Chapter Seven: One Hour Until the World Ends

"Go get her cleaned up brother," Talia instructed Bane before she returned her eyes to Gwendolyn's, scoffing at her frazzled appearance, in polar opposition of her coifed, polished television personality.

"Fix your face," she snipped. "You're on the air in sixty minutes."

Gwendolyn stared at Talia, slowly exhaling on a shudder as Talia lowered the gun to rest at her side.

Talia nodded towards Bane and murmured a few words in their shared dead language.

Gwendolyn felt her heart jump up into her throat when Bane closed his large hand around her upper arm and pulled her through an entirely different door.

"Why does this room have so many doors?" Gwendolyn thought amidst everything as Bane's grip didn't invite a mere breath of refusal.

The heavy wood door opened to another plush office, this one decorated in the muted tones of Autumn.

Gwendolyn's spiked heels sank into the lush carpet fibers, struggling to keep her balance as she tried to look everywhere at once.

She bolted across the room and pulled on the locked gold-toned doorknob, pounding at the door with a series of screams.

"Stop shouting or I'll be forced to silence you," Bane wheezed to her back.

"And if I stop shouting, what? I live?" she asked as she turned to face him.

Bane nodded. "You'll live to speak Talia ah Ghul's words."

Gwendolyn's mind went through her criminal catalog, recalling the actions of Talia's father.

"I won't speak any of her filth."

Bane regarded her in potent silence as she cleared her throat and continued. "So, it's back to killing me?"

Before he could answer, a gunshot sounded through the heavy door, closely followed by another.

"Please, make her stop," Gwendolyn shouted, knowing it was futile to even try to move past the masked mountain of a man.

After one more boom from the titanium barrel, the gunfire ended.

"She's done," Bane wheezed mechanically.

As Gwendolyn dropped to her knees, in time with the thud of the falling body of the OWL Newsgroup's COO, every last bit of wind drained from any semblance of sails, on the other side of the heavy door, Talia passed her spent gun to the nearest armed man in her murderous party and resumed sitting behind the massive desk.

She leaned back in the comfortable chair and watched the well-paid men mill about like regimented drones for the queen bee, bagging the fallen bodies and ferrying them to waiting, nondescript grey vans, a colorful logo of a fake dry-cleaners name and number stenciled on the sides.

Talia closed her eyes as she envisioned each word of hers that Gwendolyn was going to speak. She fantasized about her own truth and hatred spilling from Gwendolyn's shapely, glossy lips, how she was going to use her dangerous beliefs to attach itself to Gwendolyn's lovely voice and distort.

Talia's lips pulled into a wide smile as she imagined how she was going to use Gwendolyn's voice to crawl into the ear canals of every Gothamite, raping their eardrums with her own vitriol and hyperbole.

As Talia continued to daydream about her words coming out of the news goddess's supple lips on high definition; on the other side of the closed door, Bane stared down at Gwendolyn from where she had dropped to the plush carpet.

"Stand up Miss Mourn," Bane ordered in a dark melodic tone.

When Gwendolyn made no effort to stand, Bane walked towards her, covering the distance between them in just a few steps before he reached down and gripped her upper arm. "It is time to rise and do your job," he rasped as he easily pulled her to her feet.

"I can't," Gwendolyn said as she uselessly expended energy to struggle in his unbreakable hold.

"You can and you will," Bane stated promptly, pointing to the hamper of designer clothes that Barsad had deposited earlier in the adjoining executive office.

Gwendolyn had missed its presence entirely, even though the bright fabrics were a loud stain amongst the comforting shades and soothing colors of the room's décor.

"Please," Gwendolyn cried in a shrill tone, nothing like her news anchor nationally televised voice. "Let me go, right out that door. No one would have to know the how of it all," she stammered as she reached for the locked doorknob behind her.

An amused chuckle spilled from the front of Bane's mask, the haunting tone giving Gwendolyn goosebumps.

"What could you begin to offer for that Miss Mourn?"

"Money," Gwendolyn started with, adding hurriedly, tripping over her own frantic words. "Early polling results, I can tell you who'll win from the Grand Antiquated Party."

Bane tightened his grip on her upper arm, feeling her brachial pulse violently under his scarred fingertips. "I didn't think you'd entertain the idea of negotiating with terrorists Miss Mourn, doesn't that offend your impeachable principles?"

Gwendolyn flushed hotly from a combination of anger and embarrassment.

Talia's voice came from behind Bane, Gwendolyn hadn't seen her walk in, unable to see around his broad body.

"You'll need this," Talia stated as she held out a copy of the Gotham City Gazette.

Gwendolyn's first exclusive news report would serve the dual purpose of providing proof of life.

Bane squeezed Gwendolyn's upper arm until she hissed in pain, her arm tingled from where his hold cut off the blood flow to her forearm. He lessened his hold only when she reached out and took the newspaper from Talia with a visibly shaking hand.

"Don't think your offers illicit any excitement Miss Mourn, nothing is more enticing than breaking the people of Gotham City," Talia murmured coolly, reaching out to grip Gwendolyn's chin. "Even though you possess a rare beauty," she added in a low tone.

"Stunningly so," Bane thought, careful to keep that agreement to himself, his visible features expressionless.