Red Thorn

Chapter 31

October 2014

"We did so many?" Natasha gripped her fork so hard it bent. "What do you mean, we? You were there?"

"Yes, after our mission in Ohio, Dreykov sent me to the Chambre Noire where I worked on this." Melina gestured to her tablet. "This was my mission, others were tasked with making the Red Thorn, well, the Red Thorn."

"You've met the Red Thorn?" Alexei asked with a little too much enthusiasm.

"No, never, not whilst she was conscious. I merely watched the experiments from afar, from behind the glass," she explained. "The training we experienced was harsh, brutal at times, it turned us into some of the greatest spies the world has ever known. But her? She is not just a spy but a warrior, she had to be to survive. No matter how many times her bones were broken and she was beaten to within an inch of death, left to bleed out on the matt, how long she was locked up without food and water, chained and tortured for the sake of pain resistance training, no matter how many experimental drugs they used on her in the name of perfection, chemicals that burned like fire injected into her veins to enhance her senses, speed up her recovery and get puberty over and done with so that she could graduate sooner. Despite enduring things that would have killed any other Widow, the Red Thorn survived."

"That's enough," Nat muttered, unable to hear anymore to do with the years of torture her sister endured.

"Even with all of the odds stacked against her, that young girl had an ability to survive which was truly fascinating, mesmerising really," she went on, ignoring Natasha's protests. "Though there was one day, her and her training partner at the time had disobeyed orders, her punishment was pain tolerance training. I watched as her body went limp and I remember thinking to myself, this is the day she breaks, the day Madame C pushed too far and the Red Thorn dies. But I was wrong, she woke up two days later and poof..." Melina made an explosion with her hands. "Her ability to feel pain was gone. The electroshocks had fried the neuro-pathways that allowed her to feel pain. It was a scientific breakthrough, one that Dreykov tried to recreate on a number of Widows, but none survived. It was truly a miracle, a blessing from the Gods."

"A miracle?" There was no hiding the disdain in Natasha's voice. "Believe me, her not being able to feel pain is no blessing. Do you know how many times she has nearly bled out on a mission because she got hit and hasn't realised? Or how many hours she has spent torturing herself looking for the release of pain every time she does something that resembles, even in the slightest, something she was taught was wrong? How many scars she has from simply trying to feel something, anything other than shame?"

Yelena watched as tears formed in her sister's eyes at the thought of what Red had been through, and even though she hated her for stealing her sister away from her, she couldn't help the way her heart ached for her fellow assassin. She remembered the day Melina was talking about, the one where a bunch of the Widows failed. It was a new, experimental training and only the best were selected, Yelena included, but for some reason, despite her being the best in her class, the strongest in every way, orders had come straight from Dreykov that she couldn't take part. She never knew why. "You're a monster..."

"What?"

"You sat by and did nothing whilst a young girl was tortured and genetically modified for years. You're a monster, and you shipped us off to become monsters too."

"Yelena, do not speak to your mother like that," Alexei scolded.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "She's not our mother."

"Yele–"

"No. Those agents you chemically subjugated around the globe? That was me." She turned to Natasha. "And you, you got out, both you and your precious Red Thorn did. After that Dreykov made sure no one could escape."