“Of course.” Lucius bowed his head respectfully, a gesture he used to make to Bruce’s father. “This is your corporation, after all.”
That night, Bruce found himself lost in another nightmare. He was wandering the dark halls of his home again. The mansion seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions, halls turning into study rooms turning into balconies overlooking nothing but shadows. Alfred was nowhere to be seen. Bruce stopped in the dining room. Someone was lounging on the couch.
The storm raged—in Bruce’s dream, one of the large windows in the parlor shattered, scattering glass everywhere. A cold wind blew in, putting out the fire in a puff of smoke. Bruce cringed, throwing up an arm instinctively to shield his face—but when he looked again at the darkened parlor, the mysterious silhouette was no longer there. A hint of fear hummed underneath his skin, and he felt a sudden urge to run.
A hand touched his arm. He whirled around.
It was Madeleine.
She looked ghostly pale in the night, an apparition, beautiful. Her dark hair hung straight and shining over her shoulders, glinting blue underneath the slivers of light slicing the floors and walls. She smiled at him as if she had been expecting him, and Bruce felt himself smile back even as his skin prickled where her hand had rested. She wasn’t supposed to be here, was she? Had he forgotten something? She was a criminal, sitting behind a thick glass barrier at Arkham Asylum. So what was she doing here? It was difficult to understand things when he was around her, as if everything that would have seemed logical only a moment ago had now turned upside down, inside out.
“Don’t you remember?” she murmured, drawing close to him. “You got me out and brought me here.” Her voice was very quiet, raw with pain, and Bruce felt a tug on his heart at the sound. Her hands were small and cold against his chest.
Bruce leaned toward her until they were both against the wall. It took him a moment to realize that there was blood on her hands, and it left dark streaks on his skin.
“Do you think my brother deserved to suffer like he did?” she asked.
No. Of course not.Bruce winced as her words brought up the familiar feelings of his parents’ absence, and as he looked away, Madeleine’s arms came up to wrap around his neck. She touched his chin, gently guiding his face back toward her.
“Tell me the truth,” she murmured. Her eyes were so dark, the pupils black and indistinguishable from the irises. “You can’t stop thinking about me.”
I can’t.
She smiled. “And what exactly do you think of me, Bruce?”
Your lips. Your eyes. The twist of your smile. The blood on your hands. I want you. I’m afraid of you.
Bruce started to shake his head and step away—he knew she shouldn’t be here, that every fiber of his being told him that he was in grave danger—but she pulled him back toward her, tugging him down until his lips hovered over hers. Then he was kissing her, and her soft body was against his, and this—this—was everything he ever wanted. Why did he want to leave? She returned his kiss desperately. He felt light-headed—every muscle in his body had tensed in desire and in terror. He had never been with someone like her before, never been in the arms of a girl who genuinely scared him. It feltwrong,sickening…and yet, it was the greatest feeling in the world. He couldn’t pull away. He could only continue kissing her lips, then the line of her jaw, then her neck. He wanted to hear her sharp intake of breath, her whispering his name over and over. She wanted to be here, in his arms.
Run, Bruce. She is here to kill you.
Somewhere behind him came the unmistakable click of a gun barrel. Bruce flinched away from Madeleine and swung around. He was staring at a dark, blank wall. He whirled back—but Madeleine had vanished. The halls seemed to warp around him, closing in and then stretching out, and he shook his head, still dizzy from the heat of her lips on his. A sudden, bone-deep fear crept into his stomach. They were not alone here.
Nightwalkers. They’re going to seal me in.He had to get out of the house.
Bruce turned and ran. His steps seemed to drag through the air. He reached the front door and yanked it open, but instead of leading him outside, it only opened back into the same hall he’d just escaped from.Impossible.The broken window in the foyer was now intact. What little light there had been streaming through the windows now darkened, encasing Bruce in shadows. Somewhere in the darkness, he saw a silhouette run by. More footsteps. Whispers. The sound of a sharp object against metal.
“Madeleine!” he called out.
“I’m right here,” she replied behind him.
Bruce bolted out of his dream with a rasping gasp. A roll of thunder echoed from outside, and tree branches were slapping hard against the glass of his windowpane. He sat upright in bed for a few seconds, breathing heavily, his eyes still wide and darting around his room.
Had it really been a dream? Were the Nightwalkers here, in his home, sealing him in like Madeleine’s former victims, and hunting him down? He could still feel the burn of Madeleine’s lips, the warmth of her arms around his neck. His chest was slick with a sheen of cold sweat. Bruce stayed where he was until his breathing finally calmed down and the memory of his dream had started to fade, taking his terror with it. The storm continued to rage.
It was just a dream.And yet, somewhere in his subconscious, he could sense Madeleine there, was both terrified of her and filled with the desire for her in his arms.
Bruce glanced at the time on his phone. It was just past dawn, but the black clouds made it look like the dead of night outside. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and rose. Weak light illuminated his naked chest and the pants that hung low on his hips. He walked barefoot out of his room and stared down the hall for a moment, watching where it disappeared into the shadows, imagining Madeleine materializing there, a ghostly figure in the dark. Only silence and storm greeted him. Alfred hadn’t even gotten up yet. Speckled light trembled in patches on the floor. After another long moment, he ventured out in the hall, his feet making no sound as he made his way to his study.
The air seemed stale in this room, and the rain lashing against the windows smeared the outside world into streaks. Bruce paused to stare at the old grandfather clock against one wall. The hands were stuck, and he had never bothered to force them to work again. He ran a hand through his hair in exhaustion, then made his way to his desk. There, he sat down and turned his computer on.
The machine—nothing but a thin, transparent glass panel as long as the desk itself, a piece of technology he had built himself—came to life, and cold, artificial light illuminated him. He stared at the icons that popped up, hovering seemingly in the middle of the air, and then leaned over to type in a new search.
Madeleine Wallace mother
Several familiar links showed up from his previous searches about Madeleine—her original arrest, the details about the murders she’d committed that had been released to the public. He scrolled through two pages of entries. Finally, at the top of the third page, he found a brief mention in an article about Madeleine.
It was an opinion piece, going into the murky details of Madeleine’s youth. A faded photo of the family.Madeleine Wallace. Cameron Wallace. Eliza Eto.Even though her brother was older than she was, he looked thinner and frailer, with hollow eyes and sloped shoulders, his hair buzzed short. Bruce’s attention went to Eliza Eto. There was no doubt that Madeleine had inherited her beauty from her mother; the two had the same long, straight blue-black hair, the same pale complexion and full lips. Bruce went back to reading the article, murmuring aloud as he went.
