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She was holding my hand. As if she trusted me to keep her safe. As if she needed me. As if she couldn’t bear to let me go. She was crying and holding my hand. And then-
She was gone. I was alone.
Her name was Anya and she died in my arms. She didn’t cry. And I didn’t. But I held her. When her hand went to her wound it somehow found its way into mine. And I held it. Until she went limp and still. She had a mother who would cry for her. Weep and sob as she buried her body in the earth.
That’s the story. The truth is different. Her name was Vera and she died alone and her body was dumped and dissolved and there was nothing left of her to bury. But I carry her ghost with me. I see her in the shadows. In the corner of my eye. In my reflection when I look too long and my face changes to hers.
The truth, the truth is, a funny thing. Truthfully, I didn’t know her name. She was a defect. She died before I ever met her. She was a sister. She was a whisper. She was tied to me. To that place. And her story, her story is nothing but blank pages.
None of this is true. All of this is true.
My lungs are filled with her screams. My skin is made up of her bruises. And her bones fuse with mine. And our bodies turn to dust.
“What is your story?”
“I never let myself be alone long enough to think about it.”
I don’t have a story. I have a hundred loose pages written on top of one another. Written with knives and explosives and fire. Stories of pain and loss and rage. Stories filled with laughter and hope and teamwork and family. A hundred thousand stories, blended together. Until the truth is indistinguishable from the lies. Until I don’t know. I don’t even know. It’s a hard way to live. It’s a good way not to die.
Her name is Yelena.
She is small and bright and unbroken.
I am eight years old and I pump my legs on the swing, bringing myself up and up towards the sky.
“Come on Nat! Higher! Higher!” she cheers me on. “Let go! Let go!”
I wait until I reach the peak of the arc. And then. I jump.
For a moment, I fly. Wind rushing. Stomach leaping. For a moment, I am free. I am alive.
I land on me feet, wood chips spraying everywhere. And I hear my little sister laughing, screaming with delight.
“You did it! You did it!”
I fling back my hair dramatically and strike a pose. She giggles.
Mom is watching from just over there. And is that a hint of pride on Melina’s face, or is it impatience and disapproval?
I am pushing my little sister on the swing and I love her and none of it is real.
Her eyes were puffy with tears. Her cheeks stained. She clung on to my leg. And I moved her behind me. Trying to shield her tiny body with my own.
I scream in pain and Madame screams back at me.
“She is not your sister! You have no family. No place in the world. It was never real.”
I don’t believe it. It was real to her. It was real to me.
Dreykov enters the room. Everyone straightens. I don’t move. I lay crumpled at his feet.
“Natalia. Little Natalia. Always so full of fire. They say you are being difficult. I told you, this is your home now.”
I look away.
“So ungrateful,” he spits. “You were nothing. Garbage. I saved you.”
“Where’s my sister?” I whisper.
He smiles. “We told your ‘sister’ what you are. She hates you. She will never forgive you. You are nothing to her. Perhaps when she is older we will put you two in the ring. And you will kill her. Just like you did to that other girl. What was her name? Elise?”
Her name was Elise and we shared our scraps of bread when food was short. We were not friends, but she was…mine. My something. A part of my own self. Living outside of my body. I killed her.
She was going to kill me, so I killed her. It wasn’t that complicated really. We were in the ring, and only one would leave. She had me pinned. She looked to Madame for the signal. She looked away from me. From the threat. She hesitated. She paused before going in for the kill and so I killed her.
I see it happen from a birds eye view. Little Natalia. Full of fire. Seven years old and shoving the body off of her. Walking away. And she skips right over all the stages of grief. Skips the anger and the sadness and certainly skips the bargaining. That was beaten out of her long ago. Now, she doesn’t really think about it. She goes straight to acceptance. She killed the closest thing she ever had to a friend. Elise was slower. Elise hesitated. Elise was weak. Elise was good. Elise was dead.
It’s not that complicated really. I was seven years old and already a monster. I didn’t really think about it. It didn’t really hurt. Until a year later, when it was another little girl looking at me. This one with blond hair and bright eyes. And this little girl smiles. And she loves. And she has no hesitation, no inclination to hide her heart. She is good.
Little Natalia. Full of fire. And her little sister lying dead at her feet.
I wake up in a sweat. My hand isn’t chained to anything. Yelena is asleep nearby.
I pointed the gun at them. Wild and unsteady. I had to protect her. I screamed.
“I will kill you! I will kill you all!”
All I know is death and violence. And I wish, I dream. I dream that I have something else to give her. That I have love to give her. But love is for children, and I was never a child. I was never anything more than the assassin they made me.
This is the story.
Alexei is there, on the side of the plane. And I reach over and grab the steering yoke and yank and then Alexei is gone.
Alexei is walking towards us. His voice is soothing. And I am holding a gun. And I shoot him in the head. I kill them all.
I dream of killing my father. And when I wake up, I never know if I am relieved, or disappointed.
Melina tells me to keep my heart but what heart? What heart? My sister is gone. They took her.
When a child loses her parents, she is an orphan. When a wife loses her spouse, she is a widow. But what of the Widow, who loses her sister? What is she?
And I was crying then, in earnest. I can’t remember the last time I cried before that day. It wasn’t allowed. But I begged. Pleaded. For a miracle. For someone to save us. For Dad to save us. What a foolish childish dream.
“You can’t take her. You can’t. She’s only six.”
My father’s name was Alian and he never cared much for his daughter. My father’s name was Ivan and he cared for me the best he could. My father’s name was carved on a grave stone behind a chain link fence and I pulled some weeds and left some flowers. My father was buried beside my mother under a tree of pink blossoms. My father died in a fire. He was buried in an avalanche. My father left me. Alone.
Clint doesn’t really understand. Or course he doesn’t. The Red Room must have been hell, he says. And it was. But it gave me the most important part of my life, of myself. How can I leave it behind without also leaving her behind? I can’t untangle their web from my mind anymore than I could extract Yelena from my beating heart. My gangly limbs and her, curled up next to me on my bed, as we listen to bedtime stories.
But she hates me. She will never forgive me. And I am nothing to her.
So I burn it all to the ground, and I hope somehow, I didn’t burn her with it. That somehow, she survived. That she would live. She was always stronger than me.
“My girls are the toughest girls in the world.”
I try to explain it. To my therapist, to Fury, to Maria Hill, to Clint. I tell stories over and over. But they don’t quite fit. They’re not quite right. A tweak here, a change there. I try again.
I talk about the way we would sit together at night and joke and play. We would laugh silently. We would delight in the thrill of breaking the rules. Together. Always together. Never alone. I try to explain that I have Irina’s smirk and Daria’s laugh and Tatiana’s patient hands perfect for braining hair.
There were twenty eight of us. I am the only one left.
I try to explain again and again and again.
“No. You don’t understand. That didn’t happen, Clint. It was a story. I made it up. It wasn’t real.”
I have her viciousness, and her stoic mask, and her take down. And I have their blood pumping throughout my body. It seeped through my pores into my veins. I never saw them smile. I never heard them laugh. We braided our own hair.
I see it. The moment it clicks.
The truth. It’s a matter of circumstance. The truth is my memories are scrambled. The truth is I couldn’t pick any of them out of a lineup, but I find myself going through motions and wondering if it is them. The truth is I can remember it all so clearly that I can’t breath for the pain of remembering. Of reliving. So I don’t. I close my eyes. I pretend.
“It wasn’t real,” I say over and over again. That didn’t happen. It didn’t happen to me.
It wasn’t real.
“Wasn’t it?”
There were dozens of little girls. And I remember all of them. I remember their lives and their deaths. Their dreams and fears. They surround me. They are apart of me. There were dozens of little girls. And I left them behind. I can’t even remember their names. (Only one.) They are gone. I am alone.
I stole their breath. Their blood. Their hopes and their dreams. I stole their bones and built my body from their remains.
I try to explain. Over and over. But I can’t. So I stop trying.
My arms wrapped around her. My back was against the wall of the shipping container. I was holding her close to me. Telling myself to hold on. Just hold on. As if somehow, somehow if I held her close enough, I could keep her safe. My sister.
My mother was buried underneath a beautiful tree with Unknown written instead of a name. My mother was shot and her body burned along with all the other unknown mothers who ached for their missing daughters. My mother was poor and sold me for her next meal. My mother never had a choice but to let me be taken. My mother loved me. My mother never cared. She left me in the street like garbage. So that’s what I grew to be. My mother never stopped looking for me. Or looking after me.
If half of life got taken, then maybe mine was spared only because I have never truly been alive. Not since I felt her ripped away.
“What is your story?” she asked me.
I don’t have a story. I have half a strip of photographs and half of an echoing whistle and a lifetime of empty spaces.
And a memory.
She was holding my hand. She was crying. Holding my hand.
His hand is in mine.
I don’t hesitate. Not when I jump after him. Not when I secure him to the wire. Not when I don’t hold on. Not when I refuse, point blank, for him to slip through my fingers. (Not again. Not again.)
His hand wraps around my wrist. And then, I pause. Not because I have doubts. Just for a moment of quiet. Of consolation. Just to say goodbye.
“Let me go.”
I could never protect her. But I dream. I dream. This time, I can save her. I can save him. I can save all of them.
(She is holding my hand.)
“It’s okay.”
I jump.
For a moment. I fly. For a moment, I am free.
I land. She is there, waiting. Yelena. My sister.
“Hey poser.” She smiles at me.
My own voice comes out hoarse and strangled. Tears fill my eyes. Stream down my face.
“I missed you,” I whisper. A confession. A promise.
I love you.