black widow movie | dear violette romanoff,

prologue

I was commissioned in Sweden with two other girls in my division. The job was simple and underwhelming but annoyingly inevitable after decades of underestimation of my skills.

I cross the reception area toward the lifts. There are two receptionists, but one is on the phone. Judging by the accent, a Russian guest is checking in, taking care of the other receptionist. Two tourists are standing in the lobby, admiring a map of Sweden. My teammates, Amelie and Anastasia, should already be on the roof, where they need to be.

"There's a CCTV camera in the top corner of the lobby," Amelie reports, opening the comms. "It should be shifting direction as you approach the lifts. I'll let you know..."

I had already been aware of it before she told me. I slow down my pace. I was going too fast for someone with no interest in being noticed.

"In four, three, two, one. The camera's off you."

I reach the lift but stop immediately upon seeing three people already occupying it. "I need a different route," I state.

"There's a door for fire escape," Anastasia tells me. "Follow the corridor, and it will lead you to a stairwell. I'm on my way there."

I open the door and slip through the first and only corridor, turning a sharp right and reaching a stairway of at least seven flights of stairs.

I groan.

I approach the room number. A white, wooden door with the massive gold numbers '217,' in an awfully selected font.

I open my comms. "I'm going in."

"Hey! That's not the plan," Anastasia pants through the other end. "You're supposed to wait for me."

"I suppose you just weren't quick enough," I mutter, turning off any communication.

I send a single kick at the door and wait for it to fall flat on its back. I reach for the gun in my back pocket and charge into the room, letting the dust from the carpet waft around the apartment.

A middle-aged Asian woman with two braids cascading down the back of her skull and a dangling necklace is kneeling alone in the middle of the bedroom.

"Tell me where the vials are, or I'll put a bullet in the back of your head." I raise my gun at her.

She doesn't say anything, nor does she get up from the carpet.

I start shooting at her before she can rise, but she dodges the rapid-fire. I get closer, continuing to shoot. She stands up and takes the gun out of my hand, throwing it across the room.

I go to attack her, using the bed to propel myself and land onto her shoulders. I tighten my legs around her neck, but she throws herself backward, smashing us both into a cupboard.

I let out a high-pitched scream as my head submerges in the wood.

The woman drops me forward onto the carpet and shakes her head back and forth, scrambling across the floor and toward the bed.

I get up quicker than she expects. I kick her in the side profusely, landing her onto her back. She's in a vulnerable position, and she knows it. I pick her up by the shirt, holding her closely.

"Tell me where they are."

She shakes her head in discomfort. "I don't want to hurt you."

I furrow my eyebrows.

She uses her knee to break free of the stance, kicking me in the stomach. I gag in revolt at the feeling of my organs repositioning. She crawls under the bed and takes out a black metal case.

My eyes widen, and I attempt to stand up. Eyes on the package.

The woman opens the case and reveals eight vials filled with luminescent red gas. The vials glow so brightly that the red projects its color onto my face, and my face lights up. She takes one vial out.

I shake my head, concerned. I reach for my gun on the floor beside where I'm lying down, but I'm too late.

The woman opens the vial, and there is a red, burning sensation on my face. One, unlike any other serum that the Red Room had made me take.

I cup my face in refusal.

"The sun will be up soon."

I inhale, gasping for air. I squint my eyes; Oksana is standing up.

All the information in the world returns to me like a magnetic force.

I pant.

She collapses down beside me. "Your thigh," she says.

Suddenly, I remember the tracker implanted in my own thigh.

"Do you remember, now?"

The surgery. They must have done something to my head. Messed me up well. What about the other girls and their heads?

"You have to get out of here," I tell her. "The girls upstairs..."

She places two vials in my hands. "Use them." She stands up, taking the vials in her hand, and runs out of the hotel room.

I grab the knife from my pocket and stab it into my thigh. I retract the tracker from my flesh and throw it across the room.

My mind feels flooded, crowded with information. It's like cognitive overload, but only the knowledge flooding my brain isn't new. It has always been there but has been hidden behind a false identity and being. There are multiple versions of myself. Hiding.

The girls upstairs are still brainwashed. Brainwashed doesn't feel correct of a word to use. They're still being commanded. They are not in control of the thoughts that they think or the actions that they do, despite being fully aware.

I needed to get somewhere. Pronto.