Night Vision

Chapter 1 – Snatched

Evening - a normal every day evening. The clock had chimed eight a few moments earlier. She always counted. A basket of clean laundry sat on her bed and she held a cotton blouse in her hands. The fabric softener smell was fresh in the air combined with a floral candle she'd just lit in her living room. The light of it wasn't what she enjoyed, it was the scent. Always the scent, the touch, the sound of things she enjoyed most of all.
Anna was blind. She had grown up blind and like any learning human being, had adapted to that life. It was the only life she'd ever known.

She folded the blouse but clutched it to her. A loud, sharp thudding came from very near by. Anna guessed it was inside her apartment. But she lived alone. She quickly groped down the laundry basket to her mattress and felt around. She knew she'd brought it back in with her – her cane rested on the other side of the bed. Her fingers touched the smooth wood and she held the handle firmly, standing completely still, her ears sharpened for any hint of sound.

Perhaps it had been her neighbors upstairs after all. Everything happened at once just as she began to relax again. A large hand clamped over her mouth from behind. Another came around her ribs and pulled, dragging her into the adjoining bathroom. Anna couldn't make any noise because of how firmly she was held and only realized where she was again when he pushed her against the shower door, his hand still over her mouth, stifling her yells.
It had to be a man because of the size she believed his hands were and the brute strength he obviously possessed. He leaned against her and whispered in her ear, breaking the silence, "I don't wanna hurt you. But if you scream I won't have much of a choice." His breath was hot on the side of her face. It definitely was a man. Judging from where he spoke he stood about six feet tall, maybe taller and he hadn't shaved for two to three days. The stubble on his cheek rubbed roughly against the side of her face.

Anna didn't know the voice. But it was hard to tell because he spoke in a harsh whisper. "I'm gonna take away my hand and you're not gonna scream," it wasn't a question.

Anna shook her head jerkily, her eyes wide with fear though they couldn't focus on anything. The man did as he promised and lifted his hand away from her mouth as she tried to steady her breathing.
"Who are you?" she said, holding her hands protectively in front of her.
"Tell me what you were doing last night on the street outside of Jake's."
Her body shuddered and she grew an idea as to why he was there. But she didn't get a chance to answer him.

"Have you done it yet?" a higher male voice from inside her bedroom followed by a clattering and rustling. They were looking for something but Anna couldn't think of what.
"Just do your job dumb ass and let me worry about what I'm doin'," the man who held her said.

"I was walking home," Anna answered his question.
"You're letting her talk?" the second one said. "Just cap the bitch and we'll find it."
Anna's hands shook violently in front of her as the tears welled up in her unseeing eyes, "Please, please, what do you want? I'll tell you whatever you want to know. What are you looking for? Just please don't – " the hand came back over her mouth and the rooms were silent. Everything had gone completely still after Anna's pleading had been stopped short.

"Jordan?" the first man said, still holding his hand over her mouth. The quiet in the room seemed to absorb the sound of his voice as he spoke. Anna had never heard anything like it before.
A step sounded on the floor and Anna felt him move away from her as he leaned out to see where his cohort had got to and his hand came completely away from her face with a muffled grunt of surprise. She stood in her place on the bathroom floor, listening hard to the scuffling struggle going on in her bedroom just beyond the doorway. The only voice she'd heard was that of the man who'd first attacked her.

Hesitant with every step, Anna moved when the silence came again, palpable and thick as mud. Nothing but the sound of her ragged breathing met her highly tuned ears. Anna's four other senses made up for her lack of sight which helped her create a rather efficient system of knowing her surroundings. But her fear was doing its job of dampening those other senses at the moment. Her hands crept cautiously along the bathroom wall until she came to the doorway. Someone was still there with her but it most definitely was not the same man who'd first come in before. This was someone new. They were completely silent but Anna's instincts screamed that someone was in her bedroom.

Like he was made of shadow itself, he stood as a marble statue in the corner next to her bed without even a hint that he was breathing as he watched her emerge slowly from the bathroom. Her eyes were scared but they wouldn't focus…or perhaps couldn't focus. His eyes darted to the cane that rested on her bed and he understood. But why attack a blind woman? His rock hard expression didn't change as he puzzled over the questions that came to mind.

Anna felt her way over to the bed, stumbling over a large lump that lay in the middle of the floor. She nudged it with her foot. The body rocked just slightly as she pushed it. She closed her eyes in a sickening wince as her hands smacked onto the bedspread in search of her cane, her fingers barely missing it.
"To your left," he said softly.

Anna didn't follow his direction. She stood upright in response to the darkest voice she had ever heard and faced the general direction it had come from. "Are you here to kill me too?" she said, sounding quite calm. Her brains stopped their scattering as she lined up the more logical thoughts in order of importance. First, "I have to call the police," she said when he didn't answer her.

"These men aren't common criminals. The police won't be able to protect you. I can." His words were meticulously chosen, very precise and to the point, wasting nothing at all. Add that to the deep, growling whisper of his voice and it was all very intimidating which is exactly how he wanted it.
"How?" she said.
"I'm sorry," he replied and was suddenly much closer.

A brush of fabric flew quickly across her fingertips and an iron grip wrapped around her middle as something soft was pressed to her face. It was damp and the smell was overwhelming but she breathed it in deeply out of panic. Struggling was useless as her body was pinned tightly and her concentration was fading. The feeling and sounds slowly died away and her body went limp as a sock puppet.

--

The memory woke her with a bone jarring jolt. Her hands shot out and felt around her. Soft sheets and a thick bedspread met her fingertips. She stretched out further. The sheets were on an overlarge bed. Her back was sore as were her arms but she didn't understand how that could have happened. Those discomforts, however, paled in comparison to the groggy headache that pierced her temples, pounding relentlessly in her head. This was not her bed and the air in the room did not smell or feel like her bedroom.
But there it was again – the sense that she was not alone.

The room was dark but it mattered little to him and it didn't matter at all to her. He could just see her in the little light that shone through the closed drapes over the window. She was moving, gaining an idea of her surroundings but she didn't sit up. Instead she held a pillow to her as her breathing sharpened.
"Who are you?" her voice shattered the room. The sound traveled far. The room was much larger than her bedroom.

No answer returned to her and the memories of the previous evening came back to her in small flashes of detail until she was able to piece them all together. She'd never believed the rumors but from the descriptions of witnesses and the news reports there seemed to be only one person in the city who could stay as silent as the grave. And then there was that voice. No one sounded like that and no one moved that fast.

"I know you're here," she said firmly as her brain worked on the theory.
The silence continued until she began to doubt her instincts. A soft whoosh of fabric from a far corner of the room made her go ridged beneath the blankets.

"You will be safe here," there was the voice again. Who else could it be? Who sounded like that and still cared for people's safety?
"Safe? Who were those men? Where am I?" she moved to sit up, a dull ache shooting up her back but a gloved hand came to the back of her neck, strong and uncompromising, and lowered her head back to the pillow.

"They were after you. That's all you should be worried about now," his voice was firm but not angry. "You are in Wayne Manor. They will not find you here."
Wayne Manor?! His connections were more impressive than anyone knew.

"Do you know why –"
"No," he answered flatly.

The feeling left then. There was no sound of movement or a footfall or anything that signaled to Anna that he'd left her but she knew that he'd left her…in Wayne Manor. If she believed him, she was in a bedroom inside the house of one of the richest men in the world. She didn't care who he was. How could he have gotten permission to bring her here? It made no sense at all! Maybe Bruce Wayne owed him a favor or something.
Fatigue slowed her speculation and she relaxed once more. The bed was the best she'd ever lain on. Her body sank slightly into the mattress as though it was embracing her. Anna's eyes closed finally and the silence captured her.