Budapest » [Clintasha]

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Mutiny

Paranoia: it's like a tick under your skin. It's the insatiable itch that you can't scratch. It's the constant agony. It's out of your control.

Living in the Red Room facility, I've become resigned to paranoia. It's a feature of my everyday life. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder, worrying I've incriminated myself with affiliations, words or even my thoughts. With every step, I'm waiting for someone to snatch me and drag me to a cell, brainwash me or put me down.

When I returned from that mission, I did everything in my power to keep my veneer apathetic - but inside I was frantic. My expression remained neutral, but I could feel the gazes burning into me as I strolled back to my quarters. And the unrestrained tremble in my hand disclosed my culpability.

I managed to make it back to the four walls that were my sanctum. Within those four grey walls I could be myself. And to those four blank walls saw me break down.

I'd killed one of my own teammates; of one of the KGB's most prestigious divisions. I hadn't even checked if others were watching when I plucked her fingers from the ledge. There could've been witnesses. I knew if I wasn't ratted out, I would betray myself with my guilty actions.

Every waking moment from then on was spent thinking carefully about my selection of words before they left my mouth. I considered every action before I committed it. I checked myself repeatedly. I knew how easy it would be to slip up.

By god, holding in such a secret was eating me up.

It was perhaps a couple days later when I passed Lukin in a corridor and he snagged me by the forearm, stilling me and saying close. "The last Black Widow..." And there had been a lump in my throat. And in my head all I could think was 'He knows. He knows. He knows.' "The Black Widow..." He had cooed, almost reverent. "Well done."

And then I'd managed to prize myself free of his wretched hold and respectfully inclined my head. I was wordless. I couldn't muster internal coherency, let alone external.

Part of me thinks Aleksander would be proud of me for showing such a survival instinct and such savage behaviour, but another more rational part think he would be irreparably furious with me if he knew how Id gained that rank.

Seconds after I'd committed that thoughtcrime I quickly made my get away - scared he could read the rebellion in my eyes.

And the guilt lasted for hours, days, weeks - that probably somewhere along the line with all the programming and mistreatment of my brain, blurred into months.

After a night potent with nightmares, "You seem flustered..." Alexi had crooned as we wandered to training.

I furled and unfurled my fists like a nervous tick, already in wraps for hand-to-hand combat. "Yeah? What gives it away?" I fidgeted with my hair, repeatedly tucking a stray curl behind my ear.

He gave a gruff chuckle. "I don't think you want me to answer that," he said smugly.

I was wound up like a spring and if he wasn't careful I was going to snap. I chewed on my bottom lip, mulling over the events of yesterday. The horrific image of Yelena tumbling into that pit of ravenous Romanians was branded indelibly into my mind. Every time I blinked I saw it - like it was singed into the back of my eyelids.

"You can recognise a rhetorical question, amazing. Do you want a medal(!)" I grumbled, my eyes dead ahead, my mind displaced.

We took a left into the training rooms and barged through the rickety doors. The drab room with its deflated punching bags were already littered with a few agents - some working on the bags, some wrestling on fighting mats. None of which were female: given Yelena and I were the only females remaining.