Black Swan | Ghost & König [I] ✓

chapter 6

The mission was a success.

Task Force 141 only had two missiles left to disarm — the one in Austria, and one other.

The rain was pouring hard outside as the vehicles travelled back to Alejandro's base. You rested your head against the window, watching the rain splatter against murky asphalt and the clouds travel slowly against the skyline. You felt achieved, like you were one step closer to getting to Kilgore.

You thought of him for a moment, listening to the soft rumbling of the cars engine as your eyes grew heavy. You remember living in France until you became a tween, and then your parents moved you to Austria for your father's new business job — he was a salesman, and the economy was booming in Austria at the time.

You were so so angry with them. You had a life in France. You were the top of your class in your dance studio, which you had been in since you were able to walk. You lived to perform, exceeding expectations every time you would get on a stage. Your favorite performance was when you were eleven years old. Your ballet instructor put together a winter show of Swan Lake, and you got to perform as Odile.

It was the best night of your life. You truly connected with the character — hence your current code name — and even got scouted to a highly respected studio in Northern France. You were on your way to become the next Prima Ballerina — better than Anna Pavlova or even Vaslav Nijinsky if you continued at the rate you were going.

But you didn't get to live your dream. You begged and begged your parents to let you go to that dance studio, but they wanted to go to fucking Austria instead. It broke your heart as a child and made you despise your parents in adolescence.

When you moved to Austria, you were not put back in ballet. Your parents had been very supportive of your passion until then, when they suddenly concluded that it was a waste of money and time.

You sobbed so many nights because of what they had done to you, countless walls had been punched through, doors slammed off their hinges — you were very expressive with how you felt. You hated your new school. You hated having to learn German. You hated all of it and you hated your parents.

It got to the point where they sent you off to military school.

Military school was an escape. It changed you. When you came back, you weren't the same. You learned how to control your anger, but it never quite went away. You still loved your parents, but you would never forgive them.

When you turned fourteen, you became extremely depressed. You turned to self-harm to drown out the voices in your head telling you that you were nothing — without ballet, you felt like nothing.

And then you met Kilgore.

He was the best friend you never had. He taught you patience and serenity, how to have fun in dark times. He was like the sun to your moon. He made everything colorful and bright and so much better. He drowned out the voices.

You met him in school — it was rather cliché, actually. You bumped into him in the hallway and dropped all of your books, and he helped you pick them up. It was the first time a person had ever been kind to you since you came to Austria.

You started talking to him through online messages and sneaking out to meet up with him in dark, dingy places. You both lived in the city in Vienna, so there were plenty places to hide. During those times, the two of you would smoke weed and play cards. He would meet up with you to get out of his abusive household. His father was a drunk and his mother was a deadbeat, but none of that mattered when he was with you. He was your best friend.

It wasn't long before the first time came when the two of you ran away together. You planned it all out in text messages — Kilgore would steal his dad's car, pick you up, and the both of you get the hell out of Vienna. You had learned to love the city. You loved the culture and you loved the people, because Kilgore made it seem so much better than it felt like it was, but the weight of your past and your depression was too much, and you needed to escape.