Captured by Death

Imprisoned

"Zdravstvuyte?"

Silence. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

The singular light swings from the ceiling and is blinding me from seeing anything in the otherwise dark room. The rope binding my wrists and ankles scratches my skin. I've been alone for nearly an hour. I've been counting the minutes in my head. I started calling about ten minutes ago. I call again every two. I wonder where James is. Probably in a similar situation as me. I wish I wasn't worried, but we made a terrible mistake letting them sneak up on us and now I don't know where he is. It was sloppy. I don't do sloppy work. I will fix this.

The door creaks open. Slowly, a woman walks through it. Her heels clack as she walks closer to me. In the dim light, I can see that she is a tall, dark haired woman with her hair in a tight ponytail that glides down the back of her blazer. Her well-fitting black suit clings to her curves in the right places and flares in others. Her cold eyes and pale skin were quite the contrast with her jet black hair. Her high cheekbones gave her a sinister look about her. I knew in an instant who she was. Keres Lebedev. Russian government spy and freelance mercenary.

She pulled out the chair opposite me and made an unbearable screeching noise in doing so. I didn't flinch. Keres' red lips offered a malicious smile. "Natasha. Nice to see you," she said in her thick accent. "How long has it been? What? Eight years since Prague?" I didn't say anything. Keres sighed deeply. "Well as you can see, not much has changed for me, but you? So tell me, where did you find the soldier boy hottie?"

I rolled my eyes, trying to look annoyed. It was easy. I was. However, I could not let her know that I was involved with James. She would use any weakness I had against me. And James, well...he was my weakness. "He's just my partner." I said flatly. Keres raised her eyebrow. "You can stop with the games Natasha. We have intel that tells us quite clearly that you two are together."

"Well your intel was wrong."

Keres sighed and reached for the file she'd been keeping tucked under her arm. She opened it and slid a laminated photo across the scratched table to me. The photo was black and white. It was clearly taken through a spy's camera. There was a target on the subjects. The subjects being me and James. We were all dressed up. Me in a short black dress and him in a tux. I remembered this night. It was the night of our first kiss. In Paris while we were undercover as a couple attending a party. We may have been undercover, but we both knew it was real. The picture did not capture all the emotions I was feeling in that moment.

Keres stared at me. "Our intel is never wrong." she whispered. I did not look at her for a moment. How could I have been so sloppy. This was all my fault. I should've been more careful. Now both James and I are in danger. Keres will take what we love. Now she knows that each one of us loves the other. She kept her arms crossed and her gaze on me. I finally looked up at her. "Look, Nat. I never want to hurt anyone. It's fun, but it's a lot more work for me and all of my associates. And if anyone knows how that goes, it's you. So quite literally, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. We know you intercepted the codes for S.H.I.E.L.D's nuclear arsenal. Give them to us, and we will negotiate letting you go. You stay silent, there will be consequences. You may not be able to see them with your own eyes, but they are happening. Every second you don't talk, others suffer. I don't think you want that on your conscience, so I suggest you start talking."

Consequences? What good are consequences if I can't see them? That isn't how torture is supposed to work. Keres is planning something. But as much as I hate it, she is right about one thing. I don't like being responsible for others suffering. Not anymore. I won't talk though. I can't. Those codes could wipe out an entire country before you could say "warhead". They were quick and they were deadly. James and I hadn't even intended on handing them over to S.H.I.E.L.D like we were asked to. I would never give them to a woman with an entire agency built on killing. I guess that's sort of what S.H.I.E.L.D was, but Keres killed the wrong kind of people. She killed the people I used to kill. And I don't care what she says. She does want to kill. She finds it fun. Like a game she can never lose at. She's good at what she does. I have no doubt that she would take a handsome payment from the worst people in the world for those codes the instant she got them and not think twice about it. That's why I'll stay silent even if I know she might do some bad things because of it.

Keres sighed once more. "You won't talk, that's your choice." She stood and walked into the darkness again. I could still hear her voice as she said, "I am off to start the consequences. If you change your mind, there are always guards on the other side of that mirror. Just call them and they'll send for me." I heard the latch on the door click as she opened it and then she stopped and turned back to me. "Oh and one more thing. Each time you try to escape, whoever I decide to enact the consequences on gets beaten within an inch of their life. If you try enough times, I kill them." The door clicked closed and she was gone. I had to figure out a way to get out of here and find James. She was not going to be as forgiving with him. She knew me. Knew I wouldn't talk even if I was tortured. James was new. She didn't know how he would react so she had to experiment . Oh, James. I'm sorry.