The Devil's Keeper - Blackhill

Chapter 3 - The Black Widow

[February 1998 – Moscow, Russia]

Natalia Alianova Romanova lost her first true friend when she was fourteen years old. The day it happened, she felt like the last drop of her childhood had been drained.

She didn't know what day it was, but it wasn't a pressing concern since she wasn't sure she would eventually get out of there, and to a place where she could actually get the chance to mourn that loss at its recurring anniversary.

There were hundreds of girls in the programme and Katia was smaller than most, she wasn't bound to last long. Actually, she would have probably lasted a lot less time if Natalia hadn't tried to protect her for so long. Nevertheless, that loss changed her.

She had been taken by the Red Room when she was four – or maybe five? She didn't remember it well enough to tell. She was taught how to speak multiple languages without an accent, she was taught how to do ballet without a flaw, she was taught how to use any object as a weapon and to show no mercy in front of an enemy.

When they turned fourteen, they were perfect fighters. She knew several martial arts and used them with the graciousness of a ballerina.

There weren't many of them left, at least not compared to the size of the starting group. But there were still enough that Ivan Bezukhov, the trainer, made them fight against each other. He claimed it was to teach them how to be focused when under pressure, to teach them how fighting for one's life could bring out their most ferocious side. But Natalia suspected the real reason was several shades darker. A twisted glint in his eye almost made it seem, to her, that he liked to see them fight.

Natalia never lost a fight.

Then, one day, Bezukhov made her spar against Katia.

Natalia knew better than to care for the other girls. A lot of them didn't last long. Katia had a gentle soul and a big heart, she was doomed from the moment she was recruited. Natalia made sure she ate enough, passed the tests and learnt the languages. But there was only so much she could do to protect her. Bezukhov noticed his prodigy was distracted and held back by that friendship, so he made them fight each other.

Natalia won, quickly and almost without causing pain to her opponent. He got up from his chair, took her wrist and put a gun in her hand.

"She lost. She is weak. You must show no sign of weakness. Kill her."

Natalia shook her head and forced the gun back into his hands.

"Kill her." he repeated coldly.

Natalia refused again.

He loaded the gun and held the barrel against her forehead. Natalia didn't beg him to let her live. She didn't scream or cry or move. She kept looking at him, waiting.

"You think this will save her?" he asked rhetorically. He moved the gun quickly, taking one single shot at Katia's head, then putting the barrel back against Natalia's forehead. "Next time, if you don't shoot, I will kill the girl you fought. And then I will kill you, too."

Natalia was fourteen years old, but the horrors she went through made her decade in the Red Room feel heavier than ten lifetimes.

The next day, she fought again. She won again. When Bezukhov put a gun in her hand, she turned around, raised her arm, and shot the girl she defeated. She couldn't afford to be weak. She never made another friend.

- - -

[2000 – Moscow, Russia]

There were twenty-eight left. Twenty-eight Black Widows went through the graduation ceremony and Natalia was among them. That title, graduation ceremony, was nothing else but a fancy term to make something truly despicable sound like it would actually bring them some relief. The hope it would all be over.