A/N: Buckle up besties, this one's a doozy.

Enjoy!

Trigger warning: mentions of drugs, psychological manipulation, suggestions of torture and symptoms that may be similar to or remind you of a panic and/or anxiety attack.

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"Break my bones, and I'll forge them from steel.
Drain my blood, and I'll fill myself with ichor.
But if you destroy my mind, how will I return from that?"

NADINE

Nadine felt like she was being set on fire.

She didn't wake up. It was more like her eyes shot open and she'd been brought back to life. Her vision was blurred and she was sweating profusely, while her heart was punching her rib cage. It was only when she tried to touch her face did she notice her hands were cuffed and that she was strapped to what resembled a dental chair.

Oh god. Nadine was having difficulties putting the pieces together. She remembered bits of it. The anxiety induced by the zip-line. The glint of the guns when they got caught in light. Kaia's pain when she was shot.  Dimitri, holding the sphere. She recalled her shooting it and being engulfed in orange, for a second thinking that she'd been transported to a fiery hell with how potent it was. But most of all, Nadine remembered Bucky, Kaia, and Selene. Their voices. Their pain. Her name being called out in heartbreak and desperation was seared into her mind even as it all blurred together.

Her breaths were erratic as she fidgeted in her seat. She'd been drugged with something and her body felt like it was being pushed to the brink, her mind racing but not being able to focus on anything in particular.

"Bad dream?"

The voice was like an echo. She analyze what she could recognize. Accent was American, and it was deep, baritone and raspy. As she tried to look up the lights blinded her, but immediately she was able to lock eyes on the person asking the question. Stocky build, tall, with cropped, grayish hair. He sat down on a chair beside her, using the backrest to place his arms as he leaned forward to look at her, and she took note of his wrinkles, thin nose, and light colored eyes. "You don't look too good."

He tried to brush her damp hair out of her face, but Nadine violently recoiled, her arms pulling the cuffs on her wrists incessantly.

"W-What did you do to me?" she questioned, her shallow breathing making it difficult to even form a sentence.

Despite her apparent distrust, he still smiled at her, like he was happy that she was responsive. "Don't worry. The adrenaline they gave you will wear off soon."

"Adre-" Nadine blinked hard in an attempt to stop the splitting headache she had. Her mind was moving a mile a minute, just like everything else. "Of course."

"We patched up your thigh," he announced, nonchalant about the whole thing. "It was just a flesh wound. You'll live."

"Great," she drawled. She'd be lying if part of her hadn't wished she'd bleed out.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Nikolai," Nadine guessed. Her breathing was starting to slow; when she turned her head, she realized there was a red haired woman inserting something into her IV. "What are you-"

"S'alright, it's to control the adrenaline," she responded, accented voice reminding her of Selene's mixed accent. It had the poshness associated with the British, but with something else that made it distinct. "So you don't go into cardiac arrest."

When her heart rate decreased, Nadine looked at the man again. He was smirking. "Do you know why you're here?"

She stayed quiet. She was trying to get her bearings again now that the adrenaline was wearing off. She was in a room, with dark, mirrored windows and only one entrance. There were stark, bright lights and cabinets on either side of her, most likely filled with everything Nikolai needed to torture her. Ignoring her resistance, the man snapped his fingers to regain her attention and for someone to pull a table towards them. On it, there was a screen.

"Do you remember this?" he asked quietly as he turned it on, a video starting to play. It was Nadine, standing on the roof. Someone must have had a camera on their clothes because they caught the exact moment she shot the sphere and it shattered in a burst of orange light, throwing her and those people backwards. The video then switched to a few rooms, with people unconsciously lying on beds. She caught sight of Dimitri soon enough. That's when she realized it wasn't just a room, it was a cell.

Before she could even question it, though, one by one, they crumbled, until all that was left were bones and ash.

"You are its only survivor," he said. "It's extraordinary."

"N-No..." Nadine didn't know if it was the sedative, but she couldn't wrap her head around what she just saw. "Those... those people died."

Nikolai nodded, his expressions were unreadable but his eyes resembled icy storms, cold and unforgiving. "Yes, but you lived. And I want to know why, so I can ensure it doesn't happen again."

"The sphere is gone."

A part of her didn't even believe it, really, but it was hanging on to the hope that at least something she did went well.

"The sphere's fine. We won't be using it for now until we figure out why you survived," he corrected. He seemed to enjoy every time she reacted.

She failed. She didn't even succeed on that. Her mind was reeling with the agonizing fact that she fell right into his trap.

Well, at least she could make him gloat.

"So is that your plan, then?" Nadine asked. She didn't need to feign contempt, she was too wracked with guilt to pretend. She was, however, going to use this, her failures, to gain any type of information. "You betray the Bratva and Kristina and team up with The Hand so you could lead your own army."

"Brainwashing a couple of members of The Hand isn't the endgame," he responded calmly, his gaze level. His interest in her was abhorrent. "And Kristina is still very loyal to me. It was simply a means to get you here."

Silent alarms rang in her head. "What?" she muttered.

"You know, I've lost sleep, thinking about this," he said, motioning to the space around them. "This moment."

Nadine stared at him. As far as she could recall, she'd never met him. Was he speaking of her relationship to Kristina? Maybe he had a partnership to her, or knew Jameson, though if he did, it couldn't have been for longer than a few short years before she killed him. Nikolai didn't seem older than forty, and from what little Kristina told her about him, he'd only recently climbed the ranks in The Bratva.

Nadine must've looked incredibly confused by his comment, because he chuckled. His amusement was both irritating and bone-chilling. What was so funny to him?

"Don't worry, my little chaos bringer, I will not be making the same mistakes again."

Chaos bringer?

No. No. That was impossible.

It couldn't be. Could it?

And yet despite not being the same face, the same cold eyes that would follow her like a shark seemed to be staring right at her like a sick joke. Suddenly, the gut-wrenching fear she had in the pit of her stomach fell into place, like the revelation before her was the last piece in this little mind game.

Kristina brought Jameson back to life.

"No." Nadine couldn't accept it. Her mind couldn't come to terms with it.

He tried to touch her again, and her body reacted by recoiling violently and fighting to get out of her cuffs. Jameson, however, smiled at her recognition and relished in her fear. "Welcome home, Samira. You have a lot to unlearn."

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A/N: Whew, that was a LOT

AYO so how'd y'all like that reveal? Jameson's back and ready to cause chaos in his favorite girl's life

Thank you thank you thank you for reading and I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter. I've been sitting on this reveal for YEARS LMAO

But anyway, I hope to continue updating consistently, and I hope y'all enjoy the ride!

Get ready to for a chill chapter next time, we're switching back to Bucky and it's more so planning and getting the band back together ;)

See y'all soon!