Bruce moved forward with soft steps, aiming for the kitchen. He needed a weapon.
From somewhere in the house came the sound of footsteps. They were not Alfred’s familiar tread. The hairs rose on the back of Bruce’s neck. He kept going. The white drapes over the dining and living room furniture looked ghostly in the darkness; the door to his study was thrown wide open. His eyes locked, as always, on the unused grandfather clock in there. And as he stared—he saw a silhouette pass before it.
His heart froze.
Standing still would mean death. He swiftly crossed the hallway into the kitchen, illuminated dimly by light from the window over the sink. Next to that window, he saw the row of knives displayed over the large wooden cutting board, magnetically locked onto a metal bar.
Footsteps out in the main foyer. If it was Draccon out there, she could easily shoot Bruce by mistake if he wasn’t careful. He needed to hide. Bruce grabbed one of the knives from the metal bar, clutched it tight in his fist, and then felt his way through the shadows toward a large, empty cabinet that had once contained a wine fridge.
Suddenly, he heard a shout coming from the direction of the garage. “Halt!” It was Draccon. “Police! Put your hands up or I will shoot!” A rush of adrenaline flooded into Bruce’s veins, and the world around him seemed to sharpen. It reminded him of being trapped as a child in the caves underneath the manor, the water and blackness and creatures that seemed to close in from all sides. He shut his eyes for an instant.
Fear clears the mind. Panic clouds it.
Bruce opened his eyes and forced himself to concentrate.
A door slammed, followed by the beep of an alarm. His mind raced as he plotted out the mansion’s floor plan. Someone had locked the garage door with the house’s automated security. It couldn’t have been Draccon. The Nightwalkers had locked the detective away in the garage, isolating her.
He couldn’t hide here for long, not if Draccon was trapped, not if Alfred was hurt. The intruders had come for him, and they would stay until they found him.
The balcony overlooking the living room. The weak railing. Bruce turned to the staircase leading up to the second floor, waiting to see if the path was clear.
Taking a deep breath, Bruce darted out of the kitchen and up the staircase, avoiding the squeaky spots.
A stranger’s deep voice, amused and taunting, called out from downstairs. “Bruce.”
Every hair on Bruce’s neck rose at the sound. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Don’t panic, he reminded himself grimly. Think. He tucked himself into the shadows cast by a series of marble busts and waited.
Sure enough, the sound of footsteps echoed from the stairs as someone followed him up. The steps were heavy, distinctly a stranger’s, and Bruce could hear the faint breathing of someone unfamiliar creeping up the stairs.
Bruce tensed in the darkness, gripping his knife so hard that his hand hurt. His knuckles had turned white against the hilt. He could strike out with it right now, surprise the person—but the thought of stabbing someone, even someone who’d broken into his home, made his chest tighten. In the darkness, Bruce could make out part of the stranger’s silhouette—large, his shoulders hunched—and hear the slight mismatch of his footsteps’ timing, a slight limp in his gait. His balance was poor.
He passed near the balcony’s weak railing, scanning ahead, searching. Now. Bruce lunged out of the darkness. The man’s head snapped toward him. For an instant, Bruce caught sight of his face: lined, menacing, shocked.
Bruce barreled into him. For a second, it didn’t feel like enough—but the intruder stepped back to brace against the railing. It trembled, then gave way with a crack as it buckled from the man’s weight. He tried in vain to stop his fall, but it was too late, and with a hoarse yell, he fell from the second story. His head hit the side of the couch below.
He twitched, moaning, on the floor.
Move, Bruce told himself. He’d given away his location with his attack, and if others were in the house, they’d know where he was now. His knife had dropped somewhere in the hall behind him, but he had no time to turn around and find it. He darted back down the stairs. Footsteps and a dragging sound came from the kitchen. A muffled voice. He curled deeper into the shadows of the dining room. Beside him, the white drapes fluttered. He looked at them, then pulled one over a chair.
“We know you’re in here, Bruce Wayne,” a different voice now called out, this time much closer. “That cop car out by the gates is awfully empty.”
How many Nightwalkers had invaded the manor?
Bruce saw dark silhouettes outlined in the kitchen. Two men, with a third dragging between them. His eyes settled on the third person, who had a white cloth shoved into his mouth. Alfred.
He looked alert enough, but a bloody gash was on his forehead, and most of his weight seemed supported by the two men, both of them with masks pulled over their heads.
Every muscle in Bruce’s body tightened with rage. Alfred, his guardian, who had never looked weak in his life—now at the mercy of these monsters.
“What if he already escaped?” one of the men muttered. They were drawing closer.
“No,” the other replied. “House’s rigged for that. We’ll know if he tries to make a run for it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Mads laid out the details of this house’s security system herself. I’m sure.”
Mads? Madeleine.
The name lodged in Bruce’s thoughts, turning his stomach. How strange to hear her nickname. Maybe it fit her better, revealed her true side. Madeleine had genuinely seemed to like him—she had even warned him to get out of Gotham City. But what if she had targeted him this entire time?
Draccon was right about everything.
Bruce’s anger burned, and it fueled him. Her other three victims had died because they’d been trying to escape the house. That was their first mistake, acting like the prey before they were even caught. But this was Bruce’s home—his parents’ home. They were on his turf now.
And on his turf, he was the predator.
Bruce crept soundlessly from his hiding place, then made his way around the kitchen counter. There was a remote trigger for the kitchen sink’s grinder on this side of the island, and he inched toward it now. On the island’s other side, the men were looking down, focused on dragging Alfred between them.
Bruce reached the island, held his breath, and flipped the switch.