Chapter Ten: Needle and Thread
Here we go with another chapter of An Assassin's Memories. I know I took awhile to update but I've been working on a lot of stories and stuff but this series is still in the works. Thanks for all the comments and favs so here's the next chapter.
Silence...
I was greeted by an eerie soundless three-walled white room with the wall infront of me with long metal bars like seen in old Western movies, chains binding both my arms together as well as a metal shackle around one of my ankles. The other side of the chain connected to the wall. My memories are a hazy blur of hallways, corridors, twists, turns, and scattering people who, for the life of me now, I cannot recall a single face.
Whatever it is that they injected me with seems to have been some sort of serum to keep my thoughts and memories out of focus in the chance that I woke up when the knock out aspect of the liquid comes back on. Must be a pupal dilator in the liquid as well, how else would I not be able to clearly see. Even now my gaze flickers in and out of focus, it's quite annoying.
A throbbing, ache rattles through my head and all I want is an Advil to make it go away. If I'm being kidnapped the least they could do would be to bring me some medicine considering they took everything else from me. My childhood, my life, my future, my memories, my family, my freedom, what more could they possibly want from me? What do I have that they want so bad?
Gritting my teeth when the loud bang of a door sends a wave of pain through me. Glancing up through one open eye I see someone, who I know. Someone I haven't seen since whenever it was that I escaped HYDRA. There before me stands Ruark Schmidt, the son of the Red Skull, eyes ablaze with an anger, no a hatred that I can't disguise.
Suddenly memories flash before my eyes...
"It's time..." the man, no Ruark, says from behind the bulky computer desk that's scattered with stray papers. His voice is deep and raspy and even without seeing his face I know that he's the leader of HYDRA. "Here's the files Black Mamba, you have half and hour to review them before we send you out," he says, getting up and turning to face me, a manila folder in hand, "this, as you know, is your first mission and your success on this one will determine whether or not you are allowed on any more missions."
The another one, and older one. So recent, I can feel it, it all comes together and I remember...
"This is going to be fun, see you when you wake up..." he exits the room, leaving the needles embedded in my arms. A white blind is pulled open from the glass pane window where I see Ruark standing behind a control panel, his hand hovering over a big red button. He presses a different button and says: "Memories are the enemy of every assassin Vanya, remember that."
He presses down of the red button and a glass ball on a stone Column is soon filled with yellow electricity bouncing against the glass and the lights in the room I'm in flicker.
"Aah!" I scream when I feel the electricity surging through my body. The sensation is numbing, like when you grab a hold of an electric fence and it's difficult to release your hands. My body burns from the surging electricity, it's heating up the atoms in my body. I'm not even screaming anymore, I can't form the sound I can't make any noise at all. Foam drips out of the corners of my mouth and onto the floor.
Black dots dance across my vision and things begin to blur. Where am I?
Why am I here anyways?
Who am I? Vanya Romanova, AKA Black Mamba
That's who I am...
"You..." I growl suddenly, it all comes back to me, not before the other times, before sixteen but I can remember everything. I did get away when I though the Winter Soldier, I mean Bucky was working for HYDRA which I now know was only to get me out of the organization. Nick Fury on the monitor when he found out I was the daughter of the Black Widow.
Him telling me who my father is...
"You remember I assume? Needless to know now child, you'll be dead in a matter of days unless you provide the information I require and perhaps I could cut you a deal."
"Never...!"
"At least hear me out, tell me what you did with it," he steps closer to the the bars on the fourth wall in front of me. He places a hand on one of the metal bars and tilts his head at me.
"What did I do with what? I have no idea what you're talking about."
He narrows his cold, detached eyes at me a moment as if to detect any lie in my tone but he doesn't for long, he can tell I speak the truth. Turning, to head out of the room but I speak up, stopping him. I will never help him but I need to know what it is that he thinks I have because whatever it is, is essential to HYDRA and their plan.
"What is it that I have?"
"Had," he corrects, not looking back. "Besides, if you can't remember then I have no use of you."
"Tell me, maybe you'll trigger a memory," I press, trying to convince him to spill the information, to divulge it so when I escape I have something over HYDRA to report back to Mom when or even if I see her again.
Just as he opens his mouth to speak, an alarm blares. Filling the room and facility with a loud, endlessly ringing racket and Ruark glances back at me, eyes blazing with a rage I can't comprehend.
"Tell me!" I shout finally, glaring right back. "What is it that I took, stole, hid."
He gives a humorless laugh and keeps a stoic yet hard look on me. "You've taken a million things from HYDRA Vanya Romanova, why do you think I had you wiped every two years, after the inefficiency of the original plan, I started wiping you every two years so you'd have less of a chance to remember anything but what you took, was much more important, more valuable."
The lights go from a normal white glow to a deep red flashing sort of shade giving an ominous look to an already comforting situation.
"Find the key and you'll know the answer," with that he darts from the room and if it wasn't for me knowing, no one would ever know he had made an appearance here. Another mystery to add to the constantly growing list. Rubbing my thumb against the bone in my other thumb, I pop it from the socket and pull my arms free one by one then back once my hands are free.
Pulling a bobbypin from my pocket, I pick the chain around my ankle and the door I'm caged into when I hear HYDRA agents shouting about someone, more than one person. In Arabic one man shouts.
"It's the Black Widow, she's found us!"
Mom?