Is this the life you chose yourself, or just how it ended up? Is that the yard you pictured when you closed your eyes and dreamed of children in the grass running through the sprinklers? Being somebody's wife, or were you living in another life?
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A year later when Anastasia was shipped back to her original base, the cells across the hall from her were empty. There was absolutely no sign of anyone ever inhabiting them.
She mourned briefly for the friends she had for such a short time, before getting into the swing of her newest schedule.
Late in the evenings, after training and dinner and showers, Anastasia often found herself tracing the healed incision scar from where she had an involuntary hysterectomy.
It was a requirement for the specific base she was sent over to, so they performed it themselves upon her arrival. They allowed her time to heal before thrusting her into long days of hand to hand combat against some of their best agents.
The past she had and the future she wanted was snatched from her. It was irreversible.
So for the next two years, her schedule was the same.
Wake up.
Breakfast.
Prescribed pain medication.
Weapons training.
Power training.
Hand to hand combat.
Water break.
Weight lifting/running the indoor track.
Endurance progress chart.
Dinner.
Trip to the labs to analyze that days data.
Dose two of pain medication.
Shower.
Lights out.
A cycle which she had grown used to.
Then one day, instead of moving on to hand to hand combat, she was taken to a meeting room in the east wing of the base. She'd never been there, but knew it had to be serious if they were taking her.
Upon entering the room, she got a sense of deja vu as she saw her former handler standing at the far side of the room. She stared him down with a darkened expression, feeling a flicker of satisfaction when he looked away first.
Where there had once been an ounce of trust, there was nothing. He lost Anastasia's trust when he let them expirament and transfer her to a base where her life was further taken from her.
She held the grudge even three years after the fact, and deep down she knew she'd derive great pleasure from watching him die when the time came — along with everyone else who caused her pain.
It wouldn't change anything, even if it did make her feel a ton better knowing that her enemies died gasping for air, begging her to stop.
Just like she begged them to stop torturing her; like she begged them to end her life, to end the suffering that no child should have to feel.
Anastasia never wanted any of this. She wanted normalcy, but they just had to go and make her extraordinary. . . So now it was going to be everyone's problem.
"Agent Belyaeva, it is good to see you after all these years." "Let's skip the pleasantries and get to the point — why do you need me here during my training time?" She questioned, taking a seat near the middle of the long table.
"There's a deserter taking up residence in Soroca Moldova. He was last seen at Dulcinella six minutes ago. . . You know what we do to deserters, Agent?"
"We kill them, I understand perfectly." Anastasia stated as a file was slid towards her. She stopped it with her hand before it could go further.
Flipping it open, she was met with a series of images and papers. He was very familiar to her. Everything any government association in the world had on this man, it was in the file.
Drivers license photo copies, a copy his social security card, every known address from birth — including that of friends and other family members, school identification cards, every crime he ever committed, the list could go on forever.
They had everything.
"And I want you to do exactly that, Agent. Kill him and you will be rewarded. . . Do your worst but clean up your mess when you're finished."
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Anastasia walked down the near empty streets after dark, her eyes trained on the man walking in front of her. He was twitchy and obviously panicked as he looked around, occasionally picking up his pace. He knew he'd been seen, he just wasn't sure who it could be.
The man took every possible turn to lose whoever was on his trail.
Smart, but not smart enough.
Anastasia got close enough to touch him and within a moment they were in an enclosed, abandoned area where no one would hear or find him. Ever.
She'd have mercy this once and not do her worst, but he still died gasping, choking on his own blood. The very last thing he saw was her reaching for her knife, though whatever he was expecting didn't come.
Instead of it being used to slit his throat as per her signature move, she instead felt around her left forearm for the implanted tracker. When Anastasia found it, she pressed the sharp blade to her arm and made a small incision.
Just large enough for the pill sized tracker to exit her body and fall into her awaiting hand.
She had debated it for hours. She was done. She wanted normalcy — baking cookies at three in the morning because she could and filling her home with plants of various kinds because they were all important in some way — not the twisted reality she lived in where her job was to be an obeying soldier with the care of a prisoner.
She would rather die than be a prisoner any longer.
Anastasia exited the building unnoticed and dropped the tracker into the Dnister River, watching as it disappeared below the surface.
For the first time since her parents died, she felt lighter.
