The Winter Wraith

Chapter 6

Adina woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, or rather a memory. She couldn't remember all of it, but the part she did frightened her. In the memory, she was back in the Hydra base in Siberia. Her second handler, Ryker, was with her during this time. He told her to speak Russian when she was at this base. Adina shivered as she reflected on the memory.

~~~~~~

"Again. Get up," the supervisor, Karpov, demanded.

The Wraith weakly got back up to her feet after being knocked down by the Winter Soldier. When the Wraith was kept at the Siberia base, the Winter Soldier was put to use by training her and perfecting her technique. He was a severe teacher, but Karpov was the one pushing both of them.

The Wraith harshly pulled out the small knife that had been embedded in her upper left thigh and tossed it to the Soldier. She didn't think it was fair that he got to use a knife when they sparred, but she wouldn't dare let her concern be known. Being at the Siberia base always scared her to the core, so she made sure to be overly compliant and docile when she was here.

The Wraith and Soldier began to spar again. This time, the Wraith landed the first punch right in the other Asset's face. She then attempted to throw a roundhouse kick to his stomach, but he grabbed her leg, roughly twisted it, and slashed a shallow cut on it with the knife. The Wraith got out of his rough grip and backed a couple of steps away. The Soldier landed a hard blow with his metal arm to her stomach. She could feel the excruciating pain of her rib cracking, but she knew better than to stop fighting. As the pair continued to trade unrelenting punches and kicks back and forth, an important conversation was occurring in the background.

"Have you consulted Strucker on the situation yet?" Karpov asked Ryker, in English, to avoid miscommunication due to Ryker admitting he didn't know Russian that well. Adina had thought that was weird because he had been the one to teach the language to her.

"Yes, but I still do not understand why we would want to waste someone so valuable on his new toy," Ryker replied tersely. It sounded like they had already previously had this conversation.

"The new serum did not have the full desired effect on the Wraith. It is not enough. Have you not noticed how it struggles when it fights against my Soldier? It either needs years of training, which I shall remind you, we do not have time for, or we can easily give it a different advantage to level out the playing field. Do I need to remind you how important this project is to Hydra?" an irritated Karpov spewed.

"I understand the magnitude of the situation. I am just worried that the experiment will kill her and lose all of our progress," Ryker said, seeming to hold back on what he truly wanted to say.

"Strucker has already had two successes with the gem. Let's make a third."

~~~~~~

Adina had remembered the fight with the Soldier, but she didn't recall the intense conversation between General Karpov and Ryker. This was around the time Ryker had disappeared from Hydra, and she could easily guess that that conversation had something to do with it.

Ryker had always been a bit too nice for his career. Adina didn't understand why exactly he had joined Hydra, but she theorized that he had some personal, ulterior motive for it. No one just randomly joins Hydra, especially a lively young man with his whole future ahead of him.

Setting aside the memory and the puzzle that Ryker was, Adina got up from her mattress. After that memory, she knew she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. It was still dark outside, so she walked over to the wall by the front door and flipped on the light switch. The single, bare lightbulb in the center of the room flickered to life as she rummaged in her backpack. She pulled out the library book, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and began to read.

~~~~~~

A few hours later, the sun had risen, and Adina finished the interesting book with a sigh. She would definitely have to get the sequel from the library. Adina felt really pleased with how her morning was going, aside from the rough memory. She learned something new about herself. She had to have been an avid reader before her memory was wiped because she immensely enjoyed reading. She felt immersed in the novel, transported to a different world, while she read the novel.

After rediscovering this hobby, Adina got up from the floor to get ready for the day. Before she got in the shower, Adina peered at herself once again in the cracked mirror. The eye bags underneath her blueish eyes were starting to become less severe. She had been able to get more sleep than she did at Hydra, but she was still tormented by fragmented memories and grim nightmares. She also wasn't used to sleeping this much at a time.

Once she was clean, Adina made sure everything she owned was in her backpack. She still had the blue vial, but she was 97% certain that the liquid was just dish soap. It had been a part of the set-up by that weird group. She had considered throwing it out, but she held onto it. In the back of her twisted mind, she thought that Hydra would punish her when they found her without the vial. Even though she had defected, she was programmed to complete the mission, so throwing the vial away was not a simple thing to do. Though she was free from Hydra, she couldn't shake away the feeling that she would be returning there sometime.

Lastly, Adina slung her backpack over her shoulder while grabbing her library book and headed out, shutting the door behind her. She doubted the door would pose a challenge to anyone wanting to break in, not that she could imagine someone wanting to break into her worthless apartment, but she continued to lock it anyway. With the book in hand, she went back to the public library.

~~~~~~

Avengers Compound

Ever since Adina's display of unnatural abilities, the Avengers had searched countless records, trying to figure out where this peculiar girl came from and who she was. They had gained minimal information from these fruitless attempts.

"I still think we should talk to Bucky about this," Natasha said to Steve, while working at a high tech computer station.

"I don't want to trigger any bad memories. He's still not in a great place, and I don't want to risk hurting my friend. Plus, he's never even mentioned working with a young girl during his time with Hydra," Steve replied while confusingly looking at Natasha digitally scouring any available Hydra files she had access to.

"I understand, Rogers, but we haven't been able to find anything on her. It's like she doesn't exist."

"I know."

"All we have to go on is Stark's comment that the girl had an American accent. All I'm saying is that we could really use Bucky's help. At least consider it, please," Natasha said, looking away from the holograms of Hydra files and turning towards Steve.

She understood how volatile Bucky has been, as he has only been at the compound for almost three months. He still had a lot of adjusting to civilian life to do. He now had the chance to live somewhat normally after getting his trigger words unprogrammed during his short stay at Wakanda. (A/N: Bucky stayed at Wakanda for one and a half months after CA:Civil War, then Tony invited him to the compound)

"Okay," he curtly replied with a sigh.

He was worried that this girl was like Bucky. As in, she was brainwashed to do Hydra's bidding. Even though she appeared to be in her teens or young twenties, this made her dangerous and a threat. Steve wanted to help the enhanced girl, but other people's safety would come first. He would have to fight her, maybe even kill her, if she was used as a weapon of mass destruction. He just hoped it wouldn't get down to that.

Published: 2/27/22