Chapter 2

Dex

Dex leaned back against the headboard in his room in the no-questions-asked hotel in a not-yet-gentrified section of Hell's Kitchen. He couldn't seem to get comfortable. In fact, the whole place made him uneasy. It felt chaotic, disorderly. He craved structure and order. But he couldn't risk going to a classier place, not with the whole NYPD looking for him. The photos of him that had been plastered across TV screens and the Internet were months out of date, but he wasn't going to take any chances. No longer an FBI agent, he'd let his hair grow long, and stubble helped to obscure his facial features. He'd also put on weight, in the form of muscle mass, mostly in his upper body when he was learning to walk again. He pulled out the wallet he'd lifted from a clueless dumbass who looked more or less like him. Studying the ID, he wondered how much longer it was good for. He'd better start looking for another mark. He could use some more cash, too.

He stood up and began to pace, as much as the cramped space allowed. He was beginning to think he had fucked up by going after Daredevil first. He thought it would be easier to get to Karen Page if Daredevil was out of the way. Now he wasn't so sure. It would have been better, he concluded, to go after Karen first, before she even knew he was out. He'd blown his chance to get to her before she could run. Now she'd rabbited, God knows where. He kept tabs on her while he was inside and knew she'd gone back to work with the two lawyers, Nelson and Murdock. But the office she shared with them was closed and dark. He'd also scoped out her apartment, but there was no trace of her there, either. Nelson and Murdock also seemed to have vanished. The only good news was that there was no sign of Daredevil. Maybe he'd hurt the guy worse than he thought.

His agitation increased as he obsessed about the missed opportunity and the fact that Karen was still alive. His failure to finish the job gnawed at him. It made no difference that it was Wilson Fisk who ordered Karen killed in the first place. Dex had failed, and failure was not acceptable. It was his mission now. He stopped his pacing. He needed the release that would come from throwing something or putting a fist through the wall. But he couldn't afford to leave any signs of his presence here. Be patient, he counseled himself. He'd been waiting and planning for months. A few more days wouldn't make any difference. Sooner or later, one of them had to surface. Then he would make his move.

Karen

Karen followed Foggy and Marci into Fogwell's. Marci wrinkled her nose and asked, "This is the safe house?"

"So, what, you were expecting the Presidential Hotel?" Foggy asked.

"No, but – "

"This is where we holed up with Ray Nadeem," Foggy explained, "when Fisk and Poindexter were looking for us. They never found out about this place. We should be safe here. And Matt, if he's out there, he'll know to look for us here."

"OK." Marci looked around. "Wait, was that Matt's dad?" she asked, gesturing toward the faded and torn "Crusher Creel vs. Battlin' Jack Murdock" poster on the wall.

"Yes," Foggy replied. "That was the fight Jack didn't throw, that got him murdered."

"Shit," Marci muttered. "I could almost feel sorry for Matt – "

Karen interrupted her. "Don't," she snapped.

"Oh, I don't," Marci assured her. "What I was going to say was, I could almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn't such an asshole sometimes."

"You have no idea," Karen muttered under her breath.

"OK, OK," Foggy interjected. "Can we all agree that Matt can be an asshole, and move on? Can we also agree we need to find him – and Poindexter?" He went over to the table where they had met with Ray Nadeem on the day he was murdered. He pulled out a chair and sat down. Karen and Marci joined him.

Karen sat down and lowered her head, resting it on her folded arms on the table top. But not for long. Suddenly she sat up with a jerk. She felt the blood drain from her face, and a feeling of dread grew in the pit of her stomach.

"Karen! What is it?" Foggy exclaimed. "You're white as a sheet."

"Sister Maggie," she whispered.

"But Matt wouldn't go to her," Foggy protested. "He'd never knowingly put her in danger."

"Not Matt – Poindexter." Karen explained. "He has to know she hid Matt and me in the church – that night." She pushed the memory back into the recesses of her mind. She didn't have time to dwell on the horrors of Poindexter's invasion of the church and Father Lantom's sacrifice.

"Oh, shit," Marci murmured. "The kids at the orphanage . . . ." Her voice trailed off.

"I'll call Brett," Foggy said, then addressed Karen. "You call Maggie."

Karen pulled out her phone and dialed. Her anxiety peaked during the several minutes it took for one of the sisters to locate Maggie and for Maggie to come to the phone. Finally Maggie answered. "Karen?"

"Yes, it's me." Then her words started to spill out of her. "Matt, he's missing, and Poindexter escaped, and he may be coming after you, you're in danger, you need to be somewhere safe – "

She got that far before Maggie interrupted her. "Slow down, take a deep breath. You said Matthew's missing."

Karen took a gasping breath. "Yes. No one's seen him since last night."

"He's not here," Maggie told her.

"No, he wouldn't be, not with Poindexter on the loose. He wouldn't put you in danger. But you're in danger anyway. Poindexter knows you hid Matt and me."

"You're right. He does," Maggie said matter-of-factly.

"We need to get you somewhere safe. Foggy's calling Brett Mahoney, and – "

"No."

"But, Sister – "

"You know Poindexter, Karen. If he comes after me, he'll stop at nothing. If I'm not here, he's capable of killing everyone in this place, including the children, to find out where I am. I'm not letting that happen."

Karen sighed. "You're as bad as Matt."

"Why, thank you," Maggie said primly.

"But you will accept police protection for the church and the orphanage, whether you want it or not."

"I will," Maggie conceded. After a moment, she added, "And you'll let me know, won't you, as soon as you have any news of Matthew?"

"I will," Karen assured her, and ended the call. She turned to Foggy with a questioning look.

"Brett's on it," he assured her. "But we still need to look for Poindexter – and Matt."

Karen thought for a moment. "Brett said he was going to check the hospitals. But we know, if Matt's injured, that's the last place he would go – voluntarily, anyway."

"You're right," Foggy agreed. He was silent for a few beats, then added, "You know, I heard Claire – you know, Claire Temple, the nurse – is back in town, working at a free clinic in Harlem."

"But Matt wouldn't go all the way uptown," Karen objected.

"Probably not. But I'm guessing Claire has contacts at other free clinics and places where people can get treated off the books. Maybe she'd be willing to make a few calls."

Karen nodded. "Good. And I'm going to call Ellison. He might hear about sightings of Daredevil or Poindexter that the cops don't know about." She picked up her phone and dialed.

Ellison answered immediately. "Karen! Thank God. Please tell me you're somewhere safe."

"I am," Karen assured him, "at an 'undisclosed location'." She could hear Ellison's sigh of relief through the phone.

"What can I do?" Ellison asked. "Anything – just ask."

"If your people hear about any sightings of Daredevil or Poindexter, we need to know."

"OK." Ellison fell silent, then said, "Poindexter I get, but Daredevil?"

"We think he may be going after Poindexter himself. He could lead us to Poindexter."

"OK, that makes sense. I'll call you when we have something. And you call me if you need anything, anything at all. You got that?"

"Got it. And thanks." Karen ended the call.

Foggy put his phone on speaker to call Claire. "Foggy Nelson," she said. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"It's our mutual friend."

She sighed. "Of course it is. What is it now?"

"He's missing. No one's seen or heard from him since yesterday."

Claire scoffed. "He's gone for a day, and you're worried? About the guy who let us all think for months that he was dead?"

"This is different" Foggy asserted. "Poindexter escaped."

"Oh," Claire said. "Murderous psychopath, likes to throw shit?"

"Yeah, that one."

"Son of a bitch," Claire muttered. "OK, I see why you're worried. But what can I do?"

"We think Matt might be going after him."

Claire interrupted, "Of course he is." She sighed.

Foggy continued, "Which means there's a good chance he'll be injured – "

"You think? But I doubt he'd call me."

"Maybe not," Foggy admitted. "But he might go to a free clinic somewhere, or maybe some other place, you know, where he can get patched up, off the books."

"True. And you're thinking I might know about places like that."

"Exactly."

"Well, you're not wrong. I'll make some calls and let you know if I hear anything."

"Thank you." Foggy ended the call.

Karen looked at him. "Now what?"

"Now we wait, I guess."

Matt

"Let's get out of here," the voice said. The speaker held out her hand. Matt took it. He groaned softly as he got to his feet with her help.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"You don't know?"

He shook his head, then held on to one of the trash cans for support when his dizziness returned. "No. I can't see anything. I was unconscious, I think, and when I woke up, uh, I couldn't see."

"Wait, what?" she exclaimed. "You can't see? Why aren't you freaking out?"

"I did that already," he said with a tight half-grin. "But I think I was blind before, uh, before . . . whatever happened here." He waved his hand.

"You think?" she asked skeptically.

"I can't remember."

"Let me get this straight," she said. "You're blind, and you've lost your memory. Sounds like a bad Lifetime movie to me." She shook her head. "That's seriously fucked up."

"Sorry about that," Matt said contritely. "So what's your name?"

"My clueless parents named me Madison. You can call me Maddie. What's yours? Please tell me you remember your name at least."

"Um." Matt concentrated, searching for the answer. "Maddie" sounded familiar, actually. Finally, he said, doubtfully, "Matty. I think."

"Jesus, you really are fucked up. I'm Maddie."

"No, not 'Maddie'," he said. "'Matty.' You know, like, short for 'Matthew'."

"OK, Matty, let's get you out of here." She grabbed his arm and started to drag him toward the mouth of the alley.

"You're doing it wrong," he told her, jerking his arm from her grasp and taking hold of her arm instead. "This is how you do it."

"Oh. Sorry."

As they walked out of the alley, Matt said, "You never answered my question. Where are we?"

"An alley off 46th Street, in Hell's Kitchen. You know where that is, right?"

Matt thought for a moment. "Yeah. I think so. So where are we going?"

"Me and my crew, we have a place not far from here. You can hang with us until we figure out what to do with you."

Matt didn't like the sound of that. "What to do with me?" he asked. "Don't I get a say in that?"

"Sure, no problem," Maddie answered airily. Matt didn't believe her. No, it was more than that. Somehow, he knew she was lying.

When they emerged from the alley and turned onto the sidewalk, Matt could feel the sun on his face. It was daytime, apparently. Then he noticed something else. If he focused on his surroundings, he was able to perceive the unseen world all around him: people in front of him, to both sides, even behind him; dogs on leashes stopping to sniff then moving on; cars parked at the curb and passing in the street; the mass of the buildings. They were all . . . there, just like the trash cans in the alley when he first woke up. As he walked past a lamppost, he reached out and brushed it lightly with his fingertips. It was exactly where he knew it would be. He knew when someone or something moved, too. He marveled at this mysterious ability of his. It was as if he was seeing with his whole body instead of his eyes. If he knew where he was, and where he was going, he wouldn't even need Maddie to guide him. Then an awful thought occurred to him. He hoped to God this wasn't temporary, some aftereffect of a blow to the head or whatever had happened last night. He started to tell Maddie, then thought better of it. No, it would be his secret, until he knew more about what was happening to him, and more about Maddie and her "crew."

They turned the corner onto a street that felt more like a major thoroughfare: more cars, more people, the sound of a subway line running under the street. Probably an avenue. Among the passing voices, he heard a voice that reminded him of someone, someone he knew. Then a memory came to him: a man's voice, filled with laughter, saying "the best damn avocados." There was no visual memory, only the man's voice, the beer on his breath, and the awareness of his presence, occupying the space next to him. It must be someone he'd never seen. More evidence that he was blind before last night. At least his memory was starting to come back. He hoped.

Maddie stopped suddenly in the middle of the second block. Matt could sense her head moving, as if she was looking around, checking their surroundings. Then she led him to a chain link fence. She put his hand on it. There was a gap there. "You hold this open, and I'll go through, then I'll hold it open for you," she instructed him. He followed her instructions, and they were both inside the fence within a minute. Maddie led him to the side of a building and opened a door. They went in and ascended the steps to the third floor.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"A tenement building," she replied. "They're going to tear it down. We're squatting here until they do."

When Maddie opened the door to the third-floor apartment, Matt almost gagged from the stench. Sweaty, unwashed clothes, food going bad (or already there), mold and mildew, and a myriad of other odors he really did not want to identify. He remembered how he was able to filter out sounds earlier, by focusing on the pain in his head. He tried it again. It worked on the smells, too. Good to know.

Breathing through his mouth, he let Maddie guide him into the apartment. He could sense random objects scattered around the room, but no other people. She put his hand on the arm of what he guessed was an old folding beach chair, then sat down herself. "You thirsty?" she asked him.

Matt nodded, noticing for the first time how thirsty he was. He heard the rustle of plastic, then Maddie approached him, holding a bottle of water. He let her place it in his hand, not wanting her to know that he already knew where it was. He accepted it gratefully. After he uncapped the bottle and drank half of its contents, he said, "Thanks. I don't suppose you have any aspirin?"

"Sure do." Maddie crossed to the far corner of the room and rummaged through something, probably a backpack, and returned with a bottle and a box of some sort. She shook two tablets from the bottle and placed them in Matt's hand. "Two aspirin, just what the doctor ordered," she said as she pulled up a chair and sat next to him.

Matt swallowed them with another gulp of water. "Thanks. Again."

"That's a pretty bad bump on your forehead," Maddie observed. "It's gotta hurt."

Matt explored it with his fingers and winced. "Yeah, it does."

"Maybe I can get you some ice for it later," Maddie told him. Then she opened the box that was now sitting on her lap. "You've got a nasty-looking cut on your arm," she said. "You want me to take a look at it?"

"Sure."

"OK, but you need to take off your shirt." When Matt did so, she gasped and said, "Holy shit!"

Matt had no idea what had caused this reaction. He decided to play it for laughs. "You know, I don't know what I look like. That good, huh?"

"Shit, man, you're covered with scars. You didn't know?"

Matt ran his hands over his bare torso. She was right. "No," he replied.

"So I guess you have no idea how you got them, either."

"No clue," he agreed.

Maddie didn't pursue the subject. Instead she got to work on the wound on Matt's arm, cleaning and bandaging it professionally, or so it seemed to him. "You're good at this," he commented.

"I learned from my mom. She was a nurse."

"Was?"

"She died. Cancer."

"I'm sorry." Matt hesitated, then asked, "No other family?"

"Only my stepdad." She fell silent briefly, then added, "When my mom died, he expected me to, uh, take her place."

"Shit," Matt muttered. "That sucks."

"Yeah," she said, "but I didn't, if you know what I mean. I got the hell outta there."

Of course she did. Matt's heart sank. He now had a pretty good idea who Maddie and her "crew" were: homeless kids, runaways or abandoned by families who no longer wanted them. Just then, he heard sounds in the stairwell. "Someone's coming," he said. Their voices were high-pitched and excited, their footsteps light. He could hear four heartbeats. Within a few seconds, they were walking into the apartment. They all stopped short, a few steps inside the door, apparently having noticed Matt.

"Who the fuck is this?" a male voice demanded. It was a young voice, probably that of a teenager, trying to sound older than he was.

Matt stood up and extended his hand in the direction of the voice. "Hey, man, I'm Matt."

"I wasn't asking you, motherfucker."

Maddie spoke up. "Like he said, his name's Matt. I found him in the alley off 46th. He needed help, so I brought him here."

"Jesus, Maddie, how many times do I have to tell you?" the teenager asked. "You can't keep bringing strays here. It's not safe. No one can know we're here."

"But, Ryan – " Maddie began.

"Zip it." The teenager – Ryan, apparently – cut her off.

"No," Maddie said stubbornly, "I'm not gonna zip it. Apparently you haven't noticed, genius, but Matt's blind. He can't tell anyone who we are or where we are."

Matt had been listening to the exchange between Maddie and Ryan with carefully concealed amusement. He was pretty sure who was going to win this argument. Predictably, Ryan took a couple of steps toward him and waved a hand in front of his face. Matt sensed the movement of Ryan's hand but was careful not to follow it with his eyes. It wasn't that difficult. Apparently it had been a while since he'd followed anything with his eyes. Then Ryan held up three fingers and asked, "How many fingers?" Matt shrugged in response.

Ryan turned away from Matt and gestured to Maddie. "C'mon," he said as he walked toward a door that led to an adjoining room.

Matt felt behind him for the beach chair and sat down. The three other members of the crew – two girls and a boy, he thought – were still standing near the doorway, where they had stopped. He could tell they were fidgeting, shifting their weight from foot to foot. He sensed they were uncomfortable with the presence of an adult stranger, and a blind one at that. Get over it, he thought irritably. I'm blind. Deal with it. Then he reminded himself they were kids. He was (supposedly) the adult here. "Hey," he said, "I'm Matt," trying to look non-threatening – whatever that looked like.

The boy responded first. "Justin."

Then one of the girls spoke. "I'm Lisa. Hi." Her voice was soft, with a trace of an accent. Southern, maybe?

Finally, the other girl introduced herself, too. "Hi, I'm Krissie."

"Nice to meet you," Matt replied, before turning his attention to Ryan and Maddie's conversation in the other room.

"I'm the leader of this crew. We all agreed," Ryan was saying.

"A leader, not a dictator," Maddie retorted. "You know there's a difference, right?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ryan responded grumpily. "But, you can't do shit on your own that affects all of us, like picking up some guy on the street and bringing him here."

"It wasn't like that."

"Whatever. But I don't care if he's your new BFF, Matt can't stay here."

"He's not my new BFF. He's just a guy who needs my help."

"So what are you now," Ryan demanded, "the fucking Red Cross?"

"He's a blind guy with a concussion," Maddie replied firmly. "I'm not throwing him out on the street, not until he's better."

"OK, OK, he can stay – temporarily. But he's gotta contribute. What can he do?"

"Um . . . ."

Both teenagers were silent for a moment. Then Ryan said, "Lifting wallets is out, since he can't see. Panhandling, maybe. But how does he spot the marks?" He was silent again, then continued, "I got an idea. You don't have to see to give someone head. Some of the douchebags would get off on the idea of a blind guy doing them. I bet they'd even pay extra."

"You think Matt would be OK with that?" Maddie asked.

"Fuck him. If he wants to stay, he has to earn, like the rest of us."

"Don't say anything for now, OK? Just let him stay tonight. If he's better in the morning, he may want to leave anyway."

"All right," Ryan agreed grudgingly.

Matt's heart sank as he listened to Maddie and Ryan. But not for himself. He now knew how the crew survived: pickpocketing, panhandling, and prostitution. He wasn't surprised, only sad for them. He would leave in the morning, he decided. But he would come back when he recovered. He wasn't going to abandon them.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. As the five teenagers became accustomed to Matt's presence, he had to field questions about his blindness. He tried to give them answers, as much as he could remember. With the help of more aspirin and some food, his headache was starting to fade, and the mental fog was lifting. His memory was even starting to come back, but only in bits and pieces. There was the voice of an older man, harsh and gravelly, telling him, "You're a warrior, Matty." The voice conjured up the odors of sweat and blood, and a memory of nights spent in pain. Then there was a woman's voice, with an exotic accent he couldn't place, saying, "This is what living feels like." The memory filled him with a sense of absence and loss. He heard again the voice of the man who had laughed about avocados, but this time his voice sounded thick and choked with emotion as he said, "I only ever needed my friend." Matt thought he might have been close to tears himself when the man – his friend – said that. None of these people had faces. It wasn't that he didn't remember their faces. He had never seen them.

Late that afternoon, Lisa was sitting next him, peeling an orange as she chattered to Krissie, sitting across from them. The fresh, sharp aroma of the orange triggered a memory of a fragrance: lavender with an undertone of citrus. It brought with it the memory of a woman's voice, fierce and shaking with emotion, saying, "I was never gonna leave you up there, and I'm not leaving you now." Once again, there was nothing visual about the memory, only the woman's voice, her scent, her long hair brushing against his face, and the softness of her skin under his fingertips. And there was something else: a feeling. He couldn't find the words for it, but he knew she was important to him. He wondered if she was from his past or his present, but his injured brain wouldn't yield up the answer.

He also listened to the teenagers who had banded together to help each other in their struggle to survive. Little by little, they revealed their own stories. They were depressingly similar to those he'd heard before from young girls and boys living on the streets of Hell's Kitchen. Ryan came home from school one day and found his whole family had cleared out, leaving him behind. Justin and Lisa had left their homes because of parental addictions – Justin's father's alcoholism and Lisa's mother's opioid addiction. Krissie left home to escape her mother's constant verbal and physical abuse. Were they any better off now, he wondered, living in a squalid apartment, selling themselves and stealing to survive? He didn't have an answer.

When evening came, Justin, Lisa, and Krissie left the apartment to "work." Matt now knew what that meant: they were joining the ranks of the prostitutes, male and female, who did business on the streets of Hell's Kitchen. There was no shortage of customers, especially for teenagers like them. As Matt heard them leaving, anger welled up in him – anger at a society that looked the other way when children were selling themselves on the streets, and anger at himself, for not stopping them.

A couple of hours after Justin, Lisa, and Krissie left, Matt heard a sound from outside the building. He sat up straight and cocked his head. A block away, a girl was screaming, "No! Stop!" Then she screamed in pain. Lisa. Without stopping to think about what he was doing, he jumped up and sprinted for the door. Ryan and Maddie followed him, yelling, as he pounded down the stairs. Ignoring them, he ran out of the alley, squeezed through the gap in the fence, and ran toward the girl's cries. When he reached her, she was no longer yelling, but whimpering in pain. He pulled a man off her and put him down on the pavement with a swift flurry of punches. "Stay down," he growled. Ryan and Maddie came up behind him, panting. Matt kneeled down next to Lisa and took her hand. "It's OK," he said, "we're here." Ryan shouldered him aside and took Lisa in his arms, stroking her hair. She began to sob. When her sobs subsided, they walked slowly back to the tenement. As he walked with the three teenagers, Matt berated himself for letting them see what he could do. But what was he supposed to do? Lisa was in trouble. He gave a mental shrug. There was nothing he could do about it now. He couldn't unring that bell.

Once they arrived at the apartment, Ryan rounded on Matt. "What the fuck was that, man?" he demanded. Matt shrugged, holding his hands out, palms up. "You said you were blind!"

"I am."

"Get real. No way a blind man can do what I just saw you do."

"Obviously there is a way," Matt said dryly. "Because I did."

"So explain it," Ryan challenged him.

Matt racked his brains, searching in vain for the answer. Finally he said, "I can't. I don't remember."

"Very convenient," Ryan sneered.

Maddie looked up from tending to Krissie's injuries. "Do you have superpowers? Are you one of those, you know, superheroes?"

Matt chuckled. "I'm not a hero. My friends tell me that, all the time." Wait a minute. His friends? He had friends? Who were they? He searched his memory but came up empty.

Ryan picked up a can of soda and threw it at Matt, who caught it reflexively. "Now tell me you're blind," Ryan said triumphantly.

"I'm blind," Matt insisted.

"Fuck you," Ryan said. "I know what you are. You're a fucking cop, something like that, undercover, pretending to be blind."

Matt sighed. "I'm not a cop. And I'm not pretending to be blind. But I don't know how to prove it to you."

"I do," Maddie said. "I learned it from my mom." She rummaged around in her backpack and found a flashlight. Matt heard a click as she turned it on. Then she apparently shined the light in his eyes. "His eyes don't react to light," she announced. "He really is blind."

"If you really are blind, and you're not a cop, what are you?" Ryan demanded.

"I don't know," Matt said. "I'm just a guy." But Ryan's insistence that he was a cop triggered something in his returning memory. He knew he wasn't a cop, but he thought maybe he had something to do with the law. He would remember eventually, he assured himself.

"You know, man," Ryan said, "I don't care who or what you are. Maybe you aren't a cop, but you're definitely some kinda weirdo. I want you gone. Now."

"Not so fast," Maddie said. "You saw what he can do. Who cares if he's a weirdo if he can do that shit? We need someone like him."

"I agree." A soft voice came from across the room. Lisa. "I want him to stay. I feel safe with him here."

Matt sensed heads nodding as the other kids said, "Yeah" and "Me, too."

"OK," Ryan said grudgingly. "But if it turns to shit, it's on all of you."

Author's Note:

This is how I imagine what is going on with Matt and his memory and his senses. As I understand it, a concussion may affect only some parts of the brain and not others. In this story, Matt has suffered a concussion. It has affected his memory, but not the parts of his brain involved with his heightened senses and how he uses them. So he still has his abilities, but he doesn't remember that he has them. So he's discovering them, as if for the first time. I'm sure a neurologist, or anyone with more medical knowledge than I have, could poke holes in this scenario. But this story is taking place in a universe where someone like Matt Murdock can exist.

The concept of seeing with the whole body comes from the blind author John Hull. I recommend his book about his experience of blindness, Touching the Rock (reissued a few years ago under the title Notes on Blindness), if you're interested in the subject.