Chapter 5
"That was beautiful, honey!"
The blond woman was clapping as Anne got up from the piano and gave a bow. The woman was sitting on a couch in a cozy living room with a man, and a teenage boy and girl. They were all smiling and complimenting her playing.
"Way to go, Annie!",
exclaimed the teen boy.
"You're going to get into that school for sure!"
13-year-old Anne was grinning from ear to ear and overwhelmed with happiness.
Then she woke up.
Her body and hair were soaked with her own sweat. Her muscles felt sore and stiff. She looked down to see she was wearing a hospital gown. Her hands and legs were strapped down. Her eyes immediately started scanning the white room, looking for windows, doors, unusual lines in the walls, anything she could escape through. But she found that she was unable to concentrate. Her head was pounding and her stomach was doing flips.
"What's happening to me?"
Then, a man entered the room. He was middle-aged and a little gangly. She estimated that she could easily overpower him if she got out of these restraints.
"Hello, I'm Agent Coulson."
The man pulled a chair over to the side of her bed and sat down.
"How are you feeling?"
She just stared at him. During her training, she learned that the best thing to do under interrogation was to not say anything at all.
The man smiled sympathetically.
"You can relax. You're not being interrogated."
Her brow furrowed. It's like he was reading her mind.
"You're lucky to be alive. S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent Agent Barton to kill you. He said you had passed out."
She turned her head away from Coulson and glared at the ceiling.
How could I have done something so stupid? This never happens. I have never failed at completing my mission. I especially haven't fainted in front of a target like a dumbass!
"Don't punish yourself. Anyone who's confronted by a past they've been brainwashed to forget wouldn't be able to successfully assassinate a master spy."
Snapping back to reality, her head swiveled to face the man.
Brainwashed?
"Brainwashed?",
she blurted out.
Coulson was slightly surprised at her sudden outburst but was happy to see that she had potential to be fixed.
"Yes.",
he said softly.
"You have to remember who you are,
Annabelle."
She inhaled sharply at the name.
Coulson pulled a photo out of his jacket pocket.
It was a picture of a family.
The blond woman was there, so was the teen boy from her dream.
There was three other people in the picture. A man who looked to be the woman's husband, a teen girl, and a redhead, the youngest out of all of them. They were all smiling happily, standing in a field with a beautiful farmhouse in the background.
"That's your family, Annabelle,"
said the man,
"That's your home."
She stared at the picture for what felt like an eternity, memorizing every detail. She could feel a tear running down her cheek. She turned away from the picture and looked at the wall on the other side of her bed. She couldn't let him see how much it affected her.
"I'm not your enemy."
His voice was quiet and calm.
He finally got up and laid the picture down on the nightstand next to her bed.
"I'll leave you alone to dwell on this."
Once he left, she let out the breathe she had been holding in. She turned her head to stare at the picture again.
She couldn't stop the sob that came out of her mouth.
Like a lake that had been plugged up by a dam for years, she felt a sense of relief as she let herself succumb to the emotions that she had buried away years ago.