One: Saved by a Girl

Manhattan was shitty in November. It rained a lot, which made my hair impossible to handle. On top of that, the temperature danced between the fifties and twenties all day, making the walk home either ridiculously warm or freezing. In any case, I pulled my coat on before shutting of the desk lamp. Harris, the son of a bitch, handed me over a hundred blank envelopes and an address list just before I planned on leaving. Apparently the final notices he was supposed to have out by tomorrow slipped his mind just in time to ruin any chance of me catching my usual bus home. Son of bitch was something of an understatement. If there were a word that combined "son of a bitch", "pervert", and "cold-hearted mother-fucker" that would be the word to describe him.

I stepped out into the New York night, greeted with a gust of frigid air. "Fantastic," I muttered as I shoved my hands into my coat pockets and began my walk down the street. Hopefully with the overtime I've been putting in against my will I would be able to treat myself to something nice at the end of the month after the bills were paid.

As I passed the last alley before the end of the block, I was startled by the crashing of something heavy against a dumpster. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw a man slumped up against the dumpster he had been thrown against by the burly thug standing over him with a knife. I couldn't move as I watched the thug move closer to the down man, his malicious grin sickening.

"Thought you could take me out so easy, huh, bitch?" the thug chuckled blackly. A long-repressed memory of my mother jolted my mind. Before I could think about consequences, I launched myself at the thug.

"What the—" My body went through the self-defense motions I had drilled into my muscle memory for years. The bastard glared at me, his knife between us. I knew I needed to disarm him if I hoped to stand a chance in taking him down, so I lunged again and grabbed his wrist. Before I could wrench the knife out of his hand, he grabbed hold of my hair and yanked me back. Crashing into the brick wall of the alley, my vision blurred with tears from the pain. I stumbled forward, only to be thrown back again by a brutal back-handing. My skull cracked against the brick, and I slumped forward on my knees before collapsing onto my side.

"Stupid bitch," the thug muttered, crouching in front of me with his knife still in hand. "Pity I'm going to cut up such a pretty face."

The last thing I saw before blacking out with the glint of the knife as it was flung away by a second pair of hands.

* * *

"What the hell did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything to her. She did it to herself."

"Wyatt, I seriously doubt she could have thrown herself back against a solid surface hard enough to crack her head."

"Does it honestly matter what happened? Just patch her up so we can take her back."

"Her injuries aren't something I can mend in the field, Wyatt. I'll have to take her back to the warehouse and run some tests to make sure she hasn't sustained internal injuries."

"You've got to be kidding me."

I didn't know whether that conversation was all a figment of my imagination or an actual occurrence; all I did know was that my body hurt like hell and I was being handled by two men, the unnamed one being the nicer of the two and Wyatt being the guy I saved back in the alley. Someone was gently prodding my scalp as an engine growled to life. As soon as the fingers came within an inch of the giant bump on my head, I yelped and jerked away from the touch.

"Jesus Christ!" I gasped, opening my eyes and aiming a glare at the first person in sight. A pair of wide hazel eyes met my glower.

"What's going on back there?" the voice of Wyatt asked. From what I could see and comprehend, I was in the back of a van and surrounded by technical gear. The man I was glaring at had his hands up in a slight gesture of submission.

"I know you must be disoriented, but you'll be doing yourself a big favor if you didn't move around so much," he told me. I regarded him for a moment, deciding that he was sincere enough to be trusted. Sensing that I wasn't going to fight him, he picked up a square of gauze, dabbing it in some foul-smelling liquid. "This is going to sting, but I need to clean out that cut on your cheek," he murmured as he reached out to dab the damp gauze on my aching cheekbone.

I sucked in my breath as whatever he put on the gauze reacted with my open wound. "I know, I know," he breathed, reaching beside him for a tube of something. "Lemme just put this on the cut." He dragged a swab of something cold across the cut on my cheek. "There. All done."

"Are you going to answer me or what?" Wyatt asked irritably.

Medicine Man sighed. "She's lucid," he told Wyatt.

"What do you mean, 'lucid'?" Wyatt asked. I rolled my eyes. What other definition of "lucid" was there?

"As in I'm awake," I responded tartly. There was a second of silence before a stream of curses. "And you could say thank you, at least. I did save your life."

More cussing.

"So that's how you got injured," Medicine Man remarked. He chuckled with amusement. "That explains the black mood."

"Shut up, Pete," Wyatt snapped. Pete chuckled again before handing me a small ice pack.

"Put that on your head," he told me kindly. "Since you're conscious, I won't have to put you through CAT scans. Though, I'd like to keep you overnight just to make sure the swelling goes down and nothing serious develops."

The van jerked to a stop, sending me forward into Pete's arms. I heard a door slam shut before the back doors of the van were thrown open. Wyatt, still obscured by the minimal lighting, stood in the opening.

"Have you lost your mind?" he demanded of Pete. "She's conscious. She talks. Why the hell do you need her to stay overnight?"

Pete helped me right myself, easing me back onto the small bench I had been thrown from. "Wyatt, I'm a doctor and she is my patient. I'm responsible for making sure she is in 100% functioning condition before I can let her walk around this city again."

Wyatt snarled something unintelligible while Pete gathered his things and helped me out of the van. From what I could tell, we were in the middle of an industrial park, probably around Brooklyn. I let Pete lead me into one of the buildings just as Wyatt sped off in the van.

"Don't mind him," Pete said as he led me through a short hallway before holding open another door for me. "He gets a little pissy when things don't go according to plan."

I entered the large warehouse space, surprised by the interior décor. Instead of rust and all things nasty, everything was clean and shiny. The walls weren't bare and paper-thin, but inches-thick concrete. Rows of vehicles lined the far wall while portable chests of tools spotted the rest of the floor-space. An exposed loft-space was accessible by a flight of metal stairs where a collage of workstations were cluttered with the innards of a few computers.

"This way," Pete directed, leading me by the elbow. He weaved his way around the tool cases and storage units to an enclosed space in the back of the warehouse. He opened the door for me again, revealing a section of a hospital that had to have been literally cut out from a well-funded facility and inserted into the building.

"Take a seat," he said absently while he put his things on the counterspace and dug through a drawer for a tiny flashlight. He made his way over to me again, clicking the flashlight to life and holding my chin gently. "Follow the light please," he instructed, flashing the brilliance into my eyes and moving it various directions before shutting it off.

Speaking mostly to himself, he moved to return the light. "Good response, no concussion. No reason to worry, but still…"

The door to the remarkable infirmary opened again. I expected to see a furious Wyatt to come crashing through but I was surprised by a lithe woman a few years older than myself. Her pale gold hair was twisted back in a simple but flawless bun, no loose locks touching the collar of her silk blouse. She glanced at me briefly before making her way towards Pete.

"Wyatt's throwing a tantrum," she told him as she touched his shoulder. "Something about you jeopardizing the operation, or something like that." Her voice was soothing, the kind you'd like to hear from an operator.

Pete snorted. "He's being stupid, that's all. He brings me this girl, beat up and unconscious, expects me to stick a Band-Aid on her face and take her home. Then, when she wakes up and starts talking, he panics. On top of that, turns out that he somehow botched the mission and was in serious danger until the girl showed up and saved his life."

His female companion sighed. "It's hard to believe that he'll be turning thirty this year. He acts more like a spoiled ten year old."

"Tell me about it," Pete muttered. He turned to me, an expression of shame on his face. "I'm sorry, I didn't even bother to ask your name or introduce myself."

I shrugged. "It's okay. I'm Natalie."

"Hello, Natalie," he replied with a smiled. "I'm Peter and this is my wife, Madison." The blonde gave a small wave as she smiled. "And the bitching you're about to hear is coming from our boss and friend, Wyatt."

The door opened again, the furious form of Wyatt storming across the threshold. He glared at Peter before turning his glare on me.

"What did you see?" he demanded. He reminded me of Harris when I tried to retaliate against his ridiculous standards. He was hardly intimidating.

"Are you referring to when I just walked through the most advanced warehouse I've ever seen or when I saved your ass back in that alley? I hit my head, you're going to have to be specific," I replied coolly. Peter stifled a laugh.

"The alley." Wyatt ground his teeth together as he glowered at me.

"You had been thrown against the dumpster and the thug was about to carve you up before I charged him. He threw me against the bricks before you got up and killed him." I was stretching at the end, since I had been unconscious, but I seriously doubted that Wyatt was there to make a simple drug transaction.

He exhaled heavily through his nose, his hands on hips as he tried to think. I had no idea what kind of operation he was running, but I was beyond curious. Apparently my involvement was a threat to the secrecy of the matter, which provided him with very few options.

"You can't let her go home, Wyatt," Peter pointed out. Wyatt snorted.

"Don't you think I know that?" he snapped. Madison rolled her eyes.

"Stop it, Wyatt. You aren't going to come up with anything helpful with your temper so high. Go home and get some rest. Peter and I will take her home with us for the night so we can keep an eye on her. You can decide what to do with her in the morning," she dictated. Wyatt stayed where he was for a brief second before storming out of the room. Madison and Peter exhaled together before both looking at me.

"Thanks," I mumbled, uncomfortable under their unreadable gaze.

"Don't worry about it," Peter replied. "There's no way I was going to lock you up in this infirmary for the night. Maddy, drive her back to our place while I clean up here. I'll pick up some pizza on my way home."

Madison kissed him briefly before gesturing me to follow her. I obeyed the power of her finger, owing her a ridiculous amount for taking me in. We went through the garage space again, but exited through a different door where a separate set of cars were stored. She made her way to a black Mercedes, pulling a set of keys out of the pocket of her slacks and unlocking the doors.

"Thanks again," I said, breaking the awkward silence as we drove back into Manhattan. Madison glanced at me, her beautiful face surprised.

"Of course," she replied. "Like Peter said, we weren't going to just lock you up in the infirmary."

I shifted in the leather seat. "I just don't want you to get into trouble with Wyatt. I mean, he's your boss."

Madison laughed. "Natalie, Wyatt is hardly a threat to Peter and myself. We've known him for years. Consequently, we've dealt with 'security scares' for years. This will all be figured out tomorrow after Wyatt has his chance to cool down."

She turned onto a small side-street and pulled up along the curb, killing the engine as she opened her door. I slid out of the sleek car and followed her up the stairs of the townhouse we had parked in front of. We were in Midtown, from the looks of things, a neighborhood that wasn't cheap. No neighborhood in Manhattan was cheap. I had been lucky to get a place in the Bronx that didn't eat up my entire monthly income.

"You're about my size," she murmured as she led me upstairs, "so you should be able to fit into some of my clothes." She opened a door at the top of the stairs, revealing a nicely decorated bathroom.

"Go ahead and grab a shower, hm? I'll set some clothes out for you for when you're finished," she said with a smile before walking away. I watched her disappear into a room at the end of the hall before taking her suggestion. It was wonderful, feeling the heated spray massage my tense muscles. I didn't even hear Madison slip in and leave a pile of clean clothes on the counter, taking my old clothes out with her.

Squeaky clean, I pulled on the warm gym-wear and made my way back downstairs. Everything was tastefully decorated, nothing was cluttered or tacky. I made my way over to the fireplace, admiring the pictures on the mantle. Spotting their wedding picture, I lifted the fram from its resting place and stared at the picture. He was kissing her cheek while she laughed at some joke someone had made. Maybe the photographer?

"Oh, the clothes do fit," Madison said as she materialized beside me. "Fantastic. You should have no trouble fitting into my clothes for tomorrow then."

I put the picture back where I had gotten it. "How long have you and Peter been married?" I asked as I followed her into the kitchen.

Madison laughed. "Sometimes I think we've been married for decades," she replied. "But really, it's only been five years. We met during our residencies at Lennox Hill. We've been together since."

"So, you're a doctor, too?"

Madison pulled three glasses out of a cupboard. "Not exactly," she answered as she opened the refrigerator. "I'm fully qualified and licensed, but I'm working as Wyatt's personal assistant at the moment. He told me that it was only temporary, until he could find someone he could trust for the position, but Wyatt doesn't trust anyone he hasn't known for at least a year."

"What did you do before?" I asked, sliding onto one of the bar stools. She took out a pitcher of lemonade.

"I worked with Peter in the infirmary. But that was when Wyatt was fully staffed with a personal assistant and wasn't being hounded by corporate buyers and other unsavory characters for some form of confirmation that he actually existed."

She paused—well, more like hesitated—before pouring the lemonade. She had clearly said a little too much to the "security risk".

"Don't worry," I told her, taking the glass of lemonade she offered me. "I have no idea what you just said to me other than you used to work with Peter."

Madison sighed with relief before smiling. "I'm sorry, but it's for everyone's safety that we keep details close to the chest."

I shrugged and sipped at my drink. "I understand. So, what do you think is going to happen to me?" I asked, changing the subject. She had to tell me something; I had a right to know whether or not I was going to die tomorrow morning for knowing too much.

Madison lowered her lemonade glass and looked at me thoughtfully. "He will probably try and buy your silence first, but something tells me you won't cooperate with that move. He probably knows that, too. Maybe he'll try to incorporate you into the company, but I'm not sure where he'd put you."

I mulled over her words as I sipped lemonade again. Incorporate me into the company? What exactly did the company do? Obviously they were a high-end deal, considering the fancy digs at the industrial park. And they dealt with thugs. Well, they killed thugs, not so much dealt with them. My mind trailed off into Gotham City and Batman world for a moment, sparking my intuition.

Batman, the rich guy who fought crime in disguise. These people were covert crime-fighters?

Everything started to fall into place. Wyatt was pissed because I had seen them in action and I knew where their headquarters were. I could identify three of their operatives without difficulty. His concern for secrecy made it impossible for them to be in line with the local law enforcement; they were vigilantes. Rich vigilantes. Rich vigilantes out to bring down the mob and the corruption it brought to the city.

Tomorrow was going to be interesting.