Chapter Eight: Out from the Shadows
Here we go again, the next chapter of An Assassin's Memories and all my readers, you should be able to comment now that I've passed the original comments so I really look forward to hearing what you think about the updates progress of this story so be sure to follow favorite, and comment and I'll try to update soon!
The rest of the night passes in a blur of constant rolling over in the bed, sheets getting tangled, kept awake by the memories I've unlocked, or just not being tired after everything. Needless to say I must look like a wreck, I got no sleep and I can't seem to focus on anything other than 'under the stairs' it must be under a staircase but which staircase, there are millions of stairs around the world.
How would I ever narrow down the search unless it's connected to this house, I've been here before so it's only logical that it could be talking about here; however, I haven't seen a single staircase she Bucky and I entered the home, there obviously must be one but the question remains. Where is the staircase and why would it be hidden when it's clear that the house has one?
If what I need to know is under the staircase then it must be incredibly important and top secret if it had to be hidden away to keep from being found. The real question is what is this Blood War HYDRA is talking about because that seems like a horrid idea so there must be more to it then what appears in the simple blacked-out text on the documents.
Pulling myself free from the blankets of the bed, I get to my feet and peek my head out of the bedroom. Down the hall in nothing but silence and the faint breathing of Bucky meaning he must be asleep, good. Tiptoeing down a darkened hallway, all I can think about is the staircase and then I'm not longer in the hallway in my current time, it someone elses.
All along the woods, they're everywhere and I have to hide it. When they catch me it'll be all over if I let them get their hands on it so it must be hidden away from people that want to use it for nefarious purposes. It's up to be to be its guardian, at least until someone else can take over the responsibilities. I skid across the floor as I hurry past the doorway.
Every bone in my body aches, throbs with such an intensity that the only think that's kept me moving is this small plastic box and what it contains inside. This could change the world either for good or evil but I am the deciding factor and Ruark will have my head when he and the rest of HYDRA catches e but if I hide this box well enough, if I live long enough, I can come back for it.
The Winter Soldier, I know they will send him to assassinate me unless I am of use to HYDRA and I don't plan to be, not anymore, not after what I found out when I saw the Green Room. That can never be forgotten, they wrecked me, took away things, memories I never knew I had. Things are so twisted that it's insanity to believe anything ever told to me.
Memories from before the Red Room, the KGB, before HYDRA. I had a life back in the United States before they came, screams, blood, so much blood but the blood curdling screams cut me to the core. Sylvia never had a chance, it burned, she burned, they all burned in an engulf of deadly hot flames and I could only standby and watch as my friend burned alive.
I was whisked away, thrown in the Black Widow program in Russia. I didn't even speak the language but they tried to teach me, but when I refused to cooperate, or even speak I was taken to a room. An off dentist like chair but armed with wrist straps, leg straps, and an odd device like those seen as a hair salon and they forced me to get in it.
Pain... So much pain and screaming, my screams. Hoarse, my voice faltered and I couldn't speak or talk, only imagine the agony screams as I tried to make a noise as the pain rattled through me. I'm finished...
Blinking back, I feel a full throbbing in my head and a slight aching in my bones and especially in my joints as though they remember the pain, suffering I must have endured at one time. While the memory may not seem useful for finding the staircase, it did help me, I'm learning more and more about myself. I was wiped clean, all memories erased.
I was four years old when they burned down St. Mary's Orphanage for Children, that was where my mother... The Black Window, dropped me off at when I was an infant but then the KGB came for me, wanted a new, deadlier assassin. One much more dangerous than Natalia Romanova and who would be better an option than her unwanted child she'd given up?
"Come on Vani, Saint Mary will be furious if we don't get back before the noon bell," a little girls voice rings through my head, child-like tone so vibrant that if I didn't already know it was a memories that I'd assume a child was here in the room with me. I was once a normal child, well sort of, but I wan't a murderer, a deadly assassin trained to kill, no, a normal child.
A child with no cares or worries with only imagination to run my wildest fantasies, not secret organizations and leaders to tell me what to do and who should be dead, how can anyone decide that? Worst of all, I've actually done it, before the most recent memory wiping and whatever other times before they'd wiped me. What's real and what's not, I can't seem to tell anymore.
Reaching the end of the hallway I look up and down at the gray wood wall before placing my entire hand against it. A metal keypad appears from the wall and I glance down at the A-Z keys before typing in a four letter word. Vani. A small rectangular door in the wall, down by the ground swings open. I drop to the ground and reach into the small, dark cubbyhole until I feel the plastic of the box.
It a small, cloudy white box with a small latch that I flip upwards and follow that with the boxes lid. Inside the container is not at all what my mind had come to expect. Resting in the box is a silver skeleton key with a skull head at the key's base and rubies for the eyes. The key's attached to a similarly colored metal chain meant to be hung around my neck.
With a flick of the wrist, I have the chain and key attached and loop the icy cold metal over my head and let it rest against my warm skin before pulling back the collar of my shirt, letting the key drop inside my shirt to hide it from sight. Just when I'm to put the box back inside it's hiding spot a small, rectangular slip of paper catches my eye. Written on the sheet of paper in bold black ink are two simple words.
The Sanctary