Regretfully, she didn’t get to see the mountains while coming in the previous night.

Arriving well after midnight left the small town dark and isolated, the roads somewhat slick with ice after the sun had gone down. Natasha had been sleepy and sore from the drive out there, she doubted that she would have cared to check out the new place she was going to be secluded away in. A slight shakiness and nausea started shortly after arriving, Natasha shaking it off as exhaustion and the fact that she had no appetite all day.

Upon waking up, she knew she didn’t feel all that better. The house was small, a cabin really. She had wandered into the first bedroom she came across the previous night and promptly passed out on the bed. A part of her knew that she shouldn’t have fallen asleep so quickly, but she was still resting in the same position on top of a slightly itchy throw blanket when she woke up. So, that paranoia was a little unwarranted.

When Natasha tried to sit on the bed, she found her limbs heavy and her head swimming slightly. She hadn’t slept all that long, had she? The light coming in from the window beside the bed told her that it wasn’t too early or too late in the day. Still, that feeling subsided somewhat once she got herself standing and moving around, but the weakness wasn’t too hard to miss when she went about getting herself ready for the day.

Still, she supposed the shower and fresh clothes were a silver lining.

Natasha hadn’t been expecting to find anything in the drawers in her room, but apparently, Andrei hadn’t been lying when he said everything was prepared. She slipped on some jeans and a plain white t-shirt with a light, flowing gray sweater over it. It wasn’t much, but she didn’t have the energy to do more than just put the clothes on and brush her hair. She recalled Andrei mentioning something about a withdrawal from the drugs she had been on, but she supposed she could deal with it if it were this mild.

Andrei was speaking on the phone in his native language when Natasha wandered out into the main part of the house, a small living room moving into a somewhat open kitchen with a dining table taking up the last of the room. Natasha hadn’t been expecting a resort but noticed it was particularly cramped.

Better than a room with a single bed in it, she reminded herself as she approached the table.

Her new guardian didn’t turn around to face her as he continued to talk and look blankly out toward the trees near the front of the house. Natasha obviously couldn’t understand Romanian, so she promptly tuned him out for a bit as she sat herself down.

Her gaze landed on the bottle of pills placed on the table from the night before. Natasha knew she should take them; she had been through this procedure before. Andrei had the right to count the pills in the bottle or watch her take them to confirm she was still on the medication. Which wasn’t all that fair in her mind, but she had fought back enough times through her teenage years with her old guardian about it to know it was a pretty pointless endeavour.

Just waiting for him to finish up and let him watch her take them would do it, she settled on. With a small sigh, Natasha placed a hand under her chin and glanced out toward the trees outside the window. They really were out there in the bushes, at least somewhat. The morning light reflected off the pine tree's needles, melting snow from the night before dropping off in steady drips.

At least it wasn’t the dead of winter.

“Good morning,” Andrei greeted once he hung up, moving to sit across from her at the table.

“Hey,” Natasha returned, her voice sounding a little tired in her ears, “Was that you on the phone with the Romanian embassy so you can beg to go back home?”

“No,” he said with a small huff, “Considering the silence after we stopped last night, you have not given me anything to change my mind. It was just family.”

Natasha hummed, accepting that. It must be hard to have your family have to call you from across the world. Though she supposed her mother was now going to have to worry about her in another country, at least the distance wasn’t that extreme. She wondered if she could call her soon, but figured she would wait until things had settled a bit.

“How are you feeling?” Andrei asked.

“...A little off, I guess,” Natasha replied, deciding to let him know that much, “I don’t usually feel like I just climbed some stairs by putting some pants on.”

“That should last for only a couple days and I imagine they did not let you get much exercise in that place.”

“No, they definitely didn’t. I guess there’s plenty of trails to hike around here, though.”

“If that is what you want to do. I have to accompany you, anyway.”

“Right,” Natasha muttered, furrowing her brow, “Everywhere? Do you have to watch me brush my teeth?”

“Only if you are going to harm me or yourself with a toothbrush. I have to accompany you out publicly, but I do not need to…hover when we are in the house.”

Well, that was a little better than she had been expecting. Her old guardian didn’t even let her have her own room, she slept on a cot near the door so Natasha couldn’t sneak by her. She had never gotten used to the feeling of her listening to every toss and turn, which made it all the stranger to know Andrei had slept in his own room.

The fact that she never left me alone, even when I was barely a teenager, was never normal…

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Your new caseworker,” Andrei started, pulling Natasha out of her head again, “she left Vancouver this morning. She will meet with us tomorrow.”

The fact that Addison wasn’t there to be an extra layer of assurance became pretty apparent. Natasha had been working with her for months, she had gotten to trust her and now she had to rely on Andrei’s judgment. He seemed to know what he was doing, but the shift was still jarring.

“How long do you think it will take before I can appeal my case to the government?” she asked after a couple of moments.

“I do not have a timeline for that just yet. It will depend on your progress, that you won’t harm yourself or others.”

“You say that like I’m going to flip cars and throw people around.”

“That is the government’s concern toward you, not mine.”

Natasha could feel the question sitting right in her next breath–what is your opinion of me, then? Yet, she could almost feel the awkwardness of the question before it even left her mouth. She had only been with him a day, he didn’t need to have an opinion of her just as much as she didn’t need to have an opinion of him. So, she let the question die with an exhale, Natasha rising to make her way toward the kitchen to find a glass to fill with water.

“So, how did you want to do this?” she asked, picking up a glass and filling it with water. She tried to ignore how her hand tremored slightly under the weight of the full glass cup.

“The pills? Just let me see you take them, I do not have a strict protocol for that,” Andrei replied, glancing toward her as Natasha made her way toward the table again.

Sliding back into her seat, she placed the glass back down and reached for the pills with a small sigh out of her nose. She was sure she was still feeling off from stopping the medication they had been feeding her through the IV and now there was this new one. Still, she shook out a tablet from the bottle, tossed it toward the back of her mouth and gulped down some water.

She held Andrei’s gaze over the top of the glass as she did so, looking unflinchingly into his dark eyes until she placed the glass back down.

“Good?” she asked.

“Yes.”

However, whatever comment she wanted to make on top of that was cut off by knocking at the front door. Immediately, she shot Andrei a confused look, watching as his brow tightened and he got up from his seat. He leaned toward the kitchen for a moment to look outside the window, but Natasha couldn’t see what he was seeing.

“Were you expecting anybody?” she asked after a few moments.

“No,” Andrei said, “I will answer, you stay back. I do not know what they are here for.”

As much as Natasha wished she could disregard that and hold her own against people who wanted to do her harm, the medication had clipped her wings and made that a reckless belief. At the moment, at least.

So, Natasha hung back, arms crossed as she watched Andrei open the door. There were two people standing there, a man and a woman. They didn’t appear to be police or any some sort of government officials. The woman had dark brown hair pulled up in a bun on her head, the hood of the faux-fur coat she wore framing the bottom of her face. The man beside her stood at about the same height as Andrei, hands tucked into the pockets of his wool coat, his long black hair pulled back as he met Andrei’s gaze with a controlled smile.

“Hey,” he greeted, “I am Matthew, this is my wife, Yvette. We knew you two were arriving in town and thought we would come to welcome you to town.”

“Maybe get some breakfast with us?” Yvette suggested, her tone bright as her gaze shifted from Andrei toward Natasha with a smile.

Natasha wasn’t sure what to make of this. There was no doubt that some of the town’s folk had been informed that she was an enhanced human, and Andrei was a further giveaway as he certainly didn’t hide the emblem around his neck.

Andrei stood still for a moment before he glanced back toward her, Natasha catching the question in his gaze. Natasha was used to her old guardian just shoving away curious and genuinely kind people who wanted to get to know them. She was expecting him to make the decision for him, as that was always how it had been. Yet, he didn’t make any move to do anything without her input, three sets of eyes on her.

“I don’t know,” she replied after a moment, taking a couple of steps closer to the door, “I would like to see the town a bit, but I am concerned about causing some, uh…”

“Tension?” Matthew offered, “I can understand that. We’re not oblivious as to what’s happening here, but…well, I guess it feels wrong not to offer a branch at least to join the community.”

“Might just be the Canadian in us,” Yvette commented with a small chuckle.

They seemed a little awkward but Natasha wasn’t completely thrown off. Plus, Andrei was there. Even if she didn’t know how she felt about him, she knew that most people didn’t bother her too much when she had a guardian with her.

Plus, all they had was bread and butter until they could go grocery shopping.

“We haven’t eaten yet,” Natasha said, glancing toward Andrei, “I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

“Whatever you want to do,” he replied. He didn’t seem too worked up, maybe he saw what she saw in them.

“The inn’s not too far,” Yvette continued, “We can walk there, it’s a nice morning.”

“Sure, give us a couple minutes,” Natasha said with a nod, the couple stepping away down the steps as Andrei closed the door behind them somewhat.

“What do you think? You’re the guardian here.”

“Nosey neighbors,” Andrei replied, not seeming too bothered by them. Natasha turned that over in her head, though so far they just seemed like two outgoing people who wanted to show them a bit of hospitality.

Natasha had been expecting some rocks thrown through windows or something, but she figured she might as well make as many friends as she can. Andrei was passive, wanted to act like a background figure and let her do what she wished. Unless he felt like he needed to step in, she supposed. It was odd, Natasha was used to not having any say in what her guardian did.

“I guess it’s a free meal,” Natasha said after a few moments, catching a slightly amused look that crossed Andrei’s face at her words.

“I do not think they offered to pay, but I suppose so. If you want to do this, I will go with you. Do not let me slow you down.”

“Unless you get a bad vibe from them or something, right?”

“Yes. I am to both monitor and protect, but I don’t know…they just seem friendly.”

“I think so, too,” Natasha said with a nod, “I feel like they’ll make terrible small talk, but I guess it’ll look good on the report if I’m active in the community, right?”

“It would not hurt your case.”

What would hurt worse than murder? They had already gotten her on that, as much as Natasha would argue for self-defence in that case. Still, with that, she started to dig out a jacket and her boots from yesterday.

As much as she still felt shaky on her legs, she was also starving. If she could get some food and make a good impression at the same time, she figured she could work through the fatigue and rest later.