Il Dannato {REWRITING}

Chapter 8: A P A R T

Dinner was quite early and it was this high nutritious diet that they all had to follow. Natalia didn't want to make any friends so she sat in the corner, her eyebrows drooping but her shoulders back. In the Academy, there was no place for friendship.

The activities after dinner were the worst of all- the girls were tested on, it wasn't meant to teach them anything but Natalia leant that the mind was brittle and she knew she had to train hers to avoid being manipulated. The doctors in the class told them that the purpose of the session was to assess their brain's behaviour and health but the electricity that sparked around their brain told a different story. One by one, every one of the girls were strapped into a metal chair and a mouth guard was placed in between their teeth so as not to break them and wired headsets was placed on their forehead with two IV drips on each of their arms- one with clear liquid and one with an almost blood-like substance. 

This was a demonstration to the other girls in the room of what was to expect. The lights were switched off and all the girls were strapped, listening to the voices bounce off the wall. The drip made her head spin and her body convulse. However, she was one of the lucky girls who did not experience the nausea, the sudden vertigo and one girl apparently even fainted during one of the lessons and then she was never seen again. 

It was quite strange that she couldn't even remember what happened in the room but she experienced the aftershocks of it. Natalia sometimes begins to hum songs that she doesn't even know and once, in the shower, she began to spin around on her toes. Sure, she had learnt ballet before but she was never good at it.

Before bed, girls were sent to the nursed and professional plastic surgeons to make sure any injuries were taken care of. The girls were supposed to look beautiful and fit. There were to be no flaws or imperfections that could be seen. They were always accompanied by a guard. No-one was allowed to wander around the compound alone, especially at night. The girls who did not need medical assistance were sent back to their rooms to begin their night-time routine.

At 9 o'clock, it was bedtime and so Natalia lay in her big, hard bed looking up at the ceiling, feeling cold and alone for the 100th time in the day.

This repeated, and repeated, and repeated. Sometimes on the weekends the girls would get to watch a film. Always Russian, always drenched in propaganda. But it was the one fun thing Natalia got, so she enjoyed it.

Natalia Solovik Ivanshov, a name she had earned since arriving at the Assassin Manor,  shook out of her stupor before heading inside the double-doors, the cavernous entrance hall of the Manor silent. Her heels clicked on the marble flooring, her phone buzzing in her back pocket and a bloodied sack in her bruised hand.

 No one had greeted her, except the housekeeper who'd taken her trench coat—and, after getting a look at the wicked grin on her face and the blood on the sack, hadn't spoken beyond that.

Natasha strode through the hallway; Quiet as mice, quiet as the wind, quiet as the grave.

The doors to Dmitri Hamel's study lay at the other end of the hall and were currently shut. But she knew he was in there. She also had no doubt that Dmitri had eyes at every entrance in this city. The moment she'd stepped into this country, he'd been alerted that she'd at last returned.

It had been three months since the night he had beaten her unconscious—punishment for letting a mark go; there was a huge bounty on her head. It had been three months since he'd shipped her off to another Assassins Master who could beat obedience into her. And they did. Or at least tried.

The sack in her hand was proof. Proof that Dmitri hadn't broken her that night.

She was accompanied by many men along with five trunks of gold and jewels, which were to be put in her room. She gulped, wanting to explain to him that her debt was now paid. He had bought her for 1.2 billion and the trunks were worth more. She wanted to leave. She wanted to be free. Of him. Of this life.