Chapter 21
BARF looked eerily similar to a headpiece that Yelena wore at the Red Room during conditioning. It was black and had small pieces that stuck to her temples like glue. There were wires and Shuri had to tape some of the pads to Yelena’s scalp and face.
“I have constructed a set of phrases or words to hopefully trigger memories,” Shuri explains. Yelena tries not to feel unsettled by a guard at each of her shoulders, ready to subdue her if need be. “You probably won’t remember most of this.”
Yelena takes a few deep breaths. Natasha was right there next to her, gripping her hand gently.
“Will it hurt?” Yelena asked quietly.
“James was not very forthcoming with whether he was in pain or not. I am sorry to say that I am unsure,” Shuri frowns slightly. “But you will be looked after and cared for. If you are in pain then simply say so. There is no need to lie.”
Yelena nods her head. It already took a lot of trust for her to tell Natasha that she was in pain. But she would try. “Okay.”
Shuri nods. “Are you ready?”
No. Yelena was very much not ready and it must have shown on her face because Shuri smiles at her gently.
“Take a few moments. I am going to calibrate this one more time,” Shuri moves toward the machine to fiddle with it.
“Everything will be okay,” Natasha tells Yelena, squeezing her hand gently.
“What if I hurt somebody?” Yelena whispers.
“I won’t let you hurt anybody or anything. Not even yourself,” Natasha promised softly. “I’m going to be right here the whole time.”
“Pinky promise?” Yelena holds up her pinky and Natasha hooks her finger around it.
“Pinky promise,” Natasha nods her head and leans forward. There is equipment on Yelena’s forehead so Natasha settles with kissing the bridge of her nose. “We don’t have to do this and we can stop at any time.”
“I know.” Yelena takes a few deep breaths, briefly glancing up at the guards at her shoulders.
Okoye and Ayo were stationed at her left and right side. Okoye glances at her and gives her a small nod.
“Okay… I’m ready,” Yelena speaks up and Shuri moves toward her.
“Close your eyes,” Shuri instructs and Yelena does so. “Deep breaths.”
“I’m going out on my first official mission tomorrow.” She murmurs to the other widows she shared her room with.
She was the youngest widow in the group. She took the bed of the girl she killed. She was eight and all these widows were at least fifteen.
“I need help with my hair.” The admission hangs in the air and she shifts uncomfortably.
“Come.” One of the eldest girls there, eighteen or so, points in front of her so she moves to stand in the spot. “Turn around.”
The girl was somewhat gentle when pulling her hair back. Her fingers twist her hair into pristine braids.
“You must be careful,” Another one of the widows pipes up.
“I always am.” She glances up at the older girl. “I have to be.”
That night a guard drags his flashlight along the metal bars of the girl's bed frame as he passes, the light shining in their faces. He stops just in front of her bed before he moves forward.
She hated ‘random checks’ where guards would frisk them for suspected contraband.
The guard tugs on her braid and orders her to open her mouth and his hands feel up her grey pajamas to check for contraband that they both know aren’t there.
She squeezes her eyes shut when he cups between her legs. “I don’t have anything there.”
“Are you sure?” His hands slide up to the waistband of her pajamas.
“I’ve got contraband.”
The guard’s fingers pause on the waistband of her pants, glancing over at the girl who had spoken up.
And then the girl was out of bed and had her legs wrapped around the man’s neck faster than ever. There was a bobby pin in the handcuffs, the contraband that had been snuck in. There was a crack and the guard gurgles as his eyes roll into the back of his head.
Yelena looks up into the face of the widow that had braided her hair only hours earlier, her face now twisted with disgust. They haul the girl away and she doesn’t come back.
It’s filled with another girl by the time she returns.
“Try it again.”
She thinks her brain might be melting out of her ears. “No!”
“Broken. Ballet. Six--” The listing starts and she twists in her restrains to try and clasp her hands over her ears.
The doctor merely glances at her when the list ends before sighing. “Try it again.”
“Broken. Ballet. Six--”
“Again.”
“Broken. Ballet. Six--”
“Again.”
“--firefly, fourteen, venus.”
“Widow?”
Her head moves before she can stop it. “Ready to comply.”
It hurts. It hurts so much that she can’t help but cry.
She’s eleven and dumped back into her room with the other older widows. There’s blood between her legs and hickeys littering her neck and chest.
A hand is set onto her shoulder and she violently recoils from the touch before realizing that it was only Sascha.
Sascha was twenty and was known for being sneaky but nothing was ever able to be pinned on her. That made the instructors proud.
Sascha takes her to the showers and she doesn’t care when the older widow strips them both down and takes her under the hot spray.
Sascha kneels in front of her, her hands brushing against the bite marks and bruising littering her throat and chest. “You may cry now. Nobody will hear over the showers. Cry, Yelena.”
She does cry. She folds in on herself in shame and embarrassment as Sascha pulls her against her bare chest and just holds her together.
Sascha washes out the bitemarks that broke the skin on Yelena’s body. She asks to look down below and see if Yelena tore.
Yelena presses her head against the white tile in the bathroom and spreads her legs and lets yet another person stare.
Sascha tells her she’s lucky. Nothing tore. It may have seemed like a lot of blood but it was mixed with other bodily fluids. She helps Yelena clean up.
When they’re dried off and Yelena hesitates to put on any clothes because of the pain, Sascha cups her face with her hands.
“They are going to do it again.” Sascha warns her. “They will take everything from you. I cannot help you again. It is a kindness I cannot afford to give.”
Yelena nods her head. She lets Sascha help her into her clothes and braid her hair.
As soon as they parted ways, Sascha avoided Yelena like the plague. Like she was dirty and disgusting.
Yelena kills her four months later and if anybody noticed that Yelena didn’t drag it out as a show for her superiors like always then nobody mentioned it.
She comes down with an illness that leaves her throwing up. She thought she must have eaten something rotten on her last mission but she’s hauled away and they take her blood.
Pregnant they say. The man she slept with nearly a month ago was surely the father.
She doesn’t want to be a mother. She can’t. She won’t let herself bring a baby into this world.
They take more blood and run another test and tell her it was just a false positive.
They give Yelena more than anything in the world and take it away in a matter of hours.
Because for a brief few moments, Yelena had thought about taking the baby and running.
It doesn’t matter. There is no baby. Never was. Yelena was now given birth control after each mission.
“You are the youngest to graduate by far,” Dreykov cups her face like she is his most precious thing. “I am so proud of you.”
She doesn’t want to graduate. She doesn’t want it because she knows what it means.
Fourteen and not yet ready to lose a permanent piece of her body.
She’s scared. Some widows leave to graduate and they never return.
They strap her down and push a mask against her mouth and tell her to breathe deeply.
She wakes up feeling so very cold.
It’s been a month, they say. You died, they say. You were frozen, they say.
She returns to her bed and the other widows freeze like they’ve seen a ghost.
Whispers flutter by as she curls up in bed for the night.
“Can’t kill that one. She’s Dreykov’s favorite. A child prodigy.”
How does one go from feeling absolutely nothing at all to everything all at once?
It’s so overwhelming. There’s a knife in her hand and blood on her shirt and she’s poised over the body of Oksana, her partner for the last year.
“What did I do?” She’s so confused. Her mind feels so very clear but they’re still supposed to be on a mission and she was only ordered to takeout rogue widows.
Oksana grabs her face and whispers the instructions to her. This was an opening. Yelena’s chance to escape.
She cuts the tracker out of her thigh and hesitates over Oksana before granting the woman a kindness by slashing her throat quickly.
All it cost was Yelena’s freedom and a promise to protect the vials.
There are two sets of hands on her shoulders and something warm sliding down her upper lip. It takes a moment for her gaze to focus.
She’s been pushed to lean forward and there is a black bowl shoved between her knees to catch whatever is dripping from her face.
Yelena’s whole mouth tastes metallic and she gasps in a breath of air.
“Yelena?” Shuri’s face swims into view, worry and concern painted clear as day. “Are you back with us?”
Yelena belatedly realizes that her nose is bleeding quite badly, a steady stream dripping into the container in her lap. “Nat.” She croaks out.
“I’m here,” Natasha’s face appears and Yelena inhales sharply.
“I’m---” Yelena gags and spits out a blood clot. “Upside down.”
“I know, little one,” Natasha’s hand moves to cup the back of her neck. “How do you feel?”
Yelena realizes that the two sets of hands are Ayo and Okoye holding her up and keeping her from lurching forward off the table.
“Yelena?” Natasha prompts, worry in her eyes.
“It hurts.” Yelena’s eyes flutter shut tiredly but Natasha taps her cheek gently.
“Stay awake. Look at me, little one.” Natasha orders gently. “What hurts?”
“Everything.” Yelena breathes out before tears slide down her cheeks as well and a sob wracks her frame. “Everything hurts.”