Broken Soldier [#Wattys2015]

Chapter Twenty-Four

New York, 2015

Wanda

She was on a total mission, Maria was. There was nothing that could possibly stand I'm her way of finding and proving that her family was alive. While I, in the other hand, silently wished that there was a way that Pietro survived...

We had left the Avengers Compound after quickly grabbing a backpack and some personal items out of Maria's room and were now making our way into the surrounding forest, beelining for the pile of ash that was once the safe house. I dont know how she knew how to navigate her way through the dense trees and scrub but she managed it and we came out on the edge of a road.

"Follow me," she said as if I'd only just popped up behind her.

Half an hour down the road is when we started to see houses standing in front of us. Gradually, they became more and more until we found ourselves in the outer suberbs of the city. That's when the houses turned into tall buildings and allyways ran between them rather than dead grass strips. Every few allyways the we passed contained small congregations of homeless people standing around fire pits made of 44 gallon drums. They stared as we walked by them. Dark eyes hidden beneath long, mangy hair and beanies. Most looked away but a few continued to stare until we were completely out of sight. I shivered.

Overhead of us the clouds began to gather and lightning lit the sky. I was in total awe of the storm that I didn't even notice that Maria had stopped and I smacked into the back of her.

"Sorry," I mumbled.

She didn't seem to notice that I had said anything as she was staring at a taped off pile of ash, the only thing left standing was the metal skeleton of the house. There was complete silence. Not even a muscle twitched, not even an eyelash battered. Silence.

**********

Maria

I don't know if it was wrong that I felt no pain at the fact that I was standing in front of the place where my family had supposedly perished. I mean, I did stare in shock of being there again, but it didn't hurt. Perhaps because I was so confident that they were still alive?

I blinked and came back to reality. Scanning over the area where Valerie's silver shone, I moved forward. There had to be something left that I could use to find them.

Ducking under the tape, I carefully stepped into the forbidden zone and walked ever so slowly towards the middle of the pile where I thought I had seen her power in the video. As I went, I noticed that the ashes had already been disturbed by someone but concluded that it was just a bunch of curious teenagers when I came across lolly wrappers, a bottle and a lighter.

Kids these days...

Continuing on I reached the center and stopped, looking for anything. Anything. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing that could be of any kind of use. However, as I was about the yell and scream in annoyance, I spotted something shining in the ashes. Bending down to pick it up, I discovered that it was a single silver coin. You're probably thinking 'What use is that?' but let me tell you that when I flipped it over, engraved on the other side was a 'V' standing for 'Valerie'.

"Oh my god," I whispered.

Wanda came up next to me and took the coin out of my hand, examining it. With a smile she handed it back, nodding her head.

*********

"What is your plan now?" Wanda asked me.

We had hired a motel room to use for the time being and were sitting on the one double bed that it contained, flipping the coin between us.