Vanished {Pietro Maximoff}

Prologue

She sat in silence, hidden in the darkness.

Her hands- smashed with a mallet- were secured above her head by a heavy chain that creaked with the slightest movement. She couldn't make a noise, felt like she couldn't even breathe. The bone sticking out of her finger ached, but it was duller and easier to ignore now than when her mother had first done it.

Months had passed now since she'd been taken back home, every day felt the same and the only way she knew time had passed at all was her hair growing. Her father had taken so much care to make her look normal- brushing her hair every night and every morning and cutting it regularly for her so it never grew passed her chin.

It reached her shoulders now. Or would do, if it wasn't matted and clumps hadn't been cut out at random when she misbehaved.

She thought she had misbehaved today, when her mother had hurried down stairs and began frantically whispering to her to be quiet. That was not the way things were done normally, and if things were not normal then Ena had done something wrong. Her mother didn't even speak usually, the routine so familiar and the pain so fresh that she allowed her mother to do whatever she had too.

She was being as quiet as she could but her stomach betrayed her, growling with a ferocity that made the child cower.  A shout came from upstairs and she had to force herself to stay still to stop the chains from rattling.

When her dad had been around, guns were banned. He said he didn't trust one in the house with someone like her. There was a shotgun on the wall now. Her mum said she didn't trust someone like her to behave without the threat of it. And she was threatened by its silhouette every-time her mother came to serve her food.

A single shot was fired. Her mother screamed, and she knew it was her mother because it was the same sound she'd made all those months ago when Ena's dad had died. The scream was drowned out by gunfire and when it stopped, the screams were no more.

Another shout, this time closer and in what sounded like English. She knew a little English from school but that was just colours and animals, nothing complicated like what they were saying.

She thrashed against the chain holding her to the wall. Desperately trying to get at least one hand free, she pulled again and again, till the wall started to crumble.

The basement door rattled and she tried to pulled harder, her fingers burning with an intense pain but she still refused to scream. The wall was flaking, it was old and weak.

There was a loud thud against the door. Then silence. Then another thud and she realised they were trying to break the door down. She wriggled harder, bringing her hand up and down again and again, trying to make the loop in the chain large enough to get her hand free.

It was so loud now- at some point she had begun screaming and the men were still attacking the door. More of the wall began to fall off, sending white flakes all over her black hair.

"Last." One of the men shouted a random word, and with a final thud the door flew open. She yanked her arms down at the same time, as hard as she could with the little strength left but it was useless, as rather than her hands breaking free of the chains, a chunk of wall fell.

It didn't hit her head, like she expected, with her eyes closed, prepared for the impact. It hovered in the air for a few seconds before both it, and the girl, vanished into thin air.

A/N This story does contain swearing