That night, Bruce tossed restlessly in bed as one nightmare after another visited him. He was back on the midnight streets outside the theater, his hands shoved firmly in his pockets, shivering from the cold and the drizzle, his mother’s arm secure around his shoulders. He tried to shout at his father to turn back and take a different route, but his father couldn’t seem to hear him. Instead, they walked farther and farther away from the streetlights, wandering through pitch-black alleys hazy with steam and fog. They walked faster and faster, until they were sprinting through the street. His legs felt as if they were dragging through mud, but he willed them on.
And then the alleys weren’t alleys at all, but passages, the familiar halls of Wayne Manor, the corridors lit by moonlight. He was shouting for Alfred now, but Alfred was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t remember why he was running—only that he had to run, that he was in terrible danger. Every time he reached the door that should have led out to the street, he would swing it open only to stare back down at the corridor leading into the mansion again. Why couldn’t he leave?
He stumbled over something on the floor, then caught himself. When he looked down, he saw that he had tripped over Richard’s bloody, mutilated corpse. He had a faint memory of hitting him, not stopping even when hands were trying to pull him away.
“Hello, Bruce.”
He whirled around at the voice. It was one he had only heard once, and yet he recognized it immediately. Madeleine looked up at him from under her canopy of lashes, her lips full, face stunning. “How easy you make it,” she said, glancing down at Richard’s body with a smile.
Then she raised her arm and plunged a knife into Bruce’s stomach.
Bruce bolted upright in bed with a startled gasp. Outside, a strong wind whipped branches against his window. He sat there for a moment, trembling, sucking in deep lungfuls of air, until his heartbeat finally slowed down. He forced himself to collect his thoughts.
He couldn’t go in to see Madeleine if she was already getting to him before any interrogation even started. Bruce tried to blink away the images of the three murders Draccon had shown him. But if he truly wanted to aid in the investigation, if he truly wanted to learn about justice, then he needed to be able to face the darkness.
“This goes inside your shirt. This goes in your pocket.”
Bruce leaned forward on his chair in Draccon’s office. The detective held up a tiny, flat square that looked like a slice of aluminum. She handed it to Bruce, and he carefully slipped it inside the front pocket of his uniform. When he pressed it against the fabric, it stuck on firmly.
Draccon handed him a rectangular card, which Bruce tucked into a pocket of his work pants. “The square in your shirt pocket is a wireless microphone,” she said. “It’ll pick up your conversations, crystal clear. The other piece will record everything.”
Bruce nodded. “Anything else I should know about Madeleine?”
“Even without uttering a word, she’ll find a way to make you doubt yourself. She’s impossible to intimidate, and I’ve never seen her lose her composure. Be careful what you say to her. We’ll be watching you at all times, of course, and will make sure you’re never in danger. Still…protect yourself.”
It was such a strange warning. Madeleine was contained behind solid steel. She had absolutely nothing to use as a weapon. “I will,” he replied, although the detective’s words lingered with him, making him dwell on how the entire police department had so far been unable to crack this girl.
“And remember,” Draccon said as they both rose from their chairs, “no one except for you, me, and Dr. James knows about this. It’s your decision whether or not to inform your guardian, but as far as anyone else is concerned, you’re still just doing your community service.”
“Know about what?” Bruce replied, and a ghost of a smile appeared on Draccon’s face.
“You’re hilarious, Wayne,” the detective replied.
The wind from the night before had changed into a dark morning of low black clouds. By the time Draccon and Bruce arrived at the asylum, fat drops of rain had started to fall, and a rumble echoed constantly across the sky.
Nothing changed about their morning routine. Bruce quietly signed in, gathered his cleaning supplies, and headed down to the basement level, while Draccon disappeared to speak with James. But as they left, Bruce knew that they were setting up equipment in the warden’s office, listening in on the conversation they hoped he would have.
The intensive-treatment level felt particularly sinister today, the pressure of the air seeming to push in on Bruce from all sides. As he neared Madeleine’s cell, he chanced a peek in through her glass window. She was, as expected, alone again, this time standing in the middle of her cell and studying something on the ceiling that he couldn’t see.
He let his gaze stay on her for a moment longer, hoping she would notice him. When she still didn’t stir, he pretended to drop his mop with a loud clatter, then picked it up again. He straightened, glancing in her window to see if she was paying any attention.
She wasn’t.
Maybe the first time had been the last time. Bruce felt a strange disappointment at that.
“You’re clumsier than I remember.”
The voice was sudden and startling, an echo of his nightmare—but when Bruce whirled and looked through the glass, Madeleine still had her face turned up to the ceiling, as if ignoring him. She continued to speak, though. “You’re not scheduled for this level today. Why are you here?”
She kept track of his days? A train of thoughts rushed through Bruce. He could say, of course, that the asylum had changed his schedule—but it seemed like something she would see straight through, something that would alert her right away to the fact that he was here to secretly interrogate her. So he decided on a different tactic. “I’m not supposed to be,” he replied, keeping his voice low. He edged closer to her window. “My supervisor is out for the day.”
At that, Madeleine arched her neck and rolled her head back. Her eyes were closed, her lashes curving gently against her cheeks. She had pulled her black curtain of hair over one shoulder and woven it into a thick, shining fishtail of a braid, and the end of it was gradually coming undone without a tie. She turned to look at him. “Well, aren’t you feeling rebellious? Did you come to thank me for my advice?”
Her advice? As if that had triggered him to attack Richard? How could she even tell that something had happened? When he looked through her window again, she was now looking back at him. Her eyes chilled him as they did the very first time.
He had to be careful with his expressions around her. She read far more in them than he could ever expect a person to.
Bruce checked to see that no one else was watching before stepping a bit closer to Madeleine’s cell. “I came here because you spoke to me last time,” he replied. “And you almost always have a crowd of police in there, trying to persuade you to talk.”
Her eyes returned to searching the ceiling. “And you’re curious?”
“Yes.”
She tilted her head in a slow, methodical manner that lifted the hairs on the back of his neck. “What are you so curious about?”
How could someone who had brutally killed three victims make such calm, collected gestures? Did she never dwell on the deaths? Or toss restlessly from nightmares? “I heard about the murders you committed,” he said.
“Did you, now?” She blinked once at him. “And how does that make you feel about me?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ve never spoken to a killer before.”
“Oh yes, we Arkham inmates are the scary ones,” Madeleine murmured, distracted, turning her attention to the ceiling again. “How many lives have you billionaires ruined?”
Bruce felt a cut of anger, even as her sarcastic words sent ripples through him. False comparison. She was messing with his mind. “Why did you kill those people?”
She shrugged again, falling silent, and her nonchalance annoyed him further. “What are you staring at?” he asked, nodding at the ceiling for emphasis.
Madeleine pursed her lips, considering. “The security cams wired into the ceiling,” she said aloud, as if purposely meaning for someone to hear.
“Why are you looking at them?”
“To break them, of course.”
Bruce eyed her warily. She was playing a trick, although he couldn’t quite see her hand. “Maybe not the best idea to say that out loud.”
“Why not? It wouldn’t be hard. This is old technology, you see?” She pointed to the wires running along the ceilings, secured within metal piping, ending in the small, round cameras embedded outside each cell door. “All you’d need to do to disable the system is to use the right scrambler, set at the right frequency. Any device within its signal range could knock them out.” She tapped a slender finger once against her temple. “Never trust tech. Anything made to your advantage can also be used against you.”
Bruce listened in confusion and fascination. She was telling this directly to whoever sat on the other end of that security camera, monitoring her—it was almost as if she was toying with that operator like a cat toyed with its mouse, daring them to be on the defensive, maybe even distracting them from what she actually wanted to do. Or maybe she was just having fun. Bruce’s eyes darted to the bed in her cell, the only piece of furniture she had. If she jumped on it at the right angle, she could probably reach the security cam—but she hadn’t done it yet.
“Are you trying to get them to take away your bed?” he said incredulously.
There was something unreadable about her face as her expressions shifted from one to another, like the shapes of clouds before a thunderstorm. “Are these really the questions you came here to ask me today?” she asked.
Bruce’s gaze went to her slender white fingers as she began to weave the loose ends of her braid tight again. “Why are you talking to me?” he asked. “You haven’t said a word to anyone in months.”
“Ah.” Madeleine’s smile widened. “That’s more like it.” She tossed her braid casually over her shoulder, the weave loosening once more into a sea of waves, and yawned. “They gave you a new uniform today, didn’t they? Your first one was too big on you, and a slightly different shade of blue. Did your supervisors have a change of heart? It took them weeks to finally hand you a better-fitting one.”
Bruce glanced down at his clothes. He hadn’t even noticed the difference. How long had she been watching him? “Good eye,” he said, looking back up at her.
She beamed at him, seeming genuinely pleased. Then she said, “I hope the police heard that through the wire you’re wearing. They have a bad habit of talking to me like I’m a fool.”
She knows about the wire. How?
Bruce cursed inwardly. He should’ve known better, actually; in fact, Draccon should have. As he fought to keep his expression calm, Madeleine just kept her steady stare on him, waiting for his reaction. There was no point in denying it. You’re clumsier than I remember, she’d said to him just moments earlier. He’d thought she was referring to his dropped mop handle, but now he thought that perhaps she’d been talking about the wire all along.
At least now Draccon had heard proof of her speaking to him.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“You’re here on the wrong day. You’re speaking slightly louder to me than before, because you’re trying to make sure the mike you’re wearing is picking up your voice. Your posture is off from our last talk—you’re leaning forward to the left and craning your neck just a little toward the mike. You’re left-handed, aren’t you? And your mike is in your left shirt pocket, isn’t it? I figured as much, from the way you’ve been cleaning.”
His voice. His posture. His dominant hand. Bruce stood there for a moment, rendered speechless. She was right, of course, on every count.
Madeleine’s brow furrowed in disappointment at his expression. “Well. If I was unsure before, I’m definitely sure now. Everything about your face screams that I’m right. You’re like a goddamn open book.”
Bruce cast her a sidelong glare. “Maybe you’re too confident.”
She stretched lazily, looked away, and took a step toward her bed. “You’re boring me,” she said with a sigh.
Protect yourself. Draccon’s warning came back to him again, and this time it took on a new importance. He wondered what Draccon was thinking right now as she listened to the interrogation. I need to do something, and quick. If he didn’t, he might lose Madeleine’s trust entirely and put an end to his questioning.
On a whim, Bruce reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the square wire. If Draccon could speak into his ear, she’d probably be yelling right now. Bruce held the square up to the window so that Madeleine could see, and then threw it far down the hall. He reached into his pants pocket, yanked out the recorder, and tossed that away, too.
“There,” he said, holding both of his hands up. “You caught me.”
Madeleine’s expression didn’t change—much. But her eyebrow lifted just enough to let Bruce know that she hadn’t expected him to blow his cover so readily. He’d surprised her. There’s no point in doing any of this if she doesn’t trust me.
“I think we’re done for today,” she said, but a smile still lingered at the corners of her lips. Then she sat on her bed and lay down sideways.
“Hey—” Bruce held up a hand. His irritation came spilling out with his words. “Wait a sec. You spoke to me first, long before I ever caught the attention of the police. I never initiated any of this. You always knew that if you spoke to me, the police would approach me and wire me up to come back and talk to you. And now you’re telling me that we’re done here. What was the point of all that?”
“I wanted to see if you were worth talking to,” Madeleine called out.
“And?”
But she didn’t reply again.
Bruce took a step closer to her window, so that he now stood barely a foot away. He’d withstood countless paparazzi cameras trained on him. He’d managed to persuade Draccon to involve him in an actual case. But somehow, here, he found himself having trouble thinking of what to say next to this girl, no longer sure of what she knew or how she knew it, whether she was figuring out new things about him even at this very moment, whether she was playing a game with him. Whether she was thinking of ways she could kill him, were she free. The photos of the three murders flashed through his mind.
What category did she belong to? He didn’t even know where to begin.
Maybe he really was done here. Draccon would have no use for him if Madeleine wouldn’t talk to him. Bruce stared at her for a moment longer, as if she might turn around to look at him again—but she just stayed where she was, her eyes now closed in some illusion of sleep, her hair spilling behind her like a dark ocean.
Right as he was about to leave, Madeleine shifted, tucking her hands behind her head on her pillow. “You’re not like the others,” she said.
He froze. Turned back around. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she continued, “they interrogate me because it’s their job. Why do you do it? It’s not like you need the paycheck.”
Bruce thought of his late nights, listening to police scanners and obsessing over WayneTech’s security work. “I don’t like standing by, feeling helpless,” he replied. “I want to understand why.”
“Mmm,” Madeleine murmured, as if deep in thought. She turned so that he could partially see her face resting against her pillow, her eyes still closed. “You have a heavy heart, for someone with everything.”
Bruce could only look on. How did she know that? Had she heard it in his tone, his words? “What do you mean by that?” he asked her, but she was no longer paying attention to him. Her chest rose and fell evenly, as if she had decided to go to sleep.
A few minutes passed before he finally tore his eyes away from her and started heading back down the hall. In his mind, he could still see her slender form curled on her bed. Her last words had been said without amusement or sarcasm. They were serious.
They were the words of someone who, somehow, understood him.