Irritation flashed across her face. It was all Bruce needed to see to confirm that Madeleine had tried—and failed—to hack into his new, secured accounts. She would need him to personally open them up for her.
Madeleine nodded at the door behind her. “I don’t want you dead for a variety of reasons. Boss thinks I can break into all of your funds. But it seems like you have some locks on your remaining ones that only you can crack open.” She leaned against her knees. “I told you to keep away. But now that you’re here, they’re going to want you to open up the rest. And they’re not going to be nearly as nice about it as me.”
The boss. Bruce remembered the man he’d seen in his house, confronting him moments before the police burst in through the doors. Had that been the voice on the loudspeakers, too, demanding ransom? At the look on Madeleine’s face, he narrowed his eyes. “You framed me,” he choked out. “You left a note that sent me to an interrogation room with the police—you put me behind bars. Real nice. Why should I believe anything you say?”
Madeleine gave him a wounded look. “You don’t think I meant what I said in my note?”
Bruce strained against his bonds. “Don’t insult me. And to think I actually believed you might’ve been more than a coldhearted killer. I guess I was wrong. What else don’t I know about you, Madeleine? Is that even your name? Do you lie just for fun? Does it make you happy, messing with my mind? Do you enjoy making up stories just to mock me?”
Madeline winced, momentarily cutting through Bruce’s anger. “You think you’ve figured me out, don’t you?” she said.
“Wouldn’t have to if you were an honest person.”
The two of them glared at each other in silence. The strange pull between them that Bruce had felt all throughout their visits in Arkham returned in full force, permeating the heavy air.
Finally, he shook his head. “Who are you?”
Madeleine stared at him for a long moment. She pursed her lips, as if trying to find the right words to say, and for the first time, Bruce thought that maybe she was actually preparing to tell him the truth, a truth, any truth. She looked toward the lit mirrors, where their reflections stared back at her.
“My real name is Madeleine Wallace,” she began. “And I’m one of the leaders of the Nightwalkers.”
These words sounded true, solid. So had her words in the past, of course…but Bruce stayed silent, willing her on.
“Everything I told you about my mother is true,” she continued. “She was a brilliant teacher. She taught me and my brother everything she knew. Both of us started coding at an early age—but I was her real prodigy, the one who kept at it when my brother started getting really sick.” Her gaze returned to Bruce. “She lost her job trying to take care of him. That much you know. She did what she had to do.”
“And so she killed the doctor.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Madeleine replied coolly. “Tell me, noble Bruce, what would you have done if your parents had been shot not by some random burglar, but murdered by an upstanding doctor? If you were orphaned in the ghetto instead of in your gated neighborhood? If you weren’t so rich and white and famous? Would you be the same person you are today? Or would you see justice differently? Do you think we all walk through the world with the same privileges as you?”
The memory Bruce carried of his parents’ death shifted momentarily—he imagined his mother and father poisoned by someone in a medical uniform, imagined their killer going free instead of being put away in jail. Do you think we all walk through the world with the same privileges as you?
“And what about everything else you’ve told me?” he asked, forcing the questions away. “Why did you leave that note in your cell? Why did you lead me to the Nightwalkers’ underground room and sabotage your own team?”
“I knew we had mostly cleared that room out. I needed to give you something, in order to have you trust me. That was the point behind all of our conversations, Bruce—you were part of my ticket out. You’re sweet. And helpful.”
A liar, and an exploiter. He wanted to lunge at her, to hurt her for all of her falsehoods.
“As for my note—I left that so that the police would arrest you, of course.” Madeleine rolled her eyes in exasperation. Bruce stared carefully at her; something about her exaggerated gesture seemed to signal that she was hiding what she truly felt. “If they held you behind bars, then no one could get to you.”
Then no one could get to you. “You…were trying to protect me?” he asked incredulously.
Madeleine sighed. Another crack in the wall, another emotion hidden beneath her shell. “What do you think?” she muttered. “You were on the hit list long before I ever knew you personally. I was telling the truth about that, you know. I told you to escape the city immediately. Instead, you went home and stepped into an obvious trap.”
“I went inside to save Alfred,” Bruce replied. “I wasn’t about to leave him behind.”
Madeleine shrugged. “At your own peril.”
Bruce leaned forward. It was all he could do—and even this small gesture sent his head spinning with pain. “I don’t understand why you wanted to save me,” he said.
Madeleine gave him a sad smile. She drew closer to him, until she was barely a few inches from his face. He could feel her warm breath against his skin, and the brush of her dark hair against his arm. “I haven’t always told you the truth, Bruce Wayne,” she murmured. “But I told the truth in that letter.” And before he could say anything else, she closed the distance between them and pressed her lips to his.
It was as if something between them had now suddenly snapped, leaving Bruce reeling. Don’t. But he felt himself kiss her back, felt her leaning into him. What was she trying to do? What did this mean? His thoughts whirled, and his muscles tensed in warning—but he closed his eyes and kissed her harder, unwilling and unable to break this bond. She made a soft, yearning sound in her throat. Maybe he was dreaming again, and he would be shaken awake in a cold sweat…but her lips were warm and soft, and the brush of her lashes against his cheeks felt like feathers. Heat rushed through him. His heartbeat roared in his ears. Don’t do this. But he couldn’t help himself. He wanted more of this. Of her.
Finally, she broke away. Her breaths were shallow, and she blinked at him, her expression momentarily vulnerable.
“I don’t understand,” Bruce found himself whispering. He leaned instinctively forward, aching to kiss her again. “What are you doing?”
For once, Madeleine looked as bewildered as he felt. She leaned away from him, frowned, and tried to compose herself. The calm demeanor she usually wore flickered. “I chose to go to Arkham,” she finally replied. “But I didn’t anticipate meeting you there.”
“Why would you choose to go to Arkham?”
At that, her expression hardened again. Some of the momentary heat between them cooled. “You aren’t going to stop me, nor any of the other Nightwalkers. There is plenty that still matters more to me than you.”