. With ire shadowing his face, the Winter Soldier then grabbed her jaw, pressing over the bones, and forced her mouth to unlock. She squirmed, but he managed to slip the piece over her tongue. "Chew it," he ordered in a firm voice. She stared blankly at him, trying to spit it out, he wouldn't let her. Finally, she moved her teeth over the diced apple, and swallowed. He gave her a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his full lips, "Good girl."

She leaned in forward and nuzzled her head against his sculpted chest, shivering against the feverish chills encasing over her bones. His flesh hand cautiously rubbed over her back, applying heat as he held her close to him, narrowing his piercing azure eyes down, feeling the vulnerability and humanity cloak over him. It made his heart swell.

Listening to her moans of discomfort, the threads of his soul warred, he felt the instinct, broke through his programming, watching the tears slope over the alloy plates of his arm, feeling her jerk against the distress and pain. He slid his metal hand over her dangling locks, finding her forehead . He instinctively tilted his head down and pressed cold relief over the hot skin of her brow. His lips held there for a long moment and he closed his eyes and whispered as he listened to her wheeze out a straining cough, "Stay with me, little angel..."

Agent Brock Rumlow trotted his haughty strides down the vacant hallway; a sadistic hunger masked over his dark chocolate eyes as he ceased in his footing ibefore an arched barred window. He stood pliant, hiding the impatience clotting in his veins, dim light reflected over his tactical gear, black Kevlar vest, resistant to straight-shots and knives from assaults he endured during his covert missions with his team. His moderate tan skin darkened as his gloved fingers rub over the handle of his combat knife attached to his belt. When he acutely listened to the door creak open, he involuntarily positioned his slender frame into a defensive stance. He glared dangerously at the director with his unyielding eyes set into a harden expression . He kept his lips into a neutral line and listened in mute silence to his direct orders of his superior.

"Did your team receive the orders to remove the bodies from the site?" The director asked, looking over his glasses and pursed his lips into a firm grimace. "I want no loose ends. The evidence of the attack must become ash; our newest asset is warring against emotions and memories of her parents. We need to rake off everything and leave her in the dark about the truth. Her bloodline is our future."

Rumlow drew out a deep, abysmal breath, his dark eyes gleamed with ire, "What about our loyal dog? He has shown emotion towards the brat...Weakness and allowed her to compromise his programming. Should the asset receive punishment or have his mind swiped to restore him back into a weapon?" he questioned, leveling and unnerved glower at his superior. He felt something unsettling fall deep into his gut, he knew the child lacked discipline and carried defiance within her tiny body. He needed to tear her into shreds, making her feel pain and force her to enter the void of her deepest and darkest fears until she will become a vacant soldier to his commands.

He was meticulous with performing levels of brutal torture to corrupt the human mind. He was a dog of carnage, a beast that craved to taste innocent blood and watch his victims scream under his shadow. "The asset is acting like the runt's protector-I have been observing them, and I sense they share a connection almost like a brother and sister. He is becoming defective."

"Rumlow, you know what happens when complacence takes hold of the mind?" the older man executed with a firm pitch in his voice. "We extract it by taking a little piece at a time."

"Yes, sir." Rumlow answered with a calm hint of cadence in his gruff voice. His scruffy jaw flexed as he narrowed his nefarious stare at his knuckles. "It will necessary to remove her past. I will give the orders to Rollins to firebomb the area of the girl's estate. All thw bodies have already have been extracted to different locations and cremated as instructed by Madame HYDRA. There will be nothing for her to attach too, she is at HYDRA's mercy now."

The director nodded, his commanding grayish navy colored eyes settled on the operative, "Once the girl regains her strength, break her will," he said, with an emotionless tone ragging from his throat, "Use the asset. Make him bleed until that little girl finally gives in to our corruption and allows the serum to emerge into her body."

Dismissively, Rumlow gave him a curt of nod, the bones of his neck cracked, "Understood, sir."