Can't Catch a Shadow

It had been two years since Natasha had been taken away. An eight year old Hetalia sauntered out of her bedroom and into the living room, ready to plop herself on the couch and drink a cup of tea, when voices startled her.

“I won’t ask nicely again, gospodin Kerchef,” her father said, letting his Russian show through. “Leave my home.”

Hetalia gasped and hid behind on the other side of the wall so as to be out of sight.

“Mr. Romanoff,” a man’s voice replied smoothly. “I’m just offering you a better option.”

“My daughters are not property, Kerchef!” he shouted.

“Then how do you explain Natasha? Right now, she rots in Glendayle Institute so you can pay off a debt.”

“You know nothing! Natasha is there because her skills are not what they should be. Glendayle offered me protection from the likes of her spies and yours if I chose her institute! But Hetalia’s skills are in no need of perfecting, and we have all the protection we need!”

“Ivan,” Kerchef said almost soothingly. “I’m not offering you protection. In fact,” he started. “I’m not even asking for your daughter. I’m taking her, whether you want me to or not.”

Hetalia ran to her father and threw her arms around his legs. “Papa, no!”

“Speak of the devil,” the man named Kerchef purred. He adjusted his glasses and got close to the young girl’s face. His breath reeked of fish and vodka and his brown-blonde hair was smoothed down with a little too much hair gel. “You must be little Hetalia. Would you like to be like your sister?”

“Enough of this, Kerchef!” Ivan said sternly, but without raising his voice. “Leave her out of this.”

“Da,” she said with a small voice. “I do want to see Natasha again. But you don’t have her.”

Kerchef chuckled to himself. “She’s a very bright child.”

“Glendayle has her, right papa?”

Ivan looked down at his daughter and held her close, nodding at he did so.

“Give her to me, Romanoff,” Kerchef said threateningly. “Before something bad happens.”

The bearded Russian moved so his daughter was behind him. “Over my dead body, Kerchef. You’re not going to take her.”

The eight year old peeked around her daddy’s arm, ginger curls falling into her face as her bright eyes scanned the man in front of them.

He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Ivan.” He sighed and snapped his fingers.

Hetalia felt a set of hands on her body. She screamed just as someone grabbed her father. “Papa!” she shouted through her tears.

“Hetalia! No! Miguel, please! Leave her alone!”

The three thugs put Ivan in a kneeling position as Kerchef walked over to him. He pulled out a revolver and pointed it at the Russian’s head. “Do svidaniya, Ivan.”

Ivan closed his eyes as his youngest daughter screamed out for him.

****

“Let me go!” the ginger girl screamed as a group of large men dragged her through the dirty hallways. “Let me go!”

The men threw her on a metal table and strapped her down, leaving her to struggle.

Kerchef then walked in and went directly to the sink in the corner without even looking at her. “There are five kinds of people here,” he said calmly as he turned the water on. “First, there are the spies we train. They show some kind of potential that we would like to harness and use for our own gain. Second, there are the prisoners. These are the kind of people that are too dangerous to be kept in regular prisons. Thirdly, there are the threats we kill. They are sent here to be tortured for any and all information they have, and then put to rest.”

He shook the water off his hands, leaving the sink covered in the blood of Ivan Romanoff. “Fourthly, there are the guards. They keep everyone in line.”

“And who’s the fifth?” Hetalia spat.

“Me,” Kerchef said with a hollow smile as he looked her in the eye. “I’m the man that will rule your life until you’ve been trained, imprisoned for life, or killed. Any of those is fine with me.”

A buzzing sound caught Hetalia’s attention. She whipped her head to the side and saw one of the men wearing a pair of gloves with a menacing looking needle in his hands.

“To keep track of everyone that does time here, we give them a number. We want everyone to be able to remember said number.”

The man took a few steps towards Hetalia and stood next to her as she struggled against the bonds. “Number, boss?” he asked, English accent seeping into his words.

Miguel Kerchef looked at the clipboard at the edge of the table. “1025673.”

One of the other men pinned down the young girl and put another strap on her arm, so she could not move it.

“I’d like to tell you that it won’t hurt,” Kerchef said as he replaced the clipboard and almost gravitated towards the door. “But then I’d be a liar.”

The man with the needle leaned forward and put the cold surface to her skin, starting to tattoo the numbers into her skin.

Kerchef smiled as the young Russian girl screamed out in pain.