The Soldier of Summer: Book 1

Chapter 5

I moved to sit down, they still had their guns at the ready. Winter was the only one without one, but I could see him watching me. I could see he was tense. I could see he was ready.
"I've been with Hydra since I was born. I am the spawn of two people that are unknown to me." I held up my metal arm. "I assume I'm the product of a super soldier, and Hydra was hoping that the gene was hereditary. But it wasn't, and they injected a serum prototype in my right arm. They told me that I was lucky that they only lost my arm, or else my whole body would have disintegrated."
Winter took a step closer to me.
"I was six when I got my first mission," I continued, "I've been against Hydra from the beginning."
Sam reminded me of the gun by putting it so close to my face, I could practically smell the bullet in the barrel. I paused.
Steve scowled. "Keep talking, Summer."
"So you do know who I am," I smiled.
"You told us what to call you."
"No, I told you to call me S.O.S. I never told you what it stood for."
Steve stopped, reliving that moment. His jaw fell a bit when he realized that I never told them that S.O.S. stood for Soldier of Summer.
"Our cover's been blown, Cap," Natasha said, obviously impressed with me. She lowered her weapon, motioning for the others to do the same. They did, but they all remained tense.
"Alright, we knew who you were," Steve said, still annoyed that he slipped up. "Now where are we going?" He sat down across from me.
"Well," I relaxed a bit, " They'll be expecting me to go overseas once they discover I've abandoned the mission. They'll expect me to go as far away as possible. But we'll stay on the continent."
"For how long?" Natasha asked.
"At least until they narrow the search to Asia. That will take about two weeks, then it will be up to you where we go. We'll fly to a spot in Asia where I have a sightseeing plane, and we can gather supplies.
"From there, well split up so that they'll lose our scent. Once we get the phones, I'll send you all the exact coordinates to where we'll meet up again."
I sat in silence as I let it digest with the team. "How long have you had to plan this?" Steve asked me.
"Since I was six."
Steve and Sam looked down while Winter and Natasha glanced at me with sympathy. I shrugged it off and went into the cockpit.
Nothing on the radar yet.
I walked back to Natasha and stood in front of her, crossing my arms. "How much does S.H.I.E.L.D. know about me?" I asked her. Natasha cocked her head, clearly debating about what she should tell me.
"Well,"she started slowly, " They know that you've done more in eight years than the Winter Soldier did in seventy. They know that you were the best child soldier they had."
I rolled my eyes. I wasn't a child.
"But they did not know that you were born there, nor that you were supposedly against them."
I listened intently, and when she finished, I sat down. "All that is true, except that I am against Hydra. They injected the serum in me when I was still a baby, and I was left without an arm until I was around four, and that's when they started training me, physically and mentally. I was given my first mission when I was six, and that's when I started setting up my escape plan with Clara."
"Who's Clara?" Sam asked.
I looked down at my hands. "She was the girl we buried. She was my best friend, and she was stupid enough to snap at our commanding officer. They made me kill her, and then they told me to bury her as a punishment. Then of course I found out you guys were captured, and I volunteered for guard duty the next evening. And now, here we are."
We all fell silent, and I closed my eyes, trying to compose myself. I opened them to see Sam right up in my face.
"Can I help you?"
"How do we know you're not trying to break us down? Tear us apart?" He spat at me. I wiped the saliva off of my cheek.
"Why would I do that? If I wanted to break you down I could let you rot in that cell. But I didn't. Wanna know why? I'm desperate.
"If I had one more mission with Hydra, I would be in the ground with Clara. The only reason I didn't kill myself years ago, is because I knew that one day, you guys would be stupid enough to get captured. I knew that one day, I would get the help I needed to take down Hydra. And I guess I was right."
I stood up, and walked back into the cockpit. I sat in the pilot's chair and rested my head in my hands, rubbing my temples. That was way too much info revealed about me. I was supposed to be this mysterious savior to them, but I suddenly became another helpless kid to them.
I took the plane off of autopilot. Hydra didn't know I was gone yet. And if they did, I had an eight hour head start on them, which was more than I needed. I had been planning this since I was six years old. I knew everything that could possibly go wrong, and had solutions to everything.
I was going to get them out of here, even if it cost me my life.