The Widow's Daughter ✔︎

Chapter Twenty-Five

Darkness had come early. The sun had disappeared from the cloudy grey sky and the world had been plunged into night. After the explosion of Evie's powers and the death of Tori, nobody felt like talking, so we all went to bed.

Nat was snoozing peacefully in the queen bed next to mine. I was staying in her room tonight, because she'd thought it was for the best we were closer together in case anything went wrong - basically, she was scared that the assassin who killed Tori might come back to finish me off too, as the agents hadn't found him yet. They were still MIA. I'd dragged in a mattress and plonked it on her floor, which I was currently lying star-fished on. I couldn't believe what had just happened: Tori being dead was a lot to get my head around, but Evie? That was just too much.

I could hear Tina and Ben's deep breathing in the room across from ours. Evie was in there tonight but I didn't think she was asleep. She was probably sitting awake and musing, like I was. I glanced at Nat - my mother looked so peaceful in her slumber, so very different from the stressed-out secret-agent/superhero she was in the daytime. I looked at the alarm clock that sat on her bedside table: it read 10:42pm.

It was only 10:42? 

That was it. I couldn't take any more. I stood up and stretched, grabbing my ugg boots and slipping them onto my bare feet. As quietly as I could, I prised open the door and snuck out, shutting it gently behind me so not to disturb Nat. My ugg boots made a small squeaking noise as I tiptoed across the darkened hallway, knocking on Evie and Tina's door gently.

"Who is it?" came Evie's soft voice. She sounded like she'd just been crying.

"It's Kira," I said. "Can I come in?"

Evie sniffed. "Yeah, sure."

I pushed open the door gently. Tina was sleeping in a big bed, her face peaceful and untroubled, Ben snoring loudly next to her. Evie was sitting on the floor, staring at her locket, the hologram of Tori paused at an image of her laughing. 

"Hey," I sat down next to her. "You OK?"

Evie wiped her eyes. "No," she admitted. "My life was so normal up until now. First I discover I was experimented on by a Russian psychopath, then I have a sister, then I have 2 sisters, then my best friend gets murdered by an assassin, then I have powers that make me fly and explode things." She sobbed. "This is all so weird."

"It's weird for me, too," I said, squeezing her hand. "But we have to be strong." Suddenly I had an idea. "Do you like Stranger Things?"

Evie gave a shaky laugh and wiped her nose. "Hell yeah," she sniffed. "Me and Ben are two episodes away from finishing Season Three." She saw my mischievous grin. "He'll kill me if he realises I've watched those episodes without him."

"I never said anything about watching episodes," I said, grinning and standing up. "We have powers, and that's cool... Eleven has powers too. With our magic, we can literally be Eleven."

"It kinda makes sense," Evie giggled, standing up. "I mean, she was experimented on. We were experimented on. She has a creepy Papa. We have a creepy... well, not Papa. Ivan."

I laughed and grabbed her by the hand. "Come on," I said, pulling her down the dark hallway. "Find yourself some popcorn and sour straps. We're raiding the Avenger's Netflix."

Giggling, we made our way down the hallway and ran into Avenger's massive kitchen. I found three bags of microwaveable popcorn and stuffed them in the microwave, Evie finding two buckets of mint choc-chip ice cream in the freezer. We started dancing around the kitchen to Timber by Pitbull and Ke$ha and shrieking at the top of our lungs whenever the chorus started, singing as loud as we liked because the kitchen had soundproof walls. 

Apparently that didn't stop Peter from finding us, because as we were in the middle of pulling off incredibly embarrassing dance moves while listening to Ricky Martin, he swung by in his spider-suit, dangling from the ceiling. "Nice dancing," he remarked.

I blushed beet red, partly because I'd just been doing the Mexican wave very badly with Evie and partly because he was seeing me in all of my pyjamafied glory. "We're watching Stranger Things," I said. "Wanna join us?"

"Stranger Things is scary," Peter shivered, dropping down from the ceiling. "But sure."

We piled onto the couch and turned on Tony's massive flatscreen TV, searching in vain for the WiFi password. Just as we had switched Netflix on, we heard footsteps coming down our way, and froze, turning off the TV and shoving the ice cream and popcorn under the couch. We could see people coming our way.

"We are so busted," Evie whispered. I shushed her. Peter shushed me. Evie shushed him.

We peeked over the armrest of the couch to see Clint and Bruce standing in the doorway, their tall shadows illuminated by the light coming from the hallway. Clint was holding something - a small plastic bag containing a tiny red USB stick in the shape of a watermelon.

"We found this in Tori's pocket," he said softly. We all gasped, including Bruce. "We think it might be the file about Holly." Seeing the look on Bruce's face, he continued, saying, "Tori said it herself: she had a file on Holly on her. This is probably it - we should run it through a laptop and see what it does."

"Clint, we're not supposed to be doing this," Bruce hissed, grabbing the plastic bag and walking into the kitchen, dropping it down onto the table. He looked around at the mess. "Obviously Tony's been having midnight snacks." He picked up a jar of peanut butter lying open on the table and sniffed it. "Or Nat. She and Kira are the only ones here who eat that stuff." He sighed. "Like mother like daughter, that's what they say."

I couldn't help smiling at that one. 

"Listen, Bruce, this is the only way we'll be able to find Holly." Clint looked serious, his eyes steely.

Bruce looked uncomfortable. "There's a reason Nat doesn't want Holly to be found," he said. Evie gasped - I could feel my heart pounding in my ears like an anvil chorus. Mum didn't want Holly to be found? Why not? She was my sister! "She thinks that having the Red Triplets reunited is a bad idea. I think she's right - after all, we engineered the embryo to be a weapon, a possible recruit to our Avengers team. Now we have three of them, each incredibly dangerous. I mean, did you even see the explosion of Evie's powers? If they weren't working for us, Kira and Evie combined could be the death of us: Holly with them could be the death of the universe."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was about to demand what was going on when Peter grabbed my wrist, shaking his head slowly. 

"We have to find Holly before the assailant who kidnapped their embryo does," argued Clint. "Otherwise it WILL be the death of the universe."

They walked off, deep in conversation. I didn't waste any time: as soon as they were gone, I ran over to the kitchen table and snatched the watermelon USB out of the plastic bag, pocketing it. "What are you doing?" Peter hissed. "They'll notice it's gone for sure!"

"This is the only way to find our sister," I said strongly, looking at Evie. She took a deep breath and nodded. 

"This is insane," Peter said as we walked back through the hallway into my room. Nat was still snoring peacefully in her bed and I smiled at her while I grabbed my laptop out of my blue duffel bag. We tiptoed over to Peter's room, which was next to Vision's, and covered in posters of Star Wars and other geeky shows. He blushed when I pointed them out.

I inserted the USB into my laptop, waiting anxiously as the rainbow pinwheel of death spun on the small screen. A folder popped up labelled 'Holly's File.'

We all held our breath as I clicked on it. 

And up popped a secret, a lie, and a truth.