Daria could feel her heart in her mouth as she stared, shocked at the man in front of her. It seemed like years before she was made aware of the current situation. The door keys in her hands slipped from her grasp and fell to the wooden floor with a crash that broke the suffocating silence. Her brain pieced itself back together and she was suddenly aware that the front door was still open behind her. She whipped her head around and seizing the opportunity to escape started towards the door. She had not made it two steps before she heard the cocking of the gun. She froze. She knew that she wouldn't make it out of the door and down the stairs quick enough. She knew that she wouldn't be able to get in her car and drive away before he shot her with that fucking gun the size of one of her arms.

"Going somewhere?" She could practically hear the smirk in his voice.

"No." She kept her answer minimal to avoid him detecting the fear she kept barely contained inside of her. "Just closing the door."

Barsad smiled, "good," he said, "Would really hate to have to shoot you in the leg to keep you from running away."

Daria closed the front door, leaned her forehead against it for a second and exhaled slowly. It's okay. It's okay, she told herself. Breathe, just breathe. You'll be fine. Don't freak out, don't let him know you're scared. Just be calm. She turned to face him, "You gonna tell me what you're doing here?"

"Yes. But first I have a very specific set of instructions I need you to follow. Firstly, you are going to call your boss and let him know that you quit. You can use what happened tonight as a reason. I'm sure he won't be too objective-"

"What? How on Earth would you know abou-"

"Don't interrupt me," he said sternly. "Secondly, you are going to go to your room and pack a bag, you will need clothes to last you a few weeks-"

"What the fuck! Pack a bag? If you think I am going anywhere with y-" She was cut off once again by him closing the distance between the two of them and clamping a hand over her mouth.

"What did I say about interrupting me?"

Their proximity was intimidating to Daria and she struggled to stay focused on the fact that this was not the same guy who had flirted with her at a bar; this was a fucking scary man with a gun and cold look in his eyes. He slowly released the lower half of her face and stepped back.

"Secondly," he continued. "You are going to go to your room and pack a bag, you will need clothes to last you a few weeks. Thirdly, you'll be coming with me to a secret location. Needless to say, if you are going to be difficult, I will shoot you and you will die. Do you understand me?"

Daria nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Barsad picked up her landline phone and held it out to her. "Sit down," he gestured to the couch. "Make the call, put it on speaker."

She took a seat as Barsad took one on a chair opposite her, holding his gun quite pointedly at her, making it clear that one word of this to her boss and she was dead.

The call was brief, her boss understood that it would be good for some time away and assured her that a spot at the bar would always be open for her should she return.

"There," Barsad said smiling, "that wasn't so hard was it? Now go and pack your bags."

"Why?"

"Do you understand the privilege you are being given? I can't tell you why you are being taken but I can tell you that anyone else would have been knocked out and dragged to the car so the least you could do is to shut up and do as you are fucking told!" As he said these words he had risen from his chair, his voice progressing to a low and menacing tone.

Daria sprang from her couch and hurried to her room.

"Do you have a gym bag or a duffle bag?" A voice said from behind her.

"Yeah," she muttered, pulling down the large, grey duffle bag from on top of her wardrobe.

"Yes, use that. Pack warm clothes. No electronics. You have 10 minutes, then, we must leave." He then leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms.

Daria paced her room, quite hurriedly tossing t-shirts, jeans, jumpers, underwear and other various items of clothing into her suitcase. In went sweatpants, socks and hoodies before she dashed to the bathroom and grabbed shampoo, conditioner, all her make-up, toiletries and her mom's locket. She zipped up the bag and suddenly remembered that she was still wearing work clothes so grabbed leggings and a grey sweatshirt from the suitcase and began heading towards the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" Barsad asked.

"Changing."

"Leave the door open."

"No."

"I won't look."

"I don't trust you."

There was a long silence.

"I need to change, okay? So at least turn around."

"What? So you can hit me over the head with your hairdryer, no thank you."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not being stupid, you are, you can change, just leave the door open."

Daria sighed, exasperated, "Fine, fine!" She entered the bathroom and turned around, facing away from him, forgetting that the mirror in her bedroom faced the bathroom and so Barsad was actually getting an eyeful right from where he stood. She was a little curvier than any of the women he'd been with and the sight of her clothed only in her underwear had Barsad clenching his fists at his sides; only it was no use and he knew that that image would be burned into his mind a long time. He wondered how her skin would feel... He shook his head slightly, stop, STOP! Focus on the task at hand, he cursed himself.

Once Daria was changed she slipped her Docs into the bag – which was straining the zipper, slid into her trainers and pulled on her coat. She was sure everything she needed was packed. And although disgruntled she appreciated the time given to her for her to pack.

Barsad grabbed the bag off of the floor and made his way to the front door of her apartment. He stopped short in front of the door and turned around, holding out his hand.

Daria looked at him, confused by his gesture.

"Phone," he said.

Daria pulled her cracked and damaged second-hand phone from her pocket and reluctantly handed it over to Barsad. He immediately dropped it to the floor and crushed it with the heel of his combat boot, before turning swiftly around and motioning her to walk in front of him. She walked in front of him feeling the front of the gun being pushed into her lower back. Her steps were clumsy, as she could feel the sudden weight of her situation bearing down on her.

Once they were outside in the parking lot, she noticed a large black Range Rover parked in the east side of it. They walked towards it and sitting inside was another man in the same sort of clothes as Barsad. He looked younger than Barsad but in the dark it was hard to tell much about his appearance. Barsad was still only a few inches behind her but Daria suddenly realised that they really were going to take her away, they were kidnapping her. They reached the car and Daria stood still. Barsad opened the back doors of the car and the man in the front seat got out walked around the car to meet them. He took the duffle bag and chucked it in the back seat before retrieving something and handing it over to Barsad. Before she could blink she was pushed up against the car by her shoulders. The younger man was pointing a gun at her head while Barsad was clutching her wrists together and fumbling about with a length of rope. She saw two pieces of cloth on the ground and horror dawned on her at the thought of being blindfolded or gagged. She brought her hands up and knocked the gun to the side and brought her hands round to free them but was met with something soft. She heard a hiss of pain and saw the blood on her hands. A gun cocked and she groaned inwardly at her pathetic escape attempt.

She looked up and saw the Barsad was bleeding from a cut above his left eyebrow and beneath the eyebrows were a pair of furious eyes. He looked into her own pair of eyes and without her even noticing, suddenly her hands were bound tightly with rope that burned her wrists and were already leaving marks on her skin. She realised she must have scratched him or something and now she was going to pay for it. She was roughly turned around and a strip of cloth was pulled taut across her mouth as a gag. Tears filled her eyes as she realised how vulnerable she was and how no one was going to save her. The two men then marched her round to the back of the car and the trunk of the car was opened. Her eyes widened and she started to make noises of protest that were muffled by the gag. Tears were now streaming down her cheeks as she was lifted and dumped into the trunk space of the car. Lying helplessly, eyes wide with fear, she saw Barsad bind her ankles together with the remaining piece of cloth before closing the trunk.

She made strange strangled sobs as the engine rumbled beneath her; the motion of the car doing nothing to sooth her.

Author's note:

I am infinitely sorry for the super long hiatus! I could bore you with the excuses for why I left this story for a bit but I'm back and now that it's summer I have all the time in the world to really continue this story!

Thanks for the follows and favourites, and thanks to the people who have kept following this even though I haven't updated in about 6 months.

Just a side note, I am British but since my story is set in America I have tried to stylize my writing to use more of the English US words and sizes. (EG, Daria is a US size 4 but a UK size 8 etc etc.) So feel free to correct me if I say something that isn't actually an American term.

On another note, I really am trying to improve my writing as I go, any pointers are welcome. I know I'm nowhere near good yet but I want to get better.

Also, any questions you have about the story are welcome, I'll answer them in the A/N of the next chapter which will be up by the end of the week hopefully!

Please R&R if you have the time/can be bothered.

[DISCLAIMER: I don't own DC Comics/the Batman franchise, just my OC.]