Trust Me, I Will Never Trust You.

Chapter 4

Just as the file hit her hand, the door to the room swung open as a middle-aged man shuffled into the room. He stood at 5'6", with glass perched on his short greying hair. Xpel quickly concluded that he was a simple technician.  He walked straight past the desk and into the server room, allowing a sigh of relief to leave Xpel's parted lips.

Suddenly the computer sounded a beep notifying that the files had finished being duplicated onto the Hydra hard drive. 

Although the noise was far from deafening, in the silence of the night, a pin drop would have been alarming. 

Xpels eyes widened in fear of being caught as the server room door was opened again. The same technician emerged from the server room in great haste. He plonked down at the computer, erratically wiggling the mouse, trying to awaken the monitor. 

Whilst distracted, Xpel silently crawled out between the side table legs and began creeping along the floor. 

Just as the technician began to fiddle with the computer wires, only to find that the screen monitor had been disconnected, Xpel reached the door. She quietly stood up, reaching her hand out as the hard drive flew through the air at pace.  

Once Xpel had caught the hard drive in her palm, she instantly spun round and sprinted out of the room, just as the technician had turned his head, wondering if his eyes were paying tricks on him. 

"Shit," He shouted, seeing a dark figure dart down the corridor. They had been breached. He spun around in the swivel chair, slamming his hand on the button in the corner of the desk, raising the alarm as a siren blared.

• • •

Xpel raced down the hallway, trying to remember the nearest exit that was marked on the blueprints. Suddenly an alarm blasted her eardrums, and orange lights began flashing. 

They were onto her. Where was her nearest exit? Should she get out of the main corridor and into the vents?  

These were all things that should have been racing through Xpels mind. And yet, here she was, staring at the flashing alarm. Her mind had never been so foggy but so clear.

• • •

"Xpel, you were meant to stay hidden!" A tall gruff man with shaggy shoulder-length hair , the Winter soldier, whisper shouted at her as he pulled her by the arm through the flashing orange hallways.

"Sorry frosty, but you're not exactly discreet yourself."

• • •

"Turn around and raise your hands slowly!" Xpel was immediately brought back to reality as she realised she had let her guard down and was now surrounded.

Taking in a shaky gulp, she slowly turned around, eying the ten soldiers who now surrounded her. 

Her head cocked slightly as she recognised the eagle emblem that sat proudly on each soldier's combat gear. Shield? Why wasn't she told she was breaking into shied? But when was she told anything...

"I said, raise your hands!" One of the soldiers shouted again.

Scanning her eyes again down the hallway to find no backup soldiers, Xpel smirked lightly as she raised her hands.

With a sharp breath, she quickly brought her hands up high before pushing her hands back down, allowing all of the surrounding soldiers to be hurled into the air before smashing back down onto the ground, knocking them all out cold.

How could she be so stupid to get distracted? What was that memory anyway? Why was she with the Winter Soldier? The memory felt so familiar, but yet it was like watching it through someone else's mind.  Why did Shield have a folder on her with surveillance of an event she couldn't remember? Was she a hostage? Was Hydra lying to her?

Her mind pounded itself with question after question as she raced through the halls and out a window into the crisp night of New York. 

Throughout all the uncertainty in her mind, one thing was clear...

She couldn't go back to Hydra.

Sorry for the bit of a wait. Had a funeral this week and now I'm also ill with flu :(