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1.
Melina Vostokoff is six years old the first time she tries to escape the Red Room.
They have been taken to one of the internal courtyards to practice climbing. The space is a narrow gap between three adjacent buildings. The walls stretch up high above them, so high that Melina can barely see the top. The girls line up shoulder to shoulder in front of the widest wall, and on the signal from their instructor, they begin to climb. The task is as much mental as physical, and Melina likes the challenge. She focuses on finding the smallest crevices that allow her fingers and toes to grip the wall. Where there isn’t an appropriate handhold or foothold, she makes one, digging her fingers and toes into the brick until they bleed.
Before she knows it, there is no more wall above her. Only an endless expanse of bright blue sky. She tilts her face up towards the warm glow of the sun, feeling its soothing rays soak into her skin. She has never seen the sun so bright, or the sky so blue.
A rope hangs from the top of the building, and Melina knows that she is supposed to use it to climb back down where the instructor is waiting. But in that moment, the last thing she wants is to return to the darkened halls of the Red Room.
Gripping the rope, she uses it to pull herself all the way up, so she is sitting on the roof of the building. Far below her she can see the other girls, struggling to make their way up the wall, and even farther below them is the instructor, a tiny speck shouting up at her to come down. The words though are carried away by the wind. Too far away to hurt her. She smiles and swings her legs happily.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spots guards coming over to grab her. She leaps to her feet and sprints across the roof. She is moving on instinct, with no plan except don’t get caught. But they are faster and smarter than a desperate six year old girl. One of them grabs her arm while another hits her over the head with a baton, knocking her out cold. When she regains consciousness, she is in her bunk, with her wrist cuffed to the bedpost. They don’t unlock her for three days.
*****
2.
The second time Melina tries to escape, she is older. Wiser. She knows that she will not make it out on instinct alone. She will need a plan. For months she waits, patiently observing everything around her until she has a perfect map of the Red Room in her mind. Every room, every corridor, every shadow. She gathers all this information, and she waits for the perfect moment to make her escape.
She disappears in the middle of the day. Slips out of line when they are waiting to start target practice, and disappears into the shadows. She remains hidden for two weeks. The guards search for her day and night, but Melina manages to stay one step ahead of them.
However, it is still not enough. No matter how hard she looks, she never finds a way out. The guards finally catch her, weak and desperate with hunger, trying to steal food from the kitchen. They do not kill her on sight like she is expecting. Instead, they place her in handcuffs and drag her to Madame B’s office for her punishment.
When they get to Madame B’s office, she is not alone. There is a man in her office, sitting behind her desk with an air of authority while Madame B hovers beside him. The guards push Melina to her knees in front of the two of them and leave her there, hands cuffed in front of her.
The man gets up from behind the desk and comes over to her. In contrast to Madame B, he doesn’t look angry. If anything, he looks amused.
“So this is the little spider who has caused all this trouble.” He leans over Melina, gripping her chin tightly in his hand and turning her face towards him, examining her from all angles. “Clever little spider,” he says. “I could use a clever girl like you.” He turns to Madame B. His tone shifts from amusement to anger. “That is, if you can be taught obedience.”
Madame B lowers her eyes and nods. “Yes, General.”
Later, as Madame B is giving Melina her punishment, she hisses in Melina’s ear just how very lucky she is that she has caught the interest of General Dreykov.
*****
3.
The general has great plans for her, once she is older, and he will let nothing stand in the way of those plans. Again and again, Melina is cycled through the Red Room for the slightest infraction. Anything less than perfect is a failure, and failure is not an option for Melina. With each cycle, she becomes faster, stronger, harder. But she never stops searching for a way out. Then one day, as she watches the guards remove the body of the girl she has just fought and killed, she realizes that there is only one way out of the Red Room.
The opportunity presents itself a few days later. Another fight with another girl. This one only ten years old. She should be no match for Melina. Because of all the times that Melina has been cycled through the Red Room, she is significantly taller and more experienced. But the other girl is desperate for a win in a way that Melina is not.
When the girl lunges for her, Melina lets herself hesitate half a second. Lets the girl grab hold of her neck. She feels the pressure on her neck as the girl twists, looking to Madame B for approval to finish the fight with the killing blow.
Madame B looks down at both of them. She shakes her head.
“The General has plans for her.”
*****
4.
It is Melina’s first mission outside of the USSR. She and an older widow named Svetlana are in West Berlin to steal the research of a prominent scientist. Privately, Melina wonders if this is also another test of her loyalty. In the years since she first caught General Dreykov’s eye, there have been many such tests. As she passes each one, they have unlocked new privileges as well as new challenges. By now he has told her what his plans for her are. He envisions her as his Iron Maiden. His perfect spy and assassin, working by his side to execute all his plans. Success in this mission brings her one step closer to that reality.
In West Berlin, Melina performs her role perfectly. Pretending to be an eager, nubile young student, she gets close to the scientist, seduces him, and steals his research one night while he is sleeping.
It is only after she has stolen the information and is on her way back on the metro to the rendezvous point that freedom tempts her once again. She is alone, far from the Red Room. The information that she is carrying has great value. Enough to buy her anything, even freedom.
The chime rings for the next station. Svetlana is waiting to meet her here. Melina doesn’t move. Her heart thumps in her chest. She has been trained for this. To disappear into a crowd. She can disappear from the Red Room as well.
As the metro car pulls away from the station, she wonders where she will go. Who she will become if she can be anyone. The thought is terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
She feels a hand grip her shoulder and finds Svetlana standing behind her. Her eyes seem to bore straight through Melina. She doesn’t say a word, just opens her other hand, indicating that Melina should hand her the briefcase.
A moment’s hesitation. Calculating her odds of killing Svetlana and fleeing the train. Too low. She hands over the briefcase without a word.
When Melina returns from the mission, she is cycled through the Red Room for the fourth time.
*****
5.
Failure is still not an option for Melina. She becomes General Dreykov’s Iron Maiden. She executes her missions to perfection and stands at his side helping him plan his conquest of the Western World. The key to his plan is retrieval of valuable scientific information from a S.H.I.E.L.D. research facility in Ohio. Just her, the Red Guardian, and two young widow trainees to support their cover as an American family.
They are in Ohio for three years. It is a long time to be away from the Red Room. At times, their mission fades into the background as they go through the routine of American life. Tucking the girls in at night. Helping Natasha with her homework. Kissing Yelena’s bumped knees. Having sex with her fake husband, not because she has to but because she wants to. She wonders if this is what love is.
Then Alexei comes home one day, and she knows that it is all over. Their mission is complete. It is time to return to the Red Room.
For a split second she lets herself hope that here in Ohio, she has finally found her way out. A gentle hand stroking her cheek gives her the courage to say the words she’s been holding in her heart for as long as she can remember.
She looks up at Alexei. Her voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t want to go back.”
His hand drops. His voice is quiet but firm. “Don’t say that.”
*****
+1.
“I should have listened to you,” Alexei tells her one night. They are lying in bed together, a stolen moment, just for the two of them.
He doesn’t need to explain himself. She knows exactly what he’s talking about. The thing they have avoided talking about ever since they returned to Russia.
”Don’t say that, Lyosha.” She hates how needy her voice sounds. Like a child begging.
“We should never have come back.”
She gets out of bed, wrapping her robe tightly around herself, and paces around the room. “Don’t say that,” she repeats, this time with more iron in her voice.
He ignores her, lost in his own regrets. “You and I — we could go —we could find the girls—”
She shakes her head. She has paid the price for disloyalty too many times. “Alexei," she says sharply. "You should leave. Before you say something you shouldn’t.”
His eyes are full of hurt and fear. “Of course, Iron Maiden.” He rises slowly from the bed and pulls on his clothes.
She isn’t sure what to say. She has no intention of turning him into Dreykov, but she also can’t let him go down this path. It is too dangerous for both of them. “Best not to look into the past,” she says as gently as she can.
Alexei just shakes his head and walks out of her house. It will be nearly twenty years before she sees him again.