Power Within Her

I am currently in France and walking down the street in front of the Eiffel Tower. The man I am watching, Pierre DeBois, stops and turns around to look over his shoulder; he is carrying a briefcase with weapons that could level a small town if used a certain way.

I walk close to him, and then I walk into a nearby shop,

"Bonjour!" A little French lady says to me from behind the counter while smiling sweetly.

A grin makes its way onto my lips, and I reply, "Bonjour, ca va?"

"Ca va Bien, etui?"

"Bien, merci." Pierre walks into the store and stands in the corner of the room; the lady tries to ask him if he needs any help or wants anything, Pierre ignores her, and she shakes her head and turns to me and whispers how rude he is to me in French. I chuckle while nodding and continue looking at the things she has on the counter.

I know a big, burly man as Mateo Lopez walks in and walks up to the man; they shake hands, look over at the lady and me; nodd, andd walk out of the store. The lady and I look "confused" at each other, and I shrug and buy a little souvenir and ring. I tell her a thank you and walk out of the store; I pretend to be looking through my bag when the two men look over at me. Pierre hands the briefcase to Mateo, and Mateo pulls out a duffle bag and shows a large sum of money inside it.

They make the exchange, and I run over and tackle Mateo and Pierre at the same time, they both pull out a gun, and I pull out my dagger from the waistband of my pants. Mateo fires at me, and I move my head out of the way at the last second, the bullet sliding across my cheekbone; I feel the bullet tear through the skin, and blood begins to pour out. I run at Mateo and kick him into the wall with my left leg; as I fight Mateo, I see Pierre trying to gather the bag of money and the weapons. I throw a dagger that pierces the middle of his hand; he falls to the ground holding his hand in agony.

Mateo gets up from where he fell and charges at me; he tackles me to the ground, and we slide across the field, the gravel cutting into my back and legs. I bring my legs up and wrap them around Mateo's neck, extend them out, and as I bring them back at a rapid pace, my elbow makes contact with Mateo's head. After the fifth hit, he slumps down and loses his conscience; I push him aside and run over Pierre, who is still writhing in pain. As I go to lift him, he stabs my thigh and drags it upward, I let out a short scream of pain, and I pull out the knife that is stuck right about everything, my hip bone out. I toss it to the side, and I walk toward him,

"My turn!" I say in a very dark, sinister tone. I see him shiver in fear and start to scramble away from me.

"Wait! They are looking for you! THE SHADOW! they want their Shadow back." He says, and I stumble in my stride,

"Them? Who is THEM?" I interrogate while standing over him.

"HYDRA!" My blood runs cold, and my body stiffens. My blood continues to run down my leg from where I got stabbed, but I ignore it.
Why is HYDRA looking for me?

"How do you know this? What do they want with me?"

"Word gets around. They want their star killer back; after all, you can never break. You are a diamond. Trying to play a hero. Please, everyone knows you are a killer, and that is all you will ever be."

"You're right. I am a killer. I was raised to be a killer. I kill anyone who could ever be CONSIDERED a threat to me or to what I deem mine. Unfortunately for you, you fall into that category." A sinister smile crosses my face, and I see Pierre's face turn as pale as a sheet. I lunge forward, a knife in my hand, slicing his neck, and his blood sprays me in the face. He falls dead at my feet, and his blood starts to pool around his body.

I turn around and see that Mateo is still knocked out, and I reach into my back pocket to contact my phone when I feel something sharp pierce my neck. I gasp in slight pain and try to grasp whatever is in my throat; I think a small dart is stuck in my skin, and I use a little force to pull it out. I hold the dart in the middle of my palm, slowly roll it over with my right pointer finger, and I see the HYDRA symbol.

My blood turns cold...

My body begins to relax...

I fall to the ground...

My vision begins to blur...

I see a person walk towards me...

I can't move...

I know who it is...

The Winter Soldier...

This is gonna suck...

Someone better save me...

My body is picked up...

Everything goes black...

Oh, for fuck's sake...

I wake up, and I see a small, concrete room. I am dangling in the air; my arms are tied with chains and attached to the ceiling, my arms extended all the way. The chains can rip out one wrong move and my arms; I look around the room to see if there is any way for me to escape, but there is none. Suddenly, the door creeks open, and a man steps into my cell; I turn my head and stare at him. He grabs a chair, sits in front of me, and stares up at me. I raise an eyebrow and say,

"Take a picture; everyone knows you want to."

He smirks at me and then stands up. There is a knock at the door, and he walks over to open it. I wrap my hands, trying to get an advantage with the chains; two guards bring in a table. My blood turns cold; a bunch of torture devices and medical equipment are on the table. The guards leave, and the man turns to me and his eyes are cold; I meet his stare and wait for him to do something.

"I want you to tell me something." The man says, "I want you to tell me what made you think you could escape HYDRA."

"I knew HYDRA would come for me; at one point or another, I just decided to do what I wanted to do." I lie; I thought I could escape them; I was foolish.

"They say that it would take an astonishing amount of injuries to kill you; let's test that theory." He picks up a whip and walks to my back. I hear his clothes rubbing against themselves; he raises his hand, and I lower my head and brace myself.

Pain. The whip cracks against my back; I feel the spikes at the end of it cut into the skin of my back, and my shirt tears leaving my back bare. Blood rises to the surface and slowly drips down my back; the man raises his arm again and brings down the whip again.

Twice.

Three times.

Ten times.

Twenty times.

When the man stops, my back is bloody; a large pool is underneath me. The whip catches the skin on my stomach and chest; I dangle there, trying to breathe through the pain. My body is screaming in agony; I refuse to make a sound that entire time; they will not see me beg or show pain. The man stops whipping me after the twentieth blow; he walks around me and stares at my bloody form; he sets the whip down and walks toward the door; right before he leaves to walk out, he turns to look over his shoulder and says,

"Nikolina, don't you worry; I will break you. After all, I did it once before." He smirks at me and walks out the door, slamming it behind him; I instantly recognize him. Mikael Dimitrov used to train me in my powers when I first came to HYDRA. I would go through mental and physical challenges; I would be taught for hours without a single break. One day, he pushed me too far in one of his experiments and broke me.

I snap out of my flashback and try to control my breathing; the room is cold, and the floor is wet with my blood and water. Nobody comes back for a few hours, and I can loosen the cuffs a little during that time. Two guards come in and release the chains; I fall to the floor in a heap, my legs numb from being dangled for who knows how long. My arms are on fire; I feel the blood in my veins starting to travel to my hands. The guards use the guns in their hands and force me to stand.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask, my voice rough from not using it.

They ignore me and lead me down a hall; they shove me inside a room, and there is a table in the middle of the room with a light above it. I look around the room, trying to figure out a way to escape; suddenly, the door bursts open again, and four soldiers grab my arms and legs this time. I fight against them; I kick one guard in the face and knee another in the gut. The other two are able to strap my arms to the table; all four guards recover and strap my kicking legs to the table; they place straps on my stomach and head, so I won't be able to move, and then they walk out of the door.

A doctor runs in with a tray of needles full of various liquids. I look at the dish and then at him. It's him — the doctor who experimented on me as a child. Dr. Vasiliev, a cruel man, didn't care if I was scared, crying, in pain, or broken; he kept experimenting on me.

"Hello, Ms. Volkov; it has been a while, no? I see the powers I gave you are still wonderful."

"Stay the hell away from me." I snarl while flashing my eyes black, his eyes show fear, but his face remains cold.

"Now, don't be like that, my dear." he raises a device with one large needle with openings at the top. He unscrews the needles from the vials and places the jars one after the other in the machine. When he is done, he looks over at me and smiles. He raises the needle to my neck and shoves it in roughly. I bite my lip to keep from screaming out in pain; I feel blood begin to pool in my mouth, and realize my teeth pierced the skin.

The needle is still in my neck, and my blood is pumping hard in my veins; my body feels like someone has set me on fire. I look up at the "doctor" and see him staring at me. The pain in my body is beginning to become too much.

I pass out from the pain, but before I do, I hear Vasiliev say something to me,

"I do hope you survive this."

I wake up, and I am staring at the light above me; the straps holding down my limbs were starting to cut into my skin, and the restraints rub my wrists and ankles, red and bloody from my body jerking. My eyes are red from blood vessels bursting; they burn when I blink, and my right arm has a needle jabbed into the crease where the elbow bends. I move my eyes, seeing that my head is still strapped down, to look at my left arm, and I find many circular red holes in my arm.

I am all alone in the room; I am shivering. I lay on the metal table in my bra and underwear, hear the door open, and try to move my head to see who is walking into the room. It was Doctor Vasiliev; he walked up to my left side and looked down at me, his lips pulled into a sickening smile that seemed more like he was barring his teeth.

"Oh, Nikolina, I am so glad to see that you are alive."

"What did you inject into my body, you asshole."

"You know the word 'Volk' in Russian means wolf? Of course, you did; after all, you are RUSSIAN."

"You know that I speak over 20 languages; what does that have to do with anything?"

"There are these animals that many believe that is extinct. However, HYDRA has the last two left in the world."

"What animals? What did you put in my body?" I ask, pulling on the cuffs while arching my back, trying to get away from the doctor.

"It only fitted to me to take the blood of other wolves and put it into you." He vocalizes with childlike joy.

"What? I have animal blood in me? You sick bastard!"

"Well, modified animal blood, we needed to make it stronger, seeing that you are an enhanced human being."

"Why a wolf? Why not something stronger?" I question while my heart pounds away in my chest.

"Their tracking skills, speed, hearing, and overall instincts."

I look at him with hatred and try to pull at the cuffs, arch my body hard, and the table shakes. Vasiliev jumps away from the table in fear, and then he chuckles,

"Miss Volkov, there is just one step to completing the serum. However, I am afraid that it is going to be very, VERY painful." He motions to a camera, and within seconds two guards come in, bringing in an enormous machine.

My heart is racing so fast that I fear it will pound out of my chest; the guards place the machine near my mid-stomach. Vasiliev saunters over to it and pushs a button; the device grew long and encaptures my body inside it. I hear a couple more buttons being pressed, and the machine starts up; an intense burning sensation coursed throughout my body, the pain blinding me while trying to keep my mouth closed, but in the end, a scream rips its way up my throat. I hear Vasiliev chuckling at my pain, and suddenly, a blinding light appears all around me. The machine cuts off and folds back into itself; I lay on the table panting, my body covered in sweat. Vasiliev motions for the guards to come in, and they do; they unchain me and drag me off the table. I land on the stone-cold floor in a heap, my legs too weak from it being able to use them for so long, and my ankles are bloody and raw. The guards nudge me with the guns in their hands, but I can't move; they grab my arms and drag me across the floor, my entire legs receiving cuts and bruises from the stone.

We arrive at my cell, and they throw me in the middle of the floors, they walk over to the north and south walls, and I see cuffs attached to a chain and drilled into the wall. The guards link the cuffs to my wrist, and the metal connects me to the wall, spreading my arms out wide. My feet are chained to the floor, and I cannot move my legs. I am stuck in a kneeling position; the guards leave the room, and I lower my head to the ground, I try and pull my arms closer to my side, but I cannot. As the door closes, I am surrounded by one thing.

Darkness.

*Two Months Later*

I have been stuck in HYDRA for at least two months; during that time, they trained me to use my new wolf powers. My eyes now flash a bright red when I use my wolf senses; it's not just my iris, though; my pupil and iris turn bright red. My hearing has increased tenfold, and so has my sense of smell; my fingernails grow longer and are very sharp, my canine teeth extend to the bottom of my jaw, and the rest of my teeth come to a point.

I am working on my escape; I have grown more durable and faster thanks to my extensive training. I lightly pull on the chains that contain my arms. They give a little, a smirk makes its way across my face, and I stretch my limbs into my sides. I ignore the pain in my shoulders and wrists and continue forcing the chains to break. I hear the sound of the metal groaning, and soon there are two loud snaps; the metal falls to the floor, dust rises in the air, and I look around. I reach my feet and break those chains, I look at the camera and give a taunting wave and a siren sounds, and I hear the sounds of soldiers running towards my cell. I wait until they bust down the door and spring into action when they do.

The first guard runs towards me, and I move my arm in time as he fires his gun. I grab the chain and swing it towards the man's gun, the rope wraps around the gun, and I pull it towards me. My right arm shoots the other shackle around his foot, and I swing my arm to the side, the guard goes flying, and I hear his back crack as he makes contact with the stone wall. A dead silence enters the room, and I turn towards the other guard; I smell their fear; I flash my eyes red and elongate my teeth. I feel the adrenaline course through my veins as I run at the guards, kick two in the face, pick up one guard's body and throw him at two soldiers running my way.

Two more guards appear, and I wrap the chain around one guard's neck and hold it there until he passes out, I then swing the manacles around, and it wraps around the midsection of another guard. I bring him towards me, and when he is a reasonable distance away, I jump in the air and kick him in the sternum. All the guards and soldiers are down, but I am nowhere near done yet. I walk towards the 'lab,' and I destroy all the machines; I kick the metal table over and grab a needle filled with cyanide.

I walk down a hall and punch open each door, most are empty, but the last one isn't. There he was, the doctor, Vasiliev. He turns around and sees my transformed features; he jumps away out of fear. I hear his heart beating so fast in his chest, and it makes me happy, I walk towards him, and he opens his mouth,

"Nikolina, wait. Please." I look at him with my cold, dead eyes.

"Are you going to beg for mercy?" I ask in an incredulous voice and a teasing smirk on my face.

"I made you; I gave you these extraordinary gifts. Please spare me; show me mercy. You can be a better person than I am. Just let me live!"

"These gifts?! These aren't gifts; they are a CURSE. However, I shall always remember who gave them to me. You say to be a better person, but you forget I am a killer. HYDRA and the Red Room raised me. I don't know what mercy is. They broke me as a child; you and madam broke me. You said it was because Natalia was marble that I had to be Vibranium. I was made to be perfect, like a diamond. You wanted something stronger than marble; at first, I was Diamond, but now. Now, I am like Vibranium. Hydra and The Red Room can never break me again."

Vasiliev backs away from me during my speech; the fear in his eyes makes me angrier than ever before. I pull out the needle I am hiding behind my back, and his eyes hone in on it.

"What is that?" Fear in his voice.

"A painful way to die," I inform and lunge, plunging the needle into the base of his neck, and he lets out a scream, which I ignore in favor of pushing the plunger down, and the cyanide begins to enter his system.

He falls to the ground and begins to gag, his hand clasped to his neck where the blood is coming out. His breathing becomes shallow as he looks at me, terror evident all over his face; he falls to the floor and lies down on the cold brick. I crouch down, lean over him, and keep eye contact. I want to see his life leave his eyes. As he writhes in pain, I let out a dark chuckle and stand up; I look around the room and find a folder with my name on it. I grab it and stick it under my arm, Vasiliev is gasping for air, and I know it won't be long until he dies. I walk back over to him and see the light leave his eyes.

I smile and walk out of the room when something catches my eye, another door. I walk over to it and open the lock, I walk into the room, and I am greeted with two sets of red eyes; I hear a light growling, and I flash my eyes at the growling noise. When I do, the noise stops, and soon a whimper resonates in the air, my eyes adjust to the room's darkness, and I see two baby wolves. Their fur is midnight black with a hint of silver undertone, they crawl on their bellies toward me, and I lower myself to the ground. I reach my hand out, and they run up and beg to be pet by me; I pick them up and walk toward the exit. I hotwire a car and get in. I place the puppies into the passenger seat and take off driving with one destination in mind.

Home.