august 2016

Her eyelids were heavy when she finally managed to open them. Of course, it wasn't without effort that she pushed herself up onto her elbows and rubbed a hand over her face. Squinting at the sun that was at the peak of its setting, she felt a tug at the back of her head.

"Careful, Jacqueline, too much light will make your eyes revert to darkness."

A young girl held a hand over her face, shielding her eyes from the bright rays of the sun that washed over her humble home in her rural village. Picking up her thick skirts in her other hands and scurrying back to the quaint cottage in the middle of the field, she bit back a snarky retort. "Oui, Maman," she conceded.

She pressed a palm to her forehead, panic coursing through her every movement, through every vein and artery inside of her. What the fuck was that? She bolted up from the bed and yanked the curtains closed. Anything to keep from seeing the sun, and whatever it had just triggered in her mind.

But it wasn't as easy as blocking out the external triggers. She kept hearing the woman's voice in her head, warning that young girl about the dangers of the sun. It was a kind voice, though she was using it to admonish. A kind voice that was laced with familiarity.

And the way the young girl responded, with love in her heart and love in her words and respect oozing out of her movements, it was...unsettling, to say the least.

Not just because she was so unaccustomed to the myths of love, but because the words, the field, all of it was too detailed, too specific to have been false.

I know her, she thought dangerously as she wiped her clammy hands on her pants. I knew her.

"I didn't take you for someone who would take a mid-afternoon nap, Jack." Tony's voice jerked her from her thoughts and she winced as she heard the nickname. Ever the observant man, he knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "What?"

Shaking her head, she looked down at her hands—whose hands are these really?—and sighed. "Nothing, I'm just...I think I'll go for a walk down to the bookstore." Her words lacked the conviction that she needed, and she had none of the usual seductive lures in her tone.

"The bookstore? Jack, are you feeling okay?" Tony took a step into her room, his movement hesitant. He'd never walked into her room ever since she first moved into it.

She scowled. "I'm fine." Taking a step back and keeping her eyes on him, she felt the backs of her legs bump into one of the low tables that decorated the sides of the large bed. The room was much too small now. Tony was too close, she was suffocating in his presence, his cologne wafting into her nostrils.

Turning around to put any kind of distance between them, she looked down at the contents of the bedside table. It was completely empty save for the bottle of green cryo pills, the ones she was supposed to take every night when she went to sleep.

Her blood came to a hurtling stop. What in Hydra's name is happening to me? She fought to curse out loud and give away her every emotion to the man she needed to kill, but it was hard not to clench her hands into fists. The one thing she needed to do, the one thing she always craved, was the sweet release of thoughts when she went under the ice. Nothing to think about, nothing to keep her from fulfilling every mission given to her by her superiors.

She'd forgotten to take one of the pills. Now she was feeling the effects of it, however slow the process was.

"Uh, okay," Tony replied softly, putting on his usual charm, trying to convey to her the message that he knew she wasn't okay but he knew how it felt to be struggling and to want to be alone, so he wouldn't do anything. Just walk out and leave her be for as long as she needed.

The thought of him doing such a thing, the thought of him actually caring to do something like it, made her want to throw herself out of the window and catapult down to the ground below where she would flatten on the sidewalk. Of course, she didn't plan on doing that before she gutted this excuse for a hero.

She ignored the images that pressed against her mind, more pictures of the young girl in the house, in the field, in France. More pictures of a kind woman that held the girl close to her chest as she cried. She was a mother, her mother—

No.

"I'm just going to go for a walk. I'll be back...later." Still talking with a certain emptiness to her voice, she began walking out of her room, aiming for the doorway that was currently blocked by Tony.

He stepped out of her way without a second thought, but she brushed arms with him as she walked out. The ripple of muscles surprised her, as he didn't boast about his physique, but he was strong in every way possible.

Just keep walking, she told herself. Get out of here so you can take a breath.

When the towering structure of Avengers tower was behind her, she finally let out a breath.

—————

It hadn't taken her long to find somewhere to mill around, looking like a normal citizen of New York City. It actually turned out to be a bookstore, filled with shelves and shelves of books, new and old, to crowd the small space.

She thought it would make her feel claustrophobic, but this was different than standing in that room with Tony. Here, she could see the things that made the space small. In the tower, she only had a pit in her stomach that caused her to sense the shrinking of the room.

Her hands brushed against every spine she could find, enjoying the way they felt against her fingertips. Some were soft, crumbling with age, while others were hard and fresh off the press. She'd barely been in the store for fifteen minutes when she felt rather than heard the steps of someone coming up to stand beside her.

"Hello, 53," she was greeted.

Her lips curled down in a scowl. She hated that number. She didn't say anything in response, just put the book in her hand back on the shelf and turned to face her visitor. It took her only a moment to place the woman that stood in front of her. She'd been the one to escort her to her room, to the place that she received her orders for this mission. She didn't know her name, but she didn't need to. She knew her well enough.

"Let's take a walk, shall we?" The Hydra agent smiled—no, it was more of a grimace—and turned around to walk out of the store.

There was no other option than to follow her superior. Hesitantly and with much precaution, she found herself being led out onto the sidewalk, where several small tables were set up for people to sit down and talk to each other, all while enjoying the nice weather. Horribly mundane, she thought, but the snarl that typically accompanied her thoughts was nowhere.

The woman took no time for small talk once they sat down. "Things are changing, 53." She folded her hands on top of the table. "Hydra is crumbling."

She stared at her with nothing giving away the shock that reverberated through her skull as she heard this. Crumbling? What does that even mean? Then again, why would she ask such a thing? Her head hurt. She had two different people alive inside of her, fighting for dominance.

"As the first successful asset created, I believe you have earned yourself the right to certain pieces of information regarding this change." She spoke so carefully, every word measured so as to keep the power in the conversation. "The ways of Hydra's operations are old. Outdated. But we can do nothing to change that. They will always be associated with a Nazi regime, we will always be painted as a group to be feared." The woman took a deep breath.

"After all these years, Hydra is finally crumbling. For good, I can only pray." Her eyes rose up to look at the mindless woman across from her. "You are one of only two assets making the transition with us. You are one of the only ones worthy of it, 53." Her words drip with a certain pride that makes her squirm.

She finally willed her lips to move. "Transition?"

The stranger nodded. "We are finally moving from a historically monstrous organization to one that will try to be better. We will protect the earth from the threats that these people see as their salvation. We will be good. We will rise up from the ashes of Hydra and become Earth's eternal watchdog."

She wasn't sure how to react. "Who are you?" She asked feebly.

The woman narrowed her eyes. "If I told you, that'd only put me in greater peril. That's the number one rule, 53." When she didn't break the eye contact, though, she sighed. "Emile Boucher."

Boucher. She knew that name. How did she know that name?

"My great-grandmother always spoke highly of you...Jacqueline."

She jerked her head up to Emile. "What did you call me?"

"Stop taking your cryo pills," she said, and her voice had taken on a warning tone now. "You don't need them anymore." She stood up and held out a hand to shake. When she only stared at her, she dropped her hand and sighed. "Your mission is still the most important thing to you right now. The extinction of the Avengers is the first step to cleansing the earth of all its threats. After that is complete, we will retrieve you and we will continue our quest to protect the world.

"And be quick about it, Jacqueline. There are other forces at play, trying to tear apart the Avengers from the inside out. You must be the first one to strike. You're running out of time."

Without another word, Emile Boucher stalked off, getting lost in the growing crowd of pedestrians.

Still seated at the table, she took in all that she'd heard. Other forces at play. Tearing the Avengers apart from the inside out was too messy to be Hydra. Hydra preferred all things to be clean and neat, even if the satisfaction of the deed was wildly sweet.

Things are changing. She didn't know what this would mean for her status as an asset. I don't want to be this anymore, she thought quickly. The thought made her freeze, nearly forgetting to breathe.

The thing that gave her the most pause, however, was that name. Jacqueline. It was the name she'd been told to give to Tony and anyone else she would encounter on this mission. It was her cover, a fake identity for a ghost from the past.

But the way she'd said it, with too much intimacy to be a mere name. She made it sound like it was true, like the name truly belonged to her. But that wasn't possible. She had no name.

She had a number. It was the only thing that was hers.

But what if I have a name? Life before this, a family, friends, something more than endless missions saturated in the blood of Hydra's enemies?

It was a thought that chilled her to the bone.

————————————————————

whew! that was long, people. and wayyyyy overdue. but i do have to say, i had to break out of my post-endgame depression, so here i am. it's a nice day out and i'm sitting in the sun writing this, but it took forever to come up with stuff to hint to the end of this book and future works that i have planned for the rest of this year. i tell ya, writing is exhausting.

anyway, i hope you enjoyed! what did you think?

published on: may 5, 2019