"Though I'm weak and beaten down,
I'll slip away into the sound.
The ghost of you is close to me,
I'm inside out, you're underneath.
Don't let me be gone…
I'm a goner, somebody catch my breath.
I wanna be known by you.
I wanna be known by you."
"Goner" –Twenty-One Pilots
Chapter Forty-Three:
There was an incessant pounding in her ears, like waves crashing against her eardrums. Her head ached. Everything around her was cold and slick. She remembered falling, tumbling, snagging, reaching, shouting. There was something in her mouth, in her nose. It was putrid and foul and—oh, God—
She rolled over and retched. Something caught in her throat. She was choking. Scrabbling at her mouth, her fingers tangled in a string of some sort, fine and plastic. Fishing line. Pulling slowly, it felt as if she were tugging her stomach up her throat. She gagged.
The line came free, and with it the sludgy black debris that had been caught on it, stuck inside her, sliding over her tongue and landing wetly on the ground. She coughed a couple of times, felt her stomach constrict, but nothing else came out.
Relieved, she wiped her nose with the back of her hand and collapsed.
It was over, she reassured herself.
She could rest.
The bank was soggy and cold in a wet, penetrating sort of way. It squished underneath her as she shifted and woke with a gasp.
She couldn't feel her arm. Clenching and unclenching her fingers, she lay on her back, unmoving, her glazed eyes barely seeing the dark sky. Sharp, tingling pain slowly traveled through her hand and up to her shoulder.
Moaning, she sat up with a wince, feeling her body complain. Her head swam, and she had to blink several times to focus. Dim moonlight washed over everything. Matted reeds and river weeds surrounded her, whispering softly in the breeze. Something darted across her leg, disappearing into the nearby brush with a rustle.
She tried to rise to her feet, only to slip and land heavily on the squelchy bank. Rolling over, she doggedly pushed herself onto her knees, reaching for a cluster of cattails to use as leverage. As she pulled them, she noticed something pale and bloated just on the other side of the reeds. A dead fish?
Looking closer, she reeled backwards, landing on her backside with an abrupt splash. It wasn't a fish, it was a forearm, and it was still attached to a man who lay facedown in the slime, his fingers buried in muck, as if he were trying to pull himself up the bank. She reached for a loose reed and prodded the man with it. He didn't move. The back of his denim jacket was torn and sticky with mud. Or blood. It looked black in the moonlight.
She scrambled to her feet, tossing the reed aside as she scrabbled up the bank as quickly as she could. Her boots scraped upon concrete suddenly, and an orange lamp cast its warm light over a derelict car that had been left half on the pavement and half in the weeds. She basked in the light for a moment, blinking and staring around herself in blind disorientation.
Looking down at herself, she saw mostly sodden, mud-streaked clothes. Her hands were black with muck. She felt the distinct impression that something was missing. She checked her pockets and found no wallet, no identification, none of her things. There was a receipt in the front right pocket of her jeans, along with a penny that had been lodged in the deepest corner of her pocket. She carefully unfolded the wadded receipt with trembling hands.
The floral shop.
Some of it came back to her. The roses. The impact, shattering glass and wrenching metal. Where was her backpack? Also gone, and she wasn't going to go back to the bank to look for it. She glanced nervously over her shoulder, as if she expected the corpse to come stumbling up the bank and onto the street, pointing at her with an accusing finger.
"I didn't do it," she muttered to herself, wrapping her arms tightly around her torso. A stiff breeze was picking up; she had to get to warmth.
Her limbs were cold and sore. They moved reluctantly, as if there were some kind of delay between her mind and her body. She walked slowly towards the bridge. She could see it in the distance, silhouetted in the orange halo of the city lights. It was a long way to walk, but she knew she had to go there, that she had to cross it.
She had to get home.
Alfred hadn't heard the kitchen door open, but he heard water running in the sink as he made his last rounds through the house. Bruce was in the study; he'd just left him there minutes ago. His hand immediately went for the gun against the small of his back. He'd taken to carrying it nearly everywhere with him, even in the house and on the grounds.
Pressing himself against the wall, he edged towards the doorway, briefly glancing into the kitchen, his sharp eyes absorbing every detail for half a second before he pulled back. The intruder was at the sink, back turned to him. A little short to be a full-grown man, perhaps a woman, but difficult to tell beneath all the muck. He'd seen a trail of it from the back door to the kitchen, and a pair of muddy boots on the counter.
He'd just cleaned in there not three hours ago.
Chancing another glance, he saw the intruder still bent over the sink, scrubbing manically, face hidden behind long matted locks of hair. Definitely female by the way she moved and held herself. She shifted slightly and suddenly had to grip the sink to keep from collapsing, holding a hand to her left leg and letting out a pained cry.
Before he knew it, Alfred was in the kitchen, and the woman at the sink had whirled around to face him, clutching the counter for support.
"Margot?"
Her hands slipped from the counter, and she disappeared behind it, collapsing to the floor. Dropping his gun, Alfred ran to her, gathering her up in his arms, holding her tightly against him, despite the stench and the squelch of her clothes against him.
"My God," he gasped, "Are you hurt?"
She shook her head weakly.
"Margot, we thought you were dead." He petted her wet hair with a hand, burying his face in her neck, echoing, "We thought you were dead."
"Alfred?" Bruce's voice came from the doorway. "Do you think you could—?" He trailed off as he saw the muddy boots on the counter. He picked his way over the dirty floor, stepping over Alfred's gun, and rounded the counter corner. "Margot!" he exclaimed. Soon Bruce was on his knees too, and Margot sat sandwiched between the boy and the butler, dazed.
"I'm sorry," she apologized after a few moments, her voice hoarse with disuse.
"Don't," Alfred stopped her firmly. "You're home. That's all that matters."
Margot leaned into him, closing her eyes, feeling the warmth and the strength of those two pairs of arms around her.
"A shower might be nice, though," Bruce commented softly, meeting Alfred's gaze.
The butler nodded. "For the three of us."
"And burn the clothes," Bruce added, plucking at the wet front of his shirt.
"Let's get you up," Alfred murmured, rising and helping Margot to her feet. "Master B, would you fetch a few fresh towels from the laundry room?"
Bruce nodded and hurried to do so.
As Alfred helped Margot upstairs, he noticed that she stared fixedly at her hands.
"What is it?" he asked softly, leading her into the bathroom.
She looked up sharply as he turned the light on. "It's gone," she whispered.
"What?"
"The ring." She held up her hand to show him.
He gently brushed it aside. "It's all right," he told her with a shake of his head. "You're here, Margot. Everything else can be replaced."
She nodded weakly. "Alfred, I—"
"Hush," he shushed her, nodding towards the shower, which he'd started. "Get in. Rinse your clothes off and we'll see what I can do with them."
"You aren't going to burn them, are you?" Margot seemed genuinely concerned for her clothes.
"We'll see."
Even after she'd thoroughly rinsed her clothes and pulled them off, the water ran brown for several minutes as Margot scrubbed the dirt from her body. The hot water helped the aching cold that had settled in her bones, but it stung on the multitude of cuts and scrapes on her skin. Several cuts on her forearms were particularly painful, and bled as she cleaned them.
When she finally emerged from the shower, she wrapped herself in a clean towel and examined her injuries. Most of them were superficial, probably from being tumbled by the current of the river. The ones on her arms were different though. The skin hadn't been scraped or torn away. It had been cut smoothly, as if by a knife.
"These are defensive wounds," she whispered to herself with a hint of dread.
A soft knock on the door preluded Alfred's entry. "Are you all right? Do you need anything?"
Margot shook her head. "No," she said. "I'll be all right."
He nodded. "There's a fresh change of clothes on the bed and a cup of tea for you. I'm going to take a shower now, if that's all right."
"Thank you," she said as he left.
Margot bandaged her arms as best as she could, not wanting to trouble Alfred for help. She emerged from the bathroom, dressed, and made her way to the butler's room, climbing under the covers of his bed and waiting for him there. She wanted to talk to him about what she'd seen, about what she feared, but she wasn't quite sure how to bring it up.
What came out was much more abrupt than she'd expected.
"I found a body," she blurted out when Alfred exited his bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist.
"A body?" he echoed, glancing her way as he began to dress for bed.
"In the weeds, when I woke up on the bank. It looked like he'd been stabbed."
He regarded her thoughtfully. "Every second rate criminal in the city uses the river to dispose of evidence. He was probably the unfortunate victim of a crime gone wrong."
"What if I did it?"
Alfred looked sharply at her, his gaze interrupted as he pulled undershirt over his head. "Did you?"
Margot shook her head. "I don't know," she told him in earnest. "But look." She raised one of her arms to show him the bandages. "I found defensive wounds on my arms."
"Those could be from the accident. You could have dragged along the bottom of the river," he pointed out.
"They're cuts," she insisted. "From a knife."
"Do you remember receiving them?"
"No," she admitted. "I don't remember a single thing beyond waking up on the river bank."
"Margot, you've been gone for four days," he noted with a hint of concern.
"That's a long time to be unconscious," she said quietly. "What if I killed the man and blocked it out?" Seeing his skeptical look, she added defensively, "It's not unheard of. Especially with…especially with people like me."
He sighed and sat beside her on the bed, taking her cup of tea and placing it on the bedside table. With her hands in his, he looked her in the eye and asked, "Did you know the man?"
"I don't think so."
"Would you kill an innocent man for no reason at all?"
Margot hesitated before repeating slowly, "I don't think so."
"Then why, Margot? Tell me why you think you killed him."
She shrugged and avoided his gaze. "It's too coincidental," she whispered. "Out of all the places to wash ashore, why would I happen to wake up next to a dead body?"
"Margot, this is Gotham, for pity's sake. There could be a body hiding in every cluster of weeds." He squeezed her hands in his and added, "You're exhausted. You've been through a traumatic experience, and it's late now. You need to rest."
"I don't know if I can…"
"Look at me."
She looked up.
"You didn't kill that man," he assured her firmly. "I'll look at your injuries tomorrow, but right now you need sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a very long day."
Margot's brow furrowed. "Why?"
"You and Bruce need some time away from the city." Alfred emitted a low scoff and amended, "We all need some time away. We're leaving tomorrow afternoon."
"Leaving?" Margot echoed. "Where are we going?"
"Switzerland, luv." Climbing over her to get to his side of the bed, he slid under the covers and turned to wrap his arms around her. "You'll love it."
Margot believed him. It was the part about having to return that worried her. She could run away, but the city and all of her problems would be waiting when she got back.