Draccon rubbed her neck in weariness and nodded. “Officers got an anonymous call,” she said with a sigh. “Who knew someone had opened up that unfinished tunnel? There was an unconscious man down in the bunker room, a supposed supply runner for the Nightwalkers. He was low in the ranks and had been assigned to move their weapons to a new location.”
Bruce kept his expression curious and ignorant. “Did he say why they were doing this?”
“I don’t think he was ranked high enough within the Nightwalkers to know,” she replied. “He revealed the location he was going to move the stuff to, but when the police checked it out, everything was already gone. Another Nightwalker had already moved the weapons out, cleared the place clean. He didn’t say anything else. In fact, the poor bastard was so terrified yesterday that he tried hanging himself with his shirt.” Draccon hesitated. “Kept saying something about a masked robber or someone who attacked him, kept saying it must’ve been an undercover cop. Couldn’t give any more details than that. The Nightwalkers might have made some enemies in the local gang scene by encroaching on their space.”
“Maybe I can get something out of Madeleine,” Bruce said.
Draccon laced her fingers together and gave him an uncertain frown. “I’m not sure about this, Bruce.”
“She might know the reason behind all the stockpiling.”
Draccon sighed again and took a swig of her coffee. “I don’t like keeping this up. You’re not supposed to be this deeply involved, and the fact that she keeps talking to you unsettles me. Also, I don’t want to get on your guardian’s bad side.”
Alfred. Bruce hadn’t mentioned any of this to him yet, nor explained why his nightmares had been getting steadily worse, haunted by shadows or dark halls or a girl with long black hair. “But I’m still sitting here in your office,” Bruce replied, pushing his other thoughts away. “You’re still briefing me on what’s happening with the Nightwalkers. Right? That must mean you still want me to help in any way I can—that you think I can get something out of Madeleine.”
Draccon looked at Bruce with serious eyes. “Remember who her past victims were. Philanthropists with a lot of money. She targeted them for their money, stole vast amounts before killing them in their own homes. You saw their deaths.” She hesitated. “You already know that you match the description for her victim of choice.”
“I’ll be okay,” Bruce replied. “She’s locked away at Arkham. But we’re close now. We can find a way to unearth the Nightwalkers, all the way up to their boss.”
Draccon stared into her coffee for a long moment.
“Don’t put a wire on me,” Bruce added. “She’ll be able to tell. Just let me keep talking to her.”
Finally, Draccon leaned back in her chair. “You get another conversation with her,” she replied, holding up a finger. “One. We’ll see how it goes from there.”
—
A thunderstorm swept through Gotham City, and by the following morning the sky outside the asylum’s windows still looked black as night.
When Bruce went downstairs for his shift and stopped by Madeleine’s cell, he didn’t see her sitting upright in bed. For an instant, he thought that perhaps she had been taken out of her cell—before he noticed her curled up in a tight ball on her bed. All he could see were her white prison jumpsuit and the spill of her black hair around her body.
“You were right,” he said after a long pause.
She didn’t move. She seemed to be staring off into space, her eyes concentrating on a spot somewhere on the floor. Her meal tray was on the other side of the room, and her napkin—usually folded into an intricate origami shape—was crumpled near the edge of her bed. An unsettling feeling weighed on Bruce. Something is wrong.
“Madeleine?” Bruce said. “Can you hear me?”
Another pause. For a moment, Bruce thought that the guards had changed the windows on her cell door to be soundproof, or that she was lost deep in thought. Or maybe she was ignoring him in the way she sometimes did. It made him feel silly for being here, and he was about to turn around and step away from the door when her answer finally came.
“What do you want, Bruce Wayne?” she asked. Her voice was quieter today, not as full of its usual bravado, and irritated. The feeling of unease in Bruce’s stomach grew.
“I don’t know if you heard the news,” he replied, although a part of him knew that she must, somehow, have heard. She seemed to know everything, after all. “But the police uncovered one of the Nightwalkers’ underground weapons rooms at the Bellingham buil—”
“Congratulations,” she replied before he could finish. She shifted a little, loosening out of her tight ball so that he could see her face more clearly. She looked at him without lifting her head. “You can follow directions after all.”
Gone today was her playful nature, the teasing smirk she usually gave him, and in its place was someone cold. Bruce blinked, confused. He didn’t know why it bothered him that she seemed upset today. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. “Why did you wait until I came along before you started feeding information to the police? You clearly knew about that room—you knew about the brick wall. You’ve obviously been involved with the Nightwalkers this whole time. So, why now? What do you get out of this?”
“Maybe I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf,” Madeleine replied, her voice dripping bitter sarcasm.
The hall fell silent again. Bruce looked closer at her. When his gaze traveled to her arms, he noticed something new—a blue-black bruise on her upper arm. Four bruises, to be exact, as if left there by someone’s hand. He studied her other arm. Now he could see red scratch marks near her wrist, as if someone had tried to restrain her.
Madeleine Wallace was a criminal, a notorious killer jailed for three brutal murders—but in this moment, Bruce forgot that. All he saw before him was a girl his age, curled into a tight, protective ball, her usual arrogance replaced with something vulnerable.
Muffled thunder rumbled from outside. Madeleine spat out a curse. “I hate thunderstorms,” she said. “If the lightning causes power issues in here, the hall doors will seal us all in like rats.”
Bruce looked toward the doors. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he said. Was he really trying to reassure her? “And even if it did, I’m sure they’d evacuate all of you.”
Madeleine ignored him and continued looking down. “Just rats in cages,” she said, even quieter now. She shuddered and made herself smaller. She’s claustrophobic, Bruce thought.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “What happened to you?”
She took another long moment to respond. “I refused to take my IV today,” she finally said. “We had a little fight in the clinic.”
An IV. Draccon hadn’t mentioned that Madeleine was receiving medicine. “They hurt you?” he said.