When my senses returned, I found myself lying in a weak beam of morning sunshine. I was in the same room, on a crisp double bed with my cane resting next to me.
After these simple facts met in my brain, I sat up and looked around the room. Its sheer size hit me again as I took in the ugly twin settees several feet away from me. Everything was neat, organised, under control. It was as I was staring at this perfect suite that reality returned to me.
I was a prisoner.
There was no one in the room, which made me feel slightly safer. Logically, I thought to myself, my life should be safe anyway. If I was going to be used as leverage, then I wasn't going to be disposed of anytime soon. My rational mind found that a relief.
I slipped off the bed and noted that I was still in the same clothes as the night before. Snatching up my cane, I made my way over to a nearby wardrobe, wondering if it would be of any help. It was. Everything inside looked roughly my size. The Penguin really had planned this all out. His meticulous preparation was something I held on to as significant.
After I had changed, I dared to go over and open the door to the room. Two men, one thickset and one wiry, stood on the other side of it. Their gazes locked on me instantly when they heard the door click. Naturally I shied away before realizing I couldn't afford to make that mistake. In this house, with these people, I couldn't act like my usual self.
Not unless I wanted to be a victim.
"Is room service an option here?" I asked the two guards. The haughty tone was forced, but I managed it. The henchmen looked at each other and nodded, coming to a silent agreement.
"Follow me," one said gruffly.
I was taken through the mazelike house until I reached a stainless steel kitchen, where I was told I could have anything so long as I made it myself.
While I was doing this, I noticed a great marble knife block resting on a counter close by. I glanced from the protruding handles to the man in the corner. There was a holstered gun on his thigh. I swallowed nervously and glanced away. That wasn't an option. I wouldn't have been taken here if it was.
My back was turned to the guard while I ate, because being watched so persistently made me uneasy. Just as I was about to leave, two other guards strolled in. When they saw me, massive smiles slithered across their faces.
"Look here," said the taller one. "If it ain't the new little hostage we have."
I said nothing.
"Hey," called the man who had led me to the kitchen. "Don't screw around with her. You know what the boss said. No one touches her." He moved a little closer, fingers twitching over the gun at his leg.
"What the boss don't know won't hurt him," grinned the tall one. My anxiety started to peak. The look in the men's eyes made me move straight to the door.
A heavy hand fell on my shoulder.
"Where do you think you're going, sugar?" leered the third henchman in the kitchen. He was the shortest, but he was equally as menacing as his colleagues.
I began to feel the slow dread of a trapped prey. The man with the gun stared dead ahead, as though oblivious to the antics of the other two.
My first reaction then was to reach for the knife block, but the tall man's hand slammed mine into the kitchen counter, crushing it. I bit my lip, fighting the whimper that crawled up my throat. The shorter man grasped a knife handle, pulling the biggest blade from the marble. It made a hollow rasping noise.
I fought against the grip on my hand, panicking, struggling, but it was no use. A sharp steel blade was wafted in front of my face.
"Say, sweetheart, how do you think the Scarecrow will feel if he sees you all carved up?" sneered the shorter man.
He wouldn't care, I thought to myself. No one would care if I bled out in this kitchen. For some reason, that made me struggle harder. It still wasn't enough.
I heard a sour laugh and then the hand that was pinning down my own disappeared. My struggling caused me to stumble backwards and I fell into a nearby kitchen counter, my cane tumbling to the floor.
I followed it shortly afterwards as the taller man's heavy hand sent a blow into the back of my head. My arms didn't move fast enough to block him and I ended up sprawled on the cold, hard tiles. A sea of auburn hair obscured my vision.
The laughing became worse, making me realised how pathetic I looked while collapsed on the floor. Fighting the tears in my eyes, I reached for the cane beside me and pulled myself upright.
They let me.
But then the shorter man came forward with the kitchen knife, ready to start the taunting all over again.
I gasped as the metal blade passed too close to my face. It was so sharp, I couldn't have been sure whether it had drawn blood or not.
My cane whipped through the air and struck hard on the man's wrist. His knife clattered onto the countertop, but even so his expression told me I had made a mistake.
The sound of footsteps resonated from the other side of the kitchen door. It was only then that the man who had originally led me down here reacted to what the others were doing.
"Alright, that's enough," he growled, reaching for the knife and shoving it back into the block. The other two men complied.
Another hired guard stepped in, the door swinging in his wake. Although he eyed me suspiciously as he moved towards the coffee pot, I did my best not to break eye contact.
Grabbing my shoulder, the lackey with the gun led me back to the room where I was being held captive. My heart still raced from the struggle in the kitchen.
"You took you're time," commented the guard who had been left behind.
"She's a slow eater," said the first one.
I scoffed at that, before vanishing inside the room when I realised how loud it came out. Alone once again, I felt far more secure. I found the bathroom and checked my face in the mirror, discovering that the knife had actually cut my skin. There was the thinnest red line on my chin. I splashed water on my face and then pressed a wad of tissues against it.
It wasn't even deep enough to justify a plaster, I told myself.
Alone in the main room, my thoughts began to wander down dark alleys. My gaze drifted to the large window behind the fur settees. There was no latch to it. I doubted that I could break it with my strength, but even then I'd have nowhere to go. Hopelessness descended on me like a heavy raincloud, grey and bleak and cold.
My chances of escape were nil. No one even knew I was here, any friends and family I had being distant. They wouldn't notice me missing. Earlier in the year, the Batman had kept his eye on me, but I had never expected him to be there all of the time. Seeing as I hadn't been in trouble for so long, I doubted he still took to being my guardian.
It really did appear that my solution to this lay in the hands of the Scarecrow.
He wouldn't come. I was sure.
I found myself next to the bookshelf in one corner. There was nothing I could do in this house, and the boredom started to get to me as much as the violent henchmen and lack of freedom did. I plucked The Moonstone from the shelf and settled into a nearby chair. Yet I had read it before and an idle mind was like a plague to me. Without sufficient distraction, old memories started to return. They were memories I preferred to keep suppressed.
A year ago, back when I lived in the small suburb of Greenvale, the Scarecrow had, in effect, played an experimental game with the entire neighbourhood. His odourless, tasteless fear gas had hung ghoulishly in the air, an irremovable mist. I remembered the screams, the guttural cries and pleas for help. The murderous rages. Frightened people did frightening things.
After watching most of the suburb succumb to the mind-numbing fear, I did too. I remembered the completely logical notion to kill the neighbour's dog, because blood dripped from it feral eyes and funnel-web spiders scuttled from its mouth. That deep, primeval sense of fear had left some kind of scar inside me. It came back to me in my dreams. Compared to it, no other situation had ever given me a similar feeling.
Madness reigned for weeks until the Batman arrived. Afterwards, I was one of the few who saw the Scarecrow being arrested, being unmasked. So many had feared him then, even without the costume, but he was just a man. That was all he was. I remembered the mask coming off, revealing a gaunt, human face with chillingly blue eyes.
I was the only one who had testified against the Scarecrow.
He had been sentenced to Arkham Asylum and that was when I had written my recount for Following the Masks. It wasn't long before I heard of his inevitable escape and, as soon as I did, I knew he was coming for me. I endured two weeks of being stalked, two weeks that gnawed at my spine as I was followed, but whenever I thought I had seen something, it turned to shadow. The Batman had told me he would watch out for my safety, but Gotham was a huge city with far more pressing matters than myself. I hadn't expected him to be there.
The Scarecrow timed his revenge carefully.
When I boarded the subway one evening, he attacked the train I was on. I had been sitting in an empty carriage, away from people like I was used to. As soon as that toxic gas filtered into the train, I recognised it. It could have been steam, but steam didn't roil like a restless phantom. I bolted for the doors, only to find him waiting with his twisted, sewn-up smile.
I had no way to defend myself. My cane was useless. I struggled against him before he injected me with a serum, a dose of pure toxin that clawed its way into my system, exposing my deepest fears.
I feared being judged. I feared others' assumptions about me, based on my appearance and the way I acted. I loathed it more than I thought was possible. That strange, unwanted invasion into my true emotions had left me so open and violated at first, but then the oddest of things had happened.
The Scarecrow had understood.
It was in that moment my rational, dependable side had emerged through the drugged state of fear and used the chance to escape. I had managed to run, without the help of my cane, and just to my luck I encountered the Batman.
I didn't see the Scarecrow again for a while, but by then my curiosity had arisen. I admitted it to no one, I could barely admit it to myself, but when I looked in the mirror I saw there was some horrific connection between me and the man who knew the deepest of my unspoken fears. That thought was still enough to make me shudder.
Many months ago, while studying at Gotham State University, I again heard that the Scarecrow was back to roaming the streets. Only this time, I hadn't anticipated his arrival. I had been on the library's terrace, outside after dark, and he had appeared from the shadows. He wore his deformed mask and wielded a scythe.
To my astonishment, he didn't attack me.
He wanted me to join him, to become the Mistress of Fear, as he put it. His hand had been held out, tempting, wanting me to strike back at the world that had ridiculed and shunned me.
The Scarecrow called me brave. In truth, what I feared most then was the person I'd become if I said yes to him. Would I be brave for defying him, or brave for plunging myself into the unknown? How many people had I wanted to prove wrong about me?
"No," I had said aloud, more to my own terrible thoughts than to the man in front of me.
I remembered the look in his eyes. He was so close I could see through the holes in his mask and into those twisted blue depths. He didn't understand my reasons as much as I pretended not to understand his. When he raised the scythe and swung it in my direction, I almost didn't blame him.
The scythe never reached me. From above, the Batman had descended on the Scarecrow, disarming him before the blade found its mark. A fight had ensued, one I witnessed while half paralysed with shock.
The hunched figure of the Scarecrow was apprehended once again. He was the self-proclaimed Master of Fear, but it wasn't fear I felt in his presence. I couldn't recognise what it was.
I hadn't seen him since then, but I heard news of him. He was out there, somewhere, lurking in the shadows of Gotham. Right now, he was my only hope of escape. If he didn't come…that was what scared me the most. That was what stirred the primitive fear of death. I wondered, morbidly, how the Penguin would dispatch me when he found out how useless I was to his cause.
I stared down at The Moonstone, open and forgotten in my hands. I hadn't read the first page, let alone turned it.
Sighing in despair, I tried to bury myself in the book. I succeeded until late in the evening, not even getting up to eat. There was a miniature refrigerator beside the settees, which supplied me with bottled water. That was all I needed. I smirked as I thought about the idle luxuries surrounding me. Yes, it was easy to fool myself that I was a guest here, not a hostage.
The cut on my chin stung persistently and that brought back the truth of my situation.
When night descended, I wedged the finished book back into the shelf and then a leather armchair under the door handle. I wasn't tired. In fact, my mind was too alert, too aware that there was nothing to do.
Things continued that way for almost a week. The Penguin never returned to check up on his prized hostage and for that I was glad. I barely ate, because that meant going to the kitchen, and instead dedicated my time to sleeping and thinking, pacing and reading. Sometimes I would take long walks through the parts of the house where I was allowed, which caused the henchmen to become highly suspicious. Maybe their usually idle brains didn't appreciate the maddening boredom I was undergoing. Their constant presence irritated me.
By the end of the week, I had endured enough. I opened the door to my room late one evening.
"Where can I go without a guard?" I asked the two men. They were the same ones from before.
"Nowhere," laughed the one who had taken me to the kitchen. "You're to be kept under surveillance at all times, little lady, with the exception of this room here."
"Nowhere, really? I'm going to hang myself if I stay in this room any longer," I said.
The man raised an eyebrow, wondering for a moment whether I was serious or not.
"Well, I suppose there's the gallery," suggested the second man.
"Get real, Dixon," smirked the first guard. "No way is the boss going to let her in there alone."
"That gallery has a million and one cameras," objected Dixon. "Honestly, Roy, the boss'd be more than happy for us to show off his collection."
"Whatever," Roy rolled his eyes.
"Fine, I'll go to the gallery," I told them.
I let Dixon lead me through the twisting corridors, in a different direction to where I had been before. Ideally, I would've kept a mental map of the house, but all the hallways were so irksomely similar, it just wasn't possible.
The gallery was on the second floor of the manor house and it occupied the western wing. Clashing with the elegant architecture around it, a massive steel door had been fitted over the entrance. Dixon punched a code into an adjacent panel.
"I thought the Penguin would have had better security than that," I muttered, thinking aloud.
Dixon smirked.
"The boss – well, I shouldn't say anything," there was an amused smile on his face. I knew I wouldn't be dependent on my skills as a lawyer to get the truth from him.
"I haven't got anyone to tell," I shrugged.
"True," mused Dixon. "Besides, the boss changes his methods every so often anyway."
"No harm done then." One corner of my mouth lifted into a reassuring smile.
"These aren't the boss's real possessions," Dixon said, causing me to raise an eyebrow. "He spends a fortune on 'em and then spends half the same again to get expert copies. Just to put in here. The real stuff's downstairs in a great big vault."
"Interesting," I murmured, the steel door next to me buzzing open. Dixon made a gesture, indicating that I now had free reign. I could see why. As soon as I passed over the threshold, I saw two security cameras trained on me. I thought they would trace my steps as I walked, but to my surprise, they remained still.
The room was filled with more than just paintings. There were sculptures and models and what looked like the latest ventures into technology, all housed securely behind panels of glass. I strolled down the corridor, looking at the strange, priceless and fake artefacts that the Penguin kept in there. There were security cameras every few feet, watching each of my movements with their frozen gaze.
Halfway down the passage, another corridor intersected it, so I took a left and wandered down a new section of the gallery. Portraits of rich people stared down their noses at me. It didn't take much to figure out that these were the Penguin's relatives.
In between these portraits stood other paintings, all mounted in gilt frames and displayed proudly in glass boxes. Down this section of corridor there were little inlets, these too lined with famous and expensive canvases. At the end of each inlet, there was a window. I studied these closely, before deciding they were set too high up in the wall for me to climb. Besides, three storeys up and I wouldn't have made it to the ground alive.
Gritting my teeth, I continued further on down.
Just as I reached the end, I felt a cool draught swirling around my ankles. I looked right, in the direction of the draught, and discovered that the far window was wide open. Almost instinctively, my head swung to the left.
A dark, feline figure was crouched not ten feet away from me.
Author's Note: Big thank you to everyone reading, following and reviewing! All of your thoughts are appreciated. :)