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Black Widows don’t have headstones.
It wasn’t a secret, but it wasn’t well-known either. Not many people knew when a Black Widow was killed, even fewer what happened after the death of one. A public grave with no body, something for those who came searching to see for themselves without any risk of cold lips whispering colder information. An unmarked grave, its location kept unknown by a bullet in the head, where the ashes of the Widow would keep her secrets hidden forever. There was no mourning for a Black Widow, because there was no one who would mourn her. This was the way of the Red Room; there were no loose ends, and there were no exceptions.
Six arrows flew through the air, embedding themselves deep in the trunk of a red oak. The tree was not the biggest in the forest, nor was it the oldest or the most grand. It blended perfectly with the forest around it, just a tree to any casual observer who happened to be wandering this deep in the woods. Only a few could see what set this tree apart, the strong roots that lay beneath the surface of the forest floor and had seen the tree through years and storms that had torn other trees apart. Its roots were, in fact, why this particular tree had been chosen to bear the arrows that marred its trunk. It fit her.
The arrows yanked free and returned to the quiver, their owner trudged away from the tree that so reminded him of her. A knife lay buried at the base of the tree; it was her favorite, though she had claimed to have no preference. An unstrung bow kept it company. There wasn’t anything left for it to do, not now. Not ever again, like her knife, like her, like him. His feet kept moving, his back to the cuts carving the outline of an hourglass in the trunk of the oak. It wasn’t a headstone, because she didn’t want one. She’d told him herself on the night that they’d met, Black Widows don’t have headstones.