“And that’s why you’ve decided to talk to me?” Bruce said. “Because you feel like we have some sort of shared history?”
She furrowed her brows at him, her expression puzzled. “I’m telling you this because…it’s hard to figure you out. Maybe I’m telling you to be careful.” She said these last words with such finality that Bruce felt a deep chill in his chest. She’s giving me a warning. Her expression shifted again, and she turned her eyes down. She frowned, as if unsure of herself for the first time. “Or maybe I just like you,” she muttered.
“They’re not going to let me talk to you again,” Bruce replied, resting his hand against the glass. “Draccon said this would be my last time down here.”
She eyed him, untrusting. “They can’t stop you if they can’t see you.” She paused to nod up at the cams again. “If you want to come down here again, you’ll have to use the right scrambler at the right frequency.”
She’s tricking you, Bruce told himself, torn between a tide of unease and a well of confusion. “Are you seriously telling me to mess with Arkham’s security system? Why would I do that?”
“I’m not telling you to do anything,” she replied. “I’m just telling you what it would take for you to see me again. If you wanted to.” She hesitated. “If you needed to.”
Tricks. Cons. Lies. But there was a strange, silent plea in her words, in the way she said that last phrase. If you needed to. Something in her tone sounded like a warning. Something urgent. There must be so much more that she wasn’t telling him.
Then she shook her head, as if changing her own mind. “You don’t believe me,” she said. “Then just don’t come back. Tell Draccon what I said, if you feel like it. None of it will change what happens to me down here anyway.”
Bruce opened his mouth to reply—but a deafening clap of thunder shook the hall. The lights along the corridor all went out in unison. His words froze unanswered on his tongue.
At first, the darkness was all-consuming, so that he felt like he was adrift in a vacuum. Around him came shouts from the other inmates in the hall—some whooping, others howling for the guards to come fix the lights, still others tapping against the glass windows of their cells, pushing against their doors as if testing them. He couldn’t hear Madeleine’s voice in the mix anymore, couldn’t even see her face directly in front of him. But another sound made every hair on his neck rise.
The creak of an opening cell door.
A scarlet-red light came on, bathing the hall in blood. Through the light, Bruce saw two of the inmates stepping out of their cells while an urgent voice came on over the speaker system. An alarm began to scream.
Jailbreak.
The inmates who had just stepped out of their cells blinked in the blood-red light. One stared up at the nearest security cam in confusion. The other looked at Bruce in disbelief, as if still not quite sure he himself had escaped from his confinement. From somewhere above, Bruce could hear the alarms blaring on the higher floors and feel the tremble of footsteps thundering.
“System lockdown!” a voice over the speakers shouted. “System lockdown!”
Bruce glanced toward the exit door as a loud buzz echoed throughout the hall. The light over the exit door flashed green, indicating it was open. Run, he thought. Get out of here. His eyes darted to Madeleine’s cell for an instant. She hadn’t opened her door, but she was also nowhere in sight, out of her window’s view.
The first freed inmate charged toward the exit. Before Bruce could stop himself, he ran to block the door.
The man bared his teeth at Bruce and lunged, aiming to bite him. Bruce darted back, protecting his neck. He swung a fist at the man’s jaw, catching him in a clean blow. The man stumbled backward, shrieking a curse. Then he lunged toward Bruce again. There was a wildness in his eyes, a searing desperation, and his voice sent a shudder through Bruce.
“Let me out,” he hissed. “Get out of my way—”
Bruce winced as the man’s clawing fingers raked across his shoulder. He ducked, then threw his full weight at the inmate, sending him careening backward and off his feet. Bruce collapsed to the floor with him and grabbed for the mop handle lying nearby—his hands found it right as the inmate scrambled back to his feet. Bruce whipped the mop handle out, catching the man hard in the shins. He let out a yelp. Bruce leaped to his feet and hit the inmate again with the handle, this time jabbing him hard in the stomach. The man doubled over, his eyes bulging, and collapsed onto his side. The alarm continued to scream around them; everything had become a blur of scarlet.
Bruce lifted his head to see the second inmate. It was the man who’d threatened to cut Bruce. The inmate wasn’t focused on the exit. Instead, he had wandered to Madeleine’s cell and put his hand on the door. Fear shuddered through Bruce.
As the man pulled Madeleine’s door open, Bruce shoved him away. But the prisoner towered over Bruce by at least an extra foot. A dark grin appeared on his face. I’m going to die here. The sudden thought sent adrenaline surging through Bruce’s veins. The man swung. Bruce ducked to the ground, narrowly avoiding the blow, then darted away and toward Madeleine’s door.
The inmate turned on him and prepared to strike.
Guards burst through the hall door, shields up, guns drawn, helmets on—blurs of black as they shouted at the inmates to get down on the ground. The enormous man facing Bruce looked away as the guards surrounded him. He opened his mouth in a snarl, then shuddered as one of the guards fired a Taser at him, forcing him to collapse. Bruce looked on as the guards dragged the inmate, still struggling and shouting, back to his cell. The alarm blaring overhead finally quieted. The doors on each cell locked once more.
James appeared. Her eyes settled on Bruce, and for the first time since he’d known her, she looked shocked. Maybe even guilty. “You okay?” she asked as he picked himself up. Strands of her hair had loosened from her braid, and she was breathing heavily. “Damn storm. You shouldn’t have stayed down here. I—” She sighed, shaking her head as she put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. Let’s get you out.”
Bruce turned to look into Madeleine’s cell as he went. She was back on her bed now, leaning forward on her knees, her hair a river over her right shoulder. She looked like she was trembling slightly. As he left, she lifted her head to look at him. A brief smile appeared on her lips, one that flickered in and out like a candle, so brief that no one else must have seen it.
Bruce found himself thinking about Madeleine’s words again. Just rats in cages, she had said. And he had leaped to protect her.
Bruce’s hands were still shaking as he turned away and followed James out of the hall, the shouts of the other inmates still echoing behind him.
—