Red Room

RR26 Embers

When Natalia felt the pain again, she knew something was wrong. It was intense and something she had never felt before. It radiated around her mid-section and it took everything in her to not cry out.

This continued on for another few hours. She started to get scared as she paced around the cave hoping for Loki to show up. Pretty soon though, her legs got too weak and she had to lay back down. The drugs in her system made her too weak and she had no idea what would happen. She curled into a ball and stared at the fire in hopes that it would distract her.

Through the crackling of the embers, she heard a different kind of sound. It was working its way to the cave like it knew where to go. She sighed in relief when Loki's name came to her mind but quickly grimaced again when another bout of pain shot through her stomach.

"Loki!" she called, but no one answered. It must have been an animal looking for shelter in the winter storm. She buried her face into her arm but then jumped at the sound of a voice.

"Natalia, are you okay?" She lifted her head and saw a man standing there with concern etched across his face. He kneeled down to her and she rolled over and tried sitting up.

Dr. Andrei saw the sweat pouring from the red heads face and he felt her head for a temperature.

"Natalia, your temperature is dangerously elevated, we need to cool you off."

Allowing him to help her, Dr. Andrei guided Natalia away from the fire and backed her against the wall for support. She grimaced in pain the whole way and she saw the worry on the doctor's face.

"What's going on, are you in pain?" She ignored the question and then caught her breath.

"What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

He sighed. "I've always known that you snuck out. Don't worry, Ivan doesn't know. I believed that you needed the exercise since he restricted your training. I worried about the injections weakening you too much, but Ivan demanded me keep giving them to you. I've had a spy follow you for the past few months. He said that you had been meeting with some man, but I didn't see any harm in that. Anyways, I noticed that you didn't come back tonight and I grew worried because of the storm. Ivan increased your dosage and I thought it might have caused problems. My spy lost you about halfway here in the snow and turned back since you always returned. I got here as fast as I could in the blizzard."

Natalia didn't know what to think. Had he always been looking out for her? He was always nice to her and made sure she was okay. Another wave of pain rocked her body and she curled into her knees with a moan.

"Let me look," Andrei said as he pushed her back up and undid her heavy coat. She allowed him to lift her shirt and then felt his cold hands on her. He pressed various painful areas and then cursed to himself.

"The baby is coming."

"What!? I'm almost 8 months, not 9! How could it be coming? Natalia grew terrified, she didn't know if she could trust this man.

"I know, and that worries me. It must be because of the injections and then the strain of getting here. Why in the world would you risk your lives to come out here?"

Natalia looked away from him and then noticed his medical bag by the fire. She breathed out in relief that he had something in there that could possibly help her.

Dr. Andrei followed her gaze and then got up to retrieve the medical bag. He saw her bag of belongings and quickly put two and two together, she wasn't planning on coming back. He grabbed the blanket and set it around her shoulders as she shivered against the cold. Her temperature seemed to have gone down some but she look extremely weak.