Let Me Go (Book Four)

Chapter: 13

DAY: 269

Winter Soldier

Treadwatter was sitting at his desk, running pictures through the monitor of one woman. She looked different than all of the other suspects he had had me look over. She was the only one who was smiling in the pictures.

"Sir, you asked to see me." I stopped a few feet from the doorway.

"Bucky, right. Come in, I want to show you another target." he said. The pictures on the monitor slowed to a gradual stop, showing a picture of Treadwatter and the girl, only she was younger and her face was bloodied.

"This is your next target." he said. "Her name is Lark Treadwatter, my daughter. You knew her before you came back to Hydra. Your mission is to just keep an eye on her for now, there isn't much you have to do. Just monitor her actions, conditions, way she moves, where she goes, who she talks to."

"How long?"

"Take as long as you need to understand her." he said. "But no more than a week if necassary." he told me. "You'll head out tomorrow, Jack and a team of men will escort you there and keep an eye on you."

"I don't need their protection." I said.

"I know, but they're there so that you don't end up in a position that you don't want to be. Trust me, Bucky, this is the way it's going to be." Treadwatter stood up from his desk and looked up at the monitor behind him.

"She was twenty three years old in that picture." he said. "It was a shame things ended up like that."

"What happened?"

"I broke her. Then fixed her, tried to save her life but she rebelled everything. I even gave her a bionic arm, much like yours, to help her body contain a disease inside of her, Aether. The design was flawless, top grade technology and it fit her like a glove." he said.

I looked down at my arm and back up at the picture. She had the arm, but it was a little hard to see, she was hidden in shadow. She looked strong, like she could handle almost anything.

"She doesn't look like that now, she's different. She's changed, but soon enough she'll realize where her true potential lies with Hydra and come home." he said.

I didn't say anything. Though if I had I would have asked him why he hurt her and did that to her. But I couldn't. I had no place to speak on something such as that.

"Either way, if you have to face her, be easy. She's not in a great condition of health, she's healing and growing. She'll have her arm but she's weak and won't use it like you. She'll use it like a sheild for herself. She's knows hand to hand combat but I doubt she'll try to use it the same as you. You helped train her at one time, so she knows what to expect from you." he said. "You and her were a thing at one time so I'm sure if she saw you she'll be more than shocked and terrified. You shouldn't feel anything towards her though, but if you do I want you to report on it as soon as you can. There will be others there, you've already read their files and I'm sure you've familiarized their face enough.

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Move out." he told me, turning the monitor off.

There was a woman on the monitor. On all of the monitors. She was pale, red haired, scarred and thin in the picture. She was a target of Hydra and yet I couldn't place why.

It wasn't my place to ask.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Treadwatter walked into the observation room and stood at one of the computers. "It's alright, you can say it." he said, "Don't be shy."