We'd gone over more riddles, however before I knew it I was waking up on my couch with a blanket over me and my cell phone's alarm going off. Immediate panic settled within me as I darted to a sitting position and looked around the room quickly.

Nothing. Empty.

My cell phone kept buzzing at me. With a grump I reached for it to flip it off, only to see today's alarm had a note attached to it on the screen-

"Seems monkeys need sleep. I set your alarm to give you precisely an hour to be ready for your shift."

I couldn't tell if I should have been embarrassed or mortified. I had let me guard down so much in front of a -rogue- that I'd fallen asleep. But not only that, the mad man knew my entire schedule.

With a click of the television on, immediately the news opened up with the escape of the Riddler last night from Arkham. I groaned loudly, knowing that Steven would be all over it - insisting I had someone watching me at all times. But then again... maybe he was right.

After all - I had actually spent the night with the Riddler. With Edward.

My face felt hot in a flush as I stood and folded the blanket quickly. Edward. He'd insisted on me calling him that. It made him seem more human, more like the man from my high school days...

But that wasn't him.

Either way, he wasn't here... Or was he?

A quick skim through my small apartment proved he wasn't. I laughed at myself for being so paranoid, and began my morning ritual for getting ready for work.

Work was normal - minus everyone freaking out that yet another rogue was loose. It seemed like I was one of the few that felt one hundred percent calm. Some were going as far as saying staying in the building was dangerous - what if The Riddler blew it up?

To that, I snorted. Edward wouldn't have bothered himself with putting up with my "lesser" mind last night if he would just blow me sky high the next day. Honestly, I felt like it was a waste of time to sit and worry over the rogue - he was probably laying low until later in the night... Then the only one to worry would then be me.

Wouldn't I?

I milled over our last night in my mind, staring dumbly into my coffee like it would sprout answers instantaneously. It didn't, of course. I could see the papers on my desk, his hands scribbling notes, his low voice babbling on and on, using words I'd never so much heard of, much less be able to look up in a dictionary. His glasses would fall to the tip of his nose. Occasionally he'd take them off and rub his eyes. When that happened, I'd top off his coffee. Honestly, last night, I was little help. I was the coffee topper.

Brawn and brain, eh?

More like Brain and maid.

Steven asked me multiple times whether or not the Riddler had come for me. For a moment I considered telling him what had happened... and then didn't. Said I enjoyed my Italian alone and went to bed with a book. Did I feel bad for lying to him? A bit... but telling him what I did last night could honestly get me in trouble for not contacting the police sooner.

Why I wasn't telling any of the police what happened last night still went beyond me.

After work, I sat and waiting for another visit from the Riddler.

But he didn't come.

I fell asleep on the couch again, only this time waiting.


I woke to the sound of panicked knocking and hisses. I was again started awake, and a quick glance to the clock read 4:23 AM. I hurried to the front door where the quick knocking and hissing was coming from, just to open it to see a blur of green push past me quickly and slam the door behind him.

Standing still facing the door, my half-awake brain tried to collect what was going on.

"We have to move. Now." Edward hissed at me. Ah. The hissing was him trying to talk through the door while masking his voice.

"What?" My voice cracked from not being awake. He grabbed my hand roughly and tugged me to the living room. A quick look at the blanket on the couch and the wrinkles in my suit made what looked to be a quick smirk on his lips.

"Change out of your uniform. and make it -quick-." He said again. I opened my mouth to speak, but he just hit me on the back of the legs with his cane. With a startled yelp I made my way to my bedroom to change. Once in blue jeans and a white button up, I walked back to my living room while saying,

"And just who do you think you are - ordering me around like thi-"

"Hush!" a gloved hand - looks like he had multiple pairs - was clasped around my mouth. "Hush..."

The hairs stood up on the back of my neck as I became aware that the sound of something loud was thumping by my front door. It was loud, almost hollow, and occasionally the sound of what seemed to be something dragging about followed them. Instinctively I reached for my holster - which was no longer around my waist. Riddler lowered the two of us down closer to the floor, all the while peering through his thick glasses at the doorway.

More thunks. Something slid across the floor of my apartment building and stopped in front of my door. My breath came out in a shudder as I reached across from him to the coffee table, where my holster and gun lay. The gun in my hand was barely a comfort, but the cold steel assured me we at least weren't defenseless. Edward glanced from the door to the gun in my hand, then to my eyes. His lips were thin, straight-laced, he had nothing to say.

That was a change.

He made a motion with his finger toward the window. Move, he was saying, now. Still staying low to the ground, I walked slowly toward the window with the fire escape outside of it, Edward close behind me.

I nearly squealed when the hollow thunk knocked on my door. Edward's hand on my shoulder made me stop in my tracks as the knocks continued, one after the other, some with spaces between them. Looking back at him, I could see he was counting them with his fingers quietly.

"Stop." He said slowly after an array of knocks. More came.

"Looking." He said after another long range of them. I opened my mouth to say something, but was immediately hushed by a finger to my lips.

The knocks stopped. But the dragging didn't.

Scratching, up and down my door. My breath hitched in my throat as I sat in a dumbfounded state below the window to my fire escape. Edward eyes were elsewhere - looking completely through me as he continued to listen. Suddenly, when the scratching stopped, he looked to me and said with a quick whisper

"Out the window. Now."

He didn't have to ask me twice. The thumping started again against my door, this time harder - as if whatever was out there was trying to get in. I reached up quickly to unhitch the window and thrust myself out quickly, turning to climb down the ladder toward the alleyway.

"Stop stop." Edward's head was out the window. "Go up, not down."

"Are you crazy?"

"According to the state, yes. Now up! Trust me!" He was out the window and grabbing my wrist toward the opposite ladder, the one leading up. We hadn't even started climbing when we heard the sound of wood splitting and someone screaming. Panic settled in the pit of my stomach as Edward hoisted himself up the ladder first as lightning speed. I wasn't going to linger, I was at his heels the entire time as we climbed the six stories that were above my own, until finally we were at the roof.

Making it to the top, I immediately turned and pointed my gun down from where we just came, safety already off and gun cocked. Safety protocol was out the door with my buzzing panicking mind as I waited for some sort of monster to emerge from my tiny apartment and come after us.

Edward was gasping for breath behind me. The quiet of the night air whizzed through the buildings. Faintly, I could hear someone - or something - tearing my apartment apartment.

It never came to the window.

The sounds continued for a few more minutes, but left us in silence on the roof of my building. Edward continuously watched the skies, his paranoia of a certain black-cladded man apparent on his expression. I still watched below, readying myself to blow anything away that showed its face.

Nothing.

Finally, safety re-clicked into my pistol, I turned back to the mad-man who very well may have just saved me... Or put me into danger to begin with.

"What was that?!" I demanded. Edward was still surveying the sky, a nervous twitch appearing in one of his eyes.

"We can talk when we move..."

"Move -where-? That's my apartment!"

"Kat, you need to listen to me-"

"The hell I do!" I was already talking more loudly than I should. I waited all night for this maniac, despite it going completely against my job, and now he probably just led some maniac to my own home. If this weren't in the news the next day it would be a miracle - hell, if I still had my job the next day it'd be a miracle.

"Kat." Edward's expression was different now, stiff. "You really sincerely need to listen to me."

"Why? So you can keep telling me to help you escape prison? That's it. I'm taking you down to the station right now like I should have last night and-"

"Kat your mother is dead."

Everything went cold all at once.

"What?"

His frown was deep.

"I'm sorry."

My knees wobbled.

"I tried going directly to her instead, due to your seeming to not be able to fully trust me and-"

The click of the safety off my gun pierced the air.

His arms were up in immediate surrender as I pointed the weapon at him.

"What?"

"Calm. Down." His hissed. "Really, you think you'd be a little calmer being such a supposed good police officer-"

"Your pompous bitching isn't helping you!" I shrieked back at him, shaking the gun with my words.

"Pompous? I would say I'm many things but not pompous... Over-zealous? Yes. Intelligent, yes! But pompous - no."

"How about murderer!?" To be tricked by someone like him.

Disgusting little...

"I didn't kill her. She was dead before I got there."

Silence.

"You're lying."

There was a pause.

And then he smiled. It was sickenly sweet, a smile that froze my heart as I felt everything I feared in coming in contact with this dangerous man come to fruitation. The one that was not of Edwards, but of the Riddlers. The precise one that showed he really belonged in Arkham.

"...I am."

Squeazing the trigger was the last thing I heard before I felt my body hit the floor and all the breath be taken from me as my body went into shock. From above me, I could somehow hear Edward screaming my name.