No Tears | NR

Chapter 15

A town outside of Yaroslavl, Russia

Yara was already up when someone knocked on her door. Or maybe "still up" was a more accurate way of putting it. She hadn't been able to get any more sleep after her nightmare. And to be frank, she hadn't tried to sleep either, too afraid of having another nightmare.

Consequently, when she opened the door to reveal Natasha, she carried more resemblance with a zombie, than with her usual self. The redhead didn't look much better either, though, which made Yara wonder what the former assassin could possibly have dreamed of that would shake her up this much. She realized that she had been so busy with her own problems when they had sat outside that she hadn't even stopped to wonder how Natasha or Yelena were doing and what had kept either of them up at night.

The redhead barely managed to greet the brunette, when the latter got straight to the point. "Are we leaving?"

The Avenger gave a tired nod in response and turned around to head back to her own room. Yara closed the door behind her and quickly gathered all of her things of which there wasn't much. She then joined the other two women in the hotel's cafeteria where they had a quick traditional Russian breakfast. They stayed quiet the entire time, none of them being quite awake enough or too tired to say anything.

The silence continued when they left the building and made their way back to their aircraft.

The silence had continued during most of their flight, only interrupted by occasional quiet exchanges between the two assassins who were flying the aircraft.

The coffee that Yara had had during breakfast, had soon lost its effect, and the brunette caught herself dozing off regularly. Despite her attempts to stay awake, she finally fell asleep for a while.

The exhaustion from the night left her dreamless for a while, but the same nightmare she had had during the night, returned soon. Thankfully, she was woken up by someone shaking her carefully, before the last part of the dream started.

She needed a moment to regain her awareness of where she was before she looked up to see Natasha standing in front of her.

"Hey, I just wanted to let you know that we are here."

Yara nodded her thanks and Natasha returned to her seat. Yara got up, stretched her back, and followed the redhead to the front. The landscape around them was covered by snow. Mountains shielded their view from anything that lied beyond them. A large, open area spread out underneath them. In midst of that open area, there was what looked like a giant circular hole. A number of towers and buildings surrounded it and a street led towards it. As the helicopter got closer, multiple gangways running from one side of it to the other one, fences, and heavy doors became visible. A few guards gave the complex away as a prison.

Suddenly, an alarm went off down below them. Natasha had been talking into her headset's microphone for the last minute or so with a considerably growing hint of annoyance, giving instructions to someone.

That "someone" turned out to be one of the prisoners in the maximum-security prison below them. The first time, Yara saw him was when he burst out into the hole, kicking one of the heavy, metal doors down. He was rather heavy and had long, greasy hair and a beard. Tattoos covered his chest as far as Yara could see and she had no doubt that they spread all over his body. According to Natasha, his name was Alexei.

The man ran further out into the hole but stopped soon again. He held his hand up to his ear where Yara assumed that the earpiece was which Natasha had sent him earlier.

"We're gettin' you outta here", the redheaded Avenger replied to something that the man must have asked.

He proceeded to look up and quickly found the helicopter with his eyes. The aircraft had reached the prison by now and was flying in one spot above it.