Chapter 1
A Child
Thursday 23rd June 1937
Beth-El Hospital, Brooklyn, New York
Rae
"You're saying it doesn't matter what she does, how badly she hurts herself, she heals all on her own?" The doctor seems puzzled as he questions my parents.
I know he's a doctor because Jack told me. Jack told me what doctors do, he told me they help people. I didn't want to come here but Jack said if I went and I behaved the doctor would give me a lollipop.
"I know how it sounds," my mother says.
"It sounds…" the doctor gives my mother a strange look. I think he might be being rude.
"We haven't exactly tested it," my father says, "she's our little girl and of course we would never let her get hurt on purpose."
"The number of wasted trips we've had to the hospital with her," my mother tries again, "last week she was climbing trees with her friends and she fell, her arm was swollen and bruised, she was screaming. I was sure she'd broken it but by the time we got to the hospital she was fine; the bruising and swelling had disappeared, and she was acting like it never happened."
I remember that. My arm hurt so much but then it got better, and it was fine. Jack says I'm different, but that it's not a bad thing. I'm tougher than the other kids. Jack says Mom and Dad want to know why.
"She can't have broken it then." The way he says this to my mother annoys me. I think it annoys my parents too.
I can see he thinks they're lying. Maybe if I show him, he'll stop being so rude. I look around the room, seeing how I can prove what they're trying to tell him.
There. He has scissors on his desk.
They ignore me when I jump down off the bed. I stroll over to the desk and pick up the scissors.
My father notices first. "Rae," he shouts.
I've already cut the top of my arm. I drop the scissors when the pain sears. I've hurt myself worse than this before and I've never been hurt for long, it'll be okay.
My parents don't panic but I can tell they're shocked from their open mouths and wide eyes. The doctor just stares at my arm, where the cut is already healing. He approaches me with a white cloth, I think it's a bandage. He uses it to wipe away the blood then inspects the perfect skin underneath.
He turns back to my parents in stunned silence for a few moments then says, "I'll run some tests."
Tuesday 23rd August 1938
Thompson Residence, Brooklyn, New York
Something's wrong.
I'm scared and it's not in a bad dream or monster in the closet kind of way.
I wish Jack was here. Jack would protect me.
I think I heard Mommy scream and Daddy shout. There were other voices too.
Now it's quieter. Except for the footsteps. Footsteps that are getting closer.
I'm hiding under my covers. If they can't see me, maybe they'll go away.
I wish Jack was here.
My eyes are closed as tightly as I can, they hurt.
I wish Jack was here.
I didn't even hear my bedroom door open but they're here. Something pulls the covers back.
I scream.
Wednesday 24th August 1938
60th Precinct NYPD, Brooklyn, New York
Jack
Mom and Dad dead? Rae missing?
How could this have happened?
How has my family disappeared?
There's a weight on my chest. My legs can't hold me up.
There's an officer talking to me, but I feel like I'm underwater. I can't pay attention to what he's saying.
I press the heels of my palms into my eyes but all I can see is Rae. She's so little. What if she's…
No. I can't think about that. She's so little.
The breath won't come for my lungs. I think I'm making a noise, the officer's more concerned now. I'm gasping for air, I realise.
Not Rae.
Where is she? She must be terrified, snatched in the middle of the night by who knows who, taken God knows where.
At least she has her strange ability. It is of little comfort but it's something.
What if I never see her again?
It feels selfish to think about the reality that I'm now alone when she's out there somewhere.
But that's how I feel.
Alone.
September - December 1938
HYDRA Research Base, Sokovia
Rae
I learn quickly that they won't stop just because I cry, just because I scream.
But I do it anyway, I can't help it. It's just too much, all of it, everything is too much. It hurts too much. The lights are too bright, their voices too loud.
I want to go home.
I want Jack. Mommy and Daddy are dead, I'm sure of that. I'm scared they've gotten Jack too. They never tell me they did, and I know he wasn't there that night, but it still scares me.
I wonder if Jack misses me.
My thoughts are interrupted when he cuts me again.
I cry out.
It's as if I never make a sound. They are unaffected. The man in the white coat cuts me again. It reminds me of when I showed the doctor what happens when I get hurt.
"Remarkable," he says to the other man.
They've been doing this since I arrived, testing all the ways they can hurt me and watching me get better. I'm hurt more often than not.
"That she is," the one who's name is Klaus Schmidt says. "However, I think it's time we take it further." His eyes light up. "Give her a real injury to work with," he orders.
His excited tone sends a chill through me.
They let me listen when they talk about me.
They learned that I can't regrow things they cut off when they took my right pinky toe.
They pulled my arm out of the socket and waited to see what would happen, it was hours before they realised, they would have to put it back in themselves before I healed.
When they broke my leg and left the bone sticking out, I think I passed out. When I woke up, they still hadn't touched me. Eventually they gave up and pushed the bone back in. I threw up from the pain and the crying.
The worst time was when they stabbed me and left the knives in, that was in the morning. I didn't heal until they pulled them out late at night.
It goes on like this for months. They come up with new ways to hurt me, to see how much I can take.
I start wishing for it to be too much.
Saturday 21st January 1939
One second the bear is hurtling towards us and my eyes are screwed shut – cringing for the onslaught – and the next my hands are raised, there is no attack. I feel like I'm grasping something but there is nothing in my hands, I know that instinctively. I open my eyes slowly, one then the other.
Schmidt is looking at me, mouth agape.
The bear is being kept at bay by a shimmering wall. There is nothing physically there but somehow there is.
My palms are tingling with something I've never felt before. My hands shake, tense fingers spread wide. Somehow, I know I've done this. I've put a physical barrier between us and the bear.
Schmidt recovers. "Did you know you could do this?"
I swallow, unable to speak, and shake my head.
He seems to ponder this. "Of course not," he decides quietly.
The bear loses interest, turns and canters the other way into the trees once more. I'm still frozen but my hands have started to ache.
"Come," Schmidt commands and begins a brisk walk back to the base.
Just like that the experiments begin again. This time they don't talk about their findings in front of me. There are things they don't want me to know about what I did.
However, that doesn't stop them from trying to get me to replicate it. They throw things at me. They beat me. They shoot me. There is one occasion where they hit me with a car. Each time I try to remember how it felt with the bear. But it had happened far too fast for me to have any inkling on how I did it.
Weeks pass before I'm finally able to do it again. Schmidt is ecstatic. The weeks turn to months and eventually I can do it on command. I learn how to feel whatever it is in the air that I can manipulate into making a solid barrier. It's not easy and I have to concentrate very hard, but they're pleased with my progress.
Wednesday 3rd May 1939
What they are doing to me now is worse than anything else. I am being held down by four men, each with strong hands on my arms and legs. There is a thick leather restraint around my middle, another around my head, keeping me secure to the table. They have shoved something in my mouth, I think to muffle my screams.
They tried to inject me with something and make me breathe something with a scary mask to cover my nose and mouth. It did nothing to me. I still feel every cut, every stab, every stitch as they do something in the middle of my back.
Despite my exposure to this place over the last nine months, the terror still grips me like a vice. What are they doing? Why are they doing this to me? How can they be so evil? Don't they care that they're hurting me? Torturing me? It occurs to me that I should not know this word, that I am too young. I should be too naive, too innocent. But this place, these people have stripped me of that.
I am no longer a child, I am their experiment. That's what they call me, how they talk about me. They want me to be as useful as possible to them and they will keep experimenting on me until I am.
I have no idea how much time has passed when it finally stops, when I register the hands leaving me. When I feel the now familiar pain of my body knitting itself back together from whatever they've done to me. I'm still sobbing on the table, tears blurring my vision and snot running sideways from my nose.
"Stand up, Rae."
I do. I'm terrified to do anything but as they say. My limbs shake as I slowly push myself up and stand next to the table.
Klaus Schmidt stands there, in the same place he had after he'd led me in here. He studies me a moment then steps closer. There is something in his hand and I flinch, the memory of each pain he's caused me so fresh.
He smiles down at me, close now. "Do you want to know what this is?"
The only answer is yes. I nod, guarded.
His smile grows. His fingers move slightly on the small object he holds.
A zapping, burning pain shoots up and down my spine, originating from the site of their most recent torture. It takes my legs from under me before I can register the loss of sensation in them. I hit the floor, face down once more. Smaller shocks continue to radiate through my back, keeping me there, twitching involuntarily. My body automatically tries for another despairing sob but I can't get enough air in to push it out.
Schmidt crouches down next to my face. "This is my insurance policy on what you will give me." His voice is low, somehow pleasant and threatening at the same time. He's thrilled. "If you step out of line, if you try to escape, if you at any time use that shield of yours against me, this will be child's play."
I am a child! I scream what I am unable to say in my head.