The Black Widow

Five years old

"I think we should start her on the program," the old man was tiring. He wanted to get all of this over with. He wanted to retire. Badly. He was ready and couldn't understand why no one else was.

"What? Are you joking kidding she is five years old!" The middle-aged woman thought he was crazy. A five-year-old! In the red room! She was supposedly hired to make sure the children didn't break under all this pressure. But that was a lie. She was hired to break them and glue the pieces back together in the way they wanted.

"Why not, I mean she is more than ready. She is fluent in more languages than you and I know put together, she is emotionally stable I don't think she has cried since she was two. She is smart and resourceful too." 

He thought that she was ready and if they waited too long she might be too old for the procedure. He had practically waited his whole life to get to test his theories on someone and they had the nerve to try and make him wait.

"She is only five" Five years old and he acts like she is some new shiny toy.

"She acts like she is twenty, thirty even," He argues. He wants this done now. She was ready and the sooner she went through the program the sooner he could use her.

"But she will stick out too much from the other girls. They might be jealous. Lets at least wait for them to mature. That way we still have options if she isn't the one."

 He had to listen to reason. He had too. She just wanted to give the girl a little more time.

"Two more years." He supposed he could wait that long.

"Two more years." she hoped it would be enough.

Natalia's POV

I am very confused.I found an envelope in daddy's room with three color photographs. I shouldn't have been snooping but I was bored. We don't have pictures in our apartment. Why do we have these? In one of the pictures, Daddy and another man are sitting together. They are both laughing. Daddy doesn't laugh like that now with his mouth open wide and his head leaning back.

 The man looks familiar somehow but I know I have never seen him before. He has soft brown hair and piercing blue eyes. On the back in pretty handwriting, it says 1924. That was the year I was born. I like the picture. It's interesting. Daddy looks happy and that's nice. 

The next one has that same man and a different woman. She is pretty... I think. long bright red hair is draped over her soldiers and laughing eyes stare at the man. She looks familiar as well. She and the man are sitting at a table holding hands Smiling at each other. The man is wearing a military uniform. The date says 1923. 

The last photograph is of all three of them standing on a front porch. They all look so happy. Ivan's eyes glow. The man is in his uniform again and so is Ivan. They both have lots of shiny medals. The woman.. the woman is pregnant. Pretty far along. She is smiling and leaning her head on the man's shoulder. He has a hand on her stomach. Part of the picture though has been ripped off. So the man's leg is completely missing. There is something I should be getting from these photographs. I know there is. It is right in front of my face but I can't see it.

I turn the paper over, 1924 That's the year I was born. So where is a picture of my mother? He has pictures of these people but not... oh... oh. What if... 

I look again at the woman and the man. Her red hair, his blue eyes. Her small hands, his chin. Her nose. I rush to the mirror in Ivan's bedroom. Then I look at the picture again. I realize now why they looked so familiar. I see them every day. I feel tears coming. That means Ivan is not my father. Questions bombard me from every direction. What happened to my real parents? Did he kidnap me? No he couldn't have, they looked like such good friends and he wouldn't have kept the photos.