AN: Hi, it's been a while.

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"Don't let them see you cry, when the dam breaks down and the city is covered in water."

Chapter Thirteen

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It had been a month since Bane had taken over the city and stolen Hadeel away from the world, three weeks had passed since the girl he took stopped being careful. She was now more easily angered and didn't hesitate to tell Barsad or Bane how she felt that morning, whether it was a good mood or a foul one. Bane liked the new Hadeel better because she was more entertaining, the way she would talk about her past costumers and how pissed off they made her when she went into work every night. He'd agree with her when she complained about how idiotic people had gotten, often coming to return items that only cost one dollar and whining about how they didn't work.

It had been two and a half weeks since she'd started plotting; she was compliant and didn't try to escape, showing Bane that she had learned her lesson after the first few days. This was where she belonged now and she understood that, at least it appeared that she did, on the surface she had turned into a loud obnoxious person. Someone that Bane had only ever seen hiding beneath the surface of her timid personality, something that he had always wanted her to be. There were a few things he still wanted her to show him, but if Bane was anything with Hadeel, it was patient.

Barsad had grown accustomed to the girl growling about one thing or another, occasionally screaming at herself in a shower or even rehearsing lines from movies just for the heck of it. She'd gotten over her hatred for him slightly and often told him that now she tolerated him like she did all of her almost friends. When asked what category Bane fit into her answer fell short and she would stare at the man with an odd expression on her face before shrugging and saying she hated him a bit more than she hated Barsad.

What they didn't know was that Hadeel was ready, any day now she was going to go about her master plan and escape to find her family. She was going to wait until Bane was out for the night to leave Barsad in charge of his little captive, and then she was going to make a scene, something that would make her guard run to get Bane. He'd have to leave someone in charge while he was gone, someone who didn't know how Hadeel behaved, she'd ambush the replacement and sneak out of the building into the dark.

She'd mulled it over for a week before finally deciding that it was the best course of action against the two men that kept her in their sights at all times. She'd waited until the watchful eye they always had on her slacked slightly, everything she was doing now was something she had been doing for the last two weeks.

Everything churned wildly in her head as she stared out the window into the darkness that Gotham had become, a black emptiness in her mind and in the city whenever the sun went down. She didn't bother to question whether or not she was ready to go outside, did she even want to see what had happened to her old home? Would her family still be there? Would Bane find her before she even got anywhere? Was it safe to walk around anymore? They were all questions that ebbed away at the back of her mind, but she daren't think about them, instead they dripped down her throat like poison. If she believed them to be alright, wouldn't they have to be?

Foolish thinking, she knew it was. But it was the only thing keeping her going as she hid her determined expression behind angry pupils every time Bane came through the door, he couldn't know what she was planning. If he knew, somehow found out, he'd chain her to the bed, or double the guards in order to make sure she never had a chance or even a thought about escaping again. She could imagine his body against hers as he asked her why she ever thought she would be able to escape him, or why she would even want to. His fingers would dig into her skin when she turned away from him with a bitter anger in her eyes, she knew him too well.

For a moment her mind was blank before she smiled at herself softly, her thoughts had gotten so dark since she'd come to know Bane and his henchmen. Just like the city her lights and innocence had all but vanished under the dark fog that the man had brought into the city, clouding anything that had once been a sign of hope. It reminded her of a song she'd played in her high school concert band, a piece that had been made for a movie and sung for what a character used to be. Her throat itched as she thought of the words; recently she'd only been singing upbeat songs as she tried to force herself into a state of normality for the sake of her plan. But now felt like the right time to sing something more melancholy and sad, as if to let those questions she had bottled up escape into the air and out of her mind.

"Where once was light, now darkness falls. Where once was love, love is no more," she rasped trying to get down to lower notes. "Don't say – Goodbye. Don't say—I didn't try," her voice seemed to shake a little as everything from the month before rushed back to her. Hadeel clenched her teeth bitterly before continuing.

Bane was approaching from down the hallway and could already hear his little song bird's breathy voice, only when he reached for the doorknob could he hear how sorrowful her voice sounded. It made him feel itchy as he wondered what expression the girl was making; slowly he opened the door to see Barsad leaning against the wall. He was staring in the same direction that Hadeel was, as if somehow included in the conversation that was her song.

"For all the lies you told us, the hurt, the blame," she sang powerfully. It had been about a week since her voice had sounded this clear and Bane relished in the feeling it wrapped around them, somehow her emotions were feeding this song. He'd have fun finding out just how his song bird had given such a strong feeling to the song she was singing, as if she was the one being betrayed. "And we will weep, to be so alone. We are lost, we can never go home," she sang the end breathlessly.

Hadeel had heard Bane come into the apartment, perhaps it was one of the only times she had noticed his entering, but at the moment she didn't care. If anything she wanted him to hear this song, because if everything went according to plan the next night, it would be the last song he would ever hear her sing. A dark melodic tune that proved to him how much she hated it here, how her heart was slowly eating away at her mind everyday she spent another night staring out at the dark city below her. She'd rather be out there in the emptiness where no one would be able to see her, than in a room with a man who was trying to take her apart piece by piece. She hadn't spent all those years keeping people away just so one man could break it down in a few months.

If anything she sang louder now, as if to say goodbye without having to actually voice it.

"So in the end, I'll be what I will be. No loyal friend, was ever there for me. Now we say—Goodbye. We say – you didn't try," her voice grew as it neared the chorus line. "These tears you cry have come too late. Take back the lies, the hurt, the blame. And you will weep, when you face the end alone. You are lost! You can never go home," she sang powerfully until the last two lines, her voice fading into a soft whisper. "You are lost, you can never go home," she repeated the last bit again.

It was quiet for a little while as they all stared out the window; Hadeel pulled the sheet that she'd wrapped around herself tighter before letting herself fall sideways towards the carpet. Landing on her shoulder before her cheek rubbed against the scratchy material of the floor beneath her. There was a very small part of her that didn't want to leave, a tiny voice that whispered.

You won't make it.

She spoke to them normally after that, Bane tried to give her a book but she gave him a bland expression before telling him a summary of what the story was about. Out of all the books in the world he could have chosen to bring back to her he grabbed one she had already read.

"You suck at picking books," she'd murmured before tunneling into her blanket and couch cushion fort.

The man's response was to throw the book at her fort, knocking it over and hitting Hadeel on the arm, her fortress turned into a mess of blankets and pillows. He'd stared at her with a hint of deviance in his eyes when her brown hair poked through the white material to turn and glare at him as if he'd just destroyed a child's sandcastle.

The man had gotten used to picking on her in order to get different reactions and reveled in each new expression he earned from the girl. Although there were a great many others he wished he could elicit without having to hurt her, for instance he wanted to see the look of betrayal on her face. An expression where her eyes would be filled with rage while tears ran down her cheeks and her mouth twisted into a snarl. He'd wait until it neared the end of the six months to get those out of her, then it wouldn't matter if she never wanted to speak to him again because they'd all die anyway.

That night before he left Hadeel sang the same song in her room again, he waited until it was over to leave the apartment and let Barsad take the watch over again. There was a reason he came back every night to see the girl, for one it was something that kept him going during the day. Another reason why was because she was the only thing he still couldn't predict the outcome of, and that was something that made him want to watch.

Late the next day Hadeel started acting weird; Barsad noticed almost immediately the stony look in her eyes as she walked around the apartment, as if she'd stayed up all night. He thought nothing of it until she started to wander around in a circle in her bedroom before moving into the living room.

"What's wrong?" He asked expecting some sort of smart retort.

"Hurts," she muttered fisting her hand into the back of her shirt. "Maybe phantom pain, but still, hurts," she repeated turning to place her cheek against the cold glass. It only lasted a few seconds before she went back to walking in circles that Barsad quickly tired of.

"Does walking in circles help?" He questioned sinking down the wall to sit in his chair. It was exhausting just watching her trudge around the small space; his eyes searched hers intently for traces of a lie.

"Just need to move," she explained continuing to wander until finally plopping down on the couch. He sighed and turned away from her form and she glared out the window angrily. For some reason whenever she'd hurt herself recently she just seemed to get more angry at herself than anything else in the room. He'd been expecting something like this.

What he hadn't expected was the growling and twisting and turning that happened in the next hour as the sun began to set against the window. Normally she would sit and watch the clouds change colors but tonight she was writhing in pain on the couch, something he had not yet seen from the girl was pain so evident.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it," she whispered over and over again before flopping off the side of the couch. "Damn it," she shouted briefly before trying to claw at her sides.

"I'll send someone to get pain killers for you," he stood up quickly when she started to snarl again.

"I'm allergic to them, I've already built up a tolerance," she replied in a pained voice.

From what Barsad understood, or what Bane had told, was that Hadeel had troubles with kidney stones and had been in the hospital many times to have them taken care of. She was allergic to a handful of medications and also reacted badly to a lot of powerful painkillers that harmed her more than helped her. It was a viable answer that he had forgotten about, but by then he'd raked his mind for ideas. If Bane came back to find out that Barsad had let Hadeel stew in pain for hours he'd be in trouble, perhaps he would have to go send someone for their leader.

"Didn't you have something you used to do at home to lessen the pain?" He questioned hoping she'd remember something that would help.

"Heating pad," was her answer. Obviously not something they had there, but he just couldn't stand to see her so miserable anymore.

Rushing out into the hallway Barsad grabbed the closest guard he could find and put him on watch outside the girl's room before rushing to see if he could find Bane. He hoped that the man would finish early and come back in time to help Hadeel before she suffered anymore than she had to. But Bane wouldn't be coming back anytime soon so Barsad did the next best thing and radioed the nearest patrol car, hoping it might catch sight of him. He then sprinted back up the stairs with the only pain killer he had managed to find; perhaps Hadeel wasn't allergic to this one.

The sight that met him back at her room was horrific; there was blood on the floor and handprints of crimson on the wall as if someone had been dragged. A bloody book lay next to the guard Barsad had left to look after Hadeel, he was still breathing and only momentarily knocked out, with a small cut on his forehead. The man staring at the scene wondered for a split second whether or not anything had been real before tearing back out the door in search of their missing song bird. He hadn't stopped to think about how so much blood could have come from such a tiny cut on the man's head, and that perhaps the blood might be from Hadeel instead.

All that mattered at the moment was finding the one person he never thought would be able to escape, the person who'd been smart enough to trick him.

After five minutes of looking he found her three floors down, they'd stared at each other for a few moments from either side of a long hallway. She was holding a bloodied sheet tightly against her forearm, it dragged on the ground when she moved and prevented her arm from dripping a trail of red on the carpet.

"I wish you'd let me go," she said in a calm voice.

"You know why I can't," his reply was simple.

"That's why it's only a wish," her voice was softer when she spoke this time.

They held each other gazes for a moment longer before Hadeel dashed around a corner and out of Barsad's sight, he chased her without hesitation. Turning sharply around the same corner he saw an empty hallway that came to a dead end, which meant that the girl was hiding in one of the doorways on either side. Just as he passed one she jumped at him, only to be easily pushed to the side as she stumbled uselessly on the sheet she'd not let go of. In one hand she was holding an already bloody knife, the other was held back against her side while blood dripped down her fingers from a jagged cut on her forearm.

He was angry all at once when he figured out that it was probably the guard's knife she was holding, he'd more than likely pulled it on her when she tried to catch him by surprise. Now her own blood coated her fingers making it hard to hold the knife with a firm grip.

She was wild against him, but she hadn't been trained like he had so her hits and nails were easily deflected or dodged as Barsad reached for the bloody sheet she'd dropped near them. Not without trouble did he finally force her into the sheet and tie the ends behind her form, pinning her arms to her body and halting her flailing.

"It was a good plan, you had me fooled," he offered her a small compliment at least.

"Obviously it wasn't good enough," she said with a low growl in her throat.

"He would've found you anyway," Barsad muttered bending down to pick the girl up. Did she not understand that Bane wasn't going to let her go no matter how much she kicked and screamed? Of course she understood, that was why she had waited until the man was gone to act; Hadeel was a lot smarter than they gave her credit for.

"Maybe," she muttered as he started to take her back towards the apartment. "Shit," she swore. It was rare to hear her angry enough to use that word. "God damn it, if only that bastard hadn't cut me," she snarled. Barsad was quiet on the way back up, he made sure to put her in the apartment next to her old one, he wasn't so cruel that he would leave her in a room painted with her own blood. Not when he was keeping the guard in the room for Bane to deal with when he returned. He opened the door to an almost identical room and kitchen, the couch was slightly bigger and a different color but otherwise it was much of the same.

"I'll need to bandage your arm," he muttered while setting her on the floor in front of the floor to ceiling window. It was night time outside and Hadeel was quiet for a moment while she gazed outside into the darkness that surrounded them. The light inside the room was dim and Hadeel could barely make out her own reflection in the window.

"No, let it bleed," her voice was cold and stern.

"Hadeel," he started to say but she cut him off.

"Leave me the hell alone," she growled. "Just let me stew in my anger for a while," she said a little softer. In the end it wasn't Barsad's fault, well it was, but it wasn't. If he let her escape it would be his life that she had let fall away from the world, and if there was anyone in the building she wanted to save it was Barsad.

"When Bane gets back-," she cut him off in a quiet voice.

"I know."

The least he could do was leave her alone, after chasing her down when she'd made a valiant move towards freedom, he could at least leave her alone until the master of the building returned. If she had just been some random hostage that Bane didn't even know the name of he would have probably let her leave without much of a fuss. But Hadeel was the song bird that kept the monster of a man sane while walking around the corrupted streets of the city, and a monster needed its pet.

-0-0-

When Bane finally opened the door to her room Hadeel continued to stare out the window, she had a few requests for the man who was bitter behind her. Why she ever thought she could escape this building guarded by the very men that had taken over the city was beyond her, and yet it hadn't hurt to try. Although it had, it had hurt. Scratch that, her arm still ached from where it had been cut into not two hours before, although the bleeding had stopped there was a visible crimson stain on the sheet that held her subdued.

The man breathed deeply as he shut the door quietly and stared at his white blob of a songbird on the floor in front of him. In truth he had been expecting her to try and escape at least once, he'd been waiting for Barsad to explain that she had tried to trick him but in the end hadn't made it out of the room. What he hadn't been expecting to hear was that Hadeel had done wonderfully and acted well enough for the man to run for help and leave someone else in charge of the girl. She'd been sly and defeated the man; even injured she'd made it a good distance away before Barsad had found her and subdued her.

"Have I not made myself clear?" Bane questioned softly, breaking the silence.

She didn't answer nor did she turn to look at him, her white covered form stayed static and continued to stare out into the darkness of the city in front of her. There was an urge that rose within her suddenly, to scream at him that he should have left her keys alone when he found them in the rain that night. He should have ignored the weird girl that seemed to catch the worst kind of attention, left alone the person who already suffered enough. Her voice rose within her throat but instead of opening her mouth and letting it loose she swallowed the wretched thing away.

"Is it that you don't feel safe here? Would you rather be out there? People are killing each other for food and fighting for anything good that they can find. You wouldn't last a day out there," he muttered while walking over to her form. He could see her walking down the street with some man watching her from an abandoned building; he could hear her grunting against the stranger's rugged form as he covered her mouth and stole her away from the world again. Pretty things didn't last long in the dark murkiness of such a city.

"I'm tired," she finally spoke. Her voice was so raspy and quiet that Bane wasn't sure if she had spoken at all.

"Are you still having nightmares?" He asked gently. His form stopped next to her on t carpet before sinking into the ground and looking into her pupils that looked past him. "Or is it something else?"

"I want to go outside, to walk somewhere outside this building," she said gently. "But I know you won't let me," she whispered before he could find the words to respond. "You've already put me inside this cage, if you opened the door I'd never want to come back."

She was a bird, just like he had said a songbird for his entertainment. A creature kept inside and hidden away from the world and anyone else who might want to listen, he'd clipped her wings so she couldn't even get away anymore. If he opened the door and let her go free, if she even stretched her wings outside for a moment she'd never want to go back inside again.

"You're correct," he said while pulling her towards him slowly. Her bloody arm had leaked through the sheet and stained the carpet beneath her a long time ago, though she had made no move to get away from it.

It was quiet for a while between them as Bane untied the material that had restrained her for the last two hours and sat her in front of him like a child playing with a doll. She made no move to jerk away from him when he touched her arm and looked at the cut, his eyes hardened at the thought of someone raising a knife against her. Hadeel looked at him defeated, an exhausted expression on her face told him that she had been having trouble sleeping, how he hadn't noticed was unknown, and perhaps he couldn't get past her behavior recently. It was only after he finished off her arm, tying the bandage and inspecting the rest of her body to make sure everything else was fine that she let the words slip from her lips.

"Do you want to see?" She questioned.

"What is there to see?" He asked reaching up to ruffle her lopsided hairdo. She didn't shrink away from him like she had before.

"If you find me paint and brushes I'll let you see the inside of my mind," her voice was shallow. "You'll be the first person to know what it's like to be Hadeel. To suffocate in the light and get lost in the darkness," he got caught in her gaze as she explained herself. Her eyes seemed to shine with a sparse amount of gold just around her iris; Bane wondered if he had ever seen such a color in those orbs before.

"If you're a good songbird in the next few months, I might take you outside," he said watching for a reaction. There was the smallest amount of change in her expression.

"Okay."

-0-0-

Bane sent his men out to look for paint when they had nothing else to do; the first can they brought back was a dark midnight blue can of house paint. It was already half empty when they opened it but Hadeel didn't care, anything that would help get her mind off being stuck indoors. Barsad eventually found her some paintbrushes, a huge one, a handful of varying medium sizes, and a couple small itty bitty ones. She was halfway through painting her first wall when a man named Jedda brought her a can of yellow; he turned out to be the same man that Hadeel had met at the stock exchange so long ago. He didn't tell the girl at the time but he was sad that she had changed so much since their last meeting; her smiling face had worn down into a dead stare. She had offered him a couple grins while joking about what she could do with yellow paint, but they weren't the same as they had been two months before.

She still thought his eyes were pretty.

"What's your name?" She asked him before Barsad could push him out of the room. "Do you know his name Barsad?" She asked of the other man when he remained silent.

"Jedda," he finally introduced himself.

"Short for Jeddidiah?" She questioned scrubbing at some dried paint on her arm. It was then that he noticed she was covered in the dark blue paint, not dissimilar to a skin disease, there were even what looked like fingerprints on her neck. When she's asked the question a curious smile had found its way onto her lips, one that reminded Jedda of the girl he'd sometimes caught a glimpse of in the sewers.

"No," he replied making the girl frown.

"Well fine then," she exclaimed suddenly exasperated.

They found her a full can of black paint, which she used to paint the rest of the living room with. Bane enjoyed watching the walls around him change colors and get more and more shapes as Hadeel's imagination ran wild. The only room he hadn't seen yet was the bedroom, because she refused to let him look at it until she was completely done, and even though he was anxious to see what could possibly be inside. He'd wait and respect Hadeel's wishes, if he broke her trust now she wouldn't do anything for him anymore.

Next was purple, then orange, and much to Hadeel's dismay they had found a small can of pink, it wasn't her favorite color but at least she could paint a sunset or something now. The next time Jedda saw her he was bringing in another can of black paint and a few more paintbrushes, she looked really tired. As if she hadn't slept at all since the last time they had seen each other, and although Jedda couldn't quite tell with the baggy clothing she was wearing it looked as though she had lost weight as well.

She'd painted birds all over the walls of the kitchen and living room, they were black, dark blue, and dark purple, hundreds of them fading into each other and perching on windowsills, sitting on the ground where the carpet met the wall. They were sitting on power lines and peeking out from behind the refrigerator, larger sized birds that towered over the smaller ones, intricately designed feathers with patterns. In some places there were lines of color hidden underneath the dark lines that were the feathers; some of them had curved beaks while others had short sharp ones.

The apartment was large for a one bedroom space but Hadeel had wasted no time in filling up the walls with all different kinds of birds, it was wondrous to look at them all. The only place where the size of the birds was unsettling was near the bedroom, where their heads and beaks towered over any who dared enter. Parts of their bodies had begun to shift and change into something else, tearing themselves apart, exposing muscles and blood Hadeel painted on. She almost looked excited to paint the gore around her, though at time Barsad and Jedda might have heard her gag and seem disgusted by her own handiwork.

She was tired, so very tired with this thing she called life now, getting up every day to see all these birds that represented different people, all of them able to fly away from such a place. Then she walked into her bedroom and saw herself, trapped and tearing at her own skin. Waking in cold sweat from nightmares and feeling sick when she would eat something that reminded her of being anywhere but here. If she thought not getting sleep in high school was bad this was a whole other level of exhaustion. Hadeel wondered if her body would just give up, would she one day just crumple into the ground and not wake up?

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"Cause I believe we fly, when the moon takes shape and I doze off, on your shoulders."
-Manchester Orchestra

AN: How is everyone doing?