Chapter 37
Layla knew that Yelena could take care of herself. Even if she looked like a kid, Yelena was more than capable of handling anything thrown at her. Layla trusted that she could make the right decision.
However, she also knew that Yelena didn’t have a typical upbringing and that she was naive about the world in a way that a lot of others weren’t. Her extreme isolation along with her lack of social interactions left her vulnerable in a way that other girls weren’t.
So Layla trusted Yelena to take care of herself but she didn’t trust the world not to take advantage of her.
Layla missed seeing Yelena in the morning but figured that she would be there when she came back from work that night.
However, when Layla returned home, exhausted from a long day, she was a little surprised to see that Yelena wasn’t there. Upon looking, Layla could not find a note.
She had only recently spoken to Yelena about running around with Nour out there and Layla had asked her to leave notes. Yelena had been happy to do so.
She could have simply forgotten but Yelena was a people-pleaser, she wanted genuine connections and for people to like her. Layla still feels bad for getting upset with her about disappearing because Yelena had been genuinely confused on why she was upset.
Layla waited for a little while, attempting to see if Yelena would show up. But as night fell, Layla grew more worried and she finally went over to Yelena’s place, leaving a note behind in case Yelena showed up while she was gone.
Yelena wasn’t anywhere to be found. Layla was starting to get worried and when she finally determined that Yelena simply wasn’t caught up somewhere, she called for her patron.
“Do you know where Yelena is?” She asked Tawaret.
The Goddess frowned slightly, shaking her head. “No. Are you sure she isn’t simply late?”
Layla thought for a few moments. “I don’t think so. She hasn’t prayed to you, has she?” She knew that Tawaret received many prayers but she also knew that Yelena reaching out to her would surely catch her attention.
“No,” Tawaret tilted her head to the side. “I’ll see what I can do.” With that, she disappeared and left Layla.
While Layla was not a master hacker of any sort, she did know her way around security systems. She picked up the skills while exploring dig sites and slipping into a room she shouldn’t have been in just to get a better view of an artifact a few times.
Layla caught Yelena on camera hours ago and followed her down the sidewalk, barely catching as a hand yanked her into an alley. She doesn’t come back out of the alley, not on that same camera at least. Layla couldn’t find any other security systems that picked up on her so Layla headed back out and went to the alley.
What she found made her stomach churn. Someone had been bleeding and quite recently. The stench of copper invaded her nostrils and dried blood was smattered on the dumpster and sprinkled on the ground.
“Tawaret,” Layla whispered, unsure of what to do. Yelena had been here, and then she wasn’t. There was blood, although Layla wasn’t sure if it was hers.
Tawaret stood next to her, examining the mess of the alley. “I haven’t heard anything from her, not a peep.”
Layla’s lips twisted and she thought about trying to track her down. The only thing was that she didn’t have the resources. The people she had tracked before were because she was guided by Tawaret who was following the source of prayers.
Layla could track her down easier if Yelena simply prayed to her. But the lack of prayers either meant that she was unconscious or- and Layla really hoped she was wrong- dead.
However, Layla did know that there was one person that she could get to help her. They didn’t like her but they liked Yelena. Even though Layla had been the one to be against dragging her into the mess, she needed help and resources.
And who better to have the resources she needed than an Avenger?
Tracking down a public figure was harder than Layla thought it would be. Nobody would tell her anything, although she supposed that it was a safety measure. Still, she needed help and couldn’t wait.
“She knows me,” Layla once again insisted to the woman behind the desk. “Tell her it’s Layla El-Faouly.”
The woman behind the desk raised an eyebrow, not believing a word that Layla said, but rolled her eyes and picked up the phone. “Deputy Director Hill, could you let Agent Romanoff know that there is a Layla El-Faouly here to see her? Says she knows her.”
Layla almost wanted to rub it into the woman’s face when Natasha showed up minutes later, looking annoyed that she had been interrupted. “Come on,” Natasha grunted out and waved Layla to follow her. “You better have a damned good reason to have tracked me to my place of work.”
“It’s Dina,” Layla stated and Natasha faltered slightly in her steps, turning to look at her as her face hardened. “Something happened.”
Natasha turned on her foot and started off in a new direction, Layla jolting to move forward and to try to keep up with her. “What happened?” Natasha demanded.
“She never returned after she went out. The last place she was seen has blood and there is no sighting of her after that,” Layla explained.
Natasha’s lips twisted unhappily. “Take me there,” she ordered.
Layla does. She guides Natasha to the alley and watches as the woman inspects the blood remnants.
“What are you doing?” Layla questioned when she noticed Natasha pull a tissue from her pocket to scratch at the dried blood on the side of the dumpster.
“There’s too much blood here,” Natasha murmured, carefully folding the tissue around the flecks of blood she scraped from the dumpster. “But it’s here and only here. No trails leading away.”
“What does that mean?” Layla watched Natasha straighten up and carefully tuck the tissue into her pocket.
“Where were you?” Natasha suddenly spun to glare at Layla. Layla jumped at the hostility in her tone.
“What do you mean, where was I?” Layla demanded, confused at the abrupt change in her tone.
“I mean how could you let her wander around like that?” Natasha demanded. “She’s a child!”
Layla opened her mouth to refute the statement before pausing as she remembered that Dina El-Faouly was thirteen and technically should not wandering the streets along so early in the morning, which was when Layla suspected she went missing. “I do not own her,” she settled on saying.
Natasha let out a scoff, shaking her head. “Sure,” she muttered. “It’s not like you took her in or anything.”
A surge of anger flooded through Layla before it left as quickly as it came. Natasha doesn’t understand the dynamic that she had with Yelena. As far as Natasha knew, Yelena was a thirteen-year-old Widow that Layla took in. Looking at it from that point of view, Layla was a pretty shitty guardian, especially considering how Yelena didn’t even live with her. “I have work.”
“Right.” Natasha moved toward the exit to the alley. “I’ll reach out if I find anything.”
“You expect me to just stand around?” Layla moved forward suddenly, reaching out to grab Natasha’s arm, a very bad move. Natasha spun around and shoved her up against the wall, pinning her with an arm to her throat. Layla resisted the urge to call her suit toward her and took a few deep breaths as Natasha glared at her.
“I expect you to do just that,” Natasha snapped at her, leaning forward to put more weight against the arm against her throat. “You’ll only get in my way.”
“Listen,” Layla choked a little at the pressure on her windpipe. Natasha loosened the pressure slightly and Layla sucked in a breath of air. “I care about her, okay? You may not think so but I do. So you can either let me help you and we can work together or I can go off on my own.”
Natasha scowled at her, staring at her face to determine how serious she was before she pulled away and Layla immediately reached up to rub at her throat. “Fine.” Natasha turned on her foot and moved toward the exit again. “I’ll run the DNA. I’ll meet up with you when I have news.”
Layla watched as Natasha left quickly, rubbing at her throat. Even if Natasha completely left her out of the investigation, someone else was looking for Yelena and had the resources to do more than Layla. That was all the woman could ask for.
Layla was on her phone attempting to call out of work the next day when there was a knock on her door. She paused her rant at her boss, running a tired hand over her face as she approached the door. She reached for the doorknob, half expecting to see Yelena behind the door before she remembered that Yelena had a key.
Natasha was standing behind the door, her arms folded as she looked quite frustrated. Layla opened her door wider and stepped aside to let her in as her boss made a comment about having to work to make up for her last-minute time off.
“Fine!” Layla snapped into her phone and finally hung up on her boss, accepting the loss and turned her attention toward Natasha. “Hi.”
Natasha slapped a photograph onto the table. “Who is this?”
Layla peered down at the photograph and her heart sank. “Dina calls her Nour. I think that’s her actual name.” It was a drivers license photo and Nour looked much younger and happier.
“The blood belongs to her,” Natasha’s lips twisted unhappily, her brow pinched in deep thought. “The quantity concerned me. Has Dina been acting off recently? Or have you not been around enough to notice?”
Layla ignored the jab at her relationship with Yelena. “She’s fine.”
Natasha stared down at the photo and Layla raised an eyebrow. “Has Dina… killed anyone for you? Or someone else?”
Layla blinked at the question. “No?” She racked her brain to try and think of if Yelena had killed anyone. “Why?”
“Did she get triggered recently or seem upset?” Natasha pushed and Layla doesn’t understand why she was asking so many questions.
“She seemed fine!” Layla leaned forward to look Natasha in the eye. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Has Dina ever gone rogue before?” Natasha asked and Layla raised an eyebrow.
“You think that she murdered her,” Layla surmised, tapping a finger on the table to gesture to the photograph.
“The blood isn’t hers,” Natasha huffed. “And if it’s not hers but she’s gone and there were no signs of her leaving…”
“You think she flew off the handle and killed someone before fleeing?” Layla folded her arms. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“You don’t know what a Widow would do,” Natasha snapped and Layla resisted the urge to run her hands over her face tiredly.
“I know that she wouldn’t kill someone without a good reason!” Layla snapped back at her angrily.
Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “So then who is Nour? Why would Dina have felt threatened enough to kill her?” Natasha grabbed the photograph from the table so hard that it crinkled. “Was she touching her?”
“Oh my god!” Layla has no idea where Natasha is getting all of these accusations to hurl around. “No. Listen, we need to find out where she is--”
“When I help you find her, I want shared custody,” Natasha completely interrupted what Layla was saying, her statement causing her to fall silent.
Layla had not been expecting that demand. “You’re an Avenger. You can’t just demand custody of someone and get it.”
“You obviously have no idea what you’re supposed to be doing regarding raising a Black Widow,” Natasha raised an eyebrow.
“Fucking fine,” Layla wasn’t going to argue it. She had promised to help Yelena reconnect with Natasha anyway. But Natasha was as stubborn as Yelena could be. “But it’s not my choice, it’s hers.”
Natasha accepted that with a nod, shoving the photo into her pocket. “Catch me up on what you know about Nour.”
An average adult has about 1.2 to 1.5 gallons of blood in their body. Blood makes up approximately seven percent of an adult's body weight.
Up to fourteen percent of a body’s blood can be lost before physical symptoms start to appear.
Yelena never claimed to be big or tall. Her body was that of a fifteen-year-old girl on the shorter side of the spectrum. Any blood loss could be considered significant.
Her healing factor did not restore blood as quickly as it was lost. It was good for slowing down untimely injuries until she could get to safety but it did not magically fix her without symptoms appearing first.
When she woke up strapped down to a table, feeling the way her fingers had been broken to delay her escape, she knew that she was in for a lot of pain.
“There you are,” the sickeningly sweet voice of Nour echoed from nearby. Yelena attempted to turn her head, stopped by a thick leather strap securing it in place. “Wakey, wakey.”
“Apep…” Yelena breathed out, her head fuzzy. She hated coming around while she was impaired. Khonshu wasn’t there to protect her.
Khonshu wasn’t there at all. Yelena had waited too long to kill Nour and Apep took the opportunity away from her. The only question was if Apep was here piloting Nour’s body around then where was her God?
“Ah, ah, ah,” Apep appeared in her field of view, reaching his hand out to tap her cheek. “Stay with me, my dear. You wouldn’t want to miss any of this.”
“Fuck off,” Yelena slurred, wondering how much venom was still in her system.
“Don’t be like that,” Apep harshly gripped her cheeks, digging his nails into her skin. “Naughty children get punished.”
It had been drilled into Yelena since the day that she died that Gods were not something to mess with. Khonshu had instilled the etiquette and rules that she needed to know regarding meeting and interacting with other Gods. If Yelena would cross shrines or temples, she would stop and pray and sometimes leave an offering, mostly in the form of a ration, bread, or baked sweet that she had on her.
Yelena had been careful, she had followed the rules, and she had never stepped on any toes. But never before had she been faced with the fact that a God was going to torture her.
Sure, the Gods had killed her trying to find Khonshu. But her death had been quick and she didn’t suffer long. She had died in Layla’s hold, feeling safe knowing that she would be looked after.
Here, she was truly and utterly all alone. No Khonshu, no Layla, nobody.
Yelena squeezed her eyes shut, taking a few deep breaths as she prayed. She started off with her patron, asking him for help and strength. Then she prayed to Tawaret.
Then she kept going. Each God she remembered Khonshu not making backhanded insults toward, each God she left offerings for, and each God she had prayed to and wished well; she prayed to each one of them and asked for strength.
“No closing your eyes,” a hand grabbed at her forehead and her eyes flickered open immediately. “I don’t want you to miss a single thing.”
Yelena stared up at the face of a woman who had only ever wanted her daughter, now twisted into a cruel smirk by a God who killed his own avatar simply because she was in the way.
Yelena could handle whatever he threw her way. She had died plenty of times, she wasn’t scared of death anymore. She knew what waited for her on the other side, she knew that her heart may somehow just balance on the scale.
“I want to see just how far your God will try to protect you before he grows too tired to regrow parts,” Apep let out a hum and Yelena had no choice but to open her mouth as he jammed a thumb between her lips and wrenched her mouth open with inhuman strength. He held up a pair of pliers in a mocking way, smirking down at her. “Your God can heal wounds but can he regrow teeth?”
Yelena took carefully measured breaths and averted her eyes to the ceiling, praying once again as one of her canines was carefully sandwiched between two pieces of metal.
As he twisted his wrist and gave a slow tug, Yelena thought of Khonshu hovering over her on bad nights, teaching her how to read hieroglyphs and telling her stories as his staff tapped against the ground in the familiar comforting rhythm.
Getting a tooth yanked from her mouth didn’t hurt as much as dying the first time but tears still rolled down her cheeks despite her best efforts as she choked on blood running down the back of her throat.
“Let’s see what else we can do,” Apep hummed and Yelena could do nothing but watch.