What They Wouldn't Do

by Ashevillain

Sarah is a secretary at Orion, a shady company previously owned by Wilson Fisk. When Daredevil begins investigating Orion, Sarah accidentally discovers his true identity, and he's not pleased. Despite her best efforts to avoid him after figuring out who he is, she quickly finds herself on the receiving end of a Daredevil interrogation in a dark alley. Post S1, Slow Burn Matt/OC.

44. Lights Out

Okay, okay. It took closer to a few months than two weeks, because A) I really struggle with writing action sometimes, to the point where I kept putting off finishing those parts of this chapter, and B) I adopted the tiniest little stray kitten who has been demanding all my attention. So that's my excuse. But it wasn't half a year at least! The next chapter is more drama-based than action-based so hopefully I can get it out quicker.

I will go ahead and let you guys know that Dex will not be appearing in this story. I've been writing this fic for so long that Dex didn't even exist in the Netflix show yet when I planned this storyline! The whole Superhero Imposter trope is so ubiquitous in comic books that I don't feel too bad about including a storyline similar to what the show already did. I think Dex is a fascinating character much like Elektra and Frank Castle, but just like the two of them he's a big enough character that I couldn't do him justice if I tried to insert him as a short side plot to Matt and Sarah's main story. Who knows, maybe I'll write him someday. But for now I just didn't want y'all to get your hopes up that for a Bullseye cameo and then be let down.

Happy reading!

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Sarah and Cecilia both stumbled to a halt as the man in black stepped into their path.

In the dark, he was mostly just a silhouette, but it was uncanny how much he looked like the real thing: broad shoulders that sloped downward to muscular arms, hands halfway curled into fists at his side. The only thing missing was the telltale head tilt as he surveyed them.

But any illusion of the man before them actually being Matt was quickly dispelled when he reached for the batons strapped to his thigh, withdrawing one and taking aim directly at the two women.

Before he could send the baton flying at either of them—and if Sarah had to guess she would assume it was coming her way specifically—several fleeing party guests burst around the corner, darting between the man in black and his targets. They were running towards the same exit sign that Sarah and Cecilia had been, and in their panic they paid no attention to the three figures standing stock still in the hallway facing each other.

"Come on," Sarah said, snapping out of her panicked stupor and grabbing Cecilia's arm to drag her along with the others who were running away.

When she glanced over her shoulder, Fake Daredevil had disappeared into the shadows in much the same way the real one was so good at. Her stomach dropped at the thought of not knowing where he was, but she turned her attention forward again before she could accidentally run into anyone in the dark.

Just as the first few escaping partygoers reached the stairwell, the door burst open; some of the armed men from down in the ballroom had made it up the stairs in an alarmingly short time. The dark shapes of guests and attackers blurred together in the dark, and Sarah heard someone scream.

Instinctively, Sarah grabbed Cecilia's arm again and yanked her back a few feet, both of them stumbling in their heels as they sprinted down a hallway to their right. Sarah pulled them into the first room they reached, eager to get out of the hallway where they were easy targets.

It was a large exhibit hall with paintings covering the walls, leaving only a small strip of windows at the very top to let a tiny bit of light in. The middle of the room was scattered with various large shapes that Sarah assumed were art installations, although in the dark she couldn't make out what they were.

Cecilia immediately dashed towards one of the dark shapes to hide behind it, her heels clacking loudly against the floor.

Sarah was about to do the same, but before she could she heard the sound of running footsteps coming in their direction. Not wanting to make any more noise, she took a few quick steps back as quietly as she could and ducked around the side of a partition displaying several large paintings.

The footsteps grew louder as two men stopped just outside the entrance to the room. The light from their flashlights illuminated the tiled floor as they spoke in hushed tones.

"Think there's any stragglers?" one of them asked the other.

"Dunno. Doesn't matter much, anyway. Boss is only interested in the two he told us about."

"Yeah, but a crowd like this?" the first man responded. "We could at least get some jewelry or cash off some of these people."

The two of them stepped farther into the room and raised their flashlights, illuminating the walls with small circles of light.

"Aw, shit. Seriously?" one of the men complained. "That's creepy."

In the light of their flashlights, it was clear what he was creeped out by: the exhibit Sarah and Cecilia had chosen to hide in appeared to be, unfortunately enough, clown themed. Sarah could see them as the flashlights moved across the wall: big, colorful paintings of clowns, old black and white photos of circus clowns, even statues of them. From every corner of the room, brightly painted eyes watched from the shadows as the flashlights moved across the walls.

One of the flashlights tracked across Cecilia's hiding place, which Sarah could now see was a life-sized Jack-in-the-Box made from what looked like foraged scrap metal and recyclables. Luckily, it was large enough that Cecilia was completely concealed behind it, and the flashlight kept moving.

Unfortunately, it was moving towards Sarah, who hadn't been able to find a hiding spot quite as good. In the shadows she could blend in by pressing herself back against the wall, but she knew when the light hit her there would be nowhere to go.

Sarah's heart raced as she silently fumbled in her small bag until her fingers closed around her pepper spray. Not that it would do her much good if these two had the same semi-automatics that the men downstairs had been brandishing, but it felt better than being completely empty handed.

The man's flashlight got closer to her, illuminating the large painting directly across from her, which was of several clowns playing chess. Sarah held her breath and studiously avoided looking into the doleful eyes of the clown closest to her, who appeared to be losing his game of chess if the exaggerated frown painted over his mouth was any indication.

She kept as still as possible as the flashlight lingered on the clown's face.

"Jesus," the man said. "Look at this one. Who the hell pays for this shit?"

"I don't know. Rich idiots. Come on. I hear people down the hall," the other one said.

Sure enough, if Sarah listened she could hear the echoing sound of hysterical voices coming from somewhere far on the other side of the third floor.

The bright light moved away from Sarah, and the sound of the two men's footsteps quickly faded as they went searching for the source of the faraway noise.

She let out a shaky breath and tried to listen, straining her ears to see if she could hear anyone else coming—and beyond that, what was going on below. But before she could even begin to focus, Cecilia darted out from her hiding spot and towards the hallway.

"Cecilia, no!" Sarah hissed, making a grab for the other woman, but it was too late. She was already out of her reach.

Cursing herself for somehow getting stuck with the worst possible person for a situation like this, Sarah ran after Cecilia, who was running down the opposite way from the direction the two men had just gone.

After a few steps, Sarah nearly tripped, and with a muttered swear she stopped to yank her high heels off. The last thing she needed was to roll an ankle, and they were too loud anyway. She saw Cecilia disappear around a corner, now far ahead of her.

Moving easier now that she was barefoot, Sarah ran down the hall after her, and as she got closer she could hear the sounds of a struggle.

She rounded the corner and saw another red exit sign illuminating a stairwell door a few yards ahead of her. In the dim light from outside, Sarah could just make out the sight of Cecilia struggling with a heavyset man who had her by the hair with one hand. She yelped and clawed at the hand that was twisted in her hair, kicking her heeled foot towards him futilely. He had something in his hand, but it was so dark and they were struggling so much that it took Sarah a moment to recognize what it was: a thin white zip tie, already looped into a wide circle so all he had to do was slip it over Cecilia's hands and tighten. And that was what he was trying to do, although Cecilia was putting up her best fight.

Even as Sarah ran towards them, she wasn't sure what she was planning to do. Everything Matt had taught her was meant for fighting off someone who was attacking her, not someone else, and the added person complicated the situation. She could try pepper spraying him, but he was so tangled up with Cecilia that she would just end up spraying her, too. And as grimly satisfying as that sounded, Sarah couldn't afford to be dragging a half-blind Cecilia around the museum if she wanted to reach Lauren and Greg any time soon.

Sarah's purse was still in her hands as she reached them, so she did the first thing that came to mind and swung the thin chain strap over the man's head, yanking back on his neck as hard as she could. She wasn't strong enough to do any actual damage, but it made him let go of Cecilia in surprise. Cecilia lost her balance and fell backwards hard, hitting the tile floor with a pained cry as her high heel snapped and her ankle twisted to the side.

The man let out a strangled grunt, stumbling back and grabbing at the thin chain around his neck. He yanked at it and it came loose from Sarah's bag with a snap as he spun around towards her.

His attention was now on her, which was both good and bad. Bad because she generally didn't like large, angry men paying attention to her, but good because at least this was a scenario she was more familiar with.

He lunged at her, grabbing her forearm as she threw it up in front of her face defensively.

("When someone's trying to attack you, you either want to be right up close, or ten feet away," Matt was saying, already beginning his lesson as he held the ropes of the ring up for Sarah to climb up. "But anything in between gives them all the leverage."

"Well, that's easy. I choose ten feet away," she said, beginning to take a few steps back.

But Matt grinned and shook his head, his hand darting out to catch her waist and spinning her back towards him.

"That's great if you have the chance to get some distance," he said as he wrapped his long fingers tightly around her wrist, not painfully, but enough that she knew she'd never be able to pull away if she tried. "But if someone's got a lock on your wrist, it means ten feet isn't an option, so you work with right up close."

"Great," Sarah said. "I'm so glad the bad guy gets to make that choice for me."

"Just the initial part. The rest is up to you. So what do you do?")

Oddly, in the heat of the moment it almost was a relief that the choice was made—Sarah didn't have to waste precious time debating between fight or flight, because with this man's fingers digging bruises into her arm, flight was no option.

Right up close it is, she thought grimly.

She felt the man's grip tighten on her arm as he shifted his weight back in anticipation of her trying to pull away. So it took him off guard when instead she twisted so her back was to him and slammed her entire weight back against him, throwing him off balance.

They both careened into the wall behind him, and his grip loosened on her arm. There was a low bench to their right, and pain shot through Sarah's leg as her right knee knocked hard against the edge of it.

In the moments it took Sarah to regain her balance, the man had already straightened up, and she barely had a second to register as his fist came flying towards her face. She jerked backwards, managing to avoid taking the brunt of the punch directly to her face, but she wasn't fast enough to dodge it entirely. His fist connected with the corner of her mouth, a glancing blow that snapped her head to the side and immediately filled her mouth with the coppery taste of blood.

The impact sent her reeling backwards, and her opponent took advantage of the moment to lunge forward. Much like he had with Cecilia, the man went straight for her hair, snarling his fingers into the chignon Lauren had so carefully done for her earlier that evening and yanking her back towards him.

("Why do men always go for the hair?" Sarah complained.

They were in the ring, taking a short break so Sarah could catch her breath and Matt could drink some water. They'd been running through different scenarios, and in recalling the various times she'd had to fight someone, it had occurred to Sarah that she ended up getting grabbed by the hair more often than not.

Matt finished taking a long swig of water and lowered the water bottle, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand as he shrugged.

"Quickest way to get the upper hand on someone," he said simply. "At least someone smaller than you. Makes it easier to—"

"Swing them around like a ragdoll?" Sarah finished dryly, thinking of how she'd been on the receiving end of that more than once.

"Basically."

"Hm," she said, idly twisting a few stands from her ponytail around her finger. "How short do you think I'd have to cut it to take that upper hand away from them?"

She was just musing out loud; she wasn't really going to cut her hair. She liked her hair, and she wasn't going to give up something she actually liked about herself because creeps wanted to take advantage of it.

But she caught the quick flash of alarm that crossed Matt's face before he quickly hid it.

"Cut your hair?" Matt repeated.

Sarah bit back a grin at his reaction.

"Yeah. Like maybe a buzz cut," she said seriously.

"You…could do that," Matt said, and she had to appreciate his efforts to sound neutral even as he failed miserably.

"Alright, don't have a heart attack, Murdock," she teased him. "I'm not going to cut all my hair off."

With a relieved half-grin, Matt took another long drink from his water bottle.

"Good to hear."

"But there's got to be some move you can show me that will help me get away from the hairpullers of Hell's Kitchen."

Matt nodded, leaning down to set his water bottle outside the ring before straightening back up.

"Yeah, I can show you," he said. He nodded to the space in front of him. "Come here."

She moved closer until she was right in front of him.

"The concept is similar to someone grabbing you by the wrist," he said. "They're trying to get control of you, and this particular hold gives them a lot of control."

As he spoke, he reached up and took her hair in a firm grasp at the base of her ponytail, then gave a mild tug.

Sarah drew in an unsteady breath, and Matt frowned.

"Am I hurting you?"

She tried to shake her head, but his grip on her hair kept her still.

"Uh, no," she said quickly as she tried to ignore the heat that flushed her face. "It's…I'm fine."

Ever the professional when they were in the ring, Matt made no comment as his sightless eyes flicked over her. Still, she saw the twitch at the corner of his mouth, and could tell he was carefully filing the information away.

"Good," he said, an unmistakable trace of amusement in his voice as he tightened his hold just slightly. "So, if the person is attacking you from the front…")

The man's tight grip on her hair made her give a pained yelp, and she stumbled as he wrenched her head to the side so hard it felt like he was trying to snap her neck. Maybe he was.

Sarah frantically tried to remember what she was supposed to do in this situation, but her main memory of that particular training session was mostly taken up by how deeply distracting she'd found the feeling of Matt's hand gripping her hair, and the lesson he'd imparted on her was coming up blank. A glaring and entirely predictable flaw in their carefully planned self-defense sessions, it seemed, because this man was not Matt and his brutal hold on her hair was nothing but extremely painful.

The surge of adrenaline in her system must have finally shocked her muscle memory into gear, and she found herself quickly using both hands to grab the man's wrist just above where he was grasping her hair. In doing so, some of the pressure on her scalp lessened as her arms absorbed some of his movement. She curled into him as best she could, bending her knees so he had to bend his arm down to keep a hold on her.

Now within a few inches of him, she brought her knee up as hard as she could, hoping that despite her flailing limbs she might manage to connect somewhere close to his groin. Ironically, it occurred to her that if Greg had grabbed the floor length dress she'd wanted him to, she would barely be able to move her legs at all.

From the strangled noise the man let out and the immediate lessening of his grasp on her hair, her aim was better than close. He then let go of her hair altogether and gave her a violent shove, trying to push her to the floor. But she still had a hold on his wrist with both hands, and digging her fingernails in even harder she refused to let go. She dropped lower, and he bent with her, allowing her to bring her knee up again—this time directly against his face.

On the one hand, the move brought about the desired effect: he howled in pain and she heard the distinct crunch of a nose breaking as her knee made contact. On the other hand, it resulted in him dropping to the floor and dragging her along with him.

(Sarah's back hit the mat hard, and not for the first time that night. All the breath left her body in one painful exhale, and she stared up at the gym ceiling as she slowly dragged air back into her lungs.

She felt Matt kneel down next to her, gauging her condition after having kindly knocked her on her ass only seconds before.

"You alright?" came the usual question.

"Yeah," she panted, but there was annoyance in her tone. Not at Matt, but at herself for continuously failing to get this move right no matter how many times Matt ran her through it. "Give—give me a second and I'll be ready."

He tilted his head and fixed her with a doubtful look.

"I think we might be done for the night," he said. "It must be almost time, anyway."

Sarah craned her neck to look at the large clock that hung on the gym wall. They still had another twenty minutes left.

"No," she said as she struggled up to lean on her elbows. "We have time to try once more."

Matt shook his head. "You're pushing yourself too hard."

"Well, one of us has to," she muttered.

She realized as she said it that it might have been a mistake, but it was too late.

Matt's eyebrows flew up.

"What does that mean?"

"It means…" Sarah weighed the idea of brushing the comment off, not wanting to waste the last minutes of their session on an argument—especially when she so rarely won any of their arguments, and she didn't know if she really felt like having her ass handed to her verbally in addition to literally. But with a sigh, she decided to answer honestly. "It means you've been going easy on me lately."

"Going easy on you?" he repeated. He jerked his chin towards where she was currently still sprawled out on the mat. "Did you miss the part where you're on the ground because I put you there?"

"Yeah, this time. But I messed up a bunch of other times, and you just let it slide," she said. "You've been letting a lot of things slide ever since…"

Ever since they'd gotten back into their training sessions after Matt had bruised her face—and elbow, and wrist—halfway to hell when he'd lost his hearing.

Sarah saw Matt's jaw tick, but he didn't deny it. She knew he'd assigned himself much more blame for that situation than he'd needed to, and she'd mostly given up on trying to convince him otherwise. But he'd finally agreed to start up their training again, and now it felt like he was holding back even more than usual.

"You're not going to hurt me. I don't know why you don't seem to know that, but I do," she said vehemently. "Other people are definitely going to try to hurt me, though. And I'd rather get my ass kicked a little bit now by you than a lot later by someone else. So I want to keep trying tonight."

Matt took a beat to consider her words, his head tilted to the side. His jaw didn't unclench, and for a moment she thought he might just turn and leave the ring. But then he gave a short nod and held out his hand to her, and when she took it he hauled her to her feet.

Sarah started to smile, then heard him murmur something as he began to correct her stance. She didn't have his super hearing, so she missed most of it, but definitely heard the word 'stubborn' in there.

She shot him a dirty look she hoped he could somehow feel as he kicked her feet a little wider apart.

"I'm stubborn? Coming from the man who goes out every night to fight people with half his bones broken instead of staying home to rest?" she asked. "If anything, I picked up any stubbornness from spending time with you."

Matt gave a sharp laugh as he placed his hands on her shoulders, pushing them back so she was standing straighter.

"Liar. Since I first met you, you've been too stubborn to give up. It's why I offered to train you to begin with; if you're going to insist on putting yourself in danger, I want you to be prepared." He squeezed her shoulders, then slid one hand up to cup the side of her neck, his eyes almost meeting hers with startling accuracy as he fixed her with an imploring look. "Just promise me that if you're up against an actual opponent, you channel that stubbornness into something useful—like getting away, if you can."

"And if I can't? What's the goal then? Winning?" she asked, half-joking. Her winning wasn't exactly a scenario she saw happening anytime soon.

She watched as Matt carefully stepped back from her, getting into position a few feet away.

"Going the distance," he answered, then raised his hands into a blocking stance. "You ready?")

Sarah was beginning to lose her breath from struggling so hard. Her opponent was much larger than she was, and despite putting in every bit of effort she had inside her to fight him, it felt like she was just barely keeping her head above water. The cold tiles of the floor were digging painfully into her back as she fought to get out of his grip.

One of his hands landed on her throat, and in a shock of fear she brought both hands to his face, clawing at any inch of skin she could find. She didn't quite managing to get his eyes, but the fingernails of her left hand caught on his lower eyelid as she dragged them down his face and she dug in. He yelled, and the hand that had been about to close around her throat grabbed instead for her wrists to yank them away from his face.

He tried pinning her down, but she writhed so wildly beneath him, kicking and clawing everywhere she could, that he couldn't keep a decent hold of her. Finally with a snarl, he grabbed the front of her dress with one hand, digging his right knee painfully into her stomach, and reared his fist back to bring it down directly against her face. In doing so, he sacrificed three of his four points of balance, leaving him balancing only on his left knee.

Before he could deliver the blow that would undoubtedly bring their brawl to a painful and decisive end, Sarah gathered every last bit of her waning energy and bucked up and to her right as hard as she could, ignoring the shock of pain it sent through her as his knee dug further into her stomach. The man had already thrown all of his weight into cocking his arm back, and the single knee he knelt on wasn't enough to keep him upright. Sarah might not have had much weight to throw against him, but she put what she had into the lunge, his weight shifted off her as he fell hard to the side.

The man's head hit the edge of the bench with a loud crack, and he crumpled to the ground so quickly that for a horrible split second Sarah thought he was dead. But then she squinted, and she was just able to make out the slow rise and fall of his chest in the weak light. Alive, but unconscious.

Cecilia was still frozen in her spot on the ground a few feet away, leaning on one arm as she clutched her ankle. She was staring at Sarah with her mouth slightly open, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"What the hell?" she said. "What just happened?"

"I just…" Sarah gasped, drawing as much air into her exhausted, burning lungs as she could. Then she let out a shaky, breathless laugh. "I just…won a fight."

Finally.

After months of training sessions in the ring, of her back hitting the floor over and over and her muscles aching and knuckles stinging—she'd won a fight, without anyone having to help her or save her.

Cecilia stared at her like she was crazy, and in this instance even Sarah had to admit it was understandable. She was sure she painted an interesting and less-than-sane picture: sprawled on the floor in her black dress and disheveled hair, with bruises already starting to bloom on her skin and blood dripping from her mouth, laughing and gasping for breath.

"Is he dead?" Cecilia asked, sounding more fascinated by the idea than disturbed.

Sarah shook her head, still trying to catch her breath.

"No," she gasped out.

She slowly shifted closer to the man, making sure he seemed truly unconscious before she cautiously reached for the pocket of his jacket.

"What are you doing?" Cecilia demanded, sounding frustrated. She struggled to her feet, her posture falling short of her usual straight-backed stance as she tried not to put weight on her injured ankle. "Looking for money?"

Sarah didn't answer her as she quickly felt in the man's pockets for anything: an ID card, a wallet, a phone. Anything to help her figure out who these people were.

But there was nothing.

With a frustrated sigh she grabbed the only things he had worth taking: his stash of zipties, and his two-way radio.

"What are you doing?" Cecilia repeated her question. "Come on, we need to go."

She picked up her heels, and Sarah gave her a look.

"I'm not leaving them here. They're Louboutins," Cecilia informed her.

"Fine. Maybe you can use them to hit someone with," Sarah said. She thought it seemed like a helpful piece of advice for the situation they were in, but if Cecilia's expression was any indication, she was less than impressed.

With the attacker out of the way, Sarah and Cecilia quietly slipped into the stairwell and made their way down the stairs as quickly as they could with Cecilia's injured ankle. But they had only reached the second floor landing when they could hear the clamor of movement down below them—people on the first floor coming upstairs towards them. They quickly detoured out the stairwell door and onto the second floor, where they half-ran, half-hobbled down a hallway and paused behind a collection of large, multi-colored sculptures to regroup.

Sarah turned up the two-way radio to a low volume, listening intently.

"We're headed to the third floor to check up there and then we'll sweep back down to the second floor east wing," someone's crackly voice came over the speaker.

Sarah scrubbed a hand up her face in frustration, pushing a few loose strands of hair out of the way.

"East wing?" she repeated in a whisper. "What the hell direction is east?

Cecilia gave her a look, then pointed to a sign not too far away, difficult to read in the dark but legible if she squinted: it had directions to the different exhibits, and the one directing them straight ahead was labeled: East Wing Modern Art Collection.

Oh.

"I guess we're going back the other way," Sarah said.

They were making their way down the dark hallway when they heard footsteps again.

Yet again, they ducked into the nearest hiding spot. Luckily, this one appeared to be an open office, possibly for one of the curators, and it was noticeably clown-free. Sarah ducked behind the desk piled high with papers, while Cecilia crouched behind a low bookshelf, peering through the slats. Sarah quickly switched the radio off and waited with bated breath to see who would pass by.

"I'm sorry that we couldn't get you out through the original exit plan, Miss Mar—Mrs. Fisk ," a male voice said. He had heavy footsteps followed by the click of heels next to him. "We're going to try to get you out through the mezzanine instead."

"It's alright, Edgar," someone said, and Sarah recognized Vanessa's distinct voice immediately. "I know you'll get me out safely. You've been by my side since I first met Wilson."

As their footsteps faded, Sarah saw Cecilia shifting her weight as though she was about to stand and run straight back out into danger again. She bit back a groan; was Cecilia really about to make this same mistake twice?

Sarah reached up on the desk next to her and grabbed a heavy fountain pen, then flung it in Cecilia's direction. It hit her hard in the side of the face, and Sarah couldn't pretend the sight wasn't satisfying. Cecilia's hand flew to her cheek and she stared at Sarah so indignantly that it might as well have been a bowling ball instead of a pen.

Sarah grabbed another one off the desk.

"Stay," she mouthed fiercely, brandishing the pen towards Cecilia in threat.

Cecilia gave her a dirty look but stayed where she was.

Sarah's fingers were poised on the dial of the radio, about to turn it back on, when they heard the sound of a door opening close by.

But instead of the hurried groups of footsteps they'd been hearing, this time it was only one pair: the slow, almost leisurely pace of someone who didn't sound like they were in a hurry at all. Cecilia was still squinting through the small space between shelves, and Sarah leaned up a few inches to get a look, still hidden by the piles of books and papers on the desk.

In the dim light from the window across the hall, she got a clear look at the person outside the doorway, and her fingers tightened on the radio as she recognized him: the man in black was back—but not her man in black. This was definitely the fake one; his walk was too slow, like he was simply bored by the sound of people screaming and fighting floors below.

Sarah didn't understand what the game was. If he was trying to impersonate Matt, why wasn't he downstairs terrorizing the guests with the others? What was he waiting for?

He stopped in the hallway, then turned towards the room opposite them. He stepped through the open door into the dark room and aimed a flashlight into the dark corners. Sarah silently cursed. If he took a good look in here, there was a better than average chance that he would find them.

Satisfied that the room across from them was empty, he turned to the one Sarah and Cecilia were hiding in. Sarah ducked lower behind the desk and glanced over at Cecilia, who was staring at fake Daredevil through the slats of the bookshelf with a mixture of fear and fascination on her face.

As he stepped into the room, the sound of a radio crackled to life. It made Sarah jump, and for a terrifying second she thought it was the one in her own hand making noise, about to give away her location.

But it wasn't; the sound was coming from a radio clipped to the fake Daredevil's hip. His footsteps stilled as a voice crackled through the speaker.

"Somethings going on. There's someone down here," a sharp, tense voice said over the radio. "Our guys are getting taken out left and right."

Sarah felt a surge of pride rushed through her. Maybe tonight hadn't turned out to be the dream night she'd hoped, but it was certainly a better night than any of these men were going to have if they crossed paths with the real Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

From the other side of the desk, she heard a click as the man in black unclipped the radio from his belt and spoke into it.

"What do you mean 'someone?'" he demanded, and his voice was so wrong, so wildly different from the man he was impersonating. "Who?"

"How should I know? It's dark in here, ain't it? If I didn't know better I'd think it was—"

The voice was cut off by a muffled crashing sound, and the line went quiet. It seemed as though the speaker had found the mysterious person in the dark he was so concerned about.

The man in black remained silent, but the radio seemed to have distracted him enough that he'd lost interest in their hiding spot. He turned and exited the room, his footsteps moving a little faster now as they faded down the hallway.

Silence fell over the room, and Sarah waited a few more beats before nodding at Cecilia, letting her know she could stand up without danger of being assaulted with writing utensils.

They left their hiding place in the room and hurried down the hallway in the opposite direction that the fake Daredevil had gone. Cecilia continuously glanced over her shoulder as though expecting him to appear directly behind them, and Sarah couldn't really blame her.

"That wasn't him," Cecilia said suddenly, breaking the silence between them.

Sarah whipped her head around to look at her in surprise.

"What?"

"That man. Whoever he was, he wasn't Daredevil," Cecilia said, sounding as though she were piecing together a particularly fascinating puzzle. "I've studied Daredevil more than anyone in this city. Watched every piece of grainy footage, listened to every recording that might have his voice. That wasn't him."

Sarah had known, of course, that Cecilia had an unhealthy obsession with writing about Matt's alter ego. But she hadn't realized that said obsession was backed up by enough research that Cecilia would actually be able to pinpoint a fake Daredevil. It made Sarah nervous; if Cecilia could spot a fake so quick, how easily could she figure out the real one if given enough time?

Still focused on finding a safe way to get to Lauren and Greg, Sarah kept walking briskly and struggled to find a non-incriminating response to give her.

"I…"

"You're supposed to be his biggest fan, aren't you? You couldn't tell that wasn't him?" Cecilia sneered, a condescending tone slipping into her voice.

"I don't know," Sarah snapped. They reached an intersection of several hallways and Sarah came to a halt. She turned the radio on to a low volume, hoping that it might give them some idea of which route was safest to take. At the least, it might distract Cecilia from her current line of questioning.

"—found a group in the third floor bathroom."

"Are they with them?"

"Negative."

So they were still searching for her and Vanessa, then. Great.

A different voice crackled over the radio: "Cops are in the building."

That was fast. Although she supposed crashing through the front of the building hadn't been a particularly discreet way of taking over the party. Again, Sarah wondered in confusion what the goal of this whole messy plan was.

"I think I saw the guy. He just took out Minetti and Clarks."

"Where is he?"

"Looked like he was headed towards the stairwell. Hang on—"

Sarah pressed her lips into a thin line. That was enough of that. As helpful as the radio was to her, there was no need to let these guys have any extra advantage of knowing where Matt was about to hit them next.

The second the crackling static of the radio went silent, Sarah held down the talk button, taking over the line. She dug into her bag for one of the zipties she'd taken earlier, then looped it around the radio and tightened it so it kept the talk button held down.

With her radio now hogging the frequency, the other radios had no way to communicate. Of course, the men could always use another channel to talk if they all tuned to the same one, but from the haphazard way they'd planned their attack Sarah was banking on the hope that they hadn't pre-agreed on a backup frequency to use.

She turned the volume down and set the radio in a dark corner of the hall, out of sight in the shadows. When she turned back to Cecilia, it looked like she was about to say something, so Sarah shot her a warning look and nodded her head towards the radio.

The two of them didn't speak until they were well out of the range where the radio could pick up anything they said.

"Don't you think we could have used that?" Cecilia hissed.

"It was too loud; it was going to give us away," Sarah said as an excuse. "And besides, now they can't talk to each other."

Specifically, they couldn't talk to each other about where Matt was or what he was doing, but Cecilia didn't need to know that. Knowing her, she'd figured it out on her own anyway.
"Do you think it's him?" Cecilia asked abruptly.

"What?"

Even in the dark, Sarah knew Cecilia was rolling her eyes.

"That guy they're talking about," she clarified impatiently. "The one downstairs. Do you think it's him?"

Sarah's stomach twisted. She carefully kept her focus on the dark hallway in front of them.

"Who?"

"Seriously? Daredevil. The real one."

"I don't know."

"It's got to be him," Cecilia said, and when Sarah finally turned to look at her as they passed by a window, she saw a gleam in the other woman's eyes that made her stomach turn. "That means he was at the party."

"Or he came in through one of the two giant Hummer-shaped holes in the wall," Sarah pointed out, keeping her voice carefully neutral. "If it's him at all. We don't know."

"Well, we'll find out. The cops are here now, so this will all be over soon," Cecilia said.

Sarah was saved from having to respond when they rounded the corner and came face to face with the barrel of a gun, and her stomach dropped.

She stumbled to a halt so quickly that Cecilia literally ran into her, but any harsh comment she had about Sarah's pace died on her lips as she saw what had made her stop. The man in front of them wasn't wearing the same knock off tactical gear as the other men they had seen; he was wearing a tuxedo, with a small earpiece in his ear in lieu of the large hand held radios.

Sarah's hands flew up and she opened her mouth, not even certain what she was going to say, but then a calm voice came from behind the man.

"Wait." Again, Sarah recognized the voice immediately. "It's okay, Edgar."

Sarah managed to tear her eyes away from the gun trained on her for a second to look past the man holding it, where she saw Vanessa standing close behind.

Sarah's gaze moved back to the gun that the man—Edgar, it seemed—was pointing at her face with no indication he planned on lowering it.

"N-not part of the crazy guys downstairs," she stammered, still holding her hands up in front of her. "Just the entertainment."

Edgar scrutinized Sarah for a moment, then Cecilia, apparently sizing up what kind of risk they posed, if any. He must have come to the determination that the risk was low, because he nodded once.

"Fine. Keep moving," he said briskly, indicating with his gun towards the hallway on the left from which he and Vanessa had just come. A hallway that probably didn't lead to an easy exit if Vanessa and her bodyguard had gone down it already and turned back.

"Wait—what? But you're going the other way. You have to bring us with you. You have a gun, you can protect us," Cecilia said.

"Cecilia," Sarah warned her, looking at her like she was insane. Did she just not realize that someone guarding a member of the Fisk family wouldn't hesitate to shoot anyone who got in the way?

"No, I can't," Edgar said flatly, shifting the aim of his gun towards Cecilia as he spoke. "I have one charge tonight, and that's Mrs. Fisk. You need to step out of the way."

Sarah's gaze moved to the woman in question, and Vanessa regarded her with a slightly apologetic look as she shook her head.

"I'm sorry," Vanessa said simply. "I know you will get out safely as well."

Sarah wasn't surprised that Vanessa didn't jump at the chance to bring the two of them with her to safety. After all, Cecilia was a stranger, and at the end of the day Sarah worked primarily for someone Vanessa deeply distrusted. In a strange way it was satisfying to see her true colors: to see that despite all of the niceties she put on with Sarah, at the end of the day Vanessa was just as ruthlessly out for herself as Jason was.

But maybe it was a good thing, she considered. Vanessa was the one the attackers were looking for—along with herself, Sarah suspected—so staying far away from her might not be a bad idea.

"Cecilia," she said quietly. "It's okay."

"No, it's not," Cecilia argued, and now she was looking at Sarah like she was the crazy one. "I don't know about you, but I actually want to get out of here."

Then a gunshot rang out, and for one split second Sarah thought that Edgar had pulled the trigger on Cecilia.

But it wasn't Cecilia's skull that a bullet had passed through; it was Edgar's. His head jerked oddly, and a spray of blood hit the wall behind him. Then he collapsed to the ground and didn't move again.

Cecilia let out a scream. If Vanessa had a reaction, Sarah didn't see it as she instinctively snapped her eyes shut and turned her head. Another dead body to add to her nightmare collection.

She opened her eyes again as she heard the click of another bullet being loaded into a chamber.

Standing in front of them was another man in a military-style black vest, like the ones downstairs. He was thin and bald, and had many rings stacked on his fingers, glinting in the faint light from the window. A particularly large diamond ring winked at them from his pinky finger as he aimed his gun directly at the group of women.

The man's eyes moved slowly over the three of them: first Sarah, then Vanessa, and finally Cecilia. The slow recognition that flickered across his face was visible even in the dim lighting.

He slowly brought his left hand up to the radio strapped to his vest, still keeping the gun trained on them with his right. He turned the radio on—presumably to tell the others of their location.

But as soon as the radio came to life, loud feedback burst out of the speaker. So the radio Sarah had left on was still sabotaging their channel, she noted mentally. Good.

He snapped it back off with an irritated grimace.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "He'll come to us."

Sarah's mind immediately flashed to the fake Daredevil she'd seen earlier, and she felt certain that was the 'he' in question.

Pinky Ring kept his gun trained on them and backed them into a large room with windows that stretched all the way up to the high ceiling, allowing much more of the city lights into this room than the hallways they'd been running through. Two other tall doors flanked the far left and right walls, which Sarah took note of as she and the others were lead across the room. She could hear the sound of running water nearby. The lights from outside glinted against something large on the far wall, and as they got closer she saw it was a huge, decorative fountain backed by a sparkling glass wall that towered from floor to ceiling.

"Sit," he ordered the three women. He jerked his chin towards the low marble ledge that surrounded the fountain.

Sarah tried to keep her breathing even as she took a seat, Cecilia to her left and Vanessa on Cecilia's other side.

Now that they were right next to the glass wall, if she squinted to could see the entire surface was engraved with the names of the museum's donors. It reminded her of a memorial, and she wondered how many of those names were here tonight. How many of them would make it out safely.

Sarah felt Cecilia shift next to her, and she tried to look at what she was doing out of the corner of her eye. She caught a quick flash of the low light of Cecilia's cell phone, concealed close against her thigh as she tried to stealthily do something on the screen. Who exactly did she plan to call? The police were already here.

Unfortunately, Sarah wasn't the only one who noticed Cecilia's phone.

"Hey!" Pinky Ring snapped, striding back towards them. He roughly wrenched Cecilia's phone out of her hand and hurled it into the fountain behind them, where it sank to the bottom with a splash. Then he pointed the gun directly at her face, less than an inch from her nose. "You want to try any other smart ideas?"

For once, Cecilia seemed at a loss for words. She just pressed her lips together tightly and shook her head, avoiding looking directly at the gun.

Pinky Ring shifted his attention to Sarah and Vanessa.

"Your phones, too, ladies," he demanded.

Thanks, Cecilia, Sarah thought as seconds later her own phone and Vanessa's joined Cecilia's at the bottom of the water.

Sarah studied the armed man in front of her, trying to figure out if there was any way to get out of this. She knew Matt would be on his way to find her, but she didn't want him getting close enough for Cecilia or Vanessa to see him. The man had a gun and clearly wasn't afraid to use it, but maybe since they outnumbered him three to one…?

But the universe seemed to hear her thoughts, and it didn't approve of her plan.

Sarah turned her head as she heard heavy footsteps approaching, and she tensed as she waited to see if the man in black would appear. But instead, two more men in combat vests came through the door to their right. To Sarah's dismay, one of them was her opponent from earlier, now pressing a thick wad of paper towels to the side of his bleeding head.

He stopped dead when he spotted her, and his eyes narrowed.

"Keep an eye on that one," he snarled at Pinky Ring. "She's the one that bashed my head in earlier."

Pinky Ring gave the man a onceover, taking in his blood-matted hair and bruised nose, then sent an appraising look in Sarah's direction.

"Her?" he asked doubtfully. "She's five feet tall."

Almost five foot four, Sarah thought resentfully.

"Keep an eye on her," the bleeding man repeated through gritted teeth. "Better yet, just shoot her."

Sarah's eyes widened as she tried to keep her heart from beating straight out of her chest. All the self-defense moves in the world weren't going to help her if one of them decided to put a bullet through her skull.

But Pinky Ring just gave his associate an annoyed look, like he'd suggested a bad restaurant for dinner instead of literal murder.

"I already shot one. We're supposed to keep the body count low," he answered.

Then from one of the pockets of his vest, Pinky Ring retrieved a handful of white zipties.

"Put these on," he ordered, tossing the zipties towards Sarah, Cecilia and Vanessa.

When none of them immediately moved to do so, he scowled.

"Whichever of you gets it on last is getting smacked across the face for your trouble," he warned, gesturing with the gun in his hand.

The threat of being pistol-whipped made all of the move a little quicker, although Vanessa still managed to do so with some dignity, and she was the last one. It seemed the gunman was more interested in threatening than violence, and he seemed satisfied enough once all three women were securely ziptied at the wrists.

The third man hadn't spoken yet, but he did now as his cold eyes swept across each of them in turn: first Vanessa, then Sarah, then Cecilia.

He frowned and turned to Pinky Ring.

"I thought it was just supposed to be the two of them."

A faint pang of guilt hit Sarah as she was reminded that for as awful as Cecilia was, she wouldn't be in danger like this if it weren't for Sarah, if she hadn't stubbornly insisted on coming to this fundraiser knowing that something bad could happen. She'd never imagined an entire small army would crash the party to go after her and Vanessa, but they had, and Cecilia was caught in the crossfire with them.

"Whatever. We'll let the devil decide what to do with the extra."

Sarah blinked when she realized 'the devil' meant the man currently impersonating Matt. It sounded like they hadn't been clued in on the fact that the man they were working with wasn't the real deal.

"You don't think it's weird?" the bleeding man demanded. "This guy spends all of his nights running around beating the shit out of people like us, and now all of the sudden he wants to work together?"

"Nah," Pinky Ring said with a dismissive shrug. "I always figured it would go that way. Just like all the most goody-goody cops on the force. Once you spend too much time rolling around in the dirt, it starts to stick. Then all it takes is for the right sum of money to come along. And we all know the boss has got a lot money to spare."

"And who exactly is your boss?" Vanessa asked. It was the first time any of the three of them had said anything since Vanessa's bodyguard had been shot, and the men guarding them looked surprised to hear her speak.

Pinky Ring took a few steps closer with a nasty grin.

"I'm happy to tell you. Name's Elliot Bradshaw. Maybe you've heard of him?"

Sarah blinked. She didn't need Matt's radar ability to tell the man was lying. There was no way that anyone other than Jason was behind tonight's attack—especially not the dumbass nightclub owner she'd met weeks ago.

But she was hardly in a position to speak up about it. In fact, not speaking at all currently seemed like the safest option. But Sarah had to wonder if Vanessa believed what he was saying about Elliot, or if she was smart enough to have caught on.

"This will be something you and your boss will very much regret," Vanessa said coolly, her voice calm. "When my husband finds out what you've done."

Coming from anyone else it might have sounded laughable, considering their situation. But coming from Vanessa, and knowing who her husband was and what he was capable of, the words made the hair on Sarah's skin stand up—and they weren't even directed at her.

But the man in front of them seemed to have no particular sense of self-preservation.

"Your husband, huh? Scary. Was there some reason he wasn't able to come to your big fancy ball tonight? He already had plans?" he asked mockingly, then smacked himself in the forehead. "Oh, right. He's in prison. Where he can't do much to nobody."

"Yeah, and if—" the bleeding man started to chime in, but his words cut off sharply as his attention caught on something behind Pinky Ring.

Sarah followed his gaze and saw the dark outline of a figure standing in the doorway to the room. He'd appeared there so silently that no one had seen him approach, and he didn't say a word as the attention of everyone in the room turned towards him.

"Finally," Pinky Ring said. "You took your time getting here, considering you were the one who wanted these two found."

Sarah's heart skipped a panicked beat as she waited for the fake Daredevil to step into the room. What exactly was his plan? Was he going to try to kill them right here, or take them away somewhere else?

Then the silhouetted figure slowly tilted his head to the side.

And Sarah had to bite back the smile that threatened to spread across her face. Relief rushed through her, and her tense shoulders relaxed just a fraction.

Unluckily for the three men holding them hostage, they weren't as familiar with the subtler mannerisms of the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, and none of them had any time to consider the idea that the devil standing in front of them wasn't the one on their side.

Matt lifted his hand and sent something flying directly into the face of the man closest to him. The man howled in pain as the object clattered to the floor, and when Sarah squinted she saw it was a small, expensive looking stone statue.

Things moved very quickly from there. Pinky Ring pointed his gun at Matt while the man Sarah had fought earlier dove towards his other associate, who was bent over double blindly grabbing at his face. The bleeding man wrestled his gun away from him so he, too, could point it at Matt, but by the time he had Matt was already on him.

As Matt dealt clean, brutal blows to both men, the bleeding man appeared to panic and fired indiscriminately in every direction—including in the direction of the fountain where Sarah, Vanessa, and Cecilia were still being held at gunpoint by Pinky Ring. In the blur of shadows, Sarah saw Matt grab the man's arm and twist it back, angling the gun so that the few bullets he managed to fire off flew far above their heads.

Unfortunately, what was directly above their heads was the tall glass wall that backed the fountain.

The carefully etched names of the benefactors who had donated to the now partially destroyed museum—names that most likely included Vanessa Fisk herself, ironically enough—exploded, raining thousands of glass shards down on the three women and the man training the gun on them.

They all lurched out of the way; Cecilia and Vanessa in one direction, Pinky Ring and Sarah in the other. Sarah's balance was thrown off by the ziptie holding her hands together, and her shoulder knocked hard against the edge of the fountain as she fell back into water, while a few feet away Pinky Ring covered his bald head against the falling glass shards.

In the chaos, Vanessa made a run for the door with Cecilia limping behind her.

To her credit, Cecilia looked back, which was more than Sarah could say for Vanessa. Cecilia saw that Sarah was still across the room and gestured wildly with her tied up hands for her to hurry up and join them. But Sarah hesitated, glancing over at where Matt was still fighting the other two men in the shadowy edge of the room.

"Are you insane? Come on!" Cecilia demanded, stamping her uninjured foot.

But then another gunshot went off somewhere close by, and any notion of solidarity that Cecilia might have had appeared to flee her mind as she turned and disappeared through the same doorway Vanessa had.

The gunshot had come from Pinky Ring. He was paying no attention to Sarah as he fired at Matt, who had just cleanly knocked out one of the two men he was fighting. Sarah's eyes widened as she saw a bullet whiz only inches past Matt's head.

"No!" Sarah exclaimed instinctively as scrambled up out of the fountain and she lunged for the man, using her ziptied hands to hit him as hard as she could. She couldn't exactly make a fist with her hands bound, and the damage she was doing was minimal—but it was enough to get his attention off Matt.

With a growl, Pinky Ring seized her arm and roughly flung her to the ground. She automatically tried to put her bound hands out to catch her fall, and she bit back a yelp as several of the sharp glass shards that littered the floor embedded themselves in her palms. She scrambled to get up, but she hadn't even managed to get to her knees before she heard the click of a gun being cocked and looked up to find Pinky Ring aiming his weapon directly at her face.

For a moment, the sound of the room faded out, replaced by a roaring sound in her ears as she gazed down the barrel of the gun pointed her way.

Then, as quickly as it was aimed at her, the gun was gone, yanked away from her face with such force that Sarah heard the small bones in the man's hand crunch and snap. Matt was right in front of him, and in the dark Sarah couldn't see every blow that he landed on the man, but she could definitely hear them.

Then Matt slammed the butt of the gun hard against Pinky Ring's face with a sickening crunch, and blood began to gush from his nose and mouth. He let out a pained scream that echoed around the tall ceilings as he reeled backwards, his ring flashing as both of his hands sprang up to cover his face. Matt tossed the gun aside and grabbed the man by his throat, then slammed him to the ground. Before he could catch his breath, Matt had dropped down on top of him and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. He landed one clean, swift punch to his opponents face. Even with both hands still covering his face the impact was brutal, and the man's head snapped back before he fell limp to the floor, unconscious. Then Matt landed another hit, just as loud and just as hard—and then another.

Matt's fists clenched and unclenched as he got his breathing under control, and Sarah watched him and held her own breath. He hadn't gotten up off of his opponent yet.

She pushed herself up onto her knees, then fully to her feet and took a few slow steps closer, careful to avoid the shards to glass. She reached down for his arm with her bound hands, and he tensed as her fingers grasped the fabric of his tuxedo jacket.

"He's out," she said softly, tugging gently at his arm. "He's done. Come on."

Matt's head tilted in her direction but didn't move.

"He was going to shoot you," he said, his voice low but harsh.

"I know," she said cautiously as she eased him up and off the man on the floor.

The heaving of his shoulders began to slow and become more controlled, which she knew was a sign that he was calming down, at least a little. Then his head cocked as something caught his attention.

"Hang on," he murmured.

Matt turned back to the bleeding mess that was the unconscious man and used his foot to roughly turn him on his side. Sarah watched as Matt crouched over him and fished in his pocket for a moment before drawing out a small, oblong object. A second later the quick flash of a metal blade exposed the object as a switchblade.

He got back to his feet, then moved in front of her and gently brought the blade between her wrists.

"Hold still," he warned her quietly. Sarah did just that, holding very still as she watched the visible half of his face instead of what he was doing. She could feel the cold blade against her skin as he worked it against the zip tie, and then the plastic was gone from her wrists.

She murmured a thanks and rubbed at the painful welts that the ziptie had left against her skin, then winced as the rubbing motion sent a sharp pain through her hand. She squinted in the dark and was surprised by the amount of blood she saw on her palms.

Matt caught her wrists, holding her hands palms upwards and pressing his mouth into a tight, angry line.

Sarah's eyes roved over his face, where they caught on the shiny, wet looking appearance of his mask. Clearly he was bleeding heavily underneath.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

He gave a short nod as he skimmed his hands down her arms, checking her like a metal detector for injuries. She was so used to Daredevil Mode Matt touching her with rough gloves on that she was almost taken by surprise at the feel of his gentle, calloused fingertips against her skin instead, lingering over the bruises on her arms.

"Are you?"

"Yeah. I'm fine," she said. But she saw the displeased tick in his jaw as he tilted her jaw up to inspect her swollen, bloody lower lip. Sarah's gaze fell on the man she'd managed to knock out earlier, who was now unconscious for the second time that night. "How…how do you do all of that when not even a single one of your ribs is working right?"

Despite the serious set of his expression, Matt's lips gave a small twitch. "You just push through."

"Did—are Greg and Lauren—are they okay?" she asked. "Do you know?"

Matt nodded as he dragged his mask off, the bloody fabric catching against his skin. With the mask off, Sarah could see that in addition to the vivid bruise on his cheekbone, he now sported a deep gash just along his hairline.

She took the mask from him and pressed the dry half of it to the cut, hoping to help stem the bleeding. For as many times as Matt reassured her that head wounds always bled a lot, the sight of him standing there with blood running down his face still shook her.

"Greg's injured, but he'll be alright. Lauren's fine. They hid in the kitchen," he said.

Relief washed over her. Then Sarah's eyes widened as her own brain caught up with her.

"There's someone here. Someone…dressed up to look like you," she stammered.

Matt's expression darkened, but he didn't look surprised.

"I know. People saw him. They were talking about it."

"He was supposed to be on his way here to…" she trailed off. To kill her and Vanessa, she supposed.

"I heard. But…" he paused, listening again then shook his head. "I don't think anyone's coming anymore. There's no one else on this floor. The police are downstairs; they might have already apprehended whoever it was."

"If they did…they're going to think he's you. That you attacked the party. He—he had your whole Daredevil costume on," she said. "The mask and everything."

His jaw tightened, but he didn't say anything. Even so, she could see the alarm and confusion in his eyes, mirroring her own state of mind.

"Matt, I—I don't understand what's going on. That man, he said that Elliot Bradshaw hired them. The nightclub owner with the roofies. But…that can't be right, can it? It has to be Jason. But…why would Jason put all this effort into staging a big attack on me and Vanessa when he could get to either of us every day at work?" Sarah asked. It just wasn't Jason's style—he liked to keep his spectacles small scale, terrorizing his employees and enemies but not drawing unneeded attention. This was the opposite of that.

"And why bring in someone to make it look like I was a part of this?" he asked.

"And if they wanted make it look like that, then why was he up here, and not down there with the others, where everyone could see him?" Sarah shook her head. "What was his role supposed to be?"

"I don't know. Whatever it was, it looks like he missed his shot for tonight. The whole place is crawling with cops. Maybe they didn't expect them to come so soon."

"What, with this many rich people here?" Sarah let out a harsh laugh. "That was bad planning. The—the whole thing is weird. None of it makes sense."

"No, it doesn't," Matt acknowledged grimly. Then he tilted his head, listening to somewhere else for a beat. "The police are coming up the stairs. They'll be here in a few minutes."

Sarah glanced at the windows, which didn't look like they opened.

"Will you be able to get out?" she asked. "Can you make it to that balcony we were on?"

"Police are accounting for everyone at the party," Matt said with a shake of his head. "We both need to stay long enough to be seen, so no one gets suspicious. Then we can leave and find out what the hell is going on."

She nodded, calmed by the businesslike tone he took on. Even if her head was spinning, Matt seemed to be thinking clearly.

"Okay," she agreed. "Okay, um…but you shouldn't be found up here with me. You should go sneak back downstairs."

"I don't want to leave you here alone."

"I'll be alright. As long as they're not McDermott-type cops, then hopefully they'll just do their jobs and bring me downstairs."

Matt blew out a sigh, then nodded grudgingly.

"Fine. If we end up having to leave separately, I'll call you with where to meet."

"Okay," she agreed automatically, then gasped as she remembered her phone still at the bottom of the fountain. "Oh, shit."

Still holding Matt's mask, she hurriedly tip-toed through the glass over to the fountain and reached down into it, fishing her phone out from the coin and glass-covered floor. She hit the home button experimentally, but unsurprisingly, it didn't turn on. She looked up at Matt with a guilty wince.

"That asshole threw our phones into the fountain," she said, then gave the phone a speculative, half-hopeful look. "I can…try putting it in rice…?"

If Matt's doubtful expression was anything to go off, he didn't have much faith in that idea. He crossed the room and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket for his burner phone, which he held out to her.

"Take this for now," he said. "You can't keep that one, so try not to break it."

She nodded and tucked it into the sparkly red clutch.

With a loud mechanical whirring sound, the building's electricity sprang back to life. It seemed the situation was under control enough that the police had thought to turn the breakers back on. Sarah squinted as the room flooded with overhead lighting, and the air conditioning kicked on above them.

Matt stood cocked his head toward the door, and she knew it was time for him to go.

"Be careful," she told him. "I'll see you down there in a few minutes."

Then he was gone, and she slumped against the edge of the fountain. She blinked as she realized she still had Matt's bloody mask in her hand. She hurriedly shoved it in her bag next to the burner phone.

In the few moments before the police showed up, her gaze fell onto the floor of the fountain, where Vanessa and Cecilia's phones had been thrown along with hers. They looked identical; two black rectangles sitting at the bottom of the water, probably useless now.

Sarah hesitated, weighing the possibility of being able to rekindle Vanessa's phone against the risk that in a building full of cops, criminals, and drunk partygoers, two missing broken phones would even be noticed.

And so when the police escorted her and several other traumatized-looking guests back into the ballroom, she was shouldering a bag with three waterlogged smart phones, a burner phone, and a vigilante's mask.

---

Downstairs was chaotic, to say the least. Sarah and the other guests were directed to wait in the main ballroom so they could give statements, and as soon as she stepped foot in the room her eyes widened at the damage.

Rubble from the two truck crashes littered the floor, covering the shiny marble in a thick layer of drywall dust and splintered wood. People huddled in shellshocked groups around different tables, and paramedics were tending to several injuries: a man who looked like his arm had been grazed by a bullet; a woman who was nursing a bloody nose and holding an icepack against her face; one person was just vomiting, but it was unclear if it was due to injury or shock. Through the huge hole where the front door had once been, Sarah could see the flashing lights of ambulances as the more severely injured were loaded into them.

A stern looking police officer strode past her, speaking into the radio on his chest.

"What do you mean, the press is already here?" he barked into the radio. "You keep them at the perimeter, you understand? It's a shitshow in here. We got injured people, we got structural damage—no, hell no. Keep 'em out. Bunch of vultures."

Sarah glanced back in the direction the cop was headed. Sure enough, mixed in with the ambulances outside she could see the bright lights of news crews trying their best to get footage of the scene. A few officers were keeping them at bay as best they could.

She made her way through the crowd, searching for Lauren and Greg, or for Matt—hell, even Cecilia, just to make sure she got downstairs okay.

"Why can't we leave?" a familiar voice demanded from nearby. Sarah looked over; it was Todd. Of course it was. He was uninjured and his clothes were barely touched by the dirt and rubble, indicating that he had probably run for cover early in the attack.

"Sir, we have to keep everyone here until we can get a statement—" a female officer was patiently trying to explain to him, but he raised his voice to speak over her.

"That's ridiculous! You let that Fisk woman and her entire special forces team leave, and she wasn't even injured!" he exclaimed.

So Vanessa did get out, Sarah noted. Of course she wouldn't be held to the same rules as the rest of them, made to wait in a crowded ballroom for the police to release them. Even in a crowd of wealthy patrons, the influence of Vanessa's last name gave her more leeway than any of them.

Nearby, she was surprised to spot Cecilia, limping through the crowd while pointing a phone at herself as she narrated what was happening around her. Sarah frowned, wondering whose phone she was using, since her own was currently in Sarah's bag. She watched as Cecilia moved up the staircase to get a better shot of the room, then grabbed a nearby partygoer and started peppering her with questions. The poor girl looked to be in shock from the situation, and having a phone camera shoved in her face probably wasn't helping.

Cecilia, on the other hand, didn't seem to be in shock at all. In fact, she seemed extremely unbothered by having almost just died—more than once—not even half an hour ago.

Sarah weaved her way through the crowd until she reached Cecilia, who paused her interview and gave her an appraising look up and down.

"You made it down alright. That's good," Cecilia said neutrally. It was about as close as Cecilia would ever get to saying something positive to Sarah, she supposed.

The girl Cecilia had been interviewing looked relieved to no longer be in the spotlight, and she slinked away quietly. Sarah watched as Cecilia sent her an irritated look and pressed a button on her screen to stop recording.

"Did you talk to the police yet?" Sarah asked lowly.

Cecilia shrugged her off. "Barely. I wanted to get the story from everyone before the police start letting them leave."

"Did you tell them what we saw? The fake Daredevil?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Are you kidding me? Do you know how good of a story this is? Two stories, really," Cecilia said. "The first few headlines will be all about the vigilante losing it and coming after Vanessa Fisk with an entire mini militia. And once that's died down, we get a whole new headline that there are two Daredevils running around."

"There aren't two Daredevils," Sarah said. "There's one Daredevil, and then a crazy imposter."

"Yeah, because one violent guy in a mask is definitely crazier than the other," Cecilia said.

Sarah bit back a retort. "You need to tell the police that wasn't the real one."

"Why don't you tell them?" Cecilia asked, shifting her phone from one hand to the other as she leaned a little closer to Sarah.

Sarah hesitated. Of course, the real reason was that she needed to keep any hint of a connection between her and Matt as far under the radar as possible. And that was probably exactly the reason that Cecilia was hoping to get out of her.

Cecilia watched her closely as she waited for an answer, and Sarah was very aware of how she was keeping her phone screen carefully turned away from her so Sarah couldn't see it.

"Because I wasn't the one who recognized that it wasn't the real Daredevil," Sarah said, picking her words carefully. "You were."

"Like you wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't said anything?"

"It was pitch black, Cecilia. And I was kind of focused on trying to get us both out of there alive."

"Well, mission accomplished. We both made it out safe and sound," Cecilia retorted dismissively. "So why are you still bothering me about it? What, you're worried the vigilante's good reputation will get sullied?"

"I'm worried that a man who just hurt a ton of people is going to be out there hurting more and no one will know," Sarah snapped.

"Oh, now you're worried that a masked man is running around hurting people? Why, because it's not the one you like?"

"I don't like either one," she lied, still aware of the phone in Cecilia's hand. "But one of them hurt a lot of people tonight, and you might be able to stop him from hurting more if you tell the police the truth."

"I'm sure that's the reason," Cecilia said with a roll of her eyes.

"It is. Aren't you the one always going on about following the letter of the law? I don't think giving a false police statement really goes with that."

"Look, everyone will find out eventually, including the police. They just need to wait until I'm ready to release it as an exclusive," Cecilia said smoothly. "Until then, you're free to step up and tell the real story any time you like."

It was clear there was no point in continuing the conversation. Cecilia wasn't going to waste her chance at an attention-grabbing headline by telling the cops the truth, and Sarah wasn't going to risk exposing any information about Matt by telling them either.

When Sarah didn't reply, Cecilia turned away, already in search of the next person she could squeeze a dramatic soundbite out of.

Sarah shook her head and walked away, returning to her original task of finding Lauren.

She continued listening to bits and pieces of conversations as she moved through the room, and one name in particular kept coming up again and again:

Daredevil.

"I saw him," a woman was insisting as her friend shook his head, a skeptical look on his face. "I did! I saw him upstairs; we were screaming for help, and he just walked past us like he didn't care at all."

"Sure, you did. What, you think the Devil of Hell's Kitchen attends charity balls now?" her friend asked sarcastically.

"No, I saw him, too," another woman interjected from nearby. "But not upstairs. Down here."

"You saw him down here?"

"Yeah. Or—well—I saw someone. It was dark, so it was just a figure," she said uncertainly. "But there was definitely someone here, fighting…I don't know, must have been a dozen men. Who else could it have been?"

"You're making that up. There's no way."

"How else do you think half of those guys got wiped out before the cops got here?"

She heard the same kind of conversation throughout the room. People saying a mysterious figure saved them in the ballroom; it had to be Daredevil. Other people saying they needed saving, and Daredevil passed them right by.

None of them realized they were talking about two different people. Sarah's confusion grew, as did the dread in her stomach. Why had a fake Daredevil been here, and why hadn't anything come of it? Had she and Matt foiled Jason's plans that easily? It seemed unlikely, to say the least.

Finally, she spotted Lauren's blonde hair across the room. She was leaning down next to one of the dinner tables, speaking to someone. Sarah weaved through the crowd to get to her, and when she got closer she saw Greg sprawled in a chair, his face pale and his right foot propped up on another chair. Lauren was hovering her hands worriedly over his leg, which had a large ugly gash that stretched from his knee down to his foot—which, Sarah noticed with sick twinge, was definitely bent at an angle it shouldn't be.

"Lauren," Sarah called out.

Lauren's head snapped up, and the relief on her face was immediate.

"Oh, my God," she exclaimed, pulling Sarah into a hug as soon as she reached the table. Sarah squeezed her back tightly. "You're okay. I was so scared when you didn't come back downstairs with Cecilia. She said you were together, and then you got separated."

Over Lauren's shoulder, Sarah could see Matt approaching them, being led through the crowd by a young cop who looked like he was barely eighteen. He had his dark glasses back on, his folded up cane tucked under his arm, and he was pressing a handful of what looked like napkins against the cut on his forehead.

"You think your group is over here somewhere, sir?" the baby-faced cop inquired.

Lauren turned at the sound.

"Matt! You're okay, too!" she exclaimed. Then to Sarah's surprise, she pulled him into a hug as well as the cop dropped his arm.

Matt let out small, sharp huff of pain—probably from his injured ribs being squeezed by a panicked, tipsy woman. In a way, it was lucky that he now had a built-in excuse for his injuries; for once, they made him blend right into the crowd.

The cop escorting him seemed satisfied he had found the correct group of people, and he nodded and disappeared into the crowd.

Lauren let Matt go, and as she did she swayed just slightly on the spot.

"Sorry, mate," Greg said from his chair. His voice was tight and pained. "She's been hugging everyone she sees. Even hugged Cecilia."

"I'm just glad everyone is alive," she defended herself, then gave Matt a curious look. "We tried to find you in the crowd, before the lights went off. I swear you were right next to us, and then…"

"I got swept up in everyone running around," Matt said, waving her question away with practiced casualness. "Not sure where I ended up, but…I got through alright."

"I guess," Lauren said, her eyes lingering on the cut on his forehead as she winced sympathetically. She turned back to Sarah. "I'm glad none of us got hurt even worse. What happened with you and Cecilia upstairs? She barely told us anything."

"Yeah, she just demanded to take my phone so she could start 'documenting' the event," Greg said with a roll of his eyes. "Said that hers got ruined."

Sarah looked back at where Cecilia had been filming her news segment on the staircase, then frowned when she saw she was no longer there.

"Where did she go?" Sarah asked.

Lauren shook her head. "Probably off interviewing all the people saying they saw Daredevil running around. You know how she is."

Greg snorted in agreement.

"She's really enjoying being the only member of the press with access inside. She'll be here all night trying to get the right soundbite to get her trending on Twitter—ah," he hissed in pain, his sentence breaking off as he shifted a little and his foot protested.

Lauren moved closer to him, looking concerned.

"His leg and foot need attention, but there's more injuries than paramedics," she told Sarah. "They said we have to wait for more teams to arrive. We can't even get an ice pack."

Sarah frowned as she looked at Greg's colorless face, pulled tight into a grimace. She scanned the room, and her eyes caught on the bar, which appeared to be unmanned.

"I'll see if there's any ice behind the bar. Or at least some cold bottles we can use," she said. Her gaze moved over to Matt. "And maybe some alcohol to put on that cut, Matt."

He gave her a polite, practiced smile, both of them aware of the others around them.

"Thank you. Hopefully we can all get out of here soon, so I can get it properly taken care of," he said meaningfully.

Of course, by 'properly' taken care of, he meant fixed up in Sarah's living room—and probably not until after he'd already gone out for a few hours looking for information, if she had to guess.

Sarah held back an eyeroll and turned away, making her way towards the bar, which was only a few tables away. She felt a gaze on her and glanced around, her eyes finally landing on a police officer across the room who was studying her with a curious frown.

Officer Brett Mahoney. Of course he had to be here. And undoubtedly he would already suspect that she was involved.

She purposefully avoided his eyes and continued walking towards the bar.

She had only just reached it and leaned over the counter, looking for an ice bucket, when she heard a piercing scream. She jerked back upright and looked around in alarm; most of the people nearby did the same thing, looking for the source of the scream.

Then Sarah looked up.

High above them, standing on one of the third floor balconies, was the man dressed as Daredevil. With his right hand, he was balancing a person far over the edge of the railing by their throat, and Sarah's stomach dropped when she recognized who it was:

Cecilia.

Cecilia's mouth was open in another scream that she could no longer get out as her fingers scrabbled at his grip on her throat. In his other hand, he was holding a long, oddly shaped gun.

"Let this be a message," he called out, his voice harsh and gravelly, but not quite right. "Things are changing in Hell's Kitchen."

It was a short, confusing message, but Sarah didn't have time to think about what he meant. She saw Matt take a step forward as though to do something, but it was far too late. A second later, the man in the mask let go of Cecilia's throat with a hard push and a cruel grin. With nothing to grab onto, Cecilia plummeted downward.

As Sarah watched Cecilia fall, almost in slow motion, several things occurred to her at once, coming to her more as sudden fragments of certainty than as fully formed thoughts.

Cecilia. The man who had stood on the truck and yelled that he was looking for Vanessa hadn't been about to say Sarah's name. He'd been about to say Cecilia's.

And the man upstairs hadn't gotten on his radio to report that he'd found Vanessa and Sarah. His eyes had skated right over Sarah's face. He'd been calling in that he found Vanessa and Cecilia.

Because if there was anyone it made sense for Daredevil to attack in public, it would be the wife of his worst enemy…and the girl who wouldn't stop criticizing him in the press.

It hadn't even occurred to Matt or Sarah that anyone at the fundraiser might be targeted besides Vanessa or herself. So Sarah had barely thought twice about the man staring at Cecilia so hard when she'd been dancing. Now it occurred to her that she hadn't seen him again the entire evening.

The realizations all hit her stunned brain in a manner of seconds. And then chaos exploded.

She didn't see the moment Cecilia hit the ground; the crowd in front of her was too thick. But over the ringing in her ears, she heard the screams of the people nearby.

Behind her, several police officers had drawn their guns and were aiming them at the fake Daredevil above. He raised the oddly shaped gun in his hand, and Sarah suddenly recognized it: it was one of the tranquilizer guns that Hell's Kitchen seemed overrun with these days.

Somewhere in the distant back of her mind, she wondered: Of all the weapons he could pick, why that?

As the police fired, the man in black fired off a few shots of his tranquilizer gun back at them. The police bullets narrowly missed him, and he turned to run, still shooting blindly behind him. His haphazard aim sent the last few darts sailing into the crowd of people below.

Sarah's heart stopped as she saw one narrowly miss Lauren, who was pulled out of the way by Matt at the last second. A small rush of relief managed to fight its way through the shock that had taken over her body.

Then Matt's head snapped in her direction, his face pale with alarm, and she wanted to go tell him she was fine, and he needed to stop worrying about her and go after the man impersonating him.

But for some reason, she couldn't seem to make herself move.

Her gaze slowly dropped downward, and for the first time she noticed the dart embedded in her own stomach.

How strange, she noted, her thoughts sluggish. She hadn't felt it hit. In fact, she slowly began to realize, she couldn't feel much at all.

People were screaming and running in every direction, but even that seemed to be happening in slow motion to her.

Then Matt was next to her, his hands grasping both of her arms as she slowly sank down to the floor and he knelt in front of her.

"Sarah—Sarah, no, hey—" His hands were gripping her arms so tightly it probably would have hurt if she could feel it. He whipped his head around, searching for help as he called out, "We need a paramedic here! She needs to get to a hospital!"

The hospital? No. She didn't want to go to a hospital. She wanted to be in her own bed, or Matt's. Somewhere safe.

"No, no hospital," Sarah protested, but it was difficult to even form the words. Her lips were numb, and her tongue felt big and clumsy in her mouth. "Take me home."

Matt swallowed hard and shook his head, then brought his hand up to the side of her face.

"No. No, sweetheart, this isn't one I can handle on my own. I'm sorry."

"T'm'home," she tried pleading again, but it just came out as a mumble. She closed her eyes and felt Matt's hand fall away from her face.

"Hey! Hey! I said we need another paramedic over here!" she heard him shout at someone. She forced her eyes back open. "Now!"

Even in her fading consciousness, Sarah recognized the harsh voice of the devil bursting through at the end of Matt's sentence. She vaguely registered that must mean things were serious. Had she been more lucid, she'd have understood that he could hear her heart rate dropping dangerously fast.

Her thoughts were starting to drift apart, becoming more difficult to thread into anything coherent. But one thought did manage to break through:

How ironic would it be if she died from the very same thing she'd killed Ronan with?

The world was slowly starting to dissolve into black dots, crowding closer and closer together in her vision. She focused as best she could on Matt's face. She wished she could see his eyes, but all she got was her own reflection in his dark glasses.

She used the last bit of her energy to try to make her words as clear as possible.

"D-don't look so upset," she told him, and despite her best efforts her words slurred into one. "You'll…blow your cover."

And then the blackness overcame her. The last thing she remembered seeing was Matt's face, his lips moving as he shook her shoulders and said something she couldn't hear. Then everything was gone.