Chapter Three

The men stuck out like a sore thumb. Dressed in suits that looked like they had to be grown into, like two young boys on their first day of school, they remained disconnected from the crowd. As people milled about, the gossiping spreading like wildfire, they remained neutral. The sandy haired guy watched the crowd with a sense of intrigue, as if it was entertaining him listening to the stories being created around him. The man beside him however looked conflicted, an invisible weight heavy on his shoulders. Dark circular glasses hid his eyes from her, but the cane that he carried in his right hand was the answer she didn't know she needed to a question that was barely on her lips. They were both silent as they stood there, and Ruby wondered if Ben was right. They didn't look as though they belonged there.

"Why would they be here?"

Ben shrugged. "It could be several reasons. To get a grasp of what the media and the people of the city are saying. Are they scared to live amongst a potential murderer? It could also be the simple reason of curiosity."

"You keep saying alleged killer or potential murder," Ruby noted. "You believe there's a possibility she didn't do it?"

"Until there's enough sufficient evidence and she's spoken her truth and she's told the world she was the one to kill him, she's as innocent as you and me," Ben concluded. Ruby moved her gaze towards the apartment building, to the window that she and Karen would look out of after a night of drinking, to simply watch the world go by, that overwhelming feeling of nostalgia filling her heart. Ever since she had moved to the city, her and Karen had spent almost every single Friday evening with each other. Take out, bottles of wine, and an array of stories to tell, the hours passed them by and led them blindly into the early hours. And now… Ruby almost crumbled to the ground. How had it come to this? What was she going to say to Karen's parents? The call had been something she had been dreading. What if her best friend was found guilty of a murder she knew deep down her friend would never be capable of committing? She radiated sunshine, and even though the last couple of months had been tough for Karen, she never let it beat her down for long. But murder? No, just absolutely no.

She glanced back at the two smartly dressed men. Immediately, she noticed the man with the round glasses almost staring in her direction, his head tilted to the side just ever so slightly. Maybe it was nothing, and he was deep in thought, but she was sure he was looking but not looking at her. How would that be possible? She was simply just another person in the ever-growing crowd, another overwhelming presence for him most likely.

"We should go," Ben said, his voice slicing through the paranoia that settled deep within her chest. "Let's grab a coffee. There's a new coffee shop just a stone's throw away from here."

She allowed Ben to guide her away, but the feeling was still there, like she was being watched. She turned, at the last second before she would disappear round a corner to see the same man follow her with his sightless gaze.

"When we think of a story, investigative journalism cuts through the bullshit narrative. There's no assumptions, except hard truths that are sometimes too hard to hear. But that doesn't mean it doesn't bring us the same attention a story about a celebrity break up. It's just different."

Ruby sipped at her coffee hoping that it would give her the caffeine boost her body so desperately created. "Does it ever feel like you're talking to a stone wall sometimes?"

Ben smirked, nodding. "And that's the moment I realise not everyone is ready to hear the truth about certain things and that's ok."

Ruby allowed her mind to wander. She had followed Ben's journey from when she was a teen with the hope of forging her own path within the journalist world. She had dreams of writing stories that cracked the hard shell open to the truths of the world. And she had gotten so close—she worked within the same department as Ben, and even though she hadn't technically been able to write or even chosen to write any ground-breaking stories, here she was sitting opposite her idol.

"But I've been watching you for a while, like a hopeful child waiting to be picked as the winner from the line-up at a talent show. They ignore you. They call you by the wrong name. And you just accept that. Why?"

Ruby picked at the skin around her thumb, a sharp pain emitting from the skin being torn just a little too close to the nail. "I just… it's easier."

"Why?" He asked again.

"I've always been invisible," Ruby shrugged. "Not everyone is given the opportunity to be under a spotlight, and that's ok. I'm ok with that."

Ben looked at her sadly. "I've read your blog, Ruby. And your writing is incredible. It's time for you to use your words to change the world. And you're going to write about this. How Union Allied has been laundering money and how an innocent woman has been tangled up in it all and accused of murder to shut her up."

She wanted to ask him just how much he truly knew about the situation and about Karen. Had he put two and two together and realised she and Karen were friends? When he didn't seem to mention her at all, a part of her breathed a sigh of relief. Ben knew more about Karen's predicament than she could ever have realised, and maybe, just maybe, this could be her way of helping prove that Karen was innocent. And she would do anything in her power to bring some justice to the world.

She left work a few hours later with Ben's advice silencing every nervous thought that popped into her head. They had returned to the office soon after their conversation at the coffee shop, with both returning to their desks, their departure having been completely unnoticed by everyone around them. She felt the fire burning beneath her feet, the inspiration fighting to burst out from her fingertips. Ben told her when he was leaving that he would send some documents to her apartment about Union Allied and all the other people that had been caught up and badly burned for the company's wrongdoings. Karen hadn't been the first, and she most certainly wouldn't be the last. Whilst everyone else seemed to have been paid off or had left the company with a sparkling reference for the cost of their silence, it seemed Karen's punishment was the worst one: a murder charge was the epitome of bad luck.

Ruby navigated her way through the streets, heading back to Karen's apartment to check whether it was still as busy as it had been when she had been there before. A few stragglers were still there but it was quieter than it had been. She knew she had a duty to find everything out about Union Allied, and as her mind raced with every possibility, she knew that Karen had proof to help her case, and she could only assume it was what Karen had asked her to retrieve for her.

Whatever it was, she would go and find it that evening.

She waited impatiently at home. The hours and minutes seemed to drag, going by so slowly that she was sure the clock was going backwards. She waited until night fell, bidding goodbye to another day of struggle. Despite the darkness that night brought, the city was still awake with loud music, car horns blaring like an unrehearsed orchestra and the streets filled with people filtering from work to home or from bar to bar.

When the clock struck midnight, she headed out of the door. The anxiety was palpable, and Ruby slipped into the night like any other person around her. She kept her cool which was hard as her heart raced crazily against her chest to the point, she was sure it was going to give out at any moment, and she would drop dead on the spot. Her feet carried her through the streets and before she could acknowledge where she was, Karen's apartment was in front of her. She slipped down the alleyway beside the building, a familiar sense of dread engulfing her entire body.

Ruby climbed the fire escape as slowly and carefully as she could. It creaked beneath her which caused her to stop every could of seconds, hoping it didn't garner any unwanted attention; and when she was sure no one bothered to look out of their windows, she continued to climb.

'When the coast is clear, come back. Look in the vent... Keep it safe for me, okay?' Karen's voice filled her mind and she persevered, allowing her body to reach Karen's window. She lifted it up, the sound being more noisier than she had anticipated it would be; and after waiting another couple of seconds for the noise to reach the other inhabitants of the apartments and finding no interest whatsoever, she climbed inside. She was grateful that she was wearing an almost all black outfit, and as she slid the window down, she noticed big fat raindrops begin to descend from the sky.

In and out, she told herself. Don't linger, don't become nostalgic, just ignore the bloodstain now dried into your friend's carpet, ignore the flashbacks of the dead man lying there. Just keep breathing. Keep breathing. She felt her hands begin to shake as she moved towards the kitchen area, where the vent was. She hadn't anticipated, if she was going to be completely honest, just how easy it had been to slip into Karen's apartment. It helped that people had moved on, growing bored of the monotonous procedure of the law.

The vent was above the overhead cabinets. She sighed, looking around at what she could use to reach for it. She admired Karen's determination to keep whatever it was hidden from being found. Finding the collapsible stool kept in the gap between the kitchen cabinet and the wall, she pulled it out and fixed it up. She reached towards the vent, having to put more of her weight on the counter to pull the casing of the vent off. She wasn't at the right height to see what was in there, but she reached inside, her hand fumbling clumsily in the dusty crevice. Her fingers couldn't feel anything, and a part of her thought maybe Karen had been mistaken about where she had put it when her fingers contacted something. Chewing on her lip with determination to reach it without pulling her arm completely out of its socket, she coaxed it towards her with the tips of her fingers until it was safely in her hands.

Ruby blinked a few times. A USB flash drive.

She was too busy staring at the object in her hand to notice the figure creep out from the darkness of the corridor.

He'd been patrolling the city on the rooftops for a couple of hours that evening when he'd heard it. Matt had been keeping himself close to Karen's apartment since she became his client; his urge to finding the truth being at the top of his agenda. Even though Karen was telling him the truth, there was just something she was evading and being dishonest about.

Piece by piece, he was creating an image with what he was finding out. Her one call at the station, the voice of a woman he heard on the other end, the evading on both sides as they conversed together, the familiar female voice he'd heard earlier that day when he and Foggy had decided to take a walk to the crime scene. He'd felt her gaze burning him amongst the mass of people around him which had unsettled him a little, and he wasn't sure why. He listened into the conversation she was having with the man she was with which was oddly familiar to him for other reasons.

Ben Ulrich was a force to be reckoned with and Matt could sense from the way her body was reacting to the mere sight of the crowd that it was more out of guilt and fear than the excitement that radiated from everyone else. He wondered why she felt guilt and fear. And that's when he'd figured it out: her voice was the one on the other end of the call that Karen had made. She knew Karen Page. He remembered their conversation about her friend promising to take the cat, but he'd gotten Foggy to check her rent agreement and it had clearly stated that no pets were allowed in any of the apartments.

And as he was about to move on, he heard the familiar nervous heartbeat move closer towards where he was. He'd heard it in the crowd, he'd heard it as it faintly moved away from him where it stayed within a building for just under an hour before it disappeared completely. And now, here it was, deafening him once more.

It remained in one location, just below him, but seemed to be getting louder and louder which meant she was getting higher. He heard the clanging and creaking of the fire escape and knew she wasn't here to pay a visit nor pick up the imaginary cat. He heard her stop a couple times, listening out as to whether her movements were enough to capture the attention of anyone else who lived around that area. She would carry on climbing until she reached the floor she needed. The window was unlocked, and she opened it slowly, he smelt the damp wood of the window frame as she lifted it up. Then, she climbed slowly into the apartment and pulled the window down.

Matt allowed the erratic beating of her heart to map out the walls and rooms of the apartment. Where she was standing, which was in the living area, had a narrow door leading to a small, compact kitchen. Behind her was a wall and the opening towards the corridor where the main door was. Beside it was the small bedroom that had enough room to fit a double bed inside, and a bathroom. He heard her move into the kitchen.

But that was when he heard it. The turning of a key, ever so slowly and quietly. A small click that he was able to pick up, but her movements determined that she hadn't heard it. The rain was coming down now I'm angry droplets and she could've easily mistaken it for anything else. Her actions were oblivious to the person entering the apartment.

He had to move fast.

Ruby was sure time slowed as she stared at the flash drive in her palm. Her mind raced and she couldn't keep up with the thoughts that whizzed through her brain at every possibility of why Karen was hiding this in a vent. Karen had told her that she had simply seen an email that had been sent to her that showed money laundering was happening within Union Allied. Had this got something to do with it? Had she put that information on a flash drive in case she needed to… to what? Ruby squeezed her eyes shut. She shook the feeling away, even though it stayed close by, watching and waiting for a quiet moment to think more about what was going on, and placed the flash drive in her pocket.

Ruby walked slowly out of the kitchen doorway and faltered. A man was standing in the middle of the living area, his head tilted at an angle that she wasn't sure was due to being startled or hadn't expected her to be there too. She didn't recognise him, and the mere fact that she hadn't heard him enter the apartment meant that he had similar ideas to her.

"Who are you?" She asked, her voice trembling.

"Give it to me," he seethed. "I know you're here for a reason. And I know is you have what I'm looking for."

Ruby tried to look towards the window she had come in from, trying to determine if she would be able to reach it and climb out before he could reach her. Don't be so stupid, she mocked herself. How had he gotten into the apartment? Had he been here all along?

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just here to collect a few things for my friend," she said. "That's all."

He scoffed, not believing her words. Even she didn't believe them, not with how her voice rising with panic. "Where is it? If you don't have it, you must know where it could be."

"I… don't know what you're talking about," she repeated, taking a step back as he took one closer to her.

"You know… I really didn't want to hurt you," he growled the last part, as if gearing himself up. "Karen is in deep shit, and it seems she doesn't care who she drags into this. Shame it's you, what a bad friend she is to you."

It took a second for her to realise he had grabbed hold of her, one hand tightened itself around her upper arm, pulling her towards him with such force that she stumbled towards him. With the other hand, he gripped her throat tightly, then slammed her against the wall with a thud.

"This isn't gonna be pretty for you," he whispered closely to her, and nausea washed over her. His breath stank of stale cigarettes and whiskey. "Just fucking tell me where it is."

Fear and anger were biting at her ankles, and she felt her stomach drop as he only tightened his grip around her throat, and she began to struggle for breath. Her lungs burned as they fought for air. He ripped her from the wall and yanked her away aggressively, loosening his grip which caused her to crash to the floor. She took a breath and then another and then another, her eyes creating stars in front of her. It was like looking out of a kaleidoscope, as she tried to crawl away. Her limbs were heavy, and it seemed she was only just trying to gasp for air instead of moving. She didn't even care to realise that he had thrown her into the spot where the bloodstain was. A kick to the stomach caused her to land roughly on her side, coughing and spluttering in response. She tried to crawl again, this time into the corner of the room, hoping that it would at least keep her hidden for just the smallest of moments, but he grabbed her by the hair and punched her forcefully in the face.

All logic, reasoning and movement ceased as she crashed to the floor. Her world was flipped upside down and was spinning violently that she was so sure it was going to spin off axis and send her hurtling into another dimension. The taste of blood was faintly in her mouth, and she ran her tongue along her teeth. Nothing seemed to be missing or bleeding, but her nose was bleeding profusely, and the blood was running down the back of her throat.

Then she heard it. The click of a blade as it extended. And she gathered herself into the foetal position. She didn't know why that was her first thought, but she was quickly transported to when she was young and the times—more than she wanted to admit—where she would hide in the closet to escape the loud booming voices, the shattering of glass, the threatening words, through the wall.

She was about to hand the flash drive over him, to get him to leave her alone, when the door to the apartment was kicked open. The masked vigilante—the man that had been pictured everywhere on every single newspaper, on every single news broadcast where they painted him to be a bad guy—was suddenly aglow from the harsh light from the stairwell as he stood in the doorway. He entered the apartment quickly and began fighting with the man who had attacked her. She didn't dare move from her position, as they hit, kicked and fought with each other. The blade was swishing through the air as the man tried to slice at the masked vigilante and unknowingly to her, the masked man dodged the blade every single time it came close to cutting through his black top. Her ears were ringing, her head was pounding, her whole body felt numb yet full of static and she was sure she was going to pass out at any second. Reality and unconsciousness were holding hands on a very thin, blurred line, and she tried to ground herself by placing her hands outstretched on the carpeted floor.

But it wasn't helping.

The two men continued fighting, and she watched almost drunkenly on pain as they moved around the room, caught up in an aggressive dance. Darkness in her peripheral threatened to pull her under but she kept her eyes glued on the door, still ajar from when her masked saviour joined the not-so-fun party that she hadn't even known she was invited to.

The masked man was able to get the upper hand, throwing the other guy to the floor. The way he was lying there adjacent to her for a while meant that he was injured, which gave the masked man enough time to move towards her. Fearful, she pulled her legs closer to her chest even though it hurt like hell, and she couldn't breathe.

"Go," he said. "Get out of here, go home."

She didn't need to be told twice and she pulled herself up from the floor and all but raced out of the open door of the apartment. She descended the stairs, all several floors, until she came to a stop in the foyer that had the police tape across it that prevented people from entering the live crime scene. Ruby was so sure she was going to pass out, or even die—a reality in that moment where she didn't care about the outcome. Her body was engulfed in a fire she had never experienced before, and she wondered whether she would ever feel normal again. She staggered towards the main door, pulling it open with a grunt and staggered down the steps.

The rain soaked through her clothes immediately, causing her hair to stick to her swollen and no doubt bruised and bloodied face. At least the blood would wash away. It was only when she was about to embark on her journey home that she heard it. The grunting, the sound of a chain clanging against the metal bars of the scaffolding of the building opposite, curiosity beckoned her. How had they gotten down to the ground the same time as she had? They must've come out onto the fire escape.

Then she saw him.

With a halo of broken glass around him, the masked man lay crumpled on the wet ground. Rain danced around him, bouncing off the concrete beneath his fallen frame. She closed the gap between them, her gaze glancing up towards the downpour, at the broken window of Karen's apartment and the one she had climbed through just a while ago.

"I… told… you… to… leave—" he hissed painfully in her direction. She stood there dumbfounded, the rain washing away her sins of that evening.

The assailant descended the long journey down the fire escape. His heavy boots thudding against the wet metal. But the masked man remained on the ground.

"You've got to move," she urged him, reaching his side. He grabbed her wrist tightly in response, then loosened his grip when he realised it was her who had grabbed him. "He's coming!"

The shrill of her voice was enough to yank him out of his daze. Having fallen out of a window and down the equivalent of several flights of stairs, his body screamed at him. He could feel the bruises adorn his body like snow on a mountain, he could taste the blood of his scraped hands and knees, he could hear his ribs crack as he moved to his knees as he pulled himself up. Blood mixed with rain dripped down his face and pooled into the puddle he'd been lying in.

The assailant rushed towards him, but Matt was able to dodge him just at the last second, the man's knuckle scraping his nose. He jabbed him once, twice, in the stomach which earned him a grunt, and he allowed the rage and anger to speak for him as he continued his attack, all the while the intense heartbeat of the woman behind them deafening him. It was a tough fight, and one he never dared to have when the weather was like this. The rain was as much of an enemy to him as the man he was fighting.

The clanging of a metal chain against the metal of the poles was ear splitting, and he knew to gain the upper hand he needed to use whatever was around him. He grabbed the metal chain and wrapped it around the man, disarming him completely. The clatter of the blade dropping to the ground was his way of telling him it was a good plan. Curses erupted from his assailant, but Matt ignored him. Expletives directed at him and at the woman behind him, Matt turned his head slightly to garner her reaction, except there wasn't one. She simply stood there, her own injuries screaming out at him, watching it all unfold.

He ended his attack with a few punches and a kick to knock him out, and when the man's cussing fell silent, he allowed himself to collapse to the ground, exhausted. He laid there for a moment, trying to capture his breath.

"You could've died tonight," he whispered, peeling himself off the ground. He was soaked through; but he couldn't tell what was from the rain and what was blood. "He would've killed you. And for what?"

He felt the burn of her stare flick between him and the unconscious man. "I had a duty to a friend," she whispered. "And I'm sure you would've done the same for a friend if they needed your help."

Matt was silent. He'd been right. His gut feeling was never wrong, but he'd hoped he had been in this moment. "What are you going to do with it?"

The woman looked down at her hand where the flash drive was burning a hole into her palm with the amount of responsibility now weighing on her. "I… don't know."

"You probably want to work on that," Matt said, then pointed towards her. "That thing could get you killed. Do you know what's on it?"

"I have a guess."

"Do you know who you need to give it to?" Matt asked, ignoring the sharp pain in his ribs as he spoke. "Because… if it's what I think it is, it's going to blow this whole thing wide open, and people are going to want to know how it was found out and who it was. And I'm guessing your friend found out the hard way."

She swallowed the lump in her throat. He could taste the saltiness of the tears that formed in her eyes.

"They'll do everything, and I mean, everything, in their power to find out who was the one to put this out to the world and they will find you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time tonight but next time you might not be so lucky," Matt said. "I have someone who I can give that to. Do you trust me enough to do that?"

The woman faltered a little, then nodded and moved closer to him hesitantly. She dropped the flash drive into his gloved hand. "I never believed the stories about you… the ones trying to bring you down," she whispered, then she turned towards the man who had attacked her. "Will he come find me?"

Matt shook his head. "No. I promise."

The woman nodded, though Matt could sense she didn't fully believe him. "How can I thank you, for saving my life?"

Matt had been aware of the news outlets trying with all their might to tarnish his name, blaming him for all the wrongdoing in the city. "You should go home. Lock your doors and windows. Go about your life as normal."

The woman nodded again, and Matt knew she was drained, emotionally, physically and mentally. She lingered for a moment longer before the darkness of the alleyway helped her disappear, and he heard her heartbeat grow fainter as she became lost in the city.

He turned towards the unconscious man. He'd come close to getting seriously hurt tonight, a mistake he vowed he would never make again.