Chapter Two
Prowling through the back alleys, my senses are on fire as I listen for every cry, every scream, and every bang in hopes of finding Karen and Foggy. I'm meters from it, and somehow I'm frozen in time.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I can hear Karen, she's trying to talk someone down.
"Wait… you don't have to do this." She's promising them, I speed up. As I round the corner, I bump into someone. From the cologne, I know its Foggy, only there's blood in the air too.
"Look who decided to show up."
"What's going on?" I ask, worried Karen might be hurt. "Are you okay?"
"Bloodied lip but I'll survive. Karen saved the day, I need to call the brigade. It's bad. It's really bad, and he's our only lead to the guys pedalling guns through the city." Foggy explains. I realise they're doing this for a case they've been working on, but wasn't the lead a teenager?
"I'm glad you're okay." I say to him, and he ignores it. I turn my attention to Karen and the jumper.
"Please! We can protect you if you'll just come down from there. I promise, nobody will hurt you, or scare you again…!" She calls. I follow her voice as it resonates upwards, rebounding off the metal fire escape and the brick walls. I hurry passed her and I feel her freeze. I don't have time to make small talk, besides, I'm Daredevil right now.
Scaling the fire escape, I weave in and out of the levels, the muscles in my legs ache as they pump me forwards. I need to stop the jumper and help Karen. The gun crime in the city has gone through the roof since the Hand showed up. Local gangs want to defend themselves and their businesses. Not that they pose much of a threat…
I feel it before she sees it. "No!" I bellow as I race toward the rooftop. A sickening second of pure silence and crash. There it is.
I'm too late and my conscience brings up nothing, I draw a freaking blank. I hear a soft thud, Karen fell to her knees. I don't know from the sound, but I do know Karen.
Her sobs echo and I feel fucking powerless. Where did I go wrong? If only I had a few more seconds. I listen to her anguish from the safe spot on the rooftop. By safe, I don't mean for her. I mean it's safer for me. I don't know if I can stand to be around her when she's devastated and do nothing…and now this…is this on me?
Something in my chest tightens, if I hadn't spent those seconds trying to appease Foggy…this wouldn't have happened. Clenching my jaw, I kick at the wall with my thick boots. Rock chips away, and the pain is nothing compared to the weight of knowing an innocent kid just leaped to his death and I was stood meters away.
It's not good enough.
The next morning is merciless. I'm hungover and limping from kicking that damn wall. I enter the office, with my sunglasses and walking stick, cradling a pile of files close to my chest.
I hear Karen sniffle, then the gentle swoosh of tissue paper being pulled from its box. It's such a peaceful sound, I wonder if anyone else has ever noticed that.
"Morning." I mumble.
"Hey." Karen manages. There's a silence where Foggy would greet me, and the message is loud and clear. I scoff and shake my head.
"Matt, what happened?" Karen's voice interrupts my bitter wallowing.
"He should be the least of your worries, Karen. You should go home and take care of you." Foggy advises, making it a point to stand between me and Karen.
"What happened?" I ask, pretending not to know.
"Unbelievable." I catch Foggy's inaudible mutter, I'm lucky Karen is stood a few feet away. Foggy sees right through me but I don't give a damn. As far as I'm concerned this is on him. If I didn't spend time trying to make amends with him last night, it would never have happened. I would have made it on time, I would have pulled him away from the edge. I would have made a fucking difference. But I didn't, and in the cold light of day, that beats me down harder than anything I've ever felt before.
"Our lead, 17 year old Aaron Talbot, committed suicide last night. Daredevil was too late, and I couldn't do anything to stop it either." She stifles a sob and I've already reached out and pulled her into an embrace, she buries her face into my shoulder.
"I'm sorry." I manage, my voice catching in my throat. I'm afraid she might detect my guilt, or hear my heart pounding.
"You saved my life, Karen. She took out two thugs who had tied me up. If the devil had been punctual, he would've been proud of her." Another dig from Foggy. But I ignore it, it's hard to think about anything when I'm holding Karen. And I like it but I somehow, hate that I like it. I quickly pull away.
"I've got a meeting. I should go, Karen, please go home."
"I'd rather be working, Foggy." She says, her voice thick with grief.
"If she wants to work let her work."
"I wasn't talking to you." Foggy snaps, his footsteps move away from me and the door slams shut. I know he's gone but, "is he gone?"
"Yeah, what happened between you two?"
I shrug as I sit down.
"We're two very different people. Foggy works in black and white."
"So do you."
She's so wrong but I don't have the heart to tell her. I wonder what she'd think of my grey morals when it comes to crime fighting.
"I do whatever it takes. Sometimes that isn't enough." I pause, have I said too much?
"I know the feeling." She says, she sniffles again.
"If Foggy's right and you should be at home, please go."
"I'd rather be here with you—a-around you, I mean." She explains, her voice shakes. I believe her. I believe she needs company to drown out the sound of his body hitting the ground. I know I do. It's all I can hear. It replays like a vivid nightmare over and over again.
"Meanwhile, there was a shootout at a bar and the owner got his hands on a gun… Wanna come with me to check it out?" She asks. I would go everywhere she asks me, simply because it's her asking.
"Whatever helps you feel better. Hey, maybe after do you wanna… go clear your head with me?"
There's silence and it makes me nervous. Is she gonna say no? She probably knows I'm no good for her. I can't really hide how damaged I am as a person around her, she sees it and somehow forgives it.
"What'd you have in mind?"
"I-I didn't think that far ahead."
"Wanna play some pool?" She suggests, "grab a drink. Or two."
"Probably two." I answer, mustering a small smile. We stand in silence then she squeezes my arm and walks passed me. I catch a whiff of her perfume which is cloaked by a different perfume, one she wears when she's out in the evenings. From the shift in scent and the shuffling, I know she's put on her coat. I guess it's time to get to work.
The bar is small, a few cops mill around but I haven't really picked up on anything strange just yet. I wonder what Karen's seeing. I paint the picture for myself, club music turned down low, an empty club. A creaking bar stool, someone large, probably around 200 pounds to get the stool to creak like that, is sat answering questions. The cop stands, I can make out the faintest scratching, like a talon lightly scraping a cave wall only it's the nib of a pen against paper.
His staff aren't in. That's weird. I wonder why.
"Owner's being questioned by the cops." Karen says, thinking she's being helpful. I don't have the heart to tell her I sense a lot more than she can and as a result, I end up seeing a lot more than she's privy to.
"He's gonna need a lawyer." She says, responding to whatever he's saying to the cop. I miss it because from the way the sound waves resonate around the bar, I catch the vaguest glimpse of Karen. It's not an image, like a normal image, its outlines, flecks of detail and it's fleeting. Sensual.
"Huh?"
"Are you okay?" Her concern is transparent. "You never said what happened to your leg?"
"It's not my leg, it's my foot. Fracture. I fell over."
I wait for that moment where she decides if she believes me or not to pass, then she says, "If you keep being so clumsy, Matt, you're gonna leave me no choice but to move in with you."
I smile, "is it wrong that that doesn't sound so bad to me?" I let slide out as I smile. Gladly, I'd gladly have her around more. As quickly as it slides out, I whip my thoughts back into shape. What the hell am I doing? Karen is off limits. And the whole double-identity thing won't be a fun conversation to have. Karen has trust issues and I don't want her to feel betrayed by me. Or disappointed.
And it catches me off guard.
From the silence, I can only guess I've offended her or she's shrugged off the comment as a quip. I hope it's the latter.
"The cop's finished, we're up." She says. I accompany her. Now we're standing opposite the man, I know he's 250 pounds and solid. He smells of tobacco and… I pause. Gun powder.
"You say you found this gun after the shoot out?"
"Yep." His voice makes him sound like a bear.
"And there's no security footage of the shoot out?" I ask, trying not to seem so distrustful.
"Nah, there's no footage of the last 24 hours." The more he speaks, I notice the rhythm he speaks in. He's probably an excellent rapper, I note.
"What happened here?" Karen chimes in. The stool creaks, he's tensing his muscles for her. He likes what he sees. From what I've noticed while accompanying her, most men do. It doesn't really bother me because Karen seems unaware of it…but I know she's not that naïve. She doesn't let it get in the way of her job.
"Some teen walks in, starts mouthing off at one of the regulars. Older guy, crew cut and diablo tattoo on his neck. The teen pulls out a gun, starts blasting off bullets. Older guy's shot and flees, teen runs too. And I'm left standing in my bar dealing with the insurance company and loss of business."
Karen asks him a few more questions, during which I stroll around the bar running my fingers along various surfaces to get an understanding of what sort of crowd comes here. Definitely not teenagers, the paint is peeling, the juke box rusting, this place is old.
The bartender is upto no good, that's all I know. I need to work out what he's after and who gave him that gun. Guess I'll pay him a visit later tonight. When Karen finishes questioning the guy, she calls me.
"Ready to go?"
"Yeah."
Her phone vibrates.
"Oh, one second." I hear her mutter, she clicks a few buttons then pauses. I wonder who it is.
"It's Foggy… Something's come up, uh…" She pauses. The way she does when I ask her if she's okay and she isn't, "I'll meet you at O'Malley's tonight…Seven?"
"Sure."
"Great. See you then." She says before walking away, it's clear she's troubled.
"She sure is something." The bear says. I grin for him, so he knows I agree. Though I'm smiling, it doesn't quite reach my heart. I pull out my cell and call the one person I don't wanna talk to.
"Foggy, what's going on with Karen?"
"None of your business man, you take care of you. And leave us be."
I pull the phone away from my ear, suckerpunched. I don't get when he started to hate me so much. I don't know if it's because of Karen, but he's never been so petty before. I don't know if it's because he's tired of coming second to me doing the vigilante thing…
What scares me is however badly he thinks of me, there's a chance he's completely right about me. He's the only person who's known me this long and it bothers me. It bothers me he's justified to hate me. It makes me wonder if I should hate me too.
Hell, I'm half way there.