Chapter 1

Rain was pouring down over the city. The wind was tickling the orange and red leaves in the trees. Her favorite temperature in her favorite season. Robin knew today was going to be a good one. The sun wasn't even up yet but she was. Actually she didn't went to sleep since she woke up the day before.

Neuroscience was the worst classes she ever took. Especially on her last year in university. She wanted to be ahead of the class . She wanted to understand more about herself. She looked at her watch, 6:30. She should get ready for class.

An hour later, Robin was walking through the early morning traffic. Walking was a way for her to help her think and be sane. Headphone on her ears, blasting her favourite music, the only way she could cover the voices in her head. She came to a busy intersection but the pedestrian light just turned red. The cars were driving fast, always in a hurry to arrive on time at their destinations and the people were pilling up behind her, on the sidewalk.

He was walking calmly, the rain never bothered him before, so why would it now? For once in the last six months, he wasn't hunted. He just needed to stay low and everything was going to be alright. And that day wasn't gonna be different. Until he saw her.

When he got to the intersection, there was already a lot of people waiting to cross the intersection. He looked around at the men and women, intrigued. There was a old couple with their grocerie bags, few teenagers going to school, business men and women in their finessed wardrobe and his attention got caught by a young woman with a black baseball cap in front of everyone, her brown hair pulled up in a ponytail was drenched in rain water but it didn't seem to bother her much. A car honked on their right, making her look in that direction. A shiver passed in the man's spine when he saw her face. She was beautiful. It sure was a long time since the man saw such beauty in a woman. But he had a rule, only one; never fall in love. Why? Because he decided so after he found out he was created to destroy. Love wasn't part of his life since over seventy years ago.

The light was still red and the teenagers were inpatient to cross. They started to push each other as a game. The man knew this was going to end badly. One of the gang pushed another one too hard and he fell on the young woman, making her fall in the busy street. He didn't think twice. He ran through the crowd, pushing everyone in his path.

Robin was still on her knees, when a trucker honked as he saw her laying in the middle of the street. At the sound of the honk, she lifted her head and knew what was going to happen. People were screaming, yelling at her to get up and run but she knew she didn't have time. She closed her eyes and waited for the fatal shock to hit her. So much for a good day, she thought.

In a fraction of a second, she felt a bump in her ribs and a cold grip on her left arm as she was taken to the other side of the street. When everything stopped moving, she opened her eyes to see a young man with a grey baseball cap over his brown hair, kneeling next to her, breathing heavily.

Her headphone fell off during the accident and the voices started to fill her head, but one came through stronger than the others.

She's safe.

He lifted his eyes toward her, looking at her seriously. She knew something was wrong when she saw a little light flash in his eyes.

In the short time their eyes met, a flood of information hit her. She saw a lab and what seemed to be researchers. She heard painful screaming, male screaming. She felt scared and the second the screaming stopped, she felt nothing, no emotions. Then a symbol appeared, an octopus with a skull for a head and the name HYDRA. Suddenly she was back on the wet sidewalk, the handsome stranger still in front of her, eyes locked into hers.

Realizing something happened by her look, he got up and ran away from her before she could say anything.

"Wait..." She let out in a whisper, still shocked by the event.

The light went green letting everyone cross the street. The people, seeing she was ok, were just passing by Robin, who was absorbed in her thoughts. 

After a minute to regain her right mind, Robin got up and went to school. She was all wet from the rain but got time to change when she arrived. She went straight to the girls locker room at the university gym. She hoped there wasn't anyone in the locker room as everytime people saw her, they always treated her differently because of her condition.

Most of her life was control by the voices. To be more precise, one day she talked to her mother about hearing people talk in her head. She was only eight years old. What she didn't tell her mother was that she could hear them since as long as she can remember. Her mother went to see a doctor which prescribed schezophrenia medication. She was on the drugs for only four months, her mother took her off of them when she realized her daughter wasn't herself. She looked stone all the time. Her mother couldn't bare it.  The first few hours after missing a dose were the worst withdraw she could ever get through. Voices were rushing inside her head all at once. It took her a week to get back to normal. Then her mother tried other ways to cover the voice. Robin found a relieve when she was listening to music, blasting it loud enough. With the years, she managed to work on her mind and concentrate on one mind at the time, so in class she could just listen to the teacher. It wasn't easy but she made it through ten years of young adults dirty minds in university already.

Ten years was a long time in university but she started as with a bachelor in computer and informatics because she enjoyed it a lot in high school. One of the few things she spent most of her time doing as a loner. Alone meant no voices and no voices meant peace in her mind. So she learn how to hack any system and she loved it. Now she was working on her neuroscience masters, trying to figure out why she can hear voices, what was actually happening to her. But to this day, she never found the answer.

She changed quickly while thinking about that man who saved her. Why did he ran? He had that look before he left in a hurry. Was she that ugly, awful? She knew she wasn't the most beautiful woman but still... Someone tapped her on the shoulder, getting her out of her thoughts.

"Hey Robin! You look like you've been in the Titanic while it sank... Don't you have an umbrella?"

"Cooper! What the hell are you doing in the girls locker room?"

"Locker room? You're not in the locker room anymore."

She looked around and realized she was in the hallway, near her biology class.

"Are you okay?" Cooper asked his classmate, worried.

"I... Almost got hit by a truck..."

"Your music again?"

"No, I got pushed... But some guy, he pushed me out of the way..."

"You should stop blasting that music in your ears. Mostly because it's not good for them." He gave her an insisting look. "That guy, was he cute?" He winked at her.

She didn't answer, letting him know that she found him attractive.

"I need his name."

"I don't know, he left before I could even say thanks."

"Fine. By the way, Christina wants you to come for dinner."

"I don't know, Cooper. I got a lot of homework and studying to do."

"Ok. Ok, but if you change your mind let me know."

"I let you know. Thanks. But I think we should hurry to our class."

"I'll see you later then."

           ***

After he left her on the sidewalk, he felt stressed out. She looked straight into his eyes after the incident and he heard a female voice inside his head, one he never heard before. 

HYDRA?

He left in a hurry at those words.

Since that morning, he felt followed. Did it meant they find him? He pushed the thought away. Still something was special about her. With the look she gave him, she seemed to have seen something in him. She didn't seemed like an agent from HYDRA but then again it's the enemy. He had to make sure she wasn't a threat. He decided to follow her.

He sat at a coffee shop next to the intersection where he pushed her out of the way. He waited for hours to see her pass by. And she did after a long day of classes. He followed her and she never tried to hide, she led him straight to her apartment. He sat on top of the building next door and watched her all night until she went to sleep. All she did was reading books, studying maybe. She didn't seen like a threat.

The next morning, he waited for her to leave for school and he walked into her apartment. He decided to check her place for clues. He saw books and CD's by the dizaine. It was a small apartment, one room, a kitchen and a bathroom. He didn't find anything so he decided to stay and wait for her to clear his mind from all the suspicion. He sat in her lazy boy and waited, again, for hours.

It was a long day, a lot learned and as much homework and studying added to the ones before. She knew she couldn't go to the dinner at Cooper's place. She texted him and headed straight to her appartment. She arrived home hours later, wet again. She closed the door behind her and let her bag fall on the floor. She took her shirt off and one of her earbuds fell. Walking towards her window to close it, remembering she forgot to close it before school. Music wasn't playing as loud as usual and a familiar voice can through her mind.

Stop looking.

Scared, she stopped abruptly in her way to the window. The voice was so loud, it meant it was close by. She brushed the voice off and closed the window. She suddenly reconized the voice as the one from the man who saved her earlier. She found it odd as she never heard it before. But then a mixture of emotion flew inside of her, the same ones from her savior. She put back her fallen earbuds in her ear and blasted more music. She went to get new, dry clothes in her wardrobe when she saw a dark figure hidding in her room. She let out a scream, scared to death, trying to cover her almost naked chest. The figure jumped on her and covered her mouth to shut her up. It didn't seem interested into her being half naked. She felt something cold holding her from running.

"Shut up. I just want you to tell me how you know about Hydra."