Rogue Shadow

Chapter 10 - Rose

Chapter 10 – Rose

03:16 Wednesday, 11th October 2017

Slade was woken up in the night once again to petrified screams of his resident child. He knew this would happen. No way was the previous night an isolated incident. She had been through too much for nightmares to not be a regular occurrence. Sighing in resignation, Slade saved his files and shut off his computer before he left his room and headed down the hall. The door to the kid's room was barely ten meters away and Slade crossed the distance in just a couple of strides.

The dim light from the hallway bled into the room through the open door, casting a large shadow of Slade's silhouette onto the bedroom floor. Slade had expected the kid to be awake and probably confused but instead, he found the child unconscious and screaming bloody murder. She was writhing around and had managed to trap herself under the sheets. Slade approached her bed, flicking the side table lamp on as he did so. It would be better for the kid if she could see where she was when she woke up. No need to send her into a panic attack this early in the morning.

Slade pulled the sheets away from her legs, careful to dodge any stray kicks from her struggling. He put his hands on her arms to stop the frantic punches the child was throwing.

"Kid, you need to wake up."

A voice broke through the muddled chaos and noise within her dream. Nat could feel something holding her down through all the confusion and anarchy in her dream.

"You're dreaming kid. This isn't real. You're safe. I promise you; you're safe. Come back to me kid." Natasha shot up like a bullet. Almost smashing her head against Wilson's if it wasn't for his lightning-fast reflexes, moving out the of the way without letting her go.

"Chto, what?"

"You had a nightmare." Slade went to push back the child's hair from her eyes but withdrew his hand sharply when Nat flinched away from him. She was scared. Because of what those monsters did to her. She shrank away from human touch because the system had failed her; because that man had left her to the wolves; because he had left her to suffer. Of course, she was scared.

Her eyes were full of fear, illuminated only by the warm glow of her yellow side lamp. Visible confusion was etched onto her face. She was slowly moving further away from Slade, pulling her legs close to her and hugging them to her chest. Everything that had happened to her in Hydra couldn't be stopped. But what happened to her after she miraculously escaped: that was on him. If he had just taken her away when he had the chance, Natasha would have never had to endure months of abuse and confusion, and for what? To keep her safe? Hydra had still found her. They had still murdered a family that she had lived with. They had taken everything from her. Her home, her memory, her family, her friends, her whole life.

"You were screaming in German," Slade said as he backed off of her bed, standing a few paces away. She wanted – needed – space to make her feel safe. Slowly, she seemed to notice where she was and who she was with. Her brain registered the distance between them, and her frantic breathing died down.

"It was you," she whispered in that same language.

"What?" it wasn't that he didn't understand what the child had said, he did. But what was she talking about? Her dream? Had it been a memory?

"It was you..." she murmured, switching back to English. "You were the soldier. You were there that night. The night I escaped. You gave me a flare... you gave me hope."

Slade felt his entire body freeze. She knew. She remembered that night. It was the night she escaped. The night that Okeaniya 'Lex' Volk lost her memory. If he had been more careful then maybe none of this would have happened. If he had been faster, then maybe that girl who escaped would still be here and not this remnant of who she used to be, trapped inside of her own mind. Would she blame him for what had happened? He had left her to that man after all. He had sealed her fate by walking away.