Buzzkill: The Reckoning

Chapter 19

White knuckles shined from beneath Ruth's skin as she clenched her hand into a fist, holding tight for a moment before releasing and stretching her hand back out. The voices that took over her mind seemed to dance through her head. They were memories, faint as if they were dreams but sure as they were reality. Ruth thought that after all this time that had passed she would forget what the Woman's voice sounded like, but the grim tune never seemed to leave her.

It was a paradox. Ruth killed the Woman for a reason. She escaped the facility for a reason. Then why the hell did she wish she could go back? Ruth knew she was twisted for missing the comfort that the steel walls brought her. The exhilaration of her motorcycle beneath her as she drove away from a mission that she had just completed, knowing, visualizing the shocked and dazed looks on the men's faces that would find their data files completely ransacked.

Kal being here only brought these feelings back. And now, Kal was just downstairs of this giant SHEILD facility in a barricaded cell guarded with brute agents. Video and sound feed built into the cell aboard the Quinjet meant everyone else on the plane heard the conversation between Ruth and Kal, getting rid of the need to Ruth to explain, but adding to the questions that swam through the group's minds from Kal's words.

Ruth sat at the edge of her bed and continued to gaze at her hands. They didn't even seem like her own anymore. The night sky stood pitch black as Ruth looked out the windows, knowing that tomorrow, Kal would be interrogated, and everything could be different.

A gentle knock sounded at the door.

"Come in," Ruth called out, glancing over at the door to see who would be walking through.

"Hey, just wanted to see how you were doing," Bucky asked gently, walking in and closing the door behind him.

Ruth felt strange. When they arrived at the base, no one, not even Tony or Rhodes asked her any questions about the mission. She wondered if Bucky or Steve told them to keep quiet.

"I'm ok," Ruth replied. "I just hate that she's here. But if she can lead us to Mage, then I know it's a good thing."

"I can imagine it being odd having someone here that you probably never thought you'd see again, especially if you didn't get along," Bucky said, sitting down beside Ruth on the foot of the bed.

Ruth shook her head, "We hated each other. I mean, everyone has a common dislike towards one another, but she really didn't care for me."

"Did it have to do with the game she talked about?" Bucky asked.

Ruth nodded slowly, "That's probably part of it."

"Can I ask what the game was?"

Ruth wrung her hands. "When I was about 14, 15 maybe, I was moving up in the ranks when it came to hand-to-hand combat training. Everyday the Woman would have us fight with one another in different ways on this giant mat in the middle of the training floor. And since I was doing so well, she would have me fight agents older than me."

"And Kal was one of them?"

"Right. And apparently, knife training got a bit boring for Ma'am's, the Woman's, liking," Ruth paused to think about the memory. "One day Kal, and this other girl her age, Vic, I think, were knife training. The Woman stood at the edge of the mat and watched every match, waiting to give orders on how to end each fight. And that day, Kal and Vic fought for what seemed like forever. Even a few minutes while battling like that is exhausting, and they went on for about twenty minutes, both of them trying not to get cut.

As the battle wore down, the two of them just exhausted, Vic dodged a blow from Kal, then sliced her knife across Kal's shoulder blade, winning the battle. In the next few days, the slice was turning out to be a pretty big scar, which gave the Woman an idea.