Alex woke in a far too bright room. Her head pounded, her body ached, and she was so unbelievably cold. The chill seeped into her bones and emptied the pit of her stomach. It all felt so wrong. Ever since the robbery, everything she experienced was a new and painful whirlwind of hell. She hardly knew what was happening. Ronnie left her alone. She was thrown into a cell. No one believed her. She woke in pain and emptiness with nothing recognizable around her. She thought she was dead.
That made sense. She had overdosed. She managed another hit of heroin, got too high, and her heart couldn't handle it. Maybe her mind couldn't handle it either. Alex finally faded away like she had always wanted. The years of barely living were over. She could melt into the abyss and be free. Though, as her senses slowly snapped into focus, she didn't think that was the actual case. Everything around her was too real. The bedsheets she woke on were stiff and scratchy. The clothes she had been dressed in hugged her just a bit too tightly. Her throat was dry and painful. Her skin and hair were oily and damp with sweat. And her eyes couldn't adjust.
They tried to take in the world around them, but it was almost as if her sight wasn't working. The room was too bright. It was too bare, the only colors a blend of white and gray. Alex wanted to claw her eyes out at the nothingness. Just like the rest of the situation, it burned her from the inside out- it made it all so wrong. She couldn't figure out if she was in hell or not. She definitely wasn't in heaven. The things she had done- the things she had experienced- there was no way she'd make it to heaven. Angels were far more holy than her.
Besides, she didn't think an annoyed woman sitting backwards in a chair would be a part of heaven. Her presence probably wouldn't have been a part of hell either. Maybe Alex was in limbo- half-dead and half-alive. That was how she had been living her life anyway. She had been a ghost drifting from place to place, waiting for her inevitable death; sometimes, she begged for it. She thought that had been the only way to escape the brothel. Death was the only escape to the torment she had faced.
She was already surrounded by death, so why couldn't she simply fall into those arms as well. The other girls in the brothel were embraced by the darkness, some of the runaways she encountered on the streets faded away, her parents vanished from the light of the world, so why couldn't she. What was so special about her that she had to live. There were multiple opportunities where Alex could've overdosed like the others, committed suicide like those she had grown close to, gotten shot like her parents. But she didn't. And she was left in purgatory, wishing for it to end.
Maybe then was her moment. Maybe the woman in the room with Alex would be her salvation and kill her. However, the woman seemed disinterested in her. She flipped through a file, sighing. Some guardian angel she was. She wouldn't help Alex in the slightest. If she was going to pull her out of prison- at least, that was what the teenager thought had happened- she could kill her. Everything could be fixed with the simple pull of a trigger. The wrongness in the pit of her stomach would vanish. She'd finally die, and the universe would be set right.
"Evening, Alex. It is Alex, right? Never Alexandra," Unfortunately, the woman just spoke, her voice hollow with boredom. She barely glanced up at Alex. She wouldn't give her the time of day. The teen would've been irritated, if her mind wasn't jolted so violently into reality. Her surroundings felt so real, because it was. She wasn't in limbo or another in-between state. She really was on that stiff bed in that bare room with that harsh lighting. Fear quickly replaced the emptiness in her stomach. What the hell was going on.
"Who are you? Where am I?" The voice that spoke didn't belong to Alex. It was so full of fear and uncertainty. A second ago she had begged for death, but at that moment she feared what the woman might do to her. She just seemed so apathetic. More pain than death could come from that woman. Alex attempted to make herself smaller on the bed. She wanted to hide, to escape like she had so many times before. There had to be a way out, there was always a way out. She had to get away from that woman and that place.
"Well, you're not in prison anymore. You're not even in Michigan. Though, we're the only ones who know that. Your death was officially ruled a suicide by the prison board on November first. Your ashes are stored right here," Tossing the file she had been reading on the bed, the woman listed off the facts emotionlessly. She paced the room, eyes roaming everywhere but never landing on Alex. The teen didn't care, however. All her focus had narrowed on the picture of her false tomb. She was dead. She was finally dead. Except, not really, "My name's Nikita. I work for the government. We've decided to give you a second chance."
The woman, Nikita, stilled in front of the bed. She crossed her arms and studied the teenager with judgmental brown eyes. Alex could only stammer. Give her a second chance, how. The government faked her death to get her out of prison to do what. Certainly they couldn't expect her to live. That was the one thing she couldn't do, not after the night that took everything away from her. Wait, did the government know who she was. Did they know she was the lost heir, supposed to be dead. What would they do with the information. Would she be given back to those who tried to kill her. Would she go back to the brothel, "Why? Why me?"
"Because you're a young, attractive, white female with virtually no personal ties or paper trail. Now, those do exist, but they're hard to come by. What really grabbed our attention, though, is how you managed to kill a criminal we were about to take out," Shrugging, Nikita explained. Alex felt like sighing in relief. They didn't know she was a Udinov. They couldn't make her go anywhere. The government had no power over her. She could escape and find her own way to be free.
However, the instant her bare feet touched the cold ground, Nikita grabbed her. She was so fast, Alex didn't see her coming. She hadn't even sensed that the woman had moved until her wrist was twisted sharply. With a pain filled shriek, Alex fell to her knees. Nikita stood over her, expression blank and grip fierce. She had all the control and power. It didn't matter who the teenager was. She was nothing. The world she was thrusted into cared less about her than the places she came from, "His name was Kyle, by the way. He was a part of a smuggling ring. Stand, and your wrist breaks."
"I didn't kill no one! It was Ronnie," It was all Ronnie. He convinced Alex to steal the oxycontin to sell and use. He butchered the job. He shot the man. And he left her alone. The police were easily able to grab her and throw her into prison. No one listened to her side of the story. She was just another junkie runaway- an illegal one too, with a fake ID and a forced American accent. That was why she was thrown in jail so quickly, and grabbed by the government just as fast. She really was the ghost she had always thought she was.
"Your boyfriend's body was found next to his apartment, dead from an overdose. No one showed up for his funeral either," Letting go of Alex's wrist, Nikita admitted. She shared the fact as though it was nothing. It was simply one more thing to remind the teenager of her insignificance. She wanted to be defiant against the woman, show her that she couldn't get through to her that easily. But it would've been false. She knew she was meaningless; the brothel had taught her that. She didn't have a thing to fight for, or against. It was only her and the death she hoped would come for her.
Slinking to the bed, Alex retreated back to trying to hide. She curled in a ball and stared at Nikita with frightened blue eyes. What was to happen to her if death wasn't an option and neither was a full life. Was she going to be the government's tool. Or was she going to be some sort of experiment, a tortured victim of power. Considering what she had been through, that seemed more likely. Yet, Nikita's gaze softened ever so slightly. For a brief moment, she didn't appear so dangerous, "Your life is over, Alex. I'm here to offer you a new one. But you have to be willing to earn it."
A new life, that shouldn't have been possible. There was no reason to live. What could she possibly do. What kind of shit was the government going to put her through. There was no use in arguing with Nikita, or trying to pry answers from her, though. She simply picked up the file she had dropped and patiently waited for Alex's reply. The teenager either accepted the offer or faced the consequences. What were the consequences anyway. She didn't believe it was death. That seemed like too good of an option for that place, "What do I gotta do?"
"Learn. How not to sound like a teen meth whore, for starters. Learn to stand up straight. Learn how to walk right. Learn how to talk right. Learn how to serve your country instead of just yourself," The emotionless finally left Nikita. Her voice shook in slight anger. However, it wasn't directed at Alex. She could tell that much by the way the woman's focus shifted towards the door. She must've had anger for that place, wherever the hell they were. However, before the teen could figure any of that out, the woman shook off her frustrations and opened the door. She didn't look behind her as she left. She was done.
"I'm not even American," In muttered Russian, Alex huffed. So, she was going to be used as some sort of government operative. How did that make any sense. Nikita's explanations made sense with that enlightenment, though. The teenager was expendable and a suspected killer; she'd make the perfect agent. She simply had to learn how to not be herself. Was that where she was, spy school. She kept bouncing from one prison to the next, never able to return to her parents. Alex wasn't dead, yet she still remained in hell.
Nikita's head snapped up at the words she heard. She turned towards the door, but it was already closed and locked. Alex would be shut off to her until she met her on the training floor. But Nikita still had access to the new recruit's file. She instantly poured over the words again. It claimed the teen girl was Ukrainian; she came on a boat, like so many other girls, from Ukraine. That was what Amanda had said. She said Alex was just like her. She had been orphaned, abandoned, abused, neglected, and a junkie. And Division was able to trace the boat she could've come over on with other forgotten girls to Ukraine. So, why would she speak Russian.
Russian. Just like her. Lost everything. Given a second chance. Teenager. Oh. Fuck.