The Last Romanov (Under Editing)

Nadezhda Krupskaya

Nadezhda Krupskaya, the wife of the man the world knew as Lenin, was in deep shit.

Of course, she'd known that fact for awhile. She'd known it since that Romanov girl started her invasion nearly two months before then. She'd known it after that fight she had with Vladimir about leaving St. Petersburg, and she'd known it as she listened to the bombs drop from that tiny cellar in Nizhniy Novgorod with women and children that wept for the husbands and the sons that were likely dead. She even knew it as she ran through the streets of the city, trying to get away from the Okhrana as they chased and shot at her.

Of course, it was now somehow different, now that they had her wrists clapped in irons and in the back of a truck with five imperial soldiers.

Why was it different, that time? She'd been in prison, before, back before the revolution. Back when she and Vladimir were still just dating. It was the whole reason they were married, even: they wouldn't let each other be in the same prison unless they were. She hadn't felt nearly that awful, then: she'd been rather... hopeful, actually. She'd been so positive that she wouldn't spend too long in prison: she'd had a lot of hope in Vladimir and his revolution, so much that she didn't worry about whether or not she would make it through all the shit that happened before Vladimir's dreams came true.

Well, she guessed she did have some idea of what had happened to her since the glory days: she'd gotten old. She'd actually seen the world, what it was capable of. That was enough to zap the hope out of anybody.

She looked up at the other soldiers. They were all staring at her, their eyes narrowed, almost daring her to make a move. One of them was the one she'd... attacked when they came to take her out of her cell. She'd taken a loose screw from the frame of the cot in her cell and stabbed him. In the eye. A bloodied bandage was now wrapped around his head, covering an eye that she doubted functioned, anymore. He was probably going to have to get a glass eye or something, maybe even a robotic one, if he could afford it.

Needless to say, he seemed to be the one that hated her the most.

The others, though, didn't seem all that interested in her. In fact, it was just the opposite. Most of them pretended like she wasn't even there. They all smoked their cigarettes, staring down at their hands or out the small windows of the truck at the passing landscape. Of course, none of them talked: most of them didn't even dare to breathe very loud.

That was the worst part of it, Nadezhda decided. The shackles were uncomfortable, the truck was filled with stale air, but the silence... the silence was almost unbearable. She found herself resisting the urge to grab one of the soldiers, shake him by his shoulders, and beg them to say something. Anything. Call her all of those horrible things they said when they arrested her, when they beat her with those batons; just say something. Any of that would've been better than that awful silence, she was sure of it.

The truck began to roll to a stop.

She looked down at her hands, a piece of her graying, brown hair falling in front of her face. They must have been at the airstrip, now.

At least, that's what she thought before she looked up at the faces of the men around her.

They were all confused. So horribly confused that she knew immediately that something was up.

"What the hell is this?" one of them asked, looking around the truck as if searching for his answers. "We aren't supposed to be at the airstrip for another hour-"

Somebody outside screamed.

Nadezhda looked up, her blood suddenly running cold. Something was happening out there, something awful.