Hello, everyone! Ready for some protective Matt/maybe finally getting to see Ronan again? This whole plot arc was one that I originally started writing back sometime around Halloween, which might help explain why this chapter is extra creepy. Sorry about that. Hope you were in the mood for strange and sinister, and also that you like really weird dream sequences as much as I do.

I just wanted to give another quick shout out to everyone who has made anything for this story: I love love love you! All fan art, edits, and playlists can be found on my profile, and I highly recommend checking them all out.

Warning: Violence ahead, along with very strange dream sequences that I'm way too attached to writing.


Chapter Eighteen: War and Peace

"You're up early."

Sarah glanced over her shoulder and saw Lauren propping herself up on her elbows and squinting at her sleepily. She was right that it was still early—the sun had only just come up. Of course, for those who had barely gotten any sleep the night before, it seemed awfully late.

"Yeah. I have a lot to do today," Sarah said softly as she slipped her shoes on. She pinched the bridge of her nose, hoping to ward off the headache that was already starting to build somewhere behind her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"I feel like a one-night-stand who's getting the brush off," the blonde muttered resentfully, before letting her head fall back against the pillow again.

"Hey," Sarah leaned over and nudged her friend to stop her from drifting back off. "When does Greg get back into town?"

"Mmm?" Lauren murmured, clearly only half-listening. "I think maybe the day after tomorrow. He has some big meeting this week he can't miss."

"Good. I'll call you to check in, but I'm not going to be able to stay here with you," Sarah said apologetically. "Maybe you could get your mom to come down and spend a few nights, if you want someone."

"Why?" The sleepiness was gone form Lauren's voice as she struggled to sit up more, now giving Sarah a suspicious look. It was rare that either of them ever recommended Lauren spend more time with her mother. "What's going on?"

Sarah's first instinct was to tell her that nothing was going on—when had it become second nature to lie to her friend? She had to stop herself, shaking her head as she picked her phone up from the nightstand and opened the picture message with its accompanying foreboding message before handing it to Lauren.

Lauren looked at the screen for a long minute as she processed what she was looking at. "What the hell? Who sent you this?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" she repeated, sounding alarmed.

"I mean, I have a pretty good idea," Sarah clarified hastily. "It definitely sounds like Ronan, and I can't imagine who else it would be. But I don't know for sure yet."

In reality, Sarah did know for sure that it was Ronan. Matt had called her back last night after checking out her apartment, and he'd let her know that Ronan's scent was all over it—a thought that was nearly enough to make her gag. But she couldn't very well tell Lauren that Matt was able to pick up on things like that.

"Ronan. The one who tried to…" Lauren trailed off, but Sarah tensed up anyway.

"That's the one," she muttered unhappily as she pulled her sweater on.

"Why are you not freaking out? Is this not a freak out thing? Because it feels like it should be. "

"I am freaking out," Sarah admitted. "I just…I need to do something about it. I can't sit around and think about how much I'm freaking out. It'll just make it worse."

"So, where are you going?"

"The hardware store."

"Right. To buy…hammers. So you can hit people with them," Lauren guessed.

Sarah shot her a funny look. "To buy stuff to change my locks. And maybe another deadbolt, too."

"Is your landlord going to care that you're changing the locks on a rental?"

"I haven't seen that guy since the day I signed my lease," Sarah said. "I don't think he cares what we do so long as he gets his rent on time." Which, if her finances continued the way they had been, might not be guaranteed for much longer.

"You shouldn't go back there. Why not stay here?"

"Lauren, no—"

"I'm serious. Even after Greg gets back, he can just, like, sleep on the couch," she said, waving her hand carelessly over her husband's potential sleeping arrangements. "You can stay here with me."

Sarah flashed a sad smile as she regarded her friend seriously.

"No. I can't. You know that. I need you safe. Both of you," she said significantly, nodding to Lauren's stomach. Then as an afterthought, she added, "And Greg, too."

It looked like Lauren wanted to argue, so Sarah pressed on firmly.

"While we're on the topic of you being safe: You can't be randomly showing up at my apartment now. Not for a while, at least. I don't need you running into anyone else who might also…be there unannounced."

To her relief, the other woman didn't protest. Instead, she just looked frustrated.

"I want to help."

"I know."

"I could help you set up some elaborate trap like in Home Alone," Lauren offered hopefully.

"I'll keep that in mind as a backup plan," Sarah said. She was about to get up with Lauren spoke again.

"Is he helping you with this?" she asked quietly, picking at a loose thread on her blanket. "The man in the mask, I mean."

"Yeah," Sarah answered after a pause. "Yeah, he is. I called him last night when I saw the text."

"What did he say?"

Not much. Matt had seemed frustrated that she hadn't told him earlier about the ghost calls, which she had to admit she probably should have. He had wanted to go to her place and check it out immediately, but she had convinced him to go to her father's place first and make sure nothing was wrong. The creepy texts had come in a few hours before she read them, anyway—whoever had sent them was surely gone already. Matt had reported back that there was nothing out of the ordinary at her dad's, but that her apartment had reeked of cigarette smoke and cheap rum. He could smell it from the fire escape, which was endlessly weird to her.

After a short discussion, she'd decided to remain at Lauren's for the night. Unlike her own apartment building, this one had security cameras and a doorman, and there was no reason to believe that anyone knew she was there. So, unable to sleep, Sarah had passed the hours last night by slipping a pair of Lauren's headphones in and watching YouTube tutorials on her phone on how to change the locks on her door. As soon as the sun came up, she had quietly slipped out of bed, hoping to leave without waking her friend up.

"He said that he'll find him soon," Sarah reassured her, despite the fact that she wasn't sure she believed it herself. "He's good at that stuff."

"I hope so." The tight worry didn't leave Lauren's face.

"I really have to go now. I'm sorry; I'll call you later." Sarah stood up from the bed and shouldered her purse. "You should go back to sleep. It's Saturday."

"Wait, wait, wait," Lauren said, holding her hand out so that Sarah could help pull her out of bed. "I have things to send you home with."

Despite Sarah's protests, Lauren insisted on loading her down with an entire bag of food and alcohol before she would let her leave. As Sarah left with a full bag of what appeared to be every grocery item Lauren had in her kitchen, she couldn't help but feel grateful to have her best friend back on her side, even as things seemed to be looking worse.


The feeling had faded by the time she got back to her apartment, where she stood outside of her door for a long time before she convinced herself to go inside. Matt hadn't been happy that she was going back home, but he had begrudgingly admitted that there was nothing dangerous left in the apartment.

Sarah slowly walked through the apartment, looking for the signs that Ronan had been there. They were small, but noticeable. The most obvious sign was that all of her photographs were now missing: the assortment of pictures from college she had on her fridge, the old family portrait that had been hanging on her living room wall, even the small photo of her and her dad from her first piano recital as a child, which had been sitting in a frame on her desk.

Swallowing down the disgusted lump that had formed in her throat, Sarah turned away from her desk, only to be met with another disturbing sight: there was a dress laid out on the bed that she hadn't put there. She walked closer and recognized which one it was right away: a simple floral dress, nothing scandalous. But she remembered that she had stopped wearing it to work shortly after she started at Orion, because it always attracted Ronan's attention even more than usual. She wasn't sure what he had hoped to achieve by leaving it out for her to find, but it only made her angry.

She snatched the dress off the bed and threw it in the trash. Then, feeling as though that wasn't enough, she yanked the sheets of her bed too, throwing them in a pile on the floor to be washed. Or maybe burned, depending on how she was feeling later.

Suddenly everything in her apartment felt incredibly dirty, and she wanted to fix it. She moved from room to room, scrubbing every surface she could reach. She cleaned her shower and emptied her fridge, washed all of her dishes and threw all of her towels in a pile to be washed. Obviously, Ronan couldn't have gotten his grimy hands on everything in her apartment, but cleaning it all was one small thing she had control over, and she found it to be surprisingly therapeutic.

But once everything had been sprayed and scrubbed and wiped down, the anxiety returned to Sarah's chest, and it only worsened once it got dark outside. She had already changed the lock and installed the new deadbolt hours ago, but the peace of mind it gave her had been brief. So she dragged each of her dresser drawers out of her bedroom and dumped them out onto the floor of the living room, hoping that the mechanical process of sorting through her clothing—something she hadn't done in a long time—might help keep her mind occupied.

When Matt's familiar knock came at the window that night—earlier than usual—it wasn't unwelcome, if only because Sarah desperately didn't want to be alone anymore. She paused the show she'd been playing for background noise—the Spanish soap opera that she and Foggy had bonded over—upon hearing the knock and pulled herself to her feet, stepping over several different piles of clothing to reach the window.

The two of them had kept in touch over text throughout the day—a condition of her returning to the apartment alone—so she didn't need to catch him up on the missing photos or the dress. She had hoped that would mean they could put off discussing the topic altogether, as even thinking about it made her head spin. But she had no such luck. As soon as he got to her place, Matt was firing off questions about the man—who she now assumed must have been Ronan—that she had seen in the alleyway a few nights prior, and about the number that had been calling her.

"And none of this struck you as something you might have filled me in on?" he asked, after she had explained everything that had been going on more fully.

"It—it didn't sound like anything worth bothering you with," she said halfheartedly. "Sometimes people stand around in alleyways. And silent calls aren't that weird."

Matt pulled his mask off and tossed it on the table before running an agitated hand through his hair, causing some of it to stand up at odd angles. "Did you block the number?"

"No."

"Why not?" he asked sharply.

"Well, I was thinking he might call back while you're here. I thought maybe you could do your, um…super-hearing thing and see if you can pick up on anything to help us figure out where he is," she said hopefully.

Matt just jerked his head in reluctant agreement. "Don't answer otherwise. And don't reply to any messages he sends you."

As it turned out, Bossy Doctor Matt—as Foggy had dubbed him—was nothing next to Bossy Bodyguard Matt, who seemed to have no trouble ordering her around in much the same way he had when they first met.

"I'm not an idiot, Matt," she pointed out. "I'm not going to do anything to encourage him."

Matt halted his pacing with a frown at her words.

"I know you're not an idiot," he said quietly.

"I'm glad. So, are you…all done yelling at me?" she asked, slightly exasperated.

He threw her a dirty look—Clearly not done, then—but seemed to get the point she was making. With a frustrated sigh, he sat down on the arm rest of her couch, moving his head slightly as he finally took in the state of her living room.

"Why is everything you own all over the floor?"

"I'm cleaning," she explained, to which he gave her a confused look.

"This is cleaning?"

"Well, I'm…organizing, now. I already cleaned everything. I don't like the idea that he was in here touching my stuff. And I needed to clean it anyway since I'm hosting a baby shower here in less than a week—assuming that I don't get murdered in my sleep first."

Matt's face darkened slightly, and Sarah quickly changed the topic, not wanting to trigger another lecture on safety.

"You're not usually here this early," she noted. "Couldn't find any bad guys to beat up tonight?"

The vigilante didn't look fooled—or amused—by her quick topic change, but he answered anyway, relaxing slightly.

"The opposite, actually. I finally managed to track down the base of this drug ring operation I've been looking for. Found them all in an abandoned studio a few blocks from where I had originally been searching."

"So, finding a building full of people that want to fight you is a…good night for you?"

"It was more the fact that I didn't need stitches afterwards," Matt said wryly. "And I managed to get in touch with an officer I trust, so I know the police will actually deal with them. Figured I'd call it a night before my luck ran out. Come make sure everything was alright here."

Sarah shook her head in faint disbelief. "I would think you'd want to go home and celebrate by actually going to bed before three am. Do you actually sleep?"

Matt laughed, tilting his head back and resting it against the wall. Sure enough, he did look drained.

"I fall asleep at work sometimes. Does that count?"

"I'd fall asleep at work too if I was my own boss," Sarah said as she got up from her position on the floor. She kicked a few high heels out of her path as she made her way to the kitchen. "Do you want a beer? Since you're done with the crime-fighting for the night."

Matt threw her a doubtful look. "Is it from the same place you got that vodka?"

Sarah made a face as she grabbed two bottles out of her fridge and popped the lids off. "I'm still not ready to think about that liquor without gagging. And no, it's not. This is the good stuff. Lauren gave it to me."

Matt took the bottle she offered him. "How did everything go with her?"

His tone was casual, but it was obvious that he had been waiting for the topic to come up. It made sense—he had just as much of a stake in it as Sarah did.

She leaned against the dining room table, facing Matt's position on the arm of the couch a couple feet away.

"It went well. Like, really well," she said, trying to reassure him. "Even with the phone calls and everything near the end. Having Lauren back in the picture and being able to actually talk to her about some of this…it makes the rest of it seem, I don't know…more bearable."

Matt took a drink from his beer, then hesitated slightly before asking, "How much did you tell her?"

"A good bit of it. Pretty much everything to do with Ronan and Jason. With your parts, I had to…do some editing," she said carefully, glancing sideways at him. "I skimmed over a lot of the, um…early parts."

A familiar look of guilt crossed Matt's face as he nodded slowly. "You thought she'd change her mind about going to the police? If she knew how afraid you used to be of me?"

"No. She wouldn't go to the police if I didn't want her to. But was difficult enough to get her to look past the…conflicting reputations you have in the news," Sarah said, throwing him a cautious glance, but his expression was carefully neutral. "I didn't see any reason to make the conversation even more complicated by going into how we used to be. She just wanted to know if I trust you now. And I told her I do."

Matt seemed slightly caught off guard by the statement, but after a moment he gave her a crooked smile.

"Also, pregnant women get all weirdly protective. I think it's a maternal instinct thing," Sarah continued. "I'm just concerned for your personal safety."

"I appreciate the concern," Matt said with a short, surprised laugh, but his smile quickly faded. "I'd say you need to be more concerned about your own personal safety, though. You're in more danger than I am."

"I have one person that wants to kill me. I get the feeling you have a lot more, just based off of your choice of extracurriculars."

"None of those people know where I live," Matt shot back. "Which brings me back to you staying in this apartment."

"What else am I supposed to do? Just hide from Ronan for as long as it takes to find him?" Sarah asked. "I still have to go to work. Ride the subway. Go to the grocery store. I can't just stop living my life because of this. I'll go crazy."

"I know, I just…I told you that I'd keep you safe. That's what I'm trying to do."

"You can't be there to protect me all the time, Matt," she pointed out softly.

"No, I can't," he said resignedly. He had a contemplative frown on his face, tapping his index finger against the beer bottle as he appeared to think about something.

"What?" she asked him suspiciously.

Matt just took a drink from his beer, not answering her right away. She waited impatiently for him to bring the bottle down from his lips and get to whatever he was contemplating saying.

"I'm going to ask you a question," Matt said carefully. "And I'd like you to keep in mind what you just said about trust, and not take this the wrong way."

She eyed him warily. "Okay."

"What would you do if I attacked you right now?"

Sarah's eyes widened. "Wow. Why would I take that the wrong way?"

"I'm not going to attack you," he elaborated. "It's a hypothetical situation."

"You could have opened with that."

"What would you do?" Matt prompted again, ignoring her indignant tone.

"What, are you testing me or something?" she protested. Matt simply shrugged and she let her mouth fall open slightly. "Oh, my God. You are."

"I'm not testing you," he said. "I'm…curious. About what your plan is for if something happens and I'm not around."

"My plan? Am I supposed to have a plan?"

"Stop stalling and answer the question." So, we're still in bossy mode, then.

"I don't know. I'd probably run away," she admitted defensively. "I'm not a fighter. I'm a…run away-er."

Matt tilted his head as he thought about her answer, before taking another long drink from his beer.

"Do you want to be a fighter?"

She blinked. That wasn't what she had expected. "What?"

"I could teach you," Matt said hesitantly, as though he wasn't particularly sure about the idea, either. "Some of the basics, at least."

Sarah stared at him. "You want to teach me…how to fight people?"

"More like self-defense," Matt said. "Or, my version of it, anyway."

"Are you serious? I can't do any of that stuff."

"Of course you can. It's not like I'd be teaching you anything advanced. But I can show you some things that'll help you hold your own against anyone who's trying to hurt you. Like how to hit someone without busting all of your knuckles open again."

Sarah's gaze fell to her hands, where she could still see the small white scars crisscrossing her palms and knuckles. Still, she was doubtful.

"I know you can't see me and all, but I'm not exactly a heavyweight champ," she pointed out, and Matt cracked a grin.

"I've noticed. But you're pretty fast."

"That's just because I do things without thinking first," Sarah countered.

"We can work on that."

Sarah looked at him for a long moment. "You really think I could do that? Learn to fight…anyone?"

He shrugged. "I know you have the nerve for it. You've stood up to me when a lot of other people wouldn't. You stood up to Ronan."

"Yeah, well…that last one worked out really well for me, didn't it?"

"It could have gone a lot worse," Matt said quietly. Sarah just looked down at the bottle in her hand, so he continued. "And if I have any control over it, you won't be in that situation again, but…I can't promise that. But I can teach you what to do if it happens."

Sarah picked at the corner of the label on her beer bottle as she considered it. On the one hand, she and Matt had only just reached a level of trust and some sort of friendship. Him teaching her to fight would require an entirely different level of trust—a very physical kind of trust that she wasn't entirely sure she was prepared to give. On the other hand, she was drawn to the idea of actually being able to have some level of control next time she ran into Ronan.

"So…what, you'd be teaching me good…punching-people technique?" she asked, recalling their conversation from the night he had walked her home.

"Eventually. That's not what we would start with."

"Where would we start?"

"Meditation."

"Meditation?" Sarah repeated, bewildered. "Why? I mean, no offense. I know you're, like…way into it. But I just kind of assumed that was for…you know…" she trailed off vaguely with an uncomfortable shrug.

"For what?"

"Well, like, an…anger management…type…thing," she tried diplomatically.

Matt raised his eyebrows.

"You're saying I have anger management issues?" he asked casually.

Sarah faltered as she tried to figure out how to answer that question.

"Um…no? I more meant that you have—like—a very, um—energetic…temper…" She stopped trying to backtrack when she noticed a small smirk playing across his lips. "You're messing with me."

"A little," he said, the smirk growing more pronounced.

"That's great. I'm so glad you stopped by and interrupted my cleaning spree for this."

Matt chuckled slightly at her annoyed tone.

"I'm sorry. You're right, though. About the meditation. I do use it for that sometimes. Meditating can help me turn anger it into something useful. It's the first thing I learned when I learned how to fight."

"Well, I don't have crazy anger issues," she informed him.

"No, but you have the temperament of a startled rabbit."

"Excuse me?"

"Your first instinct when something goes wrong is to bolt," Matt pointed out bluntly. Sarah opened her mouth to respond defensively, but found that she didn't really have an argument for that. Instead she just shrugged. "Which is fine. But it won't always be an option, and you'll never be able to defend yourself properly if your brain is always screaming at you to run."

She had to admit that he had a point.

"I guess that's…fair," she grumbled. "You really think meditation will help with that?"

"Yeah. What do you currently do when you need to clear your mind?"

Sarah thought about it. Obviously she sometimes obsessively cleaned her apartment, but that wasn't an every day thing.

"I…drink?" she hazarded, holding up her beer.

Matt smirked slightly. "Seems healthy."

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him. "You're right. I actually put on a costume and go beat up bad guys at night. Wait, no…that's not me."

"Alright, alright, point taken," Matt said laughingly, holding his hands up in defeat. "I just mean…there has to be something else you do to calm down. Besides drinking and cleaning your apartment."

Sarah was quiet for a few moments, fiddling with the label again.

"I don't know. Not anymore, really. Playing the piano was always my outlet before all of this. I never really replaced it with anything."

"You don't play at all anymore?"

"No. It's, um…it's just kind of painful, I guess," Sarah explained falteringly. It felt strange to acknowledge out loud. "More so as time goes on. It just reminds me of what everything used to be like."

Matt's expression was difficult to read as a short silence stretched between them. "I don't know that meditating will be able to replace that for you, but…I think it could help. And it'll definitely help you with what I want to teach you. It's pretty quick to pick up."

"When would you even have time to teach me? It's not like you have a ton of free time."

"I have time right now."

Sarah let out a short, surprised laugh. "Like, now now?"

"Why not?" Matt said with a shrug. "Do you have more clothing you need to pile on the floor?"

She looked from the vigilante, who was waiting patiently for her to give an answer, to the clock on the wall. She still had a sneaking suspicion that he had cut his night short so that she wouldn't be alone in her apartment, and while she was definitely grateful for the company, she didn't want him to feel obligated to stick around when he could be out helping someone else.

"You don't have to stay with me, you know," she pointed out softly. "I mean, if you have important things to do. I'm okay without a babysitter."

"This is important." His tone was firm, and Sarah didn't bother to argue.

She regarded him for a few moments before finally setting her empty beer bottle down on the table and getting to her feet.

"Alright," she said reluctantly. "What do I do?"

Matt gestured to the floor in front of her couch, where there was still some space that wasn't covered in clothing and shoes. "Take a seat."

Sarah lowered herself to the floor, settling into a cross-legged position. She expected Matt to sit down in front of her, but instead he remained standing for another minute, tilting his head as he regarded her. His eyes were directed somewhere on the floor behind her, but she could tell he was observing her somehow, and she shifted uncomfortably.

"Your back needs to be straighter."

Sarah rolled her shoulders and sat up a little more. Apparently dissatisfied with her efforts, Matt stepped closer and crouched down next to her. He put one hand on her shoulder, then reached around to place the other hand on her lower back. He pushed her back straighter, pulling her shoulders back as well.

"Your spine should be a straight line from here," he said, tapping two fingers against the base of her neck, then sliding them down to the small of her back, "down to here."

"Okay," Sarah said, very aware of his hands on her back.

Matt stood back up and circled around her until he was in front of her, then lowered himself onto the ground across from her, settling easily into a cross-legged position that matched her own. Even with his combat outfit on, it looked like the pose came much more naturally to him than it did to her.

"Do you have something to tie your hair back with?"

Sarah lowered her hand from where she had been nervously wrapping a few strands of hair around her finger without noticing. She slipped a hair tie off of her wrist and tied her hair into a low pony tail.

Matt let his hands rest on his knees, which almost brushed her own, palms up with his fingers open and relaxed. She copied him carefully.

"Are you going to wake me up if I fall asleep?" she asked, only half-joking.

His mouth twitched up and he gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Maybe. You could probably use the rest."

"Says the guy who never sleeps," she muttered, before taking a deep breath. "Okay. So…what do I do, exactly? Just try not to think?"

"You're not going to be able to clear your head completely," he told her. "Not right away, at least. Try to focus on your breathing. Don't let your mind wander. When it does, bring yourself back."

"Okay," Sarah said resolutely. "How do I do that?" She felt like she was asking too many questions.

"With practice. I'll help you."

Sarah gave him one last skeptical look before closing her eyes. For a few minutes, she managed to keep her head clear. But sure enough, as the silence stretched on, bits and pieces of worry and stress crept back into her mind. The first thought to break its way through was something small about everything she had to do at work that upcoming week. That quickly led into thoughts of Jason, then Ronan and his constant lurking presence in her life, and now in her home. The thought made her heart tick up slightly—

"Your thoughts are drifting. Come back," Matt said softly, bringing her out of the thoughts she had become lost in. She noticed that her shoulders had tightened up again, and she gave them a roll to clear the tension before nodding breathing in deeply and trying to turn the intrusive doubts away. It wasn't easy.

"How long did it take you to get the hang of this?" she whispered after a minute of silence.

Matt chuckled lowly. "I picked it up quick enough. For a kid, at least. But my teacher was a lot more intimidating."

"More intimidating than you?" she asked doubtfully.

"Grouchier, at least."

Sarah cracked one eye open slightly, stealing a glance at him. She hadn't really ever thought about who he learned all of his vigilante tricks from, but she supposed skills like that couldn't have come to him by accident, like his enhanced senses had.

"Close your eyes," he reprimanded her.

Sarah started guiltily before closed her eyes again and tried to concentrate.

She quickly discovered that focusing on her own breathing wasn't very relaxing either. She became too caught up in whether she was breathing too fast or too slow, and the effect was the opposite of calming. After a while, she listened closely until she could hear Matt's breathing, and tried to match her own rhythm with his. She was pretty sure that was cheating—could you cheat at meditation?—but to her surprise, it seemed to work, if only a little.

As they sat together quietly in the middle of her piles of clothing, some of the apprehension that had sat so tightly coiled in her chest since last night began to unwind. She still wasn't sure how this would help her in any sort of dangerous situation, but for now, she would take the small amount of peace it was providing her.


Unfortunately, that small bit of peace slowly unraveled over the next couple of days. Oddly enough, it wasn't due to any more harassing phone calls or messages—in fact, her phone remained silent. And that was part of what was putting her so on edge; she felt like she was going crazy. She tried meditating on her own, keeping her back straight and her mind clear like Matt had taught her, but somehow it didn't seem to work as well as it had the first time.

As she had expected, she began having even more trouble sleeping at night than usual, and when she did manage to drift off, her mind simply went back to mulling over the same disturbing images and possibilities that it did while she was awake. On this particular night, she had resorted to going over some paperwork she'd brought home from work, hoping that it would put her to sleep. Sure enough, the endless numbers did their job, and she eventually fell into an uneasy sleep on her couch, sitting upright with the folder of paperwork still on her lap.


When Sarah opened her eyes, she was driving an old station wagon, feeling strangely calm and relaxed. Outside the car, the weather was sunny and bright, and she was somewhere outside of the city—upstate, maybe, where she used to go camping a long time ago. An old Leonard Cohen song crackled through the car speakers, the haunting sound of its chords a stark contrast to the cheerful weather outside.

She let her gaze wander lazily around the car, eventually landing on the rearview mirror, where she was surprised to see both of her parents in the back seat. They looked young, like they had when she was a child. Her father had no tired circles or confusion on his face, and her mother was actually dressed and smiling, her hair neatly brushed. She watched them laughing and talking to each other in the mirror, but she couldn't hear what they were saying.

"Come sit up here with me," she tried to call back to them, but her voice was a faint whisper and she couldn't make it loud enough for them to hear her. "Why are you guys sitting back there?"

"The back seat of the car is the safest place to be in the event of a crash," a familiar voice recited from the passenger seat. Sarah looked to her right and saw Lauren sitting there, sipping a margarita as she read from what appeared to be a driver's education pamphlet. "No matter where you are seated in a moving vehicle, you should always wear your seatbelt."

Sarah glanced around the interior of the car. "Well…I don't have any seatbelts."

"Ooh. Good point. Um…" Lauren flipped through the pamphlet, creasing her brow as she tried to find the right page for that problem. "I don't see anything for that. I can tell you how to build a washing machine. Or how to identify poisonous mushrooms."

"That's not very helpful."

"Well, maybe if you'd told me sooner that we were going on this road trip, I could have found us a better road guide," Lauren said resentfully. "Or a better car. With seatbelts."

"I know. I'm sorry. Just…see if it has anything in there than can help me."

Lauren hummed along to the song on the radio as she looked through the booklet. It seemed like she was looking for hours.

"You know what I just noticed? This is all in Spanish," Lauren finally concluded, then promptly tossed the pamphlet out of the open window, where it fluttered away. She offered her margarita to Sarah. "Do you want any?"

"I shouldn't drink while I'm driving," Sarah said, shaking her head.

Lauren gave her a confused look. "You aren't driving."

With a frown, Sarah glanced back at the road and saw that Lauren was right; the car was moving, but there was no steering wheel in front of her. For some reason, this made her laugh, and they continued laughing for a long time as the car drove them through the sunny countryside. Sarah kept looking at the sunlight outside, but she couldn't help noticing that out of the corner of her eye it sometimes looked like there was something off about Lauren's face—like she could see the skull underneath her skin.

The wind coming through the windows sent a chill through her, and Sarah realized suddenly that she was very cold, and only wearing a thin floral dress. She looked down and blinked in surprise when she saw it was covered in dark splotches of blood.

"I'm bleeding," she noted casually. She felt fine, so it couldn't be too bad.

"Don't worry. I remembered to bring the bandages." Lauren pulled a first aid kit from somewhere beside her and handed it over to Sarah.

"You always think of all the important things," Sarah said, taking the bandages trying to figure out where the blood was coming from. She couldn't see any injuries.

"I know," Lauren said sadly, leaning back against the seat. She turned her head slightly to look at Sarah, and the skull flickered to the surface again. "I would have made such a good mom."

Sarah whipped her head around in alarm to ask her friend what she meant, but before she could say anything, something in her rearview mirror caught her eye. She looked in the reflection and saw Ronan sitting in the second row of back seats, behind her parents. His beady eyes were locked directly onto hers. She slammed on the breaks in surprise, causing everyone to jerk forward. When her head snapped back up, Lauren and her parents were gone, and only Ronan was left in the car with her, slowly climbing over the rows of seats towards her.

She fumbled out of the car and found that she had managed to park right in the lobby of Orion. Had she done that on purpose? Across the lobby where her old desk waited, she saw Matt striding towards her, wearing his black Daredevil costume.

"Matt. You're here," she said, feeling oddly relieved. She wanted to tell him that Ronan was right there, that he was chasing her, but she couldn't form the words.

"Of course I'm here. I'm your lawyer." He took her hand and pulled her towards the elevator.

Once they were inside, he hit an unmarked button, and the elevator moved sideways.

"Where are we going?" she asked him.

Matt didn't answer. The doors slid open, but there was nothing but darkness outside of them. She squinted into the shadows and couldn't see anything. The vigilante stepped off the elevator and into the blackness, then turned back to her.

"Come on," he said, holding his hand out to her.

After a moment's hesitation, she started to reach her hand out, but the elevator doors slammed shut between them, and the lift abruptly began to rise. She reached for the buttons to go back, but there were many more of them now, and they were all in Braille.

"Dammit, Matt," she mumbled under her breath. "You know I don't know how to do this."

She heard a ding behind her and turned around to see a second set of doors on the other side of the elevator, which slowly slid open.

When she stepped out, she was in Jason's office, but it was much bigger than usual. Jason was standing by a large piano, checking his watch and drumming his fingernails on the lid. Like her dress, his suit was splattered in blood, leaving bright red stains all over his white tie.

"Sarah. Finally. Do you have any idea how late for work you are?" Jason said. "Sit down."

She hesitantly took a seat the bench next to the piano and glanced around the bright office. When she looked to her left, Matt was sitting next to her, now in his lawyer suit. She blinked at his sudden reappearance.

"How did you change so fast?"

Matt's expression unreadable behind his dark glasses. "I didn't."

Sarah frowned, then faced forward again and caught sight of another figure, far behind Jason, pacing in front of the shadows at the back of the room. It was Matt in his Daredevil costume, weaving in and out of the dark shadows far away. She looked from one Matt to the other in concern.

"What if he makes the connection?" she whispered to the Matt sitting next to her, nodding slightly to Jason.

"Oh, he can't see me," Matt informed her seriously. He gestured to his glasses. "You know the old saying: 'If I can't see you, you can't see me.'"

"Well, but…it doesn't really work that way," Sarah said, completely baffled.

"Sarah," Jason interrupted, snapping his fingers in front of her face to get her attention. "Either do your job and play, or go home."

Sarah hurriedly placed her fingers on the piano keys, but then realized that it wasn't a real piano; instead, it was a wooden cutout of a piano. The keys didn't press down, they just remained stationary, one large block of wood attached to the rest of the structure.

"I…I can't play this. It's just wood."

"I didn't ask for excuses, Sarah," Jason snapped. "Don't you even remember how to do the one thing you're good at?"

"It's solid wood," she said insistently, smacking the unyielding surface for emphasis. "It—it doesn't make music."

"Well, then what does it make?" Jason asked skeptically, before leaning forward with slight interest. "Alphabetically, please."

"Oh," Sarah said. That was a reasonable request. Why hadn't she prepared anything? "Wood? Um, it makes…almanacs. A-arrows, and…axe handles."

Jason checked his watch impatiently. "This is taking too long. Skip to 'c', please."

Sarah faltered as she searched her memory. Someone should have taught her this. They probably did, and she just wasn't listening. "Wood…wood makes, um…cabinets. Canes. Clocks…"

"Coffins," Matt chimed in helpfully. "Crucifixes."

Sarah threw him a confused look—how was he so good at this game? He must have taken this test before—and for the first time she noticed Foggy sitting on his other side. The blond man waved at her cheerfully in greeting. She leaned back behind Matt to talk to him.

"What…what is Matt trying to do?" she whispered.

Foggy laughed. "Uh, I think he's trying to help you remember the alphabet. You kind of suck at it. We charge a million dollars an hour for this, by the way."

"No, not this Matt. That one," she said, glancing back towards the Matt in the black mask prowling around in the background.

"Oh, him?" Foggy said, following her gaze. Then he shook his head, giving her an apologetic look. "I haven't really met him. You're on your own with that one."

Sarah leaned forward again to find that Jason was waiting for her to continue, drumming his nails on the fake wooden piano as he checked his watch. "We're all the way to 'n' now, Sarah, and you've barely gotten any answers right."

Matt gave her a disappointed look. "I thought you'd be better at this. We were all counting on you."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Um, okay…'n'…"

Jason threw his hands up in a theatrical show of exasperation. "No, no, we already went back to 'g'. What's even the point? Let's just continue with the original plan."

"What plan?" she asked nervously. She stood up from the piano and backed away until she reached the corner of the office, a deep feeling of dread growing in her chest.

The black-masked Matt in the background stopped pacing, and Ronan emerged from the shadows behind him. The vigilante made no move to stop him as he began to cross the large room.

Alarmed, Sarah looked over at Foggy and Matt, who were now standing beside her.

"Guys. What…what do I do?"

"I don't know. You're the one who invited him to the party," Foggy pointed out. "I mean, he didn't RSVP, but…"

She looked to Matt, who just shrugged. "He's right."

"I can't tell if you're lying. Can't you take those off?" Sarah said, reaching for his dark glasses.

Matt caught her wrist and shoved her backwards, slamming her into the filing cabinet behind her. She stared at him in shock.

"It's not worth the risk," he said simply.

Ronan was beside her now, his hand on her throat; she hadn't even seen him come closer. He gave her a wide, yellow grin before grabbing her hand and jerking her index finger back, breaking the bone with a loud, wet snap. She screamed and tried to break out of his grip, but it was too strong. He moved on to the next finger, snapping that one as well.

A few feet away, Matt and Foggy quietly conversed about a case they were working on, and in the background, Jason just watched impassively, still drumming his nails on the wooden piano.


Sarah snapped awake, disoriented to find herself still on the couch; she realized she must have fallen asleep doing the paperwork, which by now had slid off her lap and onto the floor. She fumbled for her cell phone and squinted at the bright screen in the dark: 4:41am. She couldn't put her finger on what had caused her to wake up, but she was abruptly and completely awake. Her heart was pounding and the hair on the back of her neck was standing up, but she didn't know why. Shaking her head, she pressed her palms against her eyes and exhaled unsteadily.

She was still trying to shake off the uneasy feeling when her mind finally caught up with her body and she realized what was wrong: the sound of fingernails drumming on wood hadn't stopped when she woke up. She slowly turned her head in the direction of the sound, which was low and muffled, and coming from the other side of her front door.

She strained her ears to make sure she was hearing it right, but it was unmistakable: someone was at her door, quietly drumming their fingernails against the wood. The sound sent a chill through her. It wasn't loud enough to be considered knocking—instead it was quiet, but insistent. Like they were testing to see if she could hear them.

Her heart raced even faster, and she automatically started to reach for the lamp on the side table, but stopped herself, not wanting the light to spill out under the gap between her front door and the floor and alert the person outside that she was awake. She uncurled herself from the couch and tried to ignore the aches that shot through her back and neck from the position she had fallen asleep in. She slowly crept over to the door, careful to keep her bare feet as silent as possible on the hardwood floor. When she finally reached the door, she flicked her eyes down to make sure all of the deadbolts were done before she peered through the peep hole.

All she saw was the empty hallway. The sounds had ceased for a few seconds, and she began to wonder if she had imagined it. Then it came again. Whoever was out there was crouched out of sight—possibly, she guessed with a heavy feeling of dread in her stomach, in the hopes that she would open the door to see what the sound was.

Nervously, she shifted her weight—only a little, but it was enough to make the floorboard creak loudly. A second later, she screamed as she felt something sharp slice deep into the side of her foot. She reeled backwards, losing her footing and stumbling so that she fell backwards. She gasped in pain as her full weight landed on her recently-healed wrist, and looked back at the front door just in time to see the blade of a knife retreat back through the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. Whoever was out there had been crouched at the bottom of her door, waiting for her to come close enough for the knife to reach her.

She heard a quiet laugh from the hallway outside. It didn't sound like Ronan.

Ignoring the blood now dripping from the side of her foot, Sarah stumbled over to the coffee table and grabbed her cell phone. She kept her eyes fixed on the front door, trying to concentrate on the ringing sound on the line and not way the door shook as the person on the other side started messing with the lock on the handle. It sounded like they were trying to insert a key—and by now they must be realizing she had changed the locks.

"Hello?" Matt's voice sounded groggy and full of sleep; the one time she needed him to still be out Daredeviling somewhere near her apartment, and he was home sleeping—understandable, given that it was nearly five in the morning.

"There's someone trying to get into my apartment," Sarah told him, speaking barely above a whisper. She tried to keep her voice calm, but based off his reaction she guessed that she wasn't succeeding.

"What?" Matt said, sounding much more alert now. She could hear movement in the background as he—hopefully—got out of bed. "Get in how? The door or the window?"

"The—the front door. He's messing with the handle, and he has a knife—" Sarah broke off with a startled yelp as the person on the other side of the door slammed their fist against the wood with a loud bang. The door shook in its frame; whoever was on the other side definitely wasn't petite.

"Sarah?" Matt's voice was sharp on the other end of the line—he had obviously heard the loud noise.

"It's okay. It's okay. The deadlocks are holding, but I—I don't know how much longer," she said shakily, still keeping her eyes glued to the front door, as though afraid the locks would snap the moment she looked away.

"Okay, listen to me. I'm on my way. Get in your bedroom or your bathroom, whichever will be harder to get into if he gets in."

"Okay," she whispered, staring in horror at the front door, where the man was now sticking his fingers under the gap in the door, wiggling them along the ground like a strange spider. Like a person trying to lure a pet cat to the door to play with them.

"I'll be there soon," Matt said, and with that the line went dead and she was alone again.

Sarah kept watching the fingers under the door for a few moments longer, transfixed by the disturbing movement. Then, snapping out of her daze, she quickly darted into the kitchen and grabbed a large chef's knife from the knife block on her counter. She suddenly found herself wishing that she still had her stun gun, though she knew it probably wouldn't be much help.

There was another loud bang as they slammed their hand against the door once again. Sarah quickened her pace as she made her way over to the bedroom, but froze when she heard a familiar, raspy female voice outside, a bit farther down the hallway.

"What the hell do you think you're doing banging on people's doors at this hour of the night?"

Shit.

Sarah knew the voice right away. Mrs. Benedict had emerged from her apartment, drawn out by the inconsiderate loud noises, to do what she did best: lecture people about things that were none of her business.

"No, no," Sarah whispered, straining her ears to hear what was happening outside. She took a few steps closer to the front door. "Just go back inside."

"Sorry, ma'am," a male voice replied—definitely not Ronan's voice. In fact, she didn't recognize it at all. She put her eye up to the peep hole again, but couldn't see far enough over to identify the speaker. "I live downstairs, and I locked myself out. I'd given Sarah an extra key to my place, so I was just hoping to get it from her."

Sarah narrowed her eyes. This was Hell's Kitchen; you were lucky to know the names of your neighbors, much less entrust them with extra keys. It wasn't great as far as cover stories went, and apparently Mrs. Benedict agreed.

"I've never seen you around. What apartment do you live in?"

The suspicion was obvious in the old woman's voice, and Sarah prayed that she would pick up on the danger of the situation and get back into her apartment. She couldn't even call out to her to warn her; there was no way Mrs. Benedict would be wearing her hearing aid at this time of night.

"Apartment 428. I moved in last fall."

"No…the fellow that lives in 428 is about forty years older than you and looks like Robert Redford. I know because I watch him take his trash out all the time. Now, I don't think you should be here. You can leave or I'm calling the police."

Sarah leaned against the wall next to the front door, clutching the knife in her hand and straining to hear more. She heard the sound of slow footsteps as the man outside began approaching Mrs. Benedict. By now the older woman surely must have noticed the knife in his hand, right?

"Actually, ma'am, I'd love to explain the situation to you—"

His footsteps quickened.

Cursing every deity she had ever heard of, Sarah fumbled to undo the deadlocks on the front door before yanking it open and stepping into the hallway. A couple doors down, Mrs. Benedict was still lingering in her open doorway, leaning heavily on the walking stick she sometimes used at night when her arthritis was acting up.

The man with the knife—which he was currently holding casually behind his right leg—was still several feet away from the old woman.

"Mrs. B, go back inside," Sarah called out, causing the man to turn around in surprise. When she saw his face, she yet again registered the fact that she didn't recognize him—how could that be possible?

He fixed his attention fully on her now, the old woman behind him already forgotten. Sarah desperately wanted to back through the doorway into her apartment, but Mrs. Benedict still hadn't gone back inside.

"Cute," he noted, nodding at the knife in her hand. "I'd heard you were feisty."

"Sarah—" Mrs. Benedict began worriedly, but Sarah cut her off.

"Go inside," she repeated, wishing that for once in the woman's long, stubborn life she would actually listen to her. To her extreme relief, Mrs. Benedict stepped back into her apartment, slamming and locking the door behind her.

Sarah was about to dart back into the safety of her own home when she saw the man's eyes flick behind her for just a fraction of a second as a smirk flashed across his face.

Sarah looked behind her just in time to see that a second man, taller and broader than the first one, had come around the corner from the direction of the stairwell, and was reaching towards her. She barely managed to dodge his hand, which had been about to knot itself into her hair.

Luckily, he had come around the corner so fast that he hadn't noticed she was holding a knife, and she saw the surprise register on his face when she swung it wildly at him, making contact on the second swing. The blade cut deep into his skin, dragging along his cheek and across his nostril.

Sarah didn't waste time waiting to see how he reacted beyond the yell of pain he let out. But unfortunately for her, he now he was between her and the doorway to her apartment, leaving the stairwell as the only exit. She was through the door before the man had time to recovery.

She could go down, but that was five flights of stairs, and it would only lead to a lobby that held at best innocent people and at worst more bad guys with knives. Or she could go up, which was only two flights and led to the rooftop, where—hopefully—help could easily find her.

So, she went up, taking the stairs as fast as she could. She was barely one flight up when she heard the stairwell door below her bang open, signaling that the two men were already behind her.

In the few years Sarah had been living in her apartment, she had never had any reason to go up onto the roof. As she burst through the door at the top of the stairs and out onto the roof, she was greeted by a small maze of dark, shadowy structures: utility sheds, water tanks, out-of-use smoke stacks. She hesitated for a split second before sprinting to the right. She had just ducked behind a large water tank about twice her height when she heard the two men come through the same door that she just had.

She had the small advantage of being much lighter than them, so that her footsteps were nearly silent, and any small noise they did make was masked by the loud crunch of their boots on the gravel, making it easy to keep track of where they were.

"Ronan said to bring her in alive," she heard the man with the knife tell his partner. "Beyond that, he doesn't care what condition she's in."

"That bitch sliced my face open," the other man snapped back, his voice tinged with a Brooklyn accent. Sarah heard the distinctive noise of a switchblade flicking open. "I'm not thinking we deliver her in mint condition."

"Yeah, well, whose fault is that?" the first man asked dismissively. "Maybe if you hadn't had so much to drink before we came here, you'd have had better reflexes."

Sarah tightened her grip on her own knife as she tried to keep track of where they were.

"This is the part where we say, 'Come out, we won't hurt you,'" the first man called out, sounding sickly amused by the whole situation. "But let's be honest…obviously we're going to hurt you. It's why we're here, right?"

They were slowly approaching the other side of the water tank. Sarah squinted into the darkness before slowly beginning to back towards the small shed nearby. Seconds after she disappeared around the corner, she heard their boots get louder as they rounded the water tank she had just been hiding behind.

"You know what I haven't done in a while?" he asked his companion conversationally, but loudly enough that it was clearly for Sarah to hear. "Pulled someone's teeth out."

Sarah's stomach turned as she tried to stay calm. If she could get around to the other side of the shed, she could possibly get back to the doorway that led back down into the building without them seeing her.

"I'm sure your nosy neighbor already called the cops. But if you're trying to buy time until they get here, you're out of luck. Trust me, they ain't comin' to help you, sweetheart."

To her dismay, she heard him lowly murmur to his companion that they should split up. Their foot steps went into two different directions, and she kept her eyes trained in one direction while listening closely to the other, still keeping her bare feet as quiet as possible on the gravel surface covering the concrete roof.

She passed by the dark doorway that entered the shed and a hand shot out, latching onto her upper arm with a vice-like grip and yanking her into the small building. She instinctively swung the knife out, hoping to make contact with the person in front of her, but in one quick movement he caught her wrist and twisted it sharply away from his face so that the blade fell to the ground. Before she could scream, his other hand came up to cover her mouth.

"It's me. It's me."

Sarah stilled, relief washing over her at the familiar low voice. She nodded her understanding, and Matt let go of her wrist and lifted his other hand from her mouth.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she whispered shakily.

"You're bleeding."

She started to respond, but he suddenly tightened his grip on her arm in warning, tilting his head as he listened to something. Seconds later, she heard the sound of heavy boots crunching on the gravel outside.

Matt knelt and picked the knife up off the ground, then pressed the handle back into her palm and closed her hand around it tightly. He pressed a finger to his lips and she nodded, trying to keep her ragged breathing quiet. She watched as he leaned against the wall next to the open doorway and waited.

It was only a few moments before one of the men came around the same corner Sarah had just rounded. From his heavy footsteps, he sounded like the larger of the two men, the one with the Brooklyn accent.

Matt didn't waste any time, swinging out of the shed as the man rounded the corner and locking a hand around his wrist, slamming it against the wall so that the switchblade in his hand went skidding across the gravel. The man yelled out in pain before swinging his other fist at Matt's face.

Sarah was still watching from inside the dark shed, so she could only see as much of their fight as the small doorway allowed. Even from there, she could tell that the man was larger but clearly not trained in any sort of fighting beyond a basic brawl. Matt, on the other hand, moved with a sort of calculated fury, measuring each hit to be as painful and efficient as possible. As she watched him send his opponent reeling backwards with a kick to the chest, a small voice in the back of Sarah's head couldn't help but question her decision to let him train her. She shook it away.

The fight moved the two men out of her line of sight, and Sarah took a few hesitant steps forward, reaching the doorway just in time to see Matt use the side of the water tank to propel himself into a complicated kick that knocked the taller man out. His head cracked loudly against the roof as he fell to the ground.

As soon as he was down, Sarah heard the second man—the one who had been approaching Mrs. Benedict—running in the direction of the noise, and she hastily stepped back into the shadows.

"Jesus, what the hell is happening over h—" he froze as he came around the corner and caught sight of the masked man standing over his unconscious partner.

"Shit!" he exclaimed, stumbling backwards in surprise. But he didn't move fast enough, and Matt had already caught him by the throat hard enough to lift him clean off his feet before slamming him into the ground. He dropped on top of the man, pinning him in place with a knee on his chest and sending a swift blow directly to his face. There was a loud cracking noise as Matt's fist connected with his nose. Blood gushed from the pinned man's obviously broken nose as he let out a wheezing groan that might have been a scream had he not just had all of the wind knocked out of him.

Momentarily satisfied, Matt maintained a tight hold on he man's right arm, keeping it at what looked to be a painful angle. With his other hand he gripped the man's hair, lifting his head a few inches off the ground.

"Who sent you?"

"Ronan," the man answered immediately, spitting out some of the blood that had run into his mouth and panting. "Ronan Greenfield."

Sarah hadn't realized that her feet were moving until she was only about a yard away from the two men, still holding the kitchen knife in her hand as she watched Matt interrogate the guy who had been terrorizing her.

"How many more are coming?"

"None, none. It was just the two of us, I swear."

Matt tilted his head, and Sarah knew he was listening to the man's heartbeat like a polygraph machine.

"Who else is Ronan working with?"

"I don't know," the man said, breathing heavily. All traces of the cocky menace he'd displayed while pursuing Sarah were now gone. Matt slammed the man's head back against the ground, and Sarah covered her mouth when she saw the dark smear of blood it left.

"Try again."

"I don't know," he repeated, but when Matt gripped his hair to slam his head again, he hurriedly continued, "I barely know him! I—I sell to him sometimes. Tranquilizer guns, pistols—whatever. I don't know who else he works with."

"Then why are you here?" Matt asked darkly, not yet releasing his grip.

"For money. Why the hell else? He—he's always talking about some bitch who led him on and got him fired. Now he says she stole his job."

Sarah narrowed her eyes at the bleeding man. Was that really the twisted way that Ronan viewed what had gone down?

"So he paid you to what? Break into her apartment and kill her?"

"No, man, no," the guy said, shaking his head furiously. "I wasn't gonna kill her. Just bring her to Ronan. He said to mess with her a little first, to make sure the police don't show up when they're not supposed to."

That explained his comment earlier, and the lack of any sirens despite the fact that Sarah knew Mrs. Benedict must have called the cops by now. She wondered how he had ensured that the right officers received—and then ignored—that particular dispatch call.

"Why now?" Sarah asked him before she could stop herself. She was almost surprised to hear her own voice, tired and cracked. "Why did Ronan wait so long to come after me?"

The man shifted his attention over to her for a second before darting his eyes back to Matt again with a slightly panicked look.

Matt tightened his grip on the man's arm, causing him to grimace in pain. "I think she asked you a question."

"I already told you," he ground out, addressing Sarah. "He thought he was going to be able to get his job back. They're giving it to you instead."

Her eyes widened.

"What are you talking about?"

"That's all I know about it, I swear to God. The guy whines so much I hardly listen to him. I just wanted to the money. Says he'll pay me just to bring him some girl. Didn't care what condition she's in when she gets there, as long as she's in one piece."

Sarah gripped the knife in her hand harder as his words got under her skin. She could see Matt's broad shoulders rising and falling slowly, a telltale warning sign. Unfortunately for the man on the ground, he didn't know well enough to recognize it, and he continued.

"It was an easy job. What was I supposed to do, huh? Didn't know the bitch had a bodyguard—"

Matt hit him with another jab to his already broken nose.

"Shut up," he growled over the pained yelp the blow elicited. "Where did he tell you to bring her?"

"He didn't. We were supposed to keep her with us, and he was going to call us when he was ready."

There was another pause as Matt determined if the man was lying. Apparently he wasn't, because Matt didn't repeat the question. Instead, he bent his head down lower, close to the man's ear.

"Your problem with her ends now. Understood?" Matt growled, but instead of a reply he just received a pained groan through gritted teeth. Unsatisfied with his answer, the vigilante roughly twisted the man's arm even more. Sarah heard a sickening crunch as his arm dislocated, followed by a muffled scream as Matt immediately covered the man's mouth. When the noise died down, he removed his gloved hand slowly. "I said, understood?"

"Understood," the man gasped.

"If something happens to her, I'll be holding you personally accountable," Matt told him, speaking slowly and evenly to make sure he got the point. "So I'd say it's in your best interest to cut off any and all contact with Ronan from this point forward. In fact, I'd recommend taking your money and leaving this city altogether."

The man nodded as well as he could with Matt still gripping his hair in his fist. At his agreement, Matt slammed his head back against the ground one last time, knocking him out. The vigilante stayed still for a second, breathing hard, before he slowly lifted his knee off of the unconscious man and got to his feet.

The rooftop seemed impossibly silent as he turned to Sarah.

"Are you okay?" he asked her lowly.

She didn't answer immediately, still staring at the bleeding man and how lifeless he looked laying on the gravel.

"Sarah?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm…fine," Sarah said faintly.

"Then you should go back inside," he said. His brusque tone caught her off guard, and she finally tore her eyes away from the guy on the ground to look at Matt.

"Are you not coming?"
"I'll be there soon."

Still not understanding what was going in, she didn't move. "What are you going to do? Move them?"

"Eventually."

"What…what does that mean?"

Matt leaned down towards the taller of the two man, the one he had brawled with first. He grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, dragging him over to the water tank and propping him up into a sitting position against it. Then he stood over him for a second before turning back to Sarah and answering her question.

"The most important thing right now is making sure word that I'm helping you doesn't get back to Ronan," he explained, still speaking in an almost curt tone. "Because after him it's a straight shot to Orion finding out and coming after you."

"That…doesn't answer my question," Sarah said.

There was another long pause as Matt struggled to find the words he was looking for. "There's no point in convincing one of them to keep his mouth shut if the other one's going to go running to Ronan as soon as he wakes up. So…I need to have a talk with him."

The realization of what Matt was planning to do hit her hard.

"Oh," she said, unable to think of anything more coherent to say. "Um…right."

"It won't take long. I'll be able to hear if anything's not right at your place, but…make sure your door is locked anyway. Alright?"

"Right," she said shakily. Her mind was finally starting to fully register the events of the night, and it was making her stomach turn. "Okay."

Matt walked over to her slowly, as though trying not to startle her. He stopped a few feet away.

"Can I have that?" he asked her quietly, nodding towards the knife she still clutched tightly in her hand.

Sarah stared at him, then lowered her gaze down to the blade by her side.

"Why?"

He pressed his lips together in what might have been a wince before answering her, though he sounded reluctant to do so. "Because…the angle of your knife will work better for what I'm going to do than the ones they have on them."

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment. You asked, she reminded herself, wondering at what point her life had taken this kind of turn. After a moment's hesitation, she handed him the knife wordlessly, but for some reason still couldn't bring herself to move.

"Sarah," Matt said softly, starting to take another step towards her, but then stopping and keeping his distance. "You can stay if you want, but...I don't think you're going to want to."

She just gave a tight nod, fairly positive that he was right in that assumption. Then she quickly turned and walked away, down the stairs and back into the building.


I hope y'all didn't think I was going to waste all of my Protective!Matt feels by wrapping the Ronan arc up in one chapter…