Bruce started to whirl around, but before he could, something heavy hit him hard behind his neck. Stars exploded before his eyes. He staggered forward. The world closed around him, black and suffocating. As he hit the floor, the only thing he could hear was Dianne’s scream.
The first thing Bruce heard when he came to was Madeleine’s smooth, familiar voice. Her words drifted somewhere above him. He tried to turn in her direction, but pain lanced through his head, as if a thousand knives were stabbing into his skull. He uttered a hoarse groan and stopped.
“You should be stripping his helmet off,” someone unfamiliar said.
“I’llworry about him, not you,” Madeleine replied.
“But the boss wants his info, and if—”
“If you’d like to take it up with him, be my guest. Now, stop wasting my time.”
A reluctant silence. “Yes, of course.”
Bruce tried to concentrate through his haze of pain. Madeleine wasn’t the boss, but she definitely had some sort of rank in the Nightwalkers organization. What had she done with Dianne? Where had they taken her? Why hadn’t Madeleine killed him yet? What info did they want from him? He stayed still as he became more conscious of his surroundings, keeping his eyes closed and his breathing even in an attempt to convince anyone around him that he wasn’t listening.
“What the hell was that rogue drone?” Another voice. “I thought you checked to make sure all the patches were updated at the same time.”
“It didn’t come from us,” Madeleine said. “It wasn’t on our grid—I don’t have the serial number on file.”
“Must have come from somewhere else, wherever WayneTech keeps their stash.”
“You have Lucius Fox down in the first row. Go ask him yourself.”
At the mention of Lucius’s name, Bruce missed a beat in his breathing.
Were they inside the concert chamber right now? Their voices didn’t echo the way they should, had they been overlooking the concert stage, and it was quiet. No shuffling feet of hostages, no occasional weeping or frightened murmur. After a moment of concentration, Bruce could make out the faint buzzing of an air conditioner somewhere. An admin office? A supply room?
“He’s coming around,” Madeleine said, her voice drawing near. He opened his eyes. Lightbulbs lined the sides of two large mirrors against one wall, their warm, piercing light making him squint. Below them sat two vanities, each piled high not with creams and brushes and cosmetics, but with rifles and laptops.The backstage dressing rooms,Bruce thought groggily.
He turned his head and saw Madeleine sitting on a chair beside him, her hair loose now, her elbows leaning casually on her knees, her fingers interlaced. She was studying his helmet but didn’t reach out to touch it. Behind her stood three Nightwalkers, two men and a woman, all staring grimly at Bruce with their guns drawn.
How odd, it occurred to him, that their roles had now reversed—that he was her prisoner, and she his keeper.
“Is he a cop? Is he going to survive?” the third Nightwalker, the youngest of the trio, now spoke up. Bruce’s vision sharpened enough to realize that it was Richard speaking. His face looked completely drained, and he clutched awkwardly at the gun at his belt as if he’d never used it before. “I—” Richard now went on after swallowing hard. “I didn’t ask to stay on—I don’t want to be here—”
“You seemed okay with giving us a code into your dad’s account,” Madeleine replied without looking back.
Richard blanched. Then his face contorted in guilt and anguish. “I thought you just wanted his money! I thought you—and now you—”
“Ellison, Watts, get the new kid out of here,” Madeleine interrupted, nodding once toward the door. “It’s like listening to a goddamn broken record. Go.”
The Nightwalkers needed no second bidding. They immediately straightened and filed out of the room without another word, leaving him alone in the room with her.
Bruce’s mind whirled. Was Richard being held here against his will? He and his father had had their differences, but it didn’t sound like Richard had any idea the Nightwalkers would break into his home and kill his father. Maybe he had been blackmailed into doing other things, too.
When the door finally clicked shut, Madeleine sighed and gave him a disappointed look. “Take off your helmet, Bruce,” she said.
Bruce reached up and slowly pulled the helmet off his head. Cool air hit his exposed face. “Where’s Dianne?” he demanded. “If you hurt her—”
Madeleine smiled, although the expression appeared bittersweet. “I thought that was you,” she said. “Calm down. Your friend’s unharmed, if a little upset.”
“Let her go.” He glanced toward the door. “And Richard Price, too.”
Madeleine rolled her eyes. “I didn’t force him to be here, you idiot. Boss recruited him of his own free will. Richard thought he was only getting a little revenge, thought he’d just cost his dad some money. Fool.”
What?In a flash, Bruce pictured Richard’s disgusted expression at their graduation, the revelation that his father had cut him out of his trust fund. Then he thought of the police lights gathering at the Price family’s home. The mayor’s murder. Had Richard been responsible for opening up Bruce’s home for the Nightwalkers to infiltrate it? Would he really sell out his own father for revenge?
You’re going to regret that.Those had been Richard’s last words to him before tonight. The memory chilled Bruce to the bone, and his fists tightened.Had he sold out Bruce to the Nightwalkers?
