Chapter Forty-Five
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It took almost three days to get to the outskirts of Antonia's home, to a little village along the Volga river.

Most of it was done via train, by far the best choice rather than wind our way through multiple countries and Russian provinces just to reach this remote location. It appeared chosen for that purpose, out of the way for just about anyone without a good mode of transportation. Like a supervillain with a penchant for helicopters and the like.

It had been so uneventful, I should've seen it coming. But after being in two car crashes in two days, I was fine with dozing in a cramped train bunk and letting the rhythmic grind of wheels on tracks lull me into some sort of sleep. Watching endless landscapes flicker past the window, one train station after another, well into the night. Anything to bide my time while I waited for a response from Dad that never came.

On the morning of our arrival, Yelena was on breakfast duty, fetching food from the dining car so we could eat in the privacy of our compartment. Natasha wanted to limit as much public contact as possible, especially with Antonia. No one had come after her. Yet.

I wanted literally anything with protein and/or carbs. Eggs, hashbrowns, toast, something with real substance. Yelena did not have enough arms to return with a full continental, so I had to settle with whatever she could scrounge up. Antonia was getting cabin fever, being confined to this compartment of four women, but Natasha refused to let her leave on her own. For many reasons, of course, but mainly because we didn't trust her. And the fact that she had an extremely memorable appearance to any regular passerby. It wasn't personal.

"It never is," Antonia sniffed in disdain, as she decided to take whatever freedom or privacy she could in the tiny bathroom offered to us. The shower was standing-room only, and I wasn't going to complain about her making prodigious use of it. Every time she smelled a little less like human suffering.

While the shower ran, Nat perused the Internet on a tablet encased in a child's thick-padded case (purloined from another train car) perched on the top bunk. She made it look so comfortable and proportional to her size. I was a little glum on the bottom seat, legs folded halfway in an attempt at comfort. I could hear Antonia's muffled humming in the shower, and decided it safe enough for a semi-private conversation.

"Is this weird for you?" I asked.

Natasha didn't look away from her screen. "What is?"

"All this," I gestured vaguely. "Us. Her, specifically." I nodded towards the bathroom door. "Does she know you're the one who set the bomb?"

"I hope not," Natasha said, blinked, then looked down at me. "You don't plan on snitching, do you?"

"No." And give Antonia a reason to freak out and go AWOL on us? Maybe put her down the same path as her father? No way. "I just figured… It must be hard."

Natasha didn't say anything for a long moment. "I wanted my freedom so much. If she had to die, the best I could do was to make it quick."

There was a dour note there. One of acknowledged failure. "Did Fury really ask that of you?"

"Not necessarily. She was just the only way we could actually be sure we'd targeted the right man," Natasha said, resting her hand on her chin and turning her attention back to the tablet. I wondered what the news was saying about the path of destruction we left in our wake. How close Ross was to catching up. How the war in Wakanda was going, if it had even reached international airwaves. "It was all my idea. Fury just wanted Dreykov dead. That would've been proof enough. He's not an evil man, just a pragmatic one. A little girl's death was a small price to pay to end a man at the head of so much power and suffering."

That did seem to match with what I thought of Fury. Not a man who delighted in the death of children. But willing to do the tough jobs no one else could. Maybe that was why he liked the Black Widow as an asset — they were so alike.

"I don't think you should hide it from her," I said at length, wondering how I could express this notion without sounding stupid or sanctimonious. "Seems like the kind of thing Dreykov would take advantage of when he gets the chance."

"Hm," Natasha made a noncommittal sound. Asking a spy to willingly spill her deepest darkest secrets and regrets to one of her own targets, a victim of collateral damage, was about the antithesis of her entire being. "We'll see."

There was more I wanted to say, maybe to ask about the conversation from the night at the motel, but then the shower stopped and the bathroom door opened; Antonia, dressed and toweling her wet hair, flopping down on the bunk opposite mine. I offered her a hairbrush from my backpack, and she took it with a small nod of thanks.

Just as I was trying not to look obvious staring at the mottled scarring across the back of her left hand, she asked, "How did you get those marks on your palms?"

I blinked, caught off guard. Glanced at my hands as if I forgot they were attached to me. The straight lines cut haphazardly every which way on my palms and fingers. "Oh. Yeah. I fell on broken glass."

Her one dark eye flicked from my hands to my face. "You're like him, right? Captain America?"

I flushed. "Sort of. Why?"

"The shield. I was curious." Antonia shrugged, but her expression was carefully impassive. Just a tinge of nervousness with the way her fingers twitched. "You're one of the good guys."

I tried not to look up at Natasha. "Well, we try to be."

I didn't think Yelena really qualified for that statement, but didn't know how to clarify that without implying we weren't a cohesive team. That didn't appear to be Antonia's concern, however. She frowned at the floor as she brushed out her hair, pulling it down more on one side so that it would dry covering up the bare patches of scalp on her left side. "I just wanted to make sure. This is the nicest kidnapping I've ever had."

"It's only your second one," I pointed out.

That got a laugh out of her. "Oh, I suppose that's true. But I guess that also means my father is as evil as you say, if the Avengers are hunting him down."

"I'm not an Avenger." I said.

At the same time Natasha's voice echoed down from above, "Don't take our word for it."

Looking up, Antonia asked, "What?"

Natasha's eyes were still on the tablet, absently tapping. "Your father. If this goes like I think it will, you'll see for yourself what kind of man your father is."

"Yes," Antonia dropped her head, shoulders drooping. "I suppose I was only fooling myself. Thinking a good man did not have to be a kind one. He always said he's just doing what was best for me."

"They always say that," Natasha mused.

Antonia looked to me, two-toned eyes big and sad like a lost puppy, "I'm sure your father is very different."

I opened my mouth then caught myself, realizing she must mean Captain America, and not Bucky. Hesitating, I said, "He, er, didn't really know what he was doing when we first met. He didn't raise me, you know. But there's a difference. He made mistakes, but he was never mean or cruel. I always felt wanted."

And I felt that was still true, even after we'd confirmed Steve wasn't my father. He didn't stop trying. It had never been perfect and I never expected it to be. There were a lot of bumps in the road. And that experience was still far and away preferable to whatever it was Antonia endured. I didn't want to press for details when she seemed unwilling to give them. What she's said already sounded bad enough.

"I think my father wanted a son," Antonia muttered ruefully, tugging a little hard with her brush. "My mother died in childbirth, and I don't think he wanted to go through so much effort to try again. Maybe… maybe he didn't want children at all."

"That doesn't give him the excuse to be a monster," I told her. "I wasn't exactly planned, either. My parents still managed to be good people about it."

Antonia was quiet for a long time, lost in her thoughts perhaps as she mindlessly brushed what appeared to be smooth hair now. She only looked up again when Yelena returned with the opening of the compartment door, a tray in one hand and a drink in the other. The tray was laden with breakfast options, and we all reached over to pluck our meals and lighten her load.

"Ah, I love chocolate muffins," Antonia's face lit up, and didn't hesitate to take a bite. Only for her to make a face, apparently surprised. "Hm. This doesn't taste like the ones at home."

Yelena turned her head to hide an eye-roll only I could see. "Don't know what kind of chocolate they used, sorry. What you see is what you get."

Antonia still seemed disappointed, and ate the rest of her muffin with considerably less enthusiasm. Maybe it really was badly baked, but she never expressed any nausea or sickness, so perhaps it really was just personal taste.

Aside from the mealtime drama, there were no other problems with the train ride, and we departed at the final station with no further issues. From there, a car was rented/stolen (I didn't ask) and what remained was a two hour drive deeper and deeper into rural Russia. Rolling mountains and lush river valleys — I could see why they called the river Mother Volga. It seemed like life itself burst from its shores.

The village was a tiny affair worthy of the name. Maybe even a hamlet by a population definition. Less than a thousand people, a small town of a few houses and public buildings with the rest being scattered farms in the surrounding land. A meager gas station probably served the entire region, which we stopped to refill and pick up a few supplies. Nat was not keen on spending the night here, so we were to keep on the move even after exploring the Dreykov house.

By virtue of being strangers, we garnered attention from the locals present. The old woman at the gas station counter looked me up and down as I paid in cash, peering at me through thick lenses. She kept looking between me and the car, then up out at the sky. Then, speaking in Russian with such a thick regional accent I could barely understand her, she said, "You girls watch yourselves. It's not safe out there."

I blinked in surprise as I received my change. "I'm sorry?"

"It's a bad day to be visiting," The woman said, her withered hands trembling with age. Or fear. The ancient cash register rattled as she closed the drawer. "Not safe. You should be gone when it comes."

I stared at her, even as she turned her back to me. "When what comes?"

She glanced over her shoulder, rheumy eyes boring straight through mine. "Chernobog."

The word sent a chill down my back. Then she faced me again, and before I could react, shoved something into my hand. "Here, for protection."

Still shaken, I looked down at the thin chain she had shoved into my palm. It looked handmade, with a glass bead hanging from a pendant. Dark blue with small painted concentric circles of white, light blue, and black — an nazar charm to ward off the evil eye. I was so taken aback that I couldn't give it back even if I tried, as the woman was already pushing me out the door, urging us all to leave before the storm came.

I looked out over the distance, towards the mountain range where the woman had been looking before. There were some dark clouds that could've been an approaching thunderstorm. But it wouldn't be here for hours. Not the sort of thing I thought would deserve this kind of reaction.

"What was that all about?" Yelena asked, frowning around the front seat at me. "Did we not have enough cash?"

"No," I said, holding up the antique jewelry for them all to see. "Gave me this. Said we should all leave as soon as possible. And she mentioned Chernobog."

Everyone stared at me.

"Village folk tend to be pretty superstitious," Nat relented, at length, though she sounded doubtful herself. "Especially the elderly. Strange things happen out here with no explanation. Freak accidents. Bad weather. Might as well be demons."

"At least she didn't call me Baba Yaga," I said, slumping back in my seat. It wasn't the first time I'd received random pieces of clothing or accessories from a stranger, but it was the first time with such a warning.

Antonia threw me a bewildered look at that. "Why would anyone call you that?"

"No reason," I said, cutting a look when I heard a snicker from the front seat. "Just something mean people say when they want to hurt my feelings. Like insinuating I have feelings for a man old enough to be my grandfather."

The snickering stopped.

"Ew," Antonia said. "Sounds like something my father would say."

Yelena remained stone-faced in the passenger seat.

I caught a glimpse of amusement on Natasha's face as she pulled the car out of the gas station, and I settled back, feeling like a little justice had been meted out today.

It was only a short drive, twenty minutes, until we reached the Dreykov house. It lied at the end of a long dirt drive off the main road, well hidden by a thick line of densely packed trees. Just as Antonia had said, there was little in the way of security here. A stone wall about fifteen feet high, and a wrought-iron gate that wasn't even locked. Just sliding up the latch and we were through.

The house itself was indeed a mansion, though it had seen better days. In fact, I was rather caught off guard by how dilapidated it looked. Built of stone, it hadn't been washed in at least a decade, and seemed to have visible cracking in the foundation. All the windows were dark — some on the upper floor were even boarded up. The driveway and surrounding lawn was covered in fallen leaves and overgrown grass.

As we stepped out, there was no noise. I couldn't hear any sound of activity inside. Not even the whirr of a generator. Aside from the distant roar of what was probably an airplane, it was eerily quiet here.

Upon stepping out of the car, Antonia took a deep inhale through her nose, closing her eyes. Opening them again, she smiled faintly. "I forgot how beautiful it is."

Yelena and I exchanged looks. The surrounding land was certainly lush and green and inviting to look at — but the house? The house was in shambles. It looked like one of the places MJ and I would sneak into to film a haunted house episode. And this one looked especially unsafe. There were broken shingles hanging off the roof, part of which seemed to be sagging slightly.

Despite it all, Antonia still strode ahead confidently. The three of us lingered behind, still taking it all in.

"Dreykov lived here?" Yelena whispered under her breath, her lips drawing back in disgust. "I always thought he preferred luxury…"

"Maybe that's why he built that castle of his," Natasha replied wryly, and was the first to follow Antonia inside.

Still Yelena hesitated, and perhaps we were alike in thought because neither of us rushed to follow. "You get a bad feeling about this?"

"Yep."

"Nat will want us inside," Yelena observed reluctantly. '"We don't have a choice, do we?"

"Nope."

She sighed, shoulders sagging. "Alright. First sign of a ghost and I'm out of here."

If the outside looked back, the inside was definitely worse. Dark and damp, Antonia was dismayed to find none of the lightswitches worked, nor did anyone come when she called for a Zelda or an Ivan. Not that I needed that to know this place was completely abandoned.

"I don't think anyone is here, princess," Yelena said in a flat tone as Antonia checked the first couple rooms for occupants. The entryway had creaky floorboards covered in a rotting plush carpet. A chandelier hung above towards the rising staircase, broken pieces of crystal littering the floor. Cobwebs and dust was everywhere. I spotted a cockroach and almost left right then and there.

"It doesn't make any sense!" Antonia said, returning from a side room with her arms up at her sides. "I've only been gone two months! I hope Father didn't fire the staff because of what I did…"

That honestly wasn't an impossibility. Still, I tried not to grimace as I lightly suggested, "Or maybe they left on their own?"

Antonia looked at me as though I asked if the sky was green. "Why would they want to do that? It was lovely here!"

Yelena and I both looked to Nat for guidance, and I was really starting to freak out a little. There was a strong scent of mildew here, and I was certain half of the steps of that staircase were molding or about to break. There had to be some kind of mistake.

But I couldn't conceive of what that mistake might be. Antonia clearly believed she was in the right place. And there was just enough old grandeur here that I could believe that, at one point many years ago, an old supervillain really would call this place his home. Back when in its glory days, when it was actually safe to live in.

"Antonia, why don't you show these girls around?" Natasha said, sounding awfully polite all of a sudden. Her expression was unreadable, but her tone definitely caught on Antonia's good side. "I'll take a look around and see if your father left anything behind. Call me if you find anything significant."

"Not if I run out of here first," Yelena mumbled under her breath, as Natasha went down one hallway and Antonia started heading for the dreaded staircase.

"Come on!" She gestured excitedly, stepping onto a plank that I was certain would snap under her weight. It creaked horribly, but held. "I'll show you my room! Don't mind the noise, it's just old. But well taken care of!"

"She's definitely fucking with us, right?" Yelena asked me as we slowly followed her. "Like we can all see this place is a fucking nightmare. No one would live here. She must be leading us into a trap."

"If that trap is these steps collapsing under my weight," I said, eyeing the stairs warily. "It'll be over pretty quick."

Yelena went first, testing for the strongest points before I followed her path. The stairs were definitely on their last legs, groaning under my weight, but I had almost reached the top unscathed before the final step to the landing broke beneath my heel. I'd just managed to hop up in time before my foot could be eaten by jagged wood.

Yelena mutters some Russian curses under her breath as we followed Antonia, who remained oblivious to it all.

The wallpaper peeled down in long curls, exposing the rotting wood beneath, all along the hallway down to one of the few rooms that still seemed to have open windows. Antonia's room, such as it was, was perhaps the best-kept looking room if only by virtue it actually appeared lived in and cared for. But that still wasn't saying much. As Antonia puttered about her room, picking up some old clothes off the floor, drawing back the curtains to reveal dirty windows letting in hazy light, I was getting a sickening sense that this wasn't some sick joke being played on us.

There were a few things in here that wasn't dilapidated, for one. A couple stuffed animals, though old, were still in good shape — nestled atop a raggedy bed on a janky metal frame. Some old scaves had been wrapped around the headboard in an youthful attempt to prettify it. The closet also revealed actual clothes that appeared to have been made within the past ten years. Still secondhand, it seemed, but in better condition than the house. Antonia seemed lost in some kind of daydream as she pulled out a dress, a faded pink color with a frayed hem. "This one's my favorite!"

"Uh-huh," Yelena pasted a fake smile on her face, like that of someone who didn't dare voice her honest opinion. Then, out of the corner of her mouth, she said, "She's messing with us."

"I don't think so," I murmured, and gestured to the clothes. "Those are all her size. All the clothes are newer than the house. And I can smell soap. Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"That droning sound. I thought it was a plane, but it's been going on for too long."

It had been ongoing since we arrived, and now that I had noticed it again, I realized it had never actually gone away. In fact, it seemed to have gotten louder. But Yelena just made a face and said, "I don't hear anything. And there's no way she can live here without having some sort of reaction to all this… mold."

It was a fair assessment. I didn't know how living in such a squalid environment wouldn't make Antonia sick on the exposure alone. But she already didn't look too great after two months in a human trafficking ring, so who's to say what she was like before. She seemed rather at ease here, despite her previous reluctance.

"These are clearly her things," I murmured, reaching over to open a book left on a threadbare chair. The book was a yellowed paperback copy of Pride & Prejudice, but it had clearly been thumbed through, with notes in the margins written by a childish hand. "These are her books. Everything in here smells like her. Including the bed. She's definitely slept in it before. A lot."

Yelena made a face, eyeing the bed like it might be hiding a nest of spiders. She didn't say anything, but there was a dawning horror on her face as she seemed to believe it as much as I was.

Dreykov was allowing his daughter to live in this way. And somehow convincing her it was some kind of beautiful paradise.

"We won't be coming back here," I reminded Antonia, in a louder voice. "If there's anything you want to bring with you, I'd pack it in a bag."

"Hm," Antonia seemed to take this seriously, at least. From her closet she drew out a moth-eaten carpet bag that looked absolutely ancient, and grabbed a few items here and there. She paused at her bureau, on which sat a jewelry box that looked to be in good condition, if vintage. From within, she pulled a delicate chain necklace, on the end of which hung a cameo pendant. "This is my favorite gift from my father. He said it used to be his grandmother's — the nicest thing he's ever done, I think."

Then, in the age-spotted mirror, she pulled the necklace on and smiled at her faded reflection. It was quite becoming, even if it clashed with the old shirt and plaid jacket she'd been given.

"It's pretty," Yelena grumbled after I elbowed her. "You said your father lives here, too?"

"Yes, not often," Antonia said as she guiltily studied her stuffed animals, glancing at us as if worried about our judgment. I pretended to be fascinated by an old picture on her wall (so sun-faded I couldn't make it out anymore) and out of the corner of my eye saw her quickly toss her stuffed animals into the bag. "I guess we can look at his bedroom next, if you want."

That is indeed where we went next. Antonia's careful choice of precious possessions also led me to believe this was truly her home. She had chosen sentimental items over anything of actual value (not that there was much…). I'd probably take my Stitch plush, too, if it was one of the only things I could take with me into a new life. It just seemed so… girlish and genuine, I had a hard time believing she'd do that in some mad conspiracy to trap us somehow.

There was little to be found in the master bedroom. It was in much worse condition by the reality that no, no man has ever slept in this room. The bed was a bare mattress on a broken frame. The closet was empty, as were the drawers. There were dark patches on the walls where missing frames once hung. All I could smell was dust and mold. No human scent.

No one had lived in this room.

Antonia seemed shaken as we opened one empty thing after another. "I-I guess he was planning on moving out. Right before I ran away."

It was getting harder and harder to dance around the truth with Antonia. I could only hope Natasha was finding something more useful while we wandered around up here. After peeking into the other rooms and finding less and less, I asked Antonia if she was hungry in a desperate bid to get us downstairs again. Anything to get this haunted trip moving along.

The kitchens were below, and Antonia was indeed quite hungry. I hadn't actually believed there to be any food left in this place, but Antonia seemed surprisingly — disconcertingly — optimistic about the idea as she skipped along back downstairs.

That weird droning sound continued, louder and louder. Much like a plane, but too close, I thought. Flying too low. "Do you really not hear that?" I asked Yelena again as we followed Antonia, who disappeared down another doorway.

"Ugh, I guess?" Yelena tilted her head this way and that. "It sounds far away. It's probably just a plane."

I was about to argue the point, wondering if maybe I'd underestimated how much better my hearing was compared to Yelena's — that maybe I was picking up more out here in the quiet rural countryside and thus especially loud sounds were even more noticeable — when we turned a corner and saw Antonia pull a jar of something out of a still working fridge.

The kitchen was disgustingly dingy. If there had ever been food here, it was long gone. But I was baffled by the fridge somehow still operating, as indicated by the light before Antonia closed it again, a big glass jar in her arms. The cupboards were half hanging on their hinges. The old grange stove seemed detached from the wall, some ancient meal still resting inside the oven. The windows were partly covered by rotting curtains, casting a dim light across the room. Dust motes swirled in the air.

"They still have muffins!" Antonia proudly announced, before hefting it over onto the island counter in the center of the kitchen.

"Muffins?" I couldn't tell what was inside the jar, though it was transparent. The contents were dark and perhaps congealed after so long in the fridge unattended. And then she was popping open the sealed lid, and I jolted, "Whoa, I don't think —"

But it was too late. She was already scooping it by the handfuls into her mouth. Closing her eyes as it dribbled down her chin. "See? Now that's what a chocolate muffin should taste like!"

Beside me, Yelena had gone deathly pale. Her voice was a hoarse whisper as she stumbled back and grabbed my arm for support. "Боже мой! What is she eating?"

It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing, between the dimness of the room, the strange liquidity and solidness in her hands, the deep redness slowly illuminating. And the smell.

The thick, metal smell of bloody offal.

I could only stare, my mouth opening and closing in mute horror. Yelena covered her mouth and turned away, barely containing a gag. "I think I'm going to be sick —"

And that droning just kept getting louder and louder. I realized it wasn't just the kitchen getting dark, but that the light outside the windows had also dimmed as storm clouds rolled in. Outside, the trees began to sway back and forth with an increasing wind.

"Do you want some?" Antonia asked, smiling at us with bloody teeth and offering her hand forward. The liver of an animal seemed to be resting in her palm, dripping fat globules of blood and matter.

"N-no, that's okay…" I said faintly.

"Oh, this is so bad." Yelena started grabbing for my hand. "I need that necklace!"

"No way! It's mine!" I yanked my hand back — the necklace was now in my pocket, but I sure as hell wasn't giving it up now that I was actively witnessing Antonia eating raw meat and now idea how to even begin handling it. Not something an old woman's charm could protect either of us from.

"Antonia," I called to her, a little worried about getting too close. I was only assuming those were animal parts she was eating. The organs looked too small to be human. But I couldn't be sure and I didn't want to find out the hard way. My voice trembled slightly, "Are— are you sure those are muffins?"

Antonia stared at me blankly, wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. It smeared more blood across her cheek. "Of course! I always have muffins, every morning. I know exactly what it is."

That seemed to be the breaking point for Yelena. She stumbled back out of the kitchen, wailing, "Natashaaaaaa!"

Oh yeah. This was definitely a Natasha problem now. I had officially decided I was way out of my depth and turned back around. "Stay with her! I'll find Nat!"

"What? Why me!" Yelena called after me, but I was already two-stepping it down the hallway, trying not to panic as I made a beeline for the other wing of the mansion, guessing that was where Natasha's current location to be. "What if I'm next!"

Thankfully, I found Natasha quickly, so Yelena didn't have to worry about becoming zombie food anytime soon. Still, I was trying not to look like I was panicking as I stumbled across her in what appeared to be a furnished and functioning office. Natsha was bent over a desk with a bunch of paperwork and journals splayed out. At a glance, they appeared to be medical or possibly scientific notes, with sketches of human anatomy and diagrams of the brain and spinal column.

But I was way past the point of reading comprehension at this point. "N-Nat! We got bad news —"

"What?" She snapped her head up, looking at me in alarm when she saw my expression. "Did something happen? Did Yelena hurt her?"

"N-no," I couldn't shake the stammer nor, in fact, my own gag reflex as I tried to recount what I just witnessed. The sights. The smell. The sound of teeth gnashing on chewy organ flesh. "It's Antonia — she's… she's eating…" I paused, frowned at the window. "It's getting closer."

Nat frowned, taken aback by the whiplash of my words. "Antonia's eating? Eating what?" As if she too could math that out as anything in this house as absolutely not being edible. Then she glanced towards the window and frowned. "The weather's changed, I know. It's just been getting worse by the minute."

"No, not the storm," I told her. "The other thing. Underneath that."

"Underneath it?" She frowned, but I didn't know how to explain the weird rumble of what sounded like a man-made machine beneath the roar of the wind and increasing patter of rain against the panes.

"Yes, there's something, its getting closer," I was sure of it, even before the window panes started to rattle with the vibrations of something more powerful, more rhythmic than the blowing wind. Even the empty glass on the desk started to rattle.

Natasha looked at it, then up at me. "I think you're right. Help me gather these up."

"What are they?" I asked as I obeyed, helping scoop them into a single pile, which she stuffed into my backpack for safekeeping. No time to get a better look at them now, but Nat's answer was close to what I'd guessed.

"Notes on some kind of experiment he was running," Natasha said, pushing on my back to let me know she was done. I moved forward, leading the way back to the main hall. "He's been conducting something here, but I don't know —"

Her words came to an abrupt stop when we were met by Yelena coming from the opposite direction, dragging a blood-covered Antonia after her, looking confused and upset at being taken away from her meal. There was certainly no mistaking what was on her face or stuck between her teeth. "Yelena, is that —?"

"Raw meat?! I know!" Yelena snapped with an angry, manic energy.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," I turned to Nat, gesturing weakly towards Antonia. "She found raw animal meat. And she's been eating it. She called it —"

"Muffins! She thinks it's muffins! She's insane!" Yelena shouted, and probably would've kept going if not for the front windows suddenly out in a great crash of wind, rain and thunder.

We covered our faces in alarm, and by that point the situation was officially out of hand. That droning noise was so loud now I was convinced that they had to hear it, too. It was Nat who shoved her way out the front doors, racing out onto the front lawn. We followed, staring up, and up and up, at the massive black storm cloud that loomed over the mansion.

A great expanse of thick vapor, flashes of lightning and rolling thunder, with a terrific wind that whipped rainwater and hair into our faces, throwing our clothes back, nearly knocking us down.

And within it, the source of that droning emerged.

Like a great beast emerging from the ether, so did the massive, magnificent metal structure from the clouds. Thousands of feet in the air, it hovered impossibly with its great thick mass, a flat base on which a central column was built, smaller wings stretching out on either side. I couldn't tell if it was traveling in the storm, or was the storm. The very air pressure seemed to change with its presence, and I wondered if it was possibly generating the storm weather around it. The way the lightning arced, the direction of the wind, the tornado-like current that threw rain and debris everywhere.

And suddenly I understood. The girls' fears. The woman's warning.

Chernobog. A great beast hidden within a demonic thundercloud.

"Ah, there it is!" Behind us, Antonia called gleefully, throwing her arms out as if to embrace the storm. "Kitezh! Isn't it magnificent?!"

The fortress couldn't have been more than two thousand feet above us. The droning was absolutely deafening now, whatever was keeping that thing afloat roaring with the power of a thousand engines. Swathed in clouds like a cloak, heedless of the crackling electricity, looming down.

And down.

And down.

It was getting closer.

And it wasn't slowing down.

"RUN!" Natasha's voice was sucked away in the wind, but we felt her command rather than heard it. Somehow the car was still standing, though I was so certain the wind was strong enough to lift it away like a child's toy.

The great shadow of the fortress chased us. The droning got louder, so loud I could barely hear the others screaming inside the car, the wind and rain lashing the metal exterior, the gunning of the engine, the squeal of tires on gravel.

Nothing, nothing, not even my own heartbeat.

The car peeled out of the driveway, smashing through the gates that had swung closed again in the storm. Nat was smart, choosing to drive under the great structure in order to outrace it. It kept coming down, but was now behind us.

We turned in our seats to watch through the blurry rearview window. I thought for sure the fortress would readjust its momentum when it realized it was about to crash land on earth.

But it didn't.

I watched, in a terrible horror, as it came down in unrelenting force upon the mansion beneath. With all the power of a small meteor, it crushed the house to pieces like it was made of toothpicks.

The roar was so powerful it shook the ground, and with it, a great cloud of debris exploded, like a bomb.

The cloud rushed towards us, a wave of force that knocked down trees and threw up stones — smashing the window before it even reached us yet. I grabbed Antonia's shoulder and forced her down, right before the wave hit us.

All the glass in the car shattered. The bumper flew off as we were sent flying forward, but Natasha somehow managed to keep control of the vehicle even as it swerved back and forth, trees falling left and right. The vehicle launched over a cock-eyed trunk and we nearly sped out into a ditch before she righted the vehicle, and we came to a sudden whipping stop on the main road.

I'd struck my head against the front seat, but was otherwise okay. The car's engine was still running, though it sounded weird with all the windows blown out. No sound was muffled now. The wave of destruction had passed, leaving behind a wake of felled trees. It reminded me eerily of the Tunguska event.

And then, looking over, down at the hill that was once covered by trees, we now had a plain view of what used to be the Dreykov house. Now crushed beneath the great fortress that still rose up hundreds of feet overhead. Like a flying skyscraper. I thought for sure it had made some strange suicidal attempt to destroy us. That it would topple over any second now.

But the droning continued.

Its engines were still working.

And we watched, in growing dismay, as Dreykov's castle began to rise again. Taking to the air once more. Slow, so slow, like a giant of a mass greater than its speed.

But unstoppable. Inevitable.

And that was before it started to revolve, and I saw the flares from within its hull.

Rockets.