Stephenie Meyer - The Chemist

There was a long moment of silence.

“Do you want… me to turn on… the lights?” she asked.

“Hold it there.”

She felt him come up behind her and then the cold circle of the gun barrel pressing into the nape of her neck, just at her hairline.

“What’s this?” he murmured.

She held perfectly still while his gloved fingers touched the skin next to the gun. At first she was confused, but then she realized he had noticed the scar there.

“Huh,” he grunted, and his hand dropped. “Okay, where is the switch?”

“On the desk.”

“Where is the desk?”

“About ten feet in, on the right side. Where you can see the computer screen.”

Would he take off the gas mask and put on the goggles again?

The pressure of the gun disappeared. She felt him move back from her, though the dog’s nose was still pressed against her butt.

A slithering noise hissed across the floor. She looked down and watched the thick black cord for the closest work light whip past her foot. She heard the bang when it fell over but no crunch of glass.

He dragged the light past her, then flipped the switch. For a fraction of a second she allowed herself to hope that he’d broken the light, but then it flickered to life.

“Control,” he commanded the dog. The snarling started again, and she held herself very still.

Aiming the light in front of him, he stepped into the tent. She watched the wide beam sweep the walls, then settle on the form in the middle.

He moved into the room, sliding into a sinuous gait that was totally silent. Obviously a man of many skills. He walked around the body on the floor, checking the corners and probably looking for weapons before he focused on Daniel. He crouched, removed the blanket, examined the bloody restraints and the IV, followed the sensors to the monitors, and then watched those for a moment. He put the light down, angling it at the ceiling to get the widest spread of illumination. Finally, he reached down, carefully removed the gas mask from Daniel’s face, and set it on the floor.

“Danny,” she heard him whisper.

Batman ripped the black glove off his right hand and pressed two fingers to Daniel’s carotid. He bent down to listen to Daniel’s breathing. She examined her attacker’s hand – pale skin, fingers so long they almost looked like they had an extra joint. They looked… familiar.

Batman shook Daniel’s shoulder lightly and asked, louder, “Danny?”

“He’s sedated,” she volunteered.

His face jerked up toward her, and though she couldn’t see it, she could feel his glare. Suddenly he was on his feet, launching himself at her. He grabbed her arms and yanked them over her head again as he shoved his masked face into hers.

“What did you do to him?” he shouted.

Her concern for Daniel’s safety evaporated. Danny was going to be just fine. The one she needed to worry about was herself.

“There is nothing wrong with him,” she said calmly, dropping the injured-damsel routine. “He’ll wake up from the sedation in about two hours, feeling fine. I can bring him around sooner if you want.”

“Not likely,” he growled.

They had a staring contest for a few seconds, one she wasn’t sure if she’d won or lost. She could see only her own face in the reflective mask.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get you situated.”

In a smooth move, he had her hands behind her back, wrists held tight in his gloveless right hand, probably holding the gun in his left. He marched her into the room, toward the folding chair by the desk, and she went along docilely. The dog’s hot, heavy breath was close, following right behind.

She was almost 70 percent sure she could twist her hand into a position that would put the left barbed ring against his skin, but she didn’t try. It was a risk, but she wanted Batman alive. There was a large hole in her picture of what was going on, and Batman would have at least some of the answers she needed. She carefully nudged the covers over the barbs again.

She didn’t resist as he sat her – none too gently – in the chair. He pulled her hands in front of her and zip-tied them together.

“I feel like you’re the kind of person whose hands I want to keep an eye on,” he muttered as he bent down to secure her ankles to the chair legs. All the while, the dog’s face was directly in front of her own, eyes unblinking. A few drips of warm drool fell onto her sleeve and soaked through. Gross.

He zip-tied her elbows to the chair back and stood up, towering over her now, dark and menacing. The long, silenced barrel of his HDS was just a few inches from her forehead.

“The switch for the overhead lights is right there.” She jerked her chin toward the power strip on the back edge of the desk. Two standard outdoor extension cords were plugged into it.

He stared in that direction, and she imagined he was eyeing the switches warily.

“Look, anything that can kill you is going to kill me first,” she pointed out.

He grunted and then leaned away and punched the power button.

The lights flared overhead.

Suddenly the tent looked less threatening. With all the medical equipment, it could have been a medic’s tent in a war zone. Except for the torture implements on the tray, of course. She saw his face orient toward them now.

“Props,” she explained.

She felt the glare again. He whipped a look back at Daniel, naked and clearly intact on the table. His focus swung back to her.

“What’s the flashing light?” he demanded, gesturing to the little black box with the keypad.

“It’s telling me the door is unarmed,” she lied evenly. In fact, the box wasn’t hooked up to anything. It was just a nice red herring to distract from the real trap.

He nodded, accepting that, then leaned over to look at her computer. There were no open documents, no files on the desktop. Her background was just a pale geometric design, little white squares on a faintly darker gray field.

“Where are the keys?” He jerked his head toward Daniel.

“Taped to the bottom of the desk.”

He seemed to be eyeing her again through the mask.

She willed herself to look calm and compliant. Take it off, take it off, take it off, she prayed silently.

He kicked her chair over.

She held her neck tight as her left arm and thigh smashed into the ground with bruising force. She was just able to keep her head from hitting the concrete again. She wasn’t sure if she was already concussed, and she really needed her brain working right.

He grabbed the back of the chair and yanked her upright. In his right hand he held the keys.

“That wasn’t necessary,” she said.

“Einstein, control.”

Growling in her face, more drool on her chest.

Batman turned away and quickly unlocked Daniel’s shackles.

“What’s in the IV?”

“Saline in the top one, nutrients in the lower.”

“Really.” Sarcastic. “What happens if I pull the tubing out?”

“He’ll need a drink when he wakes up. But don’t use the water bottles on the left side of the minifridge outside the tent. Those are poisoned.”

He turned, pulling the mask off his head so he could glare at her more effectively, yanking the sweaty watch cap off at the same time.

Yessssssssss !

She kept the relief off her face as he dropped the mask on the floor.

“You’ve changed your tactics,” he noted sourly, running his free hand through his short, damp hair. “Or are the ones on the right really the poisoned bottles?”

She looked up at him calmly. “I thought you were someone else.”

And then she really looked at him.

She didn’t have the resources to keep her face from reacting now. All the theories spun around again, and a bunch of things fell into place.