The Black Widow

A Third Procedure

Alexandra is very angry. She can hardly contain it. She marches down a series of hallways and straight into his office.  

The man looks up and smiles when he sees her, "I see you got the files I left on your desk." 

He left them on her desk because he knew it would anger her. For whatever reason, he found her anger so amusing.

"I got them," She says through clenched teeth, "and I think you are insane!"

"Insane? It is all perfectly legit." He knows there are problems with the procedure but he could care less. She is just some girl but doubts his friend here would agree. He wasn't crazy, he saw the big picture while she was looking at the here and now.

"Legit!" She practically screams, "It says here that you think this could kill her!" She couldn't believe this. He was so careless! She was their best chance. None of the other girls were nearly as good as she. How could he risk this?

He shrugs, "I did and it could but, she could live and then she would be more amazing than ever."

"She has been here a week! You can't go performing experiments on her whenever you like. It doesn't work like that!"

He smiles smugly and hands her a piece of paper, "Oh really."

She reads the paper and with each word she is filled with more and more disbelief. "No... no... no, if what you are doing to her now doesn't kill her then this will."

The man shrugs again. It doesn't seem like too difficult of a task to find another orphaned child. Alexandra is enraged. She turns to storm out of the room. Let him do this surgery. when the child dies he will be sorry.

"Wait..." the man calls her back. the woman turns back hopefully, "I want to start in two hours."
Alexandra is disappointed. Well, that is what she gets for having hope, "I will prep her for surgery."

Then she walks out again.

Natalia's POV
The other girls form a square around us. The girl Valentina... I can't remember her second name looks nervous. She should be. She knows I will beat her. I beat everyone else. She knows she cannot win. She is not that much taller than me and has brown hair tied up. My own red hair is also tied up. I wish I could just cut it all off, it gets in the way. I think when I am older I will cut it short. 

We continue to circle in the ring and I continue to let my thoughts wander. I know I should focus but I don't need to concentrate. Fighting the other girls is no longer a challenging. For the past week, they have been teaching us how to fight but I've been learning this stuff for my entire life. A couple other girls bragged that they've had martial arts training but for the most part they weren't much better than those who hadn't. There were, of course, a few exceptions. Sophia was one but she was way too cocky about it.

Finally, Valentina tries to throw a punch. She goes for my face but her hand moves slowly and awkwardly. I grab it and twist it around to her back. 

She cries out in pain. She shouldn't, she knows she is supposed to ignore the pain. One of the first things we learned was to fight through the pain. The teachers will surely not that Valentina did not. 

She lifts up her foot and stomps back on my ankle. I don't expect it and I almost lose my balance but then use my other foot and push off. For a brief moment I am suspended in the air I can see all of the other girl's faces. Filled with awe and fear, except for Mariya. In her face only admiration. I have taught her not to be afraid. I land on the back of Valentina's knees and push off. She falls to the ground. I scramble to her and grab hold of her neck.