Buried Secrets

chapter 9

Tony's pov

After the fight with Avery, we are all tired and hurt. It's taken a toll on Romanoff who is staring blankly at a wall. Abruptly all the screens turn black and two videos pop up. We all gather around watching.

"Avery" I hear Natasha gasp.

In one video, it is noticeable that Avery is aware that she's being filmed while in the other she's not. The difference between the videos is…...disturbing.

While Avery is aware of being filmed she fights back at every opportunity, hurls insults at her captors and ignores every command she receives, to kneel or obey, uncaring of the consequences.

In the second, where she believes no one is watching we all barely recognise her. She scrambles to obey every order from whoever this man is, promising tearfully that she will be good and taking the punishments for disobeying silently and repeating afterwards why she deserves it like she was told to, utterly broken by her time with this man.

Avery's pov

After being filmed Master Cameron and Dr Neiman told me the truth. According to them, I teleported here randomly and that the people I fought are really bad and that I was in their team but they betrayed me. They also told me that the woman I nearly killed is my sister and that I had a twin but she got murdered.

The guilt hits and it hits hard. I double over the sink in my cell, sobbing into my hand. My cries come in between gasping breaths, each little sob interrupted by hiccups. My grip on the sink counter tightens, my knuckles turn white. My eyes sting with the burn of tears, my entire body scalding. I lean against the cell wall and start to dry heave, my throat closing around nothing. The words echo in my head, a simple teasing statement that Master Cameron had spilled. I shake with each breath, muttering the damned words under my breath as the second meaning starts to grow louder. With one string of words comes a second, the truth behind the lie. I find that the truth rings louder than whatever Master Cameron had said, those words filling my mind instead and I squeeze the air out of them. It squeezes my heart and it squeezes so hard that I think the guilt might kill me. Despite all of this, I never stop muttering. Never stop repeating the words to myself, the words that Dr Neiman loves to say and the same words Master Cameron had let slip this morning.

"It's all your fault Amy died"

"Don't cry my little Masterpiece" Master Cameron says mockingly as he strides in. 

I had to read his lips quickly which I had to learn as I still can't hear.

My fists clench and my breath quivers at the skate of touch. I avoid Master Cameron's eyes. I can't bear to see myself reflected in his gaze, hideous and warped. 

"You didn't make me" I sign.

One of my powers is that I know every single language.

"Of course I did," he signs.

"What would you be without me? I've practically written myself across your skin. Here" His hand continues to shift my hand - from the scar that starts from my shoulder then trails down my chest then ends at my stomach, to one curling along my back, to the thin white slice across my cheek. "Here, and here. Everything you've survived, everything you've endured. You're so strong. Is that not beautiful?"

It is oddly reassuring. Disturbing but reassuring. A smile tugs at Master Cameron's lips. 

"I've always been an avid art collector"

And, abruptly, any vague sense of reassurance vanishes.

"Now you broke the rule of crying so you know what's to be done" Master Cameron signs.