The Red widow

Part 33: orphange

Alexi gives me a questioning look but other than that obliges following me as we start to walk, even though i want nothing more than to run as far from this place, this country as i can. I wish I could just erase myself altogether but I know no matter where I run or how many times I change my name, someone will always find me.

Instead I pull my hood over my head and keep my head down ignoring the feeling of warm blood running down my arm, staining my palm scarlet. I feel my cheeks redden as eyes meet mine, then quickly drop to focus on whatever they were doing. They know something is different about us but they don't know what. And that scares them.

I can tell by the way they clutch their children's hands a little bit tighter or move aside on the pavement to let us go. I swallow my fear trying to clear the images of prison cells from my mind. They will kill me for what I have done. The police might not. But the red room or hydra will. If they even get a hint of me again they will send as many as they can after me. They won't stop until they feel the pulse leave my body and the air from my lungs.

Sweat runs like cold fingers down my skin, sending goosebumps up my arms. My legs ache as I drag them until we enter the town center. It is a small rundown place. Rubbish littered the streets, children with dirt smeared faces looked at us in awe as we walked past, whispering and giggling to each other in a language I couldn't understand. "

Sokovian refugees" alexi mutters as we walk past them. "Their city was dropped from the sky by so called heroes, the avengers people call them. Which i think is hippocrytical, the only thing they avenge is themselves" he mutters

I nod in agreement, the only thing dreykov hated more than us was the avengers or americans in general.

The buildings are older than the previous ones, red brick whitewashed, cips of cement dust our shoulders as we walk past.

I wasn't sure where we were going. I wasn't even sure we were in the right place. "What are you doing here?" a woman asks in russian, her grey hair twisted into a bun, her face weathered and pale, her lips like leather pursed in a frown. Her voice was thick but yet sharp as she spoke.

"We are looking for an orphanage, we believe there used to be one" I lied. I expected her to yell at us or tell us to go away. Or simply laugh in our face. But her eyes just cloud with fear. Her hand going to her necklace."Go away, we have nothing for you here" she barks but her voice is coated in fear.

"What happened here?" Alexi shouts at the woman whose face pales. "Look around you" she yells in Russian, her voice almost hysterical.

Flowers lay wilted in their pots and baskets and glass from windows lay shattered on the ground. Around our feet is littered with bullet casings. The stench of smoke is still thick in the air. It is only now that I notice that some houses are missing doors and some even roofs and walls, buildings basically disintegrating at our feet. Someone was here before us.

And clearly it wasn't peaceful.

"Alexi lets go '' I whisper, grabbing his arm and walking away from the woman who has now grabbed my arm. "Leave before they burn it to the ground" she whispered her voice thick with emotion. I shake her off my arm and start to walk following the path of destruction until I find a small dirt road and a building starts to come into view.

The orphanage is a huge four story Victorian style building. From the distance it looks grand and elegant, safe almost. But the closer we got the more apparent it became that the building was the opposite.

The big bay windows had been shattered and the frames burnt to embers. The door was knocked down and lay in splitters on the overgrown lawn. My heart started to sink with panic. Dread unfurling from my stomach as I started to run, keeping one hand trained on my gun in my back pocket.

The lawn was covered in bullets and the grass smeared red as a sickly reminder that something awful had happened here. Alexi chased behind me, his arm reaching for mine pulling me back as I tried to walk into the building. Panic and fear for the little girls that could be trapped inside urging me on. I don't even know what I would do if I found them. All I know is that I had to.

"You really want to walk in there blind, are you crazy?" he hissed,

I push past him, taking a flashlight in my hand and aiming towards the entrance. Glass crunches under my feet as I walk, blood stains the floors like paint. From the way it coats the soles of my shoes it must have still been warm. I prayed to myself that it was a guard or someone who deserved it. Not an innocent child.

The stairs that stand grandly in the center of the room now lay scattered with glass from the chandelier which lies in a rumble of cement and brass.

Bullet holes decorate the walls and the casing lay scattered on the ground like confetti. I hold my gun close to my chest, alexi now holding the flashlight, sweeping it like a lighthouse light across the ground.

As we walk from one eerily empty to the next my heart plummets a little more and my chest tightens. Desperation claws at my throat as sobs try to escape as we run through the building. "Where are they" I ask desperately as we walk into another empty washroom. The basines all lined up in uniform order just as I remember, the pipes rusted over and the water froze cold and smelled like chemicals but it reminded me of home. The only place that felt like it. The only one I remember clearly.

I gaze out of the cracked windows over to the little fenced courtyard, the washing is still on the line, fluttering gently in the breeze. The ground is still littered with old fashioned looking toys. Rag dolls lay scarily in prams, books lay overturned hidden in the tall grass and skipping ropes are still snaked on the hard concrete. Chalk drawings still outlined on the ground. "It looks like everyone left in a rush" alexi mutters as he walks over to me, leaving his head out of the window, i turn my head to face his, his eyes are clouded in thought, his cheeks rudy from the cool air but something is still hidden in his expression.

Something sinister. Insencer. But he hasn't betrayed you. He came all this way with you. That has to mean something. My mind wanders woven in my thoughts. The sound of children's laughter fills my ears as memories take shape in front of my eyes. Suddenly I'm transported into the garden. Elena's hand clutching a plastic handle as she turned a rope , my feet stamping the ground as I jumped. A smile spread on her lips as she cheered me on. "You can do it becca" she would shout as i would skip, my mind focused on her encouragement.

"Come one, before whoever did this comes back" alexi mutters, pulling me from my thoughts and we walk in unisan out of the room, my heart filled with warmth for a split second, the memory seeping the dread from my head.

We continue to walk, checking every room. We walk up the stairs into the last dormitories. Memories start to form clearer in my head. The beds are the same as when I was there. Ten iron beds on each side of the room. The bedspreads starched and neatly folded on the end of the bed. The walls painted a light yellow colour and the floorboards creaked as we walked, alexi shining the torch in any possible hiding space.

A large school bell stands grandly on a stand, the rust and wooden handle is still slightly warm to touch. Someone must have been here recently.

"Nobody" alexi coughs curing under his breath as he inhales a chest full of dust from one of the curtains.

Desperation curls in my stomach as I walk one last time around the room. Looking under each bed and sweeping the torch across the walls. Nothing. No signs of life. The room looks like one at a hotel, neat and ready for the next residence to come. The only thing which makes the room look inhabited is the charred wood on the door. A memory flashes in my head. My screams. The fire. The guns.

I quickly walk back to one of the beds and feel the iron bars to see the dents where the handcuffs used to hang. "Did they handcuff you to the beds? Alexi asks in awe, holding up a pair of cuffs which are laid on the floor.

"It was comforting," I say simply as I trace the frame of the bed until I see a tiny inscription on the iron bar. My name is scraped on the back of it in jagged handwriting. "This was my room" I whisper my breath catching in my throat. As I try to stop the memories which are melting into my mind. They are so vivid I can almost taste the smoke on my tongue, and hear the screams in my head. "This place should have burnt to the ground"

"What do you mean"