Suitably, the weather outside decided to match the atmosphere inside the building, and as Sarah paced around the conference room, the stormy sky began to release a torrent of rain outside. The thunder and lightning began not too long after, completing the tense mood.
It had been about forty-five minutes since Ronan's ominous prediction, and Sarah's mind was still anxiously racing as she tried to figure out how this night could possibly end with her, Matt, and the teenage girl all alive. She knew Matt wasn't in top fighting condition right now. Even beyond the obvious injuries, he was probably still concussed, and it had been clear in the market the night before that his senses weren't currently as sharp as they could be. On the other hand, Ronan's plan was painfully transparent, and Matt wasn't dumb. She assumed he'd probably figure out it was a trap on his own; but that didn't mean he wouldn't show up anyway.
Sarah apprehensively glanced out the window at the pouring rain, and as lightning flickered across the sky she thought she saw the outline of a dark figure on the rooftop next door. She sat up straighter and squinted, waiting for the next flash of lightning; but when it came, the rooftop was empty. But she was sure she had seen it. An idea crossed her mind; it seemed like a long shot, but she figured it couldn't hurt.
"Matt?" Sarah began uncertainly in a hushed tone. She kept her face down, still turned towards the dark window so that Ronan and the others wouldn't be able to see her mouth moving. "I really hope you can hear me. Um, I'm pretty sure you've probably already caught on that this is a trap. I didn't have anything to do with it," she added quickly, glancing up at the ceiling like she expected him to drop down on her.
She felt silly talking to no one, with no guarantee that the person she was addressing could even hear her. Doing so felt oddly similar to praying, which had always had the similar effect of making her feel ridiculous. But if there was any chance Matt could hear her, she had to at least try to warn him.
"There's about fifteen guys in here, and I think more next door. They have all these weapons and—and tranquilizer darts. Strong ones," she continued quietly. She glanced over at the bound girl in the corner, who was watching her in confusion, probably wondering why she was talking to herself. "They kidnapped a girl, and I don't know how I can get her out. Ronan took my phone, and—"
As though Ronan could sense she was talking about him, Sarah was interrupted by a small clinking sound as a pen bounced off the glass separating the room she was in from the rest of the floor. She looked over to see the greasy man in question beckoning her out into the main office lazily.
"Make yourself useful," Ronan called out to her when she opened the door. "Go get some drinks for us from the break room downstairs. This guy's taking forever to get here."
Sarah glanced back at the conference room, not crazy about leaving the teenage girl alone with Ronan and the other men while she went downstairs. But if Matt was here, then the timing was perfect; maybe she could speak louder if she was on a different floor. And it wasn't like she could do much to protect the girl from Ronan or the others anyway.
"I thought you wanted me to watch the hostage," Sarah pointed out, not wanting to seem too eager to get away.
"She'll be fine for five minutes. How long does it take you to grab some drinks? Do you need a map?" Ronan said mockingly, and a few of the guys sitting near him snickered.
Sarah barely registered the condescending comment as she disappeared down the stairs. She had just exited the stairwell on the floor below and was heading towards the break room kitchen, debating whether or not to try calling out to Matt again, when without warning the lights went out and the entire building was plunged into darkness. Sarah stopped in her tracks, raising her eyes to the ceiling.
She heard a muffled commotion above her as Ronan's men reacted to the darkness with surprise. The office building was sandwiched closely between two taller buildings, allowing light in only from the streetlights out front, which were too weak to illuminate more than a few feet of office space in front of the windows. The rest of the office was lost in total darkness.
Sarah waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark and listened to the muffled footsteps upstairs, trying to pinpoint if any of them belonged to the vigilante. She slowly started moving away from the weak light of the windows, towards where she thought the staircase door was, extending her hand out clumsily to find the wall for guidance.
Suddenly, she felt a strong arm snake around her waist from behind, pulling her back against a firm chest, and a hand settled over her mouth, muffling the startled yelp she let out at the contact.
"Don't scream," came a familiar low voice in her ear. "It's me."
Sarah closed her eyes briefly in relief. She nodded, and Matt slowly took his hand off her mouth and turned her around so that she was facing him. She could barely make out his shadowy form in the dark, despite him being only inches in front of her.
"I swear I didn't know they were planning this," she said quickly. "I tried to warn you—"
"I know. I heard your message," Matt said. "Figured I'd come find you."
Sarah glanced up nervously at the general area where she knew the security camera was, not wanting to be recorded casually chatting with Daredevil. There would probably be no talking her way out of that one. "Are the cameras out too, or just the lights?"
"Everything. I cut the power. Don't need them to have any extra advantages tonight," he said, and her stomach dropped as she realized he must be having doubts about his fighting abilities as well. She had really been hoping that it was just her. "I already took care of the reinforcements next door. They're barricaded into the building; they won't be able to get out in time to be a problem."
"Well, that's good, but that still leaves nearly fifteen guys up there guarding the girl, Matt," Sarah said anxiously. "And you were literally passed out on your couch from injuries just a couple of days ago. Please tell me you have some sort of master plan, here."
Matt didn't say anything, which was less than reassuring. He tilted his face up towards the ceiling, and she assumed he was listening to the noise upstairs.
"Is there just the one staircase?" he asked her.
"Yeah…why?" she answered slowly.
"Elevator's out. Stairs are the only way down. Shouldn't be too hard to draw them down here, and then I can use the stairwell as a bottleneck. They can only fit through the stairwell door by two, maybe three men at a time. I can handle that," Matt said.
Sarah chewed the inside of her cheek nervously. It seemed like a shaky plan—if it could even count as a plan—but it made more sense than him heading directly into the trap laid out for him upstairs, at least. And he'd have the advantage of the almost complete darkness enveloping the building.
She jumped when she felt his gloved hand on her upper arm.
"Come with me." Matt started quickly leading her through the room, towards the stairwell. He was moving swiftly, and in the darkness she was clumsy and disoriented. She stumbled over a cord on the floor, and he caught her other arm, easily steering her around the obstacles in the room. The irony of being led through the dark by a blind man momentarily crossed her mind, before being brushed aside by more important matters.
Matt let go when they made it to the corner about ten feet past the door to the stairwell, where the weak light from the streetlamps didn't reach.
"You should be safe here. When they come out of the stairwell, they'll be going the other way, towards me. Stay low to the ground," he said firmly. "Don't scream. And don't move until I come get you."
Sarah nodded, her stomach twisting in trepidation as the oncoming fight got that much closer.
A flash of lightning lit up the room, and she blinked in surprise when she saw that Matt was no longer standing in front of her. She jumped at the accompanying thunder and squinted around as darkness fell over the room again, but she couldn't place him among any of the shadows.
There was a loud crash of shattering glass as a chair flew through one of the windows on the opposite side of the room. The footsteps on the floor above her quickened as the armed men rushed to come downstairs. She supposed this was what Matt had meant when he said it'd be easy to get their attention.
The door to the staircase flew open, and Sarah quickly slid down the wall as another flash of lightning illuminated the room. She was far enough away from the windows that the lightning didn't touch the shadows concealing her hiding place, but with the staircase between her and the windows she was able to briefly see the outline of three men emerging from the doorway.
She could hear the sounds of fighting start immediately: blows landing and strangled yelps of pain being cut off suddenly. She saw the silhouettes of the first two men go down almost immediately. Matt might be injured, but the darkness was his territory, and it was clearly helping him regain the upper hand. One of the men still in the stairwell was apparently smart enough to try turning his phone's built-in flashlight, because a beam of light illuminated Matt mid-kick as he slammed his foot into his opponent's chest, sending the larger man flying backwards into the stairwell. It seemed to create some sort of domino effect as Sarah heard a few bodies tumble backwards down the stairs, including whoever had been aiming the flashlight.
A few more men poured out of the small doorway, and from the sound of it Matt was dispatching them just as steadily. He wasn't moving as fast as he had been the last time he'd crashed a meeting at Orion, but he wasn't losing either. She could hear a small thwick as one of Ronan's goons repeatedly shot his dart gun at the vigilante, whose silhouette she could see against the window, agilely flipping out of the way. Whoever was shooting the dart gun yelled in pain, and there was a loud clatter as the tranquilizer gun flew out of his hand and skidded across the floor, landing a few feet away from Sarah.
Sarah impulsively leaned forward and snatched the gun before retreating back to her shadowy hiding place. Of course, she had no idea how to actually use the thing, and she didn't dare try to shoot any of the men that Matt was fighting. She could only see vague outlines against the light from the windows, save for when lightning illuminated the room. They were all moving too fast—either of their own accord or because Matt was knocking them around—for her to be able to aim without risking hitting Matt himself.
She could still hear footsteps in the stairwell, but they were getting farther away. Some of the men were making a run for it, she realized. She would bet everything she owned that Ronan was one of them.
It seemed for a minute like there were no more coming, but then a large shape shuffled out of the stairwell, looking oddly misshapen, as though it had too many limbs. She realized with a sinking sensation that it was one of Ronan's men—possibly the giant Russian—holding the teenage hostage in front of him like a small human shield.
"Hey!" he yelled in a heavily accented voice. Definitely the large Russian. "Don't move! I've got the girl, and I swear to god I will cut her throat open!"
She couldn't see well enough in the dark to tell how Matt reacted to the threat. The sounds of the fight faltered, but didn't stop; even if Matt wanted to get to the girl, the three men fighting him weren't about to stop. The man's back was to Sarah, and he was stupidly waving the knife around as he made his threats, instead of keeping it at the girl's throat.
Sarah's eyes fell on the shadowy outline of a fire extinguisher about two feet to her left. As quietly as possible, she took a few steps closer to it, hoping that the men fighting Matt would be too busy to see what was about to happen. Lightning lit up the room, and she waited for the thunder to follow and mask the sound and she lifted the extinguisher from its place.
She swung hard and the fire extinguisher connected with the man's skull with a sickening metal thud. But her swing wasn't strong enough, and he just staggered forward, disoriented but not unconscious. However, it did the job of making him release the teenage girl, who stumbled away from his grip. Before the large man could turn towards Sarah, Matt appeared in front of him, catching him under the chin with a sharp uppercut and then yanking his head down to connect with his knee. Sarah lurched forward and grabbed the younger girl's arm, pulling her away from the blur of shadows as the two men fought.
Another streak of lightning, just enough to see the outlines of the last two men left standing, not including the large Russian that Matt was fighting. Both of them had tranquilizer guns in their hands and were firing in Matt's general direction. But they didn't have the advantage of a lit window to frame their targets like Sarah's angle did, and their darts were missing by several feet.
The teenage girl was struggling against Sarah's grip in panic, obviously not understanding that Sarah was trying to help her. She thrashed violently as Sarah tried to keep them both in the shadows and out of sight.
"Shh—please, stop—you have to stay here—it's not safe yet—" Sarah hissed desperately, trying to keep a grip on the girl's arms, but she kept flailing wildly until Sarah's fingers slipped away. Before Sarah could react, the younger girl was making a mad dash across the room.
She made it about halfway across the room before two stray darts hit her almost simultaneously; one in the neck and one in her side. She stumbled immediately as the tranquilizer moved quickly through her small frame. Sarah watched in horror as the girl swayed for a few moments and then dropped, unconscious. Her head bounced off the floor with a disturbing crack.
At almost the same time, Matt landed a final blow and the Russian man fell to the ground. His defeat seemed to rattle the other two men, who quickly darted through the stairwell door and down the stairs, leaving only Sarah and Matt with several unconscious bodies, including the young girl.
Sarah scrambled over to the girl and dropped to her knees next to the her, checking her pulse with shaking hands. The heartbeat pulsing beneath her skin felt thready and sluggish. She remembered the tattooed man saying that four darts would be enough to stop Daredevil's heart; this girl was less than half his size, and she'd been hit by two.
She heard footsteps as Matt approached. He was moving gingerly, having clearly re-opened some of his wounds and probably earned a few more.
"We—we need to call an ambulance," she told him frantically, looking up at his shadowy outline.
"They're already coming. Cops, too. I can hear the sirens."
"Her heart's going to stop," Sarah whispered blankly, looking back down at the teenager. "Oh, my god. She's going to die."
"No, she's not," he said firmly, taking her by the arm and pulling her to her feet. "They'll get here in time. And you need to get out of here before that happens."
"What—what about you, aren't you coming?"
"Soon," he said. "I need to make sure none of these guys wakes up and does anything stupid before the cops get here."
Sarah glanced down at the girl on the floor, barely able to see her in the dim light coming through the windows. Her breathing was so shallow that Sarah couldn't even see her chest rising or falling. She tried not to think about how soon her heart might stop if the paramedics didn't arrive quickly enough.
"What if they come after her in the hospital?" Sarah asked worriedly.
"I know someone on the police force," Matt said. "I'll tell him to put a detail of clean cops on her room."
Finally, Sarah was able to hear the sirens too, meaning they must be closer. A few blocks away, maybe.
"Sarah. You need to go. Now."
With a last glance at the unconscious girl, Sarah turned and ran towards the stairwell. When she got to the ground level she snatched her purse from behind her desk, hurriedly tossing into it the tranquilizer gun she hadn't even realized she as still holding. Then she took an extra few seconds to dip into Ronan's office and grab her cell phone off the desk before darting out the door and into the rainy night, not slowing down until she got to the subway station.
The next day, the aftermath of Ronan's plan going awry ended up being worse than expected. As Sarah had predicted, Ronan had been one of the men who had turned tail and ran away when the situation went downhill. The small bright side was that when Sarah claimed that she, too, had run from the scene, no one seemed to doubt it. Only a few of the men from the night before had been arrested, if they happened to have outstanding warrants. Beyond that, the cops had no proof of a crime, beyond the unconscious teenage girl that no one claimed to know about, and they were suspiciously slow to investigate further. From the gossip going around the place, it sounded like the girl had yet to wake up, and that she did have the police detail Matt had promised, much to Ronan's displeasure.
Now it was close to eight o'clock the next night, and Sarah was still at Orion. For the second night in a row, she had been told to stay hours late, but at least this time she knew why. Jason had been out of town for the last couple of days, and he got back in tonight. He'd made it clear that he wanted to see Ronan as soon as he got back; the discussion of what had happened last night apparently couldn't wait til morning. And Ronan, ever the petulant child, had informed Sarah that if he had to stay late to meet with Jason, she sure as hell wasn't allowed to go home.
So she found herself still doing paperwork three hours past when she was supposed to have gone home, waiting for Ronan to return from his meeting upstairs with Jason so she could leave.
Finally, she heard Ronan coming down the stairs. He burst through the stairwell door forcefully, making her jump, then stalked straight by her and into his office. She could hear him rummaging around, slamming drawers and cabinets. Not sure what was going on, but thinking it best to stay out of the way, she tried to focus on her paperwork again.
It was only a few minutes before Ronan came back out, carrying a cardboard box and scowling furiously.
"You know what this is?" Ronan demanded.
Sarah looked at him blankly. "A…box?"
"Yeah. A box full of my things. I've been suspended until they decide whether or not to fire me, because the big bosses don't like the fact that the girl got away. And do you remember whose job it was to watch her?" Ronan snapped, glaring at her.
Sarah frowned defensively. "I was watching her, until you told me to go downstairs and get you drinks—"
Ronan slammed the box down on her desk, causing her to jump. "You really think I feel like hearing you bitch at me right now? Like this is all my fault?"
She didn't say anything as she watched him. His face was turning an ugly reddish purple color, and she wondered briefly if he was going to have a heart attack.
"Because you couldn't do one simple thing and watch the stupid brat, I get in trouble?" he demanded. "Does that seem fair to you, Sarah?"
He suddenly reached into the cardboard box and grabbed a glass paperweight, hurling it directly at her face. She ducked to the side just in time, feeling it whiz past her temple before it the wall behind her head and exploded into pieces.
Snapping her head back up, she stared at him in shock.
"What the hell?" she exclaimed.
"You would think that after how many year I've been with this company, they'd actually give me someone competent," he snarled at her. "And not some dumb bitch who can't focus on anything other than her dead boyfriend and her pathetic dad—"
"It is not my fault that the girl got away," Sarah argued before she could stop herself, adrenaline pumping through her from the near miss of the paperweight. "You're the one who came up with this stupid plan that everyone knew wouldn't work—"
Without warning, Ronan lunged across the desk and grabbed a fistful of her hair, hauling her violently out of her chair.
"You don't talk to me like that. I deserve some respect in this place—"
Sarah yelped in pain, clawing at his hands. He dragged her around the desk by her hair and swung her roughly into the filing cabinet. She stumbled into one of the open drawers, and the sharp metal corner bit into the skin on her lower back. She could feel blood running down her back as she tried to regain her balance. But as soon as she was standing up straight, she felt the heavy blow of Ronan's fist against her face, and she hissed as one of the large, tacky rings he always wore cut into her cheek.
"Is this what it takes to get you to listen?" Ronan spat out as Sarah reeled from the hit. Clearly, his ruined plan and the consequences of it had pushed him over the edge, and as his anger spiraled out of control it all ended up being aimed at her. He hit her again, this time a hard backhand, and she could barely hear his next words over the ringing in her ears. "Huh? Is this how Yates won you over? Everyone knows he liked to slap his girlfriends around. Is this what you like?"
Ronan pinned her against the filing cabinet, causing the open wound on her back to gape painfully as she tried to twist out of his hold. She knew what he was going to do seconds before he did it; could see the crazed, predatory look in his eyes. and crushed his lips against hers. His breath tasted like cigarettes and rum, and the mixture made her want to gag. He pulled at her shirt, ripping the sleeve, and his fingers dug into her arm harshly until his fingernails broke the skin.
Sarah bit down hard on his lip, and immediately the metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. Ronan jerked away, and before she could move he backhanded her across the mouth, making her snap her head to the side. She felt his hand roughly grab her hair and yank her head back so that she was looking at him again. She swung at him wildly and felt her right fist connect with his nose with a satisfying crack.
Blood poured from Ronan's nose and he swore, but didn't let go of her hair. Sarah kept hitting him, anywhere she could reach, with both fists now, ignoring the pain that shot through her hands. He was still shouting at her, but she wasn't listening to the words anymore. It wasn't until she managed to knee him in the groin that he finally let go, violently pushing her away from him so that she fell backwards. Her hands automatically stretched out to break her fall, and they landed directly on the pile of broken glass from the paperweight, which embedded themselves deeply into both of her palms. Her left wrist twisted the wrong way on impact, sending a jolt of pain up her arm.
She gasped in pain as the glass shards cut into her skin, but she barely had time to register the pain before she felt a rough hand around her throat, hauling her back into a standing position. Ronan didn't release her once she was standing, instead tightening his grip around her neck. Black spots danced in her vision as he brought both hands up to completely enclose her throat.
"You just broke my nose, you stupid bitch—"
Sarah desperately fumbled around on the desk to her right, grabbing the first heavy item she touched: a metal stapler. She ignored the sharp pain in her hand as the stapler pushed the glass deeper into her skin and swung it at Ronan's face as hard as she could. The stapler swung open and the sharp metal teeth connected with his face, tearing into the delicate tissue below his eye.
Ronan screamed as she pulled the stapler away. Its metal teeth had embedded deeply into his flesh upon impact, and it tore his skin open when she yanked it away, sending a stream of blood gushing down his face in its wake. Sarah felt a quick flash of something that almost resembled triumph at the sight. She weighed the bloody stapler in her hand, breathing unevenly and ready to swing at him again if he stepped closer, when she heard a cool voice come from behind him.
"Alright, I think that's enough," she heard a cool voice come from behind Ronan. "No rough-housing on company property."
Ronan turned slowly, and from behind his large form she saw Jason leaning against the wall near the stairwell, calmly watching the two of them. From the looks of it he had been there for most—if not all—of the attack. He was wearing his usual sharp suit and white tie, but for once, his face was absent of its usual unnerving smile. Instead he regarded both of them disdainfully, looking almost bored by the situation.
"Go home, Ronan," he said in exasperation, as though he were speaking to a small, misbehaving child, and not a violent man who had just tried to kill someone. "Before we have to extend your suspension even more."
As he spoke, Sarah finally noticed the two large men standing near Jason; they looked to be bodyguards of some sort. It was clear that they, too, had witnessed what had just happened without stepping in. In fact, one of them was lazily finishing off a cigarette as he observed them.
Ronan snarled, looking between Jason and the bodyguards, before grabbing the box and giving Sarah a last, murderous look as he exited the building.
"That's it?" Sarah said incredulously, jerking her head towards Ronan's retreating form as she leaned heavily against the wall and cradled her bleeding hands. "You—you just threaten to suspend him longer? He was going to kill me! He j-just tried to—"
"I suspended Ronan half an hour ago," Jason said dispassionately. "Technically, this spat took place while he was no longer on the payroll, so it's none of my concern. And let's what our tone, shall we?"
Sarah stared at him, dumfounded. She felt like he was playing some elaborate joke on her, but the punchline didn't come. She brought a shaking hand up to wipe the blood away from her lip, nervously glancing at the two bodyguards. She didn't respond, not wanting to instigate any more violence. Her adrenaline was starting to fade, and the fresh cuts and bruises covering her body were growing more insistent.
"But I understand that you're upset," he continued, reaching into his the pocket of his suit jacket and pulling out a few bills, which he tossed on the desk between them. "So why don't you call a cab. Take tomorrow off. When you come in on Friday, we'll talk. There's going to be some changes in your role while Ronan is gone."
Jason didn't wait for her to reply. Instead he just nodded to his bodyguards and the three of them disappeared through the door to the stairwell. Sarah wiped the blood away from her mouth and listened to their echoing footsteps as they ascended the stairs.
"Whoa. Lady. I'm guessing you want me to take you to the hospital?"
Sarah shook her head, avoiding the cab driver's eyes as she slid into the back seat.
"Um…no," she said quietly, giving him her address instead.
"Are you sure? You look like shit. No offense."
She was sure she did. She had stopped in the women's restroom briefly before calling the cab, remembering that there was a small first aid kit in the cabinet in there. She hadn't found much in there beyond a few strips of gauze, which she'd wrapped around her hands after picking out the larger shards of glass and rinsing the wounds out in the sink. She had carefully avoided looking at her reflection in the mirror, not wanting to see the blood and bruise she knew were covering her skin.
"I'm sure."
The cab driver glanced back at her in the mirror occasionally as he drove, clearly worried by both her physical appearance and her demeanor. Distractedly, Sarah pulled out her phone. The time was a little before nine. She had one missed call from Matt, which she ignored when she saw several missed calls from Lauren, and a voicemail.
Dammit, she thought, leaning her head back against the cheap vinyl seat. It was Wednesday night, and she had stood Lauren up for their dinner. She winced guiltily as she opened the voicemail.
"Okay…it's officially an hour past when we were supposed to meet, and you aren't answering my calls. I'm going home. I don't…I mean, you actually seemed excited to meet up with me and plan things tonight. I thought maybe this was a step back to normal. My baby's due in less than a month, Sarah, and I just…I feel like you don't even care. You and I always talked about how we'd pick out baby clothes for each others' kids, and look up stupid names in the baby name books. But instead you're just a voicemail greeting. All the time. I think—I think maybe it was a mistake asking you to throw the baby shower. Just…don't worry about it, okay? I'll see if my mom can plan it. Bye."
Sarah squeezed her eyes shut as the message ended. She'd known Lauren for years, and had heard her sound all different kinds of upset—angry, furious, heartbroken. But she had never heard her sound so disappointed and distant. Not towards her. The thought made Sarah's heart twist painfully in her chest.
They pulled up to her apartment and she exited the cab, leaving the well-meaning, worried cab driver behind with a handful of the last of her cash. As she approached her door, she fumbled with her keys, trying to get safely inside the privacy of her apartment before she started crying. But tears were already starting to blur her vision, and she missed the lock once, twice, three times before finally getting the door open. Once inside, she threw her purse against the wall in frustration, where it opened and spilled all of its contents out on the floor.
"What happened to you?" came a voice from the other side of the dark room.
Sarah jumped and whipped around to see a familiar outline in front of the window to the fire escape. For a split second she had thought it was Ronan. But there was only one person who ever showed up at her apartment in the middle of the night, and it wasn't someone she particularly wanted to deal with right now.
"Jesus. What are you doing in here, Matt?" she demanded, wiping her eyes hurriedly. "You can't just—just come into people's apartments without their permission."
"I wouldn't be able to if you'd lock your window," he pointed out.
"Well, God forbid someone might be able to get in who wants to hurt me," she snapped pointedly, fumbling along the wall until she found the light switch and flicked the lights on. "What, are you waiting for me to get home so you can yell at me for not answering your calls again?"
"No. I heard you coming upstairs when I got close to your building. You're bleeding," he said, starting to come closer.
Sarah reacted instinctively, holding a warning hand out in front of her as she stepped back, and her keys jangled slightly as her hands shook. "No, you just…just stay away from me."
Matt stopped a few feet away from her, seemingly thrown by her harsh tone. "Is this from someone at Orion? Did you get caught?"
She gave him an incredulous look. "No, Matt. I didn't get caught, I would be dead if I had gotten caught. Jesus Christ, your—your precious secret is fine, okay?"
"Sarah," he said in a carefully even tone, ignoring the barb. "Tell me who did this. What happened to you?"
"What happened? Ronan got suspended over his stupid plot to catch you, and he took it out on me for letting that girl get away, is what happened. And—and everyone just stood around and watched, and Jason just acted like it was totally normal—"
"Ronan attacked you?" Matt interrupted.
"Oh, my God. Don't pretend like you care, Matt," she said with a laugh that sounded harsh and bitter even to her own ears. She couldn't stop her voice from going up an octave, which was never a good sign that her emotions were under control. "Isn't—isn't this pretty much what you've always threatened to do? What, are you upset that he got around to it before you did?"
"That's not—I've never done anything like this to you," he argued. "You're bleeding all over the place; you need to go to the hospital."
He took a step closer to her, extending his hand out, but she backed away immediately.
"Don't touch me," she snapped.
Matt stopped again, frowning. She knew she was probably coming dangerously close to crossing some sort of line, but she didn't care. Something painful and vicious and uncontrollable was welling up inside her chest, and she didn't think she could control it.
"I'm not trying to hurt you," he said slowly, retracting his hand.
"Yeah? A-and how am I supposed to know when you are and aren't trying to hurt me? It seems to change every day. What—what are the rules, here? What makes you any different from Ronan?" Sarah asked harshly. She was barely even listening to what she was saying. She didn't even know if she meant it; but she knew that she wanted to lash out at something, and Matt and their history seemed as good a subject as any.
"Don't say that," Matt said forcefully.
"Why not?" Sarah bit out, angrily wiping her eyes with her wrist. "S-so, what, you can flip your shit on me whenever you want, but he can't? Exactly who's allowed to hurt me and who's not? Is there a list somewhere? Can—can someone give me a copy of it? That'd be great."
"Sarah, calm down—" Matt began, but she cut him off.
"Don't tell me to calm down!" she exclaimed. "Don't—why would I calm down? Nothing in my life is calm! I've managed to screw up everything that matters to me, all for—for someone who won't even remember it. I don't want to do this anymore, Matt. How—how much of my life do I have to give away to all of this? Is there even going to be anything worth going back to, or is it all just going to get swallowed up?"
Sarah's voice cracked at the end of her sentence, and for some reason the sound of it made her even angrier. All she wanted was to be alone and away from Matt. Without thinking, she found herself trying to brush past him, to go lock herself in her bathroom, or her bedroom, or anywhere that he wasn't around.
"Sarah, wait—"
Matt caught her arm lightly as she tried to move past him, unintentionally grasping the exact same spot that Ronan had dug his fingers into earlier. The feeling of her arm being grabbed in that same place snapped whatever thin thread was still holding Sarah together. She jerked away from Matt and reflexively lashed out at his face, her keys still in her hand. The heavy bottle opener she kept attached to her key ring connected hard against his mouth with a loud crack, making him take a surprised step back.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Sarah's hands slowly came up to cover her mouth, letting her keys fall to the floor with a clatter, and she stared at him with wide eyes as she registered what she had just done—and more importantly, who she had just done it to.
"Shit," she whispered.
Matt's head was bowed, and she could see a few small drops of blood fall from his lip and hit the ground. She watched as he slowly reached up a gloved hand to wipe them away, his shoulders rising and falling with the carefully controlled breathing that she had learned was generally a bad sign. As he turned his masked face up towards her, she snapped out of her shocked state.
She hastily backed away from him, holding her hands out in front of her defensively. The anger that had just been coursing through her veins was gone, replaced by a racing panic. She'd just barely made it out of her last violent encounter, and here she was instigating another one, with someone she was much less likely to be able to get away from.
"Shit. I'm sorry," she said quickly, stumbling over her own feet as she retreated. "I'm sorry. Matt. D-don't—"
In her haste to put more space between them, she accidentally backed up into the short bookshelf that sat low along the wall, hitting the corner at just the right angle that it pulled painfully at the open wound on her back. She gasped and doubled over slightly, clutching at the bleeding area.
When she looked back up at Matt, he hadn't come any closer. Instead he was standing in the same spot, still facing her but not moving. If she hadn't known he was blind under the mask, she would've thought he was staring at her; instead, she knew he was scrutinizing her in his own way. When he finally spoke, his tone was surprisingly low.
"Sit down," he said quietly, gesturing towards the couch. For a minute Sarah thought she must have misheard him. When she didn't move he sighed and added, "Please."
Sarah knew that beneath the mask, he probably had his eyebrows raised expectantly as he waited for her to comply. She wasn't sure what he was playing at, but considering she had just hit him in the face, it seemed best not to argue. Hesitantly, she made her way around the couch and sat down, keeping her eyes trained on him.
Once she was seated, Matt paced the area across her living room for a minute, and she watched his agitated movements nervously. He had both hands on his hips, and he opened his mouth a few times like he was going to say something, but closed it again. His lip was still bleeding from where her keys had caught him, but he didn't seem to be paying it any attention. In fact, he didn't seem to be reacting much at all to what had just happened, and didn't know if that was relieving or alarming.
Finally, with a deep sigh of frustration, he slowly approached the couch and sat down next to her, deliberately leaving a couple feet of space between them. Then, to her surprise, he reached up and pulled his mask off, tossing it onto the coffee table and running his hand through his hair restlessly. Of all the times he had been in her apartment, he'd never removed his mask; the only time she'd seen his entire face was the night she'd stitched him up. She regarded him cautiously as he rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together, bowing his head so that his sightless gaze was aimed at the floor.
They sat side by side in silence for what felt like a long time, with just the occasional muffled car horn from below breaking the quiet. She occasionally glanced over at him in confusion, wondering if what he was waiting for. Slowly the fear that had just been coursing through her faded away, replaced by the kind of exhaustion that only comes after a quick succession of powerful emotions: anger, fear, panic.
"Sorry," she said softly after a while, staring at the bloody bandages on her hands. Now that the wave of desperate anger that had overtaken her had subsided, she just felt confused and miserable, and her complete break down earlier didn't make her feel any better.
"Don't apologize."
She raised her eyebrows as she glanced over at him. "I busted your lip."
"I know."
"That's generally something you apologize for."
"Yeah, well…a few more hits like that and maybe we can call it even," he said.
She knitted her brow in confusion, not sure how to interpret that comment.
"I don't get you." Sarah winced as she realized she'd said that out loud.
Matt smirked faintly at that and gave a small shrug. "Likewise."
They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Sarah tiredly started to lower her face into her hands, but jerked her head back up when the action both pulled at the cuts on her palms and sent a sharp jolt of pain through her left wrist. The pained movement didn't go unnoticed by the vigilante.
"You need to get your injuries taken care of," he said. "You should go to the hospital. You could tell them you got mugged."
"I don't have health insurance," Sarah said, shaking her head. "They're not…not that bad anyway. I'm fine. I can do something about them later."
"Yeah? Because from what I can tell, you have a pretty nasty cut somewhere on your back that I'm betting will be hard for you to reach," Matt pointed out. "Not to mention the rest of you. And you're not going to be able to clean and bandage your hands properly with both of them wounded."
She didn't respond, just looked away and wrapped her arms around her waist self-consciously, not liking that he could tell the severity of her injuries without even being able to see her. It made her feel like she was being x-rayed.
When it became clear she wasn't planning on answering, he sighed in frustration.
"You have a first-aid kit?"
"Yeah," she replied, then looked over at him and realized he was waiting expectantly for her to tell him where it was. "Oh. Oh…no, um, you don't have to—"
"I'm not really asking," he informed her. Between his tone and the set look on his face, there didn't seem to be much point in arguing. And she couldn't really afford to turn down his help right now.
"It's still in my backpack," she said reluctantly. "From when I was at your place. Over by the front door."
Matt stood and made his way over to the door, where he found her backpack immediately. He grabbed a chair from her dining room table on his way back over, positioning it in front of her so that when he sat, his knees almost brushed the couch on either side of her legs. He balanced the small first-aid kit on his knee, removing his gloves and tossing them on the coffee table before as he unzipped the bag.
"This is all you have?" he asked with a frown as he ran his hand over the contents of the bag, which consisted of just the basics: a few bandages, some gauze, rubbing alcohol, a thermometer.
"Well…yeah. It's meant for paper cuts, not crime fighting," she said defensively.
Matt just scowled briefly in disapproval as he put some alcohol on the gauze. When he was done, he set the bottle and gauze aside and paused.
"Can I see your hands?" he asked.
She hesitated, still apprehensive of the entire situation. It made no sense for him to be helping her right now, and that put her on edge. As usual, it was almost like Matt could read her mind.
"I know you've had a bad night. And you're scared. But I'm not going to hurt you, Sarah," he said softly, holding his hand out palm up in front of him. "Please, just…let me see your hands."
Sarah watched him carefully for another moment, before slowly holding her injured hands out. He was surprisingly gentle as he took her left hand and slowly began unwrapping the hastily done bandages.
"Why are you…doing this?" she asked uncertainly as he set the bloody dressing aside.
"Because it would be difficult to clean your cuts with the bandages still on."
Sarah rolled her eyes at his avoidance of the question. "You know that's not what I meant."
Matt didn't answer her for a few moments. She wondered if maybe he didn't know why he was helping her any more than she did.
"I think we've already established that neither of us is going to understand the other's actions," he said finally. "So how about you just…let me help you, regardless of why?"
Yet again, she wasn't sure how to interpret that, and she tilted her head in puzzlement. But she was distracted from his evasive comment when he turned her left wrist slightly as he dabbed the alcohol-soaked gauze against her skin. The movement triggered a sharp pain in the swollen area, and Sarah sucked a breath in between her teeth as she tried not to jerk her hand away. "Oh—ow, ow."
Matt's eyebrows went up at her reaction, and he stilled his hands.
"Sorry," he said, then frowned and tilted his head, concentrating. "I didn't notice your wrist was sprained." He moved his hand down to her wrist and lightly pressed his fingers there. "It's not too bad. The ligament's not torn, just strained. Do you own an ice pack?"
"Not anymore." Sarah shook her head. "I lent it to Mrs. Benedict when she hurt her ankle a few months back from trying to take a…Zumba class, or something. I think she still has it."
"Okay. What do you have in your freezer?"
She tried to remember if she had anything in there other than ice trays. "Um…I don't know. Probably not a lot. Some vegetables, maybe. You can't tell from here?"
Matt shook his head as he started to stand. "Everything's the same temperature in there. Makes it harder. I'll go see if you have something we can use."
While Matt was busy searching in her freezer for a suitable ice pack replacement, Sarah glanced over at the contents of her purse that were still littering the floor near the front door. Her eyes landed on her cell phone and her mind jumped back to Lauren's voicemail. A strangely hollow feeling came over her, and she slowly leaned forward, resting her forehead on her knees and pushing her hair back with her bandaged hands.
Matt came back into the living room, and she heard him pause when he entered, possibly because of her curled up position, although she didn't know how he could tell. She didn't care enough to sit back up yet. Mostly she was just focused on not crying again, considering her company. After a few seconds, Matt sat down in the chair across from her again, waiting wordlessly. When she opened her eyes she was looking down at his black combat boots.
"Did you find anything?" she asked as she slowly sat back up and pushed her hair out of her face.
Matt held up a small bag of frozen mixed vegetables. He took her left wrist and slowly pressed the bag to it. She inhaled at the cold sensation against her skin.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," he said softly, wrapping a long elastic bandage around it to keep it in place. "It wasn't…wasn't supposed to. You're not supposed to be the one going around fighting people. That's my end of the deal."
"I don't know if this really counted as fighting someone," she admitted. "It might have been a little too one-sided to be called that."
Matt paused and raised his eyebrows, then carefully flipped her hands over to display the bloody split skin on her knuckles. "I think this says otherwise. Maybe you got in a few more good hits than you think."
Sarah looked down at the broken skin, feeling oddly lifted by the idea.
"You think so?" she asked.
He gave a small, crooked grin. "Seems like a safe bet. Your right hook isn't too bad, actually."
She winced guiltily at the comment, even though it hadn't been a reprimand, and tried not to look at the cut she'd left on his lip. "I didn't, um…I didn't mean what I said earlier. About you being the same as Ronan."
The small grin slid off his face, replaced by the carefully expressionless look that she had seen him wear so often.
"It's fine," he said, pressing gauze to the largest of the cuts on her palm. "You…weren't wrong. About some of the things I've done."
"I know. But…I hit you both in the face today, because I'm an idiot," she said, exhaling in a short, bitter laugh. "And…out of two guys who could both beat the daylights out of me pretty easily, one of them did, and the other is…helping me, for some reason." She shrugged. "I can see the difference."
Matt didn't answer, and she still couldn't read the look on his face; if anything, he looked vaguely conflicted as he finished wrapping her left hand and moved on to her right one.
"You ever hit anyone before today?" he asked, clearly diverting the subject away from himself and Ronan.
Sarah thought about it for a moment. "Um…in seventh grade, I slapped a high school boy for telling my friend that her haircut made her look like James Spader."
He raised his eyebrows in what might have been amusement, and a ghost of the crooked grin returned to his mouth. "So this is a lifelong habit, then? Hitting people bigger than you."
Sarah exhaled a short laugh and shook her head. "Yeah. I guess so. Not, um…not sure how that's working out for me."
"Well, you're not dead, so…I guess it's working out alright," he replied. The alcohol on the gauze stung against the cuts on her hands as he worked, and she frowned down at them.
Matt finished wrapping her right hand and set the bandages aside. He reached for a bottle of water and a dishtowel that were sitting on the coffee table. She assumed he must have brought them back out of the kitchen with him.
"Your hands are all done," he told her. "I'm going to get the cuts on your face now, okay? It won't take long."
She nodded, looking down at the new bandages on her hands and letting her mind drift while Matt began gently cleaning the blood away from her face. Each time he lifted the dishtowel from her face, she was surprised to see how much blood was on it. Was her face really bleeding that much? No wonder the taxi driver freaked out. I should've given him a bigger tip.
Sarah was lost in her thoughts, so when Matt paused suddenly it took her a moment to notice. She looked back up to see that his blank eyes were directed somewhere near the bottom of her face, and his brow was furrowed in concentration, then suspicion.
"What happened to your lip?" he asked sharply. The light tone from a few minutes ago was gone.
Between all of her other injuries, Sarah had almost forgotten about her bruised, swollen lips, and the split where Ronan had backhanded her. She felt an anxious flutter in her stomach as she realized they were approaching the topic she had been avoiding with Matt for a while now.
"What do you mean?" she asked nervously with a small shrug. "It's—I…got hit."
"You have blood in your mouth that isn't yours."
Sarah grimaced at the thought. She had rinsed her mouth out multiple times to get the taste of blood out, but apparently there was still enough of a trace for Matt to pick up on. She took a deep, shaky breath and looked down at her hands in her lap.
"It's really creepy that you can tell that, you know," she said evasively.
"You aren't answering my question," he said calmly, but there was an edge to his tone.
Sarah looked away. "Does it really matter?"
Matt slowly reached up a hand to touch the ripped sleeve of her shirt, and as his face darkened she could tell he was putting the pieces together.
"I'm thinking it might."
"It's not…I mean…he didn't manage to do anything," she said weakly. "Not really. I'm fine."
She saw a familiar twitch in Matt's jaw. "But he was trying to do something?"
"I…what do you want me to say, Matt?" she said tiredly, really not wanting to discuss this particular topic with him, of all people. "Ronan's always been weirdly…fixated on me. And then recently I just—I made it a lot worse. It's not surprising that it went the way it did tonight. Guys like Ronan…violence and sex are all the same thing to them."
Even if Sarah wasn't uncomfortably familiar with the signs of anger that always seemed so tightly coiled just beneath the surface, without his mask she could clearly see it in Matt's eyes. But behind that, she was surprised to see that he looked almost uncertain, as well. It was an expression Sarah wasn't used to seeing on his face.
"Do you—" Matt began, then stopped and rubbed his hand over his mouth angrily. When spoke again, he sounded oddly unsure. "Do you want me to call Claire, instead?"
She gave him a confused look, not sure why he'd need to call Claire. "The nurse? The cuts aren't that bad, are they?"
"No, I just mean…" he trailed off, apparently choosing his words carefully. "If you'd be more comfortable with her doing this. She's back in town. I can call her."
Sarah looked down as she realized what he was getting at.
"Oh. Um, I don't…I don't really know Claire," she said.
He shrugged. "Neither did I, the first time she fixed me up."
Sarah was sure Claire was probably a very nice person, and she appreciated the surprising consideration behind his offer, but the idea of bringing a total stranger to her apartment to deal with her injuries sounded horribly unappealing. She shook her head.
"No. I don't want to bring anyone else in."
"You're sure?"
"Yeah," she said, and she was surprised to find that she meant it. "This is…this is okay."
"Alright," he said after a pause, and slowly began to wet another corner of the dishtowel.
"This…fixation," he began tightly, and she frowned when she realized he wasn't done with the topic. "It's been going on for a while?"
"Kind of," Sarah said. "I mean, not…not like this. He'd always made a lot of creepy comments, but never actually followed through on them. All bark, you know? But then tonight was, um…tonight was the bite, I guess."
"You never mentioned it."
"During all of our heart-to-hearts in alleyways, you mean?" she asked pointedly. Matt winced slightly, and Sarah sighed as she eased away from the defensive a bit. "I just—I didn't think it was really relevant. And it never seemed like he'd actually do anything until recently."
"What changed?" Matt asked carefully. Sarah hesitated before answering, and he cocked his head to the side.
"I, um…I told them I was sleeping with Yates," Sarah admitted. He looked surprised by her confession, and she looked down uncomfortably before continuing. "Ronan kind of assumed it, actually. When I was upset the day Yates was murdered. And I just…went along with it. To explain why I took the papers. And it worked. Jason bought it. But it's like it triggered some extra creepy switch in Ronan's head."
She had expected another lecture on how she needed to be more careful, but Matt just pressed his lips together, clenching his jaw. His stormy expression was oddly incongruent with his mild touch as he pressed a bandage over the cut on her cheek, smoothing it out with his thumb.
He was about to move his hand away from her face when he paused, then slowly tilted her chin up with his finger, exposing the bruises that marred her neck. She knew he couldn't see them, but somehow he knew exactly where they were anyway. Lightly, he ran a thumb over the bruised area on her neck, frowning. Sarah shivered at the touch, but she didn't move away.
"I hope you got in more than just a couple of good hits," he said darkly when he finally dropped his hand away from her throat.
"I, um…I hit him pretty good with a stapler," she said with a frown. "And I think maybe I broke his nose, too."
"Good. He deserved it."
"Yeah," she agreed half-heartedly, looking down. "I guess so."
Matt picked up on her unenthusiastic tone. "You can't possibly be feeling guilty over hitting him back," he said doubtfully.
"No, that's not it," she said. And it was true. It wasn't the act of hitting Ronan that was making her feel uneasy; it was whatever feeling had flashed through her she had done it. "When I hit him with the stapler…I mean, it was really gross and bloody and freaked me out, obviously, but it was also kind of, um…" she trailed off, not sure how to describe it.
"Satisfying," Matt finished for her quietly.
Sarah frowned. Satisfying was exactly the word to describe it. And that seemed wrong.
"Yeah. A little bit. Does that make me like a…psychopath or something?"
"I might not be the best person to answer that question," he with a dark laugh. "But I get it. The satisfaction."
"I don't really know if that should make me feel better or worse," she admitted, and Matt smirked.
"I don't know either," he said. He nodded to her spot on the couch. "We should switch places. So I can get the cut on your back."
Sarah hesitated before slowly standing. This was the part she really hadn't been looking forward to. She waited until Matt was sitting on the couch before she lowered herself onto the wooden chair he had just been occupying, straddling the back of the chair so that she was facing away from him. She glanced over her shoulder nervously, not quite liking that she couldn't see what he was going to do.
"You'll need to lift up the back of your shirt," he said quietly.
Haltingly, she pulled the back of her shirt up so that the lower half of her back was bare, revealing the long cut along the lower left side, a few inches above her waistband. She winced as she felt the fabric peel away from the bloody area around the cut. She felt horribly exposed, and hoped that Matt would work quickly.
"I, uh…I'm going to try to gauge how bad it is, okay?"
Sarah nodded, still craning her neck to watch what he was doing.
"You have to turn around. The skin on your back twists when you're looking behind you like that."
Reluctantly, she faced forward again. She wished there was a way to stop her heart from racing nervously, because she knew he could hear it clear as day in the quiet apartment.
She jumped the first time she felt his hand press against the small of her back.
"Calm down," he said softly, keeping his hand in place. "I'm not going to hurt you."
Sarah breathed in shakily and tried not to look at the black mask and gloves lying on the coffee table; a visible reminder of exactly who the man sitting behind her was. Letting him fix up her hands and face had made her feel vulnerable enough, but at least then she had been able to see what he was doing.
She felt Matt press his fingers against the skin around the cut, pausing each time before moving to a different area. "This isn't that bad. It's long, but not deep. You won't need stitches. It's not infected."
"How can you tell it isn't infected?" she asked, then immediately shook her head. "No. Nevermind. If it has to do with smell or taste, don't tell me."
Matt chuckled lowly. "It's nothing like that. If the cut was infected, the tissue around it would be a little warmer. Nothing you'd be able to feel at this point, but the temperature would increase the longer it went untreated. But it's the same temperature as the rest of your skin."
Sarah was slightly relieved that it wasn't anything more invasive than that. She could hear Matt rummaging around in the first aid kit for something, and she glanced over her shoulder curiously. He was holding a cloth up to the bottle of disinfecting alcohol, letting it soak in. She turned back around as he turned the bottle back upright.
"This is about to sting," he warned her.
Sarah nodded and held her breath as she waited for the cold smart of alcohol against the cut. When it arrived, she inhaled sharply through her teeth and instinctively arched her back away from the sting. Matt put a hand on her side to keep her still as he pressed the alcohol soaked cloth against her back. His touch felt hot against her bare skin.
"Sorry," he said quietly. After a few seconds, he took his hand off her waist and then slowly removed the cloth from the cut. "That should be good. What is this from, anyway?"
"Filing cabinet," she answered, scowling. "The corner of one of the drawers got me when Ronan threw me into it."
The memory of the cold metal biting into her back made her shudder, and she squeezed her eyes closed and rested her forehead on the back of the chair. The movement attracted Matt's attention.
"You alright?"
"Yeah. I'm just tired. Jason gave me tomorrow off, which is…weird. I'll probably sleep the whole time."
Her answer seemed to concern him. "Did you hit your head at all during all this?"
"No. I really am just tired. I don't have a concussion," she assured him.
"Are you sure? What are the names of the continents?"
Sarah glanced back over her shoulder suspiciously, certain he was making fun of her. Sure enough, he had a good-humored smile on his face that she had never seen on him before.
Sarah let out a short, surprised laugh and turned back around. "Alright. I get it. Not the best way to test a concussion. I'm sorry; I'll Google something better for next time."
"Good. I look forward to answering whatever questions WebMD tells you to ask me," Matt said, smoothing the adhesive edges of the bandage against her skin. She winced as the pressure pulled at the edges of the wound.
"Alright. You're all done," he said quietly.
Sarah let go of the back of her shirt, letting it settle back down over her lower back. She shifted in the chair, swinging her legs around until she was facing him again.
"Thanks," she said softly.
"Just returning the favor," he replied.
Sarah nodded distractedly. The subject of favors had reminded her that there was a question that had been lingering in her mind all night, which she hadn't yet worked up the courage to ask him. She studied his face, chewing the uninjured side of her bottom lip nervously. She wasn't sure how he would react, but she didn't have many other choices.
"So, um…I know that I just…hit you in the face and said a bunch of mean things to you, so maybe this isn't the best time to ask for a favor," Sarah began hesitantly, nervously pulling on one of the loose strings on her bandages as she avoided looking at him. "But, um, does…does the offer to keep an eye on my dad's place still stand?" she asked quietly.
Matt didn't answer right away, and she was sure he was going to say no. Obviously he'd say no. It was one thing for him to help her with her injuries, considering she had done the same for him. It was another thing entirely to ask him to help her protect her family, no more than an hour after she'd basically told him he was an awful person—even if she had taken it back later—and cut his lip open with her house keys. She shook her head, embarrassed, and opened her mouth to retract the question. Before she could, he spoke first.
"I'll go when I leave here tonight."
Sarah blinked at him. "Really?"
"Yeah. Hell's Kitchen is quiet tonight. And I remember the way."
Maybe it was the headache and the stress from the day, or maybe she had been more worried about her father than she had realized, but her sudden relief at his answer hit her so strongly and so unexpectedly that she had to close her eyes for a few seconds when she felt more pinpricks of tears threatening to build up.
"Thanks," she whispered.
"I owed you one," Matt said with a small, dismissive shrug. Sarah shook her head.
"No, I mean it, Matt," she insisted, impulsively reaching out her hand to touch his arm, causing his eyebrows to quirk up in surprise. "My dad means everything to me, and I can't…I can't protect him on my own. So…thank you. Seriously."
He seemed thrown by her gratitude.
"You're welcome," he said finally. After a tense pause, he stood suddenly, businesslike again. "Try to get some rest tomorrow. Don't think about work."
"Yeah, that…that sounds good," she said as she watched him collect his mask and gloves. For some reason, despite how much she'd wanted to be alone when she'd first gotten home, the idea of him leaving and her being alone in her apartment made her slightly nervous now.
"You, um…you think Ronan's thinking up ways to murder me right now?" Sarah joked weakly, trying to distract herself from the sinking feeling in her stomach. But as she said the joke she realized that it was probably true, and the thought just made her feel worse.
"I don't know. Probably," Matt said, and she rolled her eyes at his less than reassuring reply. "I'll ask him tonight."
It took Sarah a second to catch on to what he'd just said. "What?"
"Building on the corner of 11th and 53rd, right? Apartment 203," he recited.
"Um…that sounds right. I don't have it memorized," she said slowly. "What…what are you going to do?"
"Have a chat," he said casually, pulling his gloves back on. "I think we'll have a lot to talk about."
Sarah raised her eyebrows at that description of what she was sure was not actually going to be a friendly chat.
"Be careful, Matt," she warned.
"From what I remember of Ronan, I think I can handle him," Matt said dryly. "He did run away the last time we met."
"Yeah, I know you can handle Ronan. But…you're still injured," she argued. "Even more so after last night. And he owns a lot of guns. And knives, and—and who knows what else. What if he's hoping that you show up?"
"Well, I'm a people pleaser," Matt said with a shrug, pulling his mask on and drawing it back down over his eyes.
"You don't have to go over there just because of…all this," she said hesitantly. "With me and him."
"I didn't say it had anything to do with you," he replied offhandedly, but the twitch in his jaw contradicted his nonchalant tone. "He's just overdue for a visit."
"Right," Sarah said, casting him a doubtful look. "If you say so."
"I'll still go to your dad's place first. Make sure there's nothing suspicious going on. I'll call you when I'm done there, before I go to Ronan's. Let you know if I find anything."
Sarah fidgeted with the new bandages on her hands as she debated something.
"Actually, unless you find something urgent at my dad's…why don't you wait to call me until after you go to Ronan's," she said tentatively. "Just to make sure he didn't, like…hit you with a bunch of tranquilizer darts or something. I don't know."
Matt's face was back to being halfway obscured by the black mask, so she couldn't properly see the expression on his face as he cocked his head to the side.
"Alright," he agreed slowly. "Might be kind of late. I don't know how long our conversation will take."
Had it been anyone but Ronan, she would have winced sympathetically at the implication.
"That's okay," she said with a shrug. "I'll don't know how much I'll sleep tonight anyway."
He frowned, and she knew some of the nervousness she was feeling had slipped into her voice.
"I'll have my phone on me," he said simply. Obviously she knew that, given that he was going to call her later. But she knew what he was implying, and she appreciated it.
"I know," she told him. "I'll be fine. Thanks, Matt."
He considered her for another moment, then nodded slowly and made his way over to the window. After slipping through the opening, he leaned back in for a moment.
"Lock this," he ordered, gesturing to the window, and she sighed. "Now."
"Okay, okay," she mumbled, not bothering to argue as she slowly got up and made her way over to the window. She slid the window shut, locking the latch on top firmly into place. She saw Matt's shadowy outline on the other side of the glass give a nod.
"I think you've gotten bossier," she told him through the windowpane.
The vigilante just gave her another smirk, and then disappeared into the shadows.