Bruce instinctively fell into his fighter stance. But James was already there, grabbing the prisoner’s right arm, twisting him around, and pinning him against the wall hard enough to make his cheeks turn bright pink.
“Nice reflexes,” Draccon commented in mild surprise at Bruce.
Bruce’s heart pounded furiously in his chest. “Guess the gym’s good for something,” he managed to reply.
“Another display like that,” James warned the prisoner, “and I’ll add years to your sentence. I know how much you enjoy our time together.” She gave him a bitter smile, and the prisoner snarled back at her. His eyes settled on Bruce again, and when they did, he allowed himself a grim little grin.
“Skin’s too soft and clean for this place, pretty boy,” he spat out. “If you need some scars, you come find me.”
Bruce looked away, his heart still hammering, as the guards continued dragging the man down the hall. He tried to imagine the man as a child, ashimself,a boy sitting on the front lawn with his father and watching the bats stream out into the evening. Maybe some people were never young.
At his side, James watched him with her arms crossed. “What are you thinking, Wayne?”
“I’m wondering at what point someone makes the flip from a child into a killer.”
“Ah. Interested in criminal psychology, are you?” James replied. “Well, you’re in the right place. Our inmates would make you tremble in your boots. That man you just saw? He killed four people in a café.”
A chill swept through Bruce. “Yeah, he seemed pleasant,” he muttered.
“Dr. James has been the head warden here for a decade,” Draccon added. “As you can see, it takes a certain level of steel to manage a place like this.”
They left the small corridor, and suddenly the space opened into a huge, vaulted ceiling where they could see floors and floors of jail cells. Bruce froze in place at the sight of Arkham’s entire expanse. This was a gateway to hell.
“What’s the matter?” Draccon said dryly. “Finally regretting your joy ride?”
“This is the female east wing,” James called out as they walked to the right. “Men are kept in the west wing. Medical facilities are in the center halls connecting the two.”That explains the U shape,Bruce thought. “There is an additional level below our feet that houses our intensive-treatment inmates. You are going to sweep and then mop the halls in the female wing, as well as scrub the toilets the guards use. Tomorrow you’ll clean the basement level. We’ll work around the remainder of your school year, but once your summer starts, I expect to see you in here every morning. Our janitors have no trouble keeping this place spotless, so I think a billionaire should easily be able to do the same. I suggest you learnquickly.”
Bruce looked inside one of the cells. A female inmate in an orange uniform leaned against its bars, and when she caught his gaze, she sneered at him.
“Hey, ladies!” she shouted as they passed. “Looks like they upgraded our guards!”
The others took up the cry, yelling vulgar suggestions at him. Bruce gritted his teeth and kept his gaze firmly on the hall. He’d seen guys catcall Dianne, had even gotten into fistfights with a few of them over it. But this was the first time he’d ever experienced it directly.Why don’t you smile, Bruce?It reminded him of the way the paparazzi swarmed around him like flies, peppering him relentlessly, punishing him when he didn’t respond accordingly. He caught a glimpse of Draccon’s face; despite the detective’s desire to punish him, even she seemed to sympathize a little.
They finally, mercifully, reached the end of the wing. James led them through the medical halls and past workers fixing the doors, through more of the fluorescent, cold green corridors.
They used an elevator to reach the basement level. It was dark, dank, and moist, an air of permanent staleness permeating the space. A sign hung over the entrance:ARKHAM ASYLUM INTENSIVE TREATMENT.
“The worst of the worst stay down here, Wayne,” James said over her shoulder. “I’d try to do my work quickly in this hall, if I were you.”
Two workers were reprogramming the door’s security lock. Bruce noted the security cameras regularly dotting the ceiling. The cell doors were solid metal down here, smaller versions of the heavy sliding doors at the asylum’s main entrance and noticeably more fortified than those along the upper corridors of Arkham. Each cell door had a window of what must be bulletproof glass, through which Bruce could occasionally see a prisoner sitting inside a stark room. The uniforms they wore down here differed from the orange ones of the other inmates. They were white, as if to mark them as a special breed of dangerous.
“More than usual down here, James,” Draccon said as they went.
James shrugged. “More crimes than usual,” she replied. “We had three Nightwalkers moved here just yesterday from Gotham City Penitentiary.”
At that, Draccon shook her head in frustration.
“Still no luck figuring out what the hell they were up to that night, huh?” James asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“The Nightwalkers?” Bruce asked, grateful for something to think about other than his sentence. “Just how many of them are out there?”
“Don’t worry about it, Wayne,” came Draccon’s stern reply. “Be grateful that this isn’t your business.”
Several voices came from one of the cells near the end of the hall. As they approached it, James nodded toward the cell door. “That’s one of the new transfers I was talking about,” she said. “Trickiest Nightwalker we’ve ever gotten.”
Through the window, Bruce caught a glimpse of the scene. Three men—one dressed like a detective, the other two in police uniforms—were crowded around someone, interrogating the inmate. The frustrated voices were coming from the police.
