LOST & FOUND | Steve Rogers

PROLOGUE

Hello everyone! So this is my first Captain America book I've written and I'm actually super excited about this!
This story follows Silvia Thornton through a bunch of crazy stuff on the side of Marvel's CA:The Winter Soldier plot.
I hate to say it but the beginning and quite possibly the middle will be quite the slow burn but I promise I'll do my best to make the most of it and make it all worth it in the end!
I'm so excited -Thanks for reading!
- Sam.L.

Silvia turned her head in a panic at the rustling of the trees above her. It wasn't a particularly windy day, but her hair still flowed behind her while she leapt over tree roots and landed swiftly on the autumn leaves that crunched beneath her feet. She didn't stop, she didn't dare. Her father had warned her about what might happen. If he didn't come home in ten days, she were to take the emergency bag behind her mothers portrait and run. He told her every time he left for one of his business trips and she never felt the urgency of his instruction until now. A young man, scraggy as he seemed, was chasing after her. Though she'd received no inclination as to why, the only thing now on her mind was to run until she couldn't anymore.

She first noticed him when she was pulling on her jacket after tying her shoes, a bullet passing merely inches from her face landed at the forehead of her great grandfathers portrait. Her head snapped towards the shattered glass, noticing the shimmer of something silver on the roof of another building. Through the corners of her eyes, she noticed a red blur protrude from the bridge of her nose, dabbed it gently with her fingers and hissed as soon as she made contact. Shaking it off, she pulled the bag strap onto her shoulder and made her way to the basement; the escape route her Father had instilled in her memory since she could talk.

She tore down the mini med kit placed strategically en route and cleaned the bullet scrape as best she could while jogging to the door downstairs. She slipped on a thick plaster and threw the now empty kit down the hall before almost tearing the basements door off of its hinges and pulling it closed once more. No more than a few steps down into the basement, she gripped the banister tightly, threw down her backpack and followed after it with a rough tumble. There were at least a few minutes between herself and her attacker, and although she already felt winded, the adrenaline pushed her further than she ever thought possible. Making it to the far corner of the room, she opened the little door she could barely fit into now that she was in her twenties, tucked her bag into the hatch and shuffled her way inside, pulling the door to with the thick string. Left, right, climb, left, up and out. The list repeated itself in her head like an annoying song that you couldn't help but sing, only this time it was intended to save her life.

She lifted the hatch, hearing the waves of leaves slide down the door and collapse into a large pool beside it. She shoved her bag through first then lifted herself, her knees and hands full of mud from the tunnels, closed the hatch and splashed the pile of leaves on top in hopes of covering up her escape. Taking a look at where she had ended up, she saw the perfectly random positioning of trees that reached high above the ocean of orange and red and into the sky, begging for more sunlight before they fell into a season long hibernation.

Her eyes looked up at the sun then back to her house in the far off distance. It was still and cold. Taking a deep nasally breath, she turned away and headed south; the opposite direction to her family home. She started off with a fast walk, but she felt unsafe, like the wolf had caught up to the sizzling bacon with legs. So she fell into a steady jog which quickly turned back to sprinting as a blade cut through the air and landed in the tree that passed by her right shoulder. She sucked in a sharp breath and followed the mapped route, readying to turn into the trail that was mere seconds away, but to no avail. Her eyes were glued to the entrance of the maze that filled her childhood with warmth and laughter as her and her mother explored the vast expanse of the life size puzzle she'd grown to know and love so well.