Chapter 23: TCOB
The drive back to the penthouse was a twenty-minute funeral procession through the rain-slicked heart of Gotham. Silence filled the car, thick and choking as the fear gas had been. Roman sat perfectly still in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead through the windshield wipers’ monotonous arc. He hadn’t put his seatbelt on. His hands rested on his knees, clenched so tightly the tendons stood out like cables under his skin. Every few minutes, a fine tremor would run through him—a full-body shiver he couldn’t suppress—before he forcibly willed it to stop.
Reese drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift. He stole glances when he could. Roman’s usually pristine suit was smudged with alley filth. A thin cut on his jawline, probably from his own frantic clawing, wept a single bead of blood. His eyes were the worst. They weren’t seeing the city; they were seeing the phantom horrors Crane had planted there, replaying on a loop behind a veil of sheer, homicidal fury.
Reese pulled into the underground garage, the tires whispering on polished concrete. He brought the car to a stop in Roman’s reserved spot, the engine clicking as it cooled. The silence persisted.
“I can take the elevator with you,” Reese said, his voice sounding too loud in the closed space.
“No.” Roman’s reply was a bullet. He didn’t move.
Reese waited. The hum of the garage ventilation was the only sound.
“You saw,” Roman stated. It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah.”
“You saw.” This time the words were laced with a venom so potent it seemed to poison the air between them. Roman finally turned his head. The humiliation in his eyes had been burned away, leaving only a scorched-earth rage. “You saw me broken. On my knees. Begging to ghosts.”
“You weren’t begging,” Reese said, keeping his tone flat, factual. “You were fighting something that wasn’t there. There’s a difference.”
“Semantics!” Roman spat. He slammed his fist against the dashboard. The impact was a dull, solid thud. “He made a spectacle of me. And you were front row.”
Reese held his gaze, unblinking. “I was the one who pulled you out of it. Would you rather I’d left you there? Let his goons find you pissing yourself and screaming about bleeding walls?”
A muscle ticked in Roman’s jaw. He looked like he wanted to lunge across the console and wrap his hands around Reese’s throat. Instead, he took a long, shuddering breath that seemed to scrape its way down his trachea. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, controlled, and infinitely more dangerous.
“Get out.”
Reese didn’t hesitate. He opened his door and got out, the chill of the garage washing over him. He walked around the front of the car. Roman was already out, standing tall, forcibly reassembling the pieces of his persona. He straightened his tie, smoothed his jacket. The man who had trembled in the alley was being bricked over, one stone at a time.
They rode the private elevator up in a silence so heavy Reese felt it in his molars. Roman stared at his own reflection in the polished bronze doors, his expression unreadable. When the doors slid open into the penthouse foyer, Roman strode out as if marching to a war council.
He went straight to the bar in the main living area, a sweeping curve of black obsidian. He poured three fingers of a smoky Scotch, neat, and threw it back in one savage gulp. He poured another, then turned, leaning against the bar, the glass dangling from his fingers.
“He’ll be at the old Arkham waterworks,” Roman said, his voice now all business, tactical. “The eastern filtration plant. It’s abandoned. He uses the underground reservoirs to synthesize his toxins. Isolated. Humid. Perfect for his… hobbies.”
Reese leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “How do you know?”
“Because I make it my business to know where my competitors shit,” Roman snapped. Then he sighed, a short, sharp exhale. “I had a source. A chemist who defected from his employ. He talked, eventually. Before he died of an allergic reaction to his own fingernails.” He took a slower sip of his drink. “The information is good.”
“Okay,” Reese said. “I’ll go.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed. “We’ll go. Tonight. With a team. We’ll burn that rat’s nest to the ground.”
“No.” Reese pushed off the doorframe. “Not ‘we.’ Not tonight. He’s expecting a reprisal now. He’ll have every paranoid trap set. A team’s just more bodies for his gas, more people seeing things they shouldn’t.” He took a few steps into the room. “He’s a solo act. It’s how his mind works. One subject at a time. One experiment. He won’t be expecting one person. Especially not the one who just watched him run.”
Roman studied him, the ice in his glass clinking softly as he swirled it. “You’re not a ghost. You can’t walk through walls.”
“I don’t need to,” Reese said. “I just need to be quieter than his madness. And I need you here, looking like you’re planning a war with trucks and men. Let him hear the noise. Let him prepare for an army. I’ll be the needle.”
A slow, cold smile spread across Roman’s face. It didn’t touch his eyes. “Revenge for me?”
Reese met his gaze. “Cleaning up a mess. He’s a loose thread. He makes the whole fabric look weak.” He paused. “And yeah. For you.”
The admission hung in the air between them. Roman’s smile didn’t waver, but something in his eyes shifted, a calculation being re-totaled. He finished his drink and set the glass down with a precise click.
“You’ll need more than a pistol,” he said, turning and walking toward a section of the bookshelf. He pressed a hidden panel; a segment swung open silently, revealing a shallow armory. Handguns, shotguns, knives winked in the low light. But Roman bypassed them all. He pulled out a long, black, cylindrical case and laid it on the library table.
He opened the latches. Inside, nestled in grey foam, was a compact crossbow. It was all matte black carbon fiber and polished steel, with a compact, recurve design and a sophisticated tactical scope mounted on top. Next to it were a dozen bolts, their heads cruelly barbed.
“Compound pulleys,” Roman said, his voice taking on the detached tone of a craftsman. “Almost silent. Effective range of fifty yards. The bolts are custom. Hollow-point. They fracture on impact. If you don’t hit something vital… the removal is the problem.” He looked up at Reese. “Can you use it?”
Reese walked over, picking up the weapon. It was lighter than it looked, perfectly balanced. He hefted it, sighted down the scope at a shadow on the far wall. “Point and shoot, right?”
“There’s a safety here,” Roman said, stepping close. His finger brushed Reese’s as he pointed to a lever.
His finger brushed Reese’s as he pointed to a lever. The contact was electric and brief, a live wire in the tense quiet of the room. “It’s already loaded. Don’t miss.”
Reese nodded, lowering the crossbow. The weight of it felt good in his hands, purposeful. “He’ll have more gas.”
“Obviously.” Roman walked back to the armory wall and retrieved two small, sleek canisters with clear face masks attached. “Filter units. Military grade. They cover your eyes, too. One shot of antidote in each.” He tossed one to Reese. “It won’t stop the hallucinations, but it’ll clear the chemicals from your system fast. Makes you violently ill, though. A fair trade.”
“Charming,” Reese said, catching the unit. He slipped it into the inner pocket of his jacket, opposite the blood-stiffened training wraps. The two trophies felt like counterweights.
Roman watched him strap the crossbow case over his shoulder. “If you’re caught,” he said, his voice dropping, “if he takes you alive… you understand what he does. It’s not interrogation. It’s vivisection of the mind.”
“I’ll try to avoid a philosophical debate with him, then,” Reese replied, heading for the door. He paused, hand on the knob. “Keep your phone on.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. The elevator descended in a smooth, silent glide. In the garage, he bypassed Roman’s showy cars for a nondescript grey sedan kept for errands Roman didn’t want traced. The engine turned over with a reluctant grumble.
The drive to the outskirts of the Narrows was a journey into Gotham’s rotting guts. The sleek towers gave way to soot-stained brick and boarded-up windows. The old Arkham waterworks loomed ahead, a crumbling citadel of rusted pipework and shattered concrete, silhouetted against the bruised night sky. He parked a quarter mile away, in the skeletal remains of a shipping container yard.
The night air was cold and wet, carrying the smell of stagnant river water and industrial decay. He moved on foot, the crossbow case a silent companion. The perimeter fence was more suggestion than barrier, sagging in sections. He slipped through a rent in the chain-link, his boots crunching on gravel and broken glass.
Inside the main filtration building, the silence was profound. It was a cathedral to dead industry. Massive, dormant iron turbines rose into the darkness like sleeping gods. Pipes big enough to walk through snaked along the walls, their valves frozen shut. The only light came from emergency exit signs, casting a sickly green glow over puddles of oily water.
And there was sound, after a moment. A drip, drip, drip of water echoing in the vast space. A low, electrical hum from deeper within. And a voice. It was dry, measured, talking to itself.
Reese followed the sound, his movements fluid and silent. He unzipped the case and assembled the crossbow, the components locking together with satisfying clicks. He loaded a bolt, the barbed tip glinting dully in the green light.
He crept around a colossal sediment tank, its interior streaked with mineral deposits like the veins of a petrified heart. Peering around its edge, he saw him.
Jonathan Crane stood before a makeshift laboratory set on a steel gurney. Beakers bubbled over Bunsen burners, their vapors siphoned into glass condensers. He was without his mask, his features sharp and pale in the chemical glow, engrossed in adding a precise drop of something amber to a swirling flask. His burlap mask lay discarded beside a notebook, its stitched smile facing upward.
This was the moment. Fifty yards. A clean line of sight. Reese raised the crossbow, settling the scope’s reticle on the center of Crane’s back, just left of the spine. His finger found the trigger. He breathed out, slowly.
A rusted catwalk above Crane groaned under a new, unseen weight. A chunk of concrete dislodged, plummeting and shattering a beaker on the lab table with a sharp crack.
Crane flinched, spinning around instinctively.
Reese’s shot was already in motion.
The bolt flew true, but Crane’s turn made it a glancing strike. It ripped through the meat of his shoulder instead of his lung, tearing his stained lab coat and lodging deep. Crane cried out, a sound of pure shock and pain, staggering back against the gurney.
Reese was already moving, darting from cover, closing the distance. He dropped the crossbow and drew his pistol.
Crane, clutching his bleeding shoulder, his glasses askew, kicked over the gurney. Glassware exploded, and a cloud of acrid, yellow-green vapor erupted from a shattered flask, blooming between them like a toxic flower.
Reese skidded to a halt, yanking the filter unit from his pocket. He snapped the mask over his face just as the gas reached him. The world through the clear visor took on a hazy, jaundiced hue, but the air he breathed was clean, sterile. He advanced through the cloud.
Crane was gone, a trail of dark blood droplets leading toward a grated stairwell that descended into the bowels of the plant. Reese followed, his heart hammering against his ribs.
The stairs led down into the old reservoir chamber, a vast, circular space where water had once been stored. Now it was a dripping, echoing cavern. A single work-light hung from a cable, casting a wobbly pool of illumination on a central platform. Crane was there, fumbling with a heavy metal door set into the far wall.
“Stop,” Reese commanded, his voice muffled by the mask.
Crane turned, his face slick with sweat and pain. He held a rusted pipe wrench in his good hand. His eyes, wide and intelligent behind his crooked glasses, held no fear, only a frantic, predatory curiosity. “The subject from the alley,” he rasped. “The one who resists the narrative. Fascinating.”
“Your story’s got a shitty ending,” Reese said, leveling his gun.
Crane swung the wrench, not at Reese, but at the cable holding the single work-light. It sparked and died, plunging the chamber into near-total darkness.
Reese fired. The muzzle flash lit the room for a split second—Crane diving through the metal door, the shot sparking off the iron frame. Then blackness.
Reese cursed, ripping off the useless mask. He blinked, trying to adjust. A faint, reddish emergency glow came from the doorway Crane had used. He ran for it.
The door led into a narrow, pipe-lined service tunnel. It was claustrophobic, hot, and humid. Condensation dripped from the ceiling. He could hear Crane’s labored breathing and shuffling footsteps ahead. He pushed forward, rounding a bend.
Crane was waiting.
He lunged from an alcove, the wrench swinging wildly. Reese ducked, the metal whistling past his ear and striking a pipe with a deafening clang. He drove his shoulder into Crane’s chest, slamming him against the wet wall.
They grappled in the stifling dark. Crane was all sharp elbows and frantic, scientist’s strength. Reese got a hand around his wounded shoulder and squeezed. Crane screamed, dropping the wrench. He retaliated by clawing at Reese’s face, his nails scraping across Reese’s cheek and digging for his eyes.
Reese headbutted him, a solid crack that stunned them both. He drew his knife, the one Roman had given him months ago. He brought the blade up, aiming for the soft space under Crane’s jaw.
Crane, in a final, desperate convulsion, kicked out. His foot connected not with Reese, but with a corroded valve wheel on a large pipe beside them. The wheel sheared off with a loud pop.
A jet of scalding, pressurized steam erupted from the broken valve with a deafening hiss, directly into the side of Reese’s torso.
The pain was instant and absolute. It wasn’t a cut or an impact; it was his entire right side being immersed in fire. The denim and leather of his jacket offered no protection. He screamed, a raw sound torn from his throat, and stumbled back, dropping the knife.
Through the billowing, blinding steam, he saw Crane scramble away, clutching his shoulder, disappearing down the tunnel.
Reese tried to follow. Agony lanced through him with every step, a white-hot brand seared into his flesh. He could feel the fabric of his clothes fused to his skin. His vision swam. He made it ten yards before his leg buckled, sending him crashing against the slimy tunnel wall.
He pushed off, gritting his teeth, a growl of pure fury pushing him forward. Crane was getting away. He couldn’t get away.
A powerful hand clamped on his good shoulder, yanking him back. “Woah, woah, fucking stop, Reese!”
It was a voice he knew. Toller. One of Roman’s older enforcers, built like a brick wall. Reese tried to shove him off. “He’s getting the fuck out! Let go!”
Toller didn’t let go. He turned Reese, his face grim in the faint red light. His eyes widened as he saw the ruin of Reese’s side. “Jesus Christ. You’re cooked.”
“I don’t care!” Reese spat, trying to wrench free. The movement sent fresh waves of nauseating pain through him. “He’s right there!”
Toller’s grip was iron. “He’s gone. Van’s already peeling out upstairs. You’re coming with me. Now. Boss’s orders.”
Reese stared past him, down the empty, dripping tunnel where Jonathan Crane had vanished. The rage and frustration boiled up, hotter than the steam burn. He slammed his fist against the wet wall, once, twice, before the strength left him. He sagged against Toller, the fight draining out with the adrenaline, leaving only the raw, brutal pain.
He sagged against Toller, the fight draining out with the adrenaline, leaving only the raw, brutal pain.
“Fuck,” Reese gasped, the word tight and thin. “Fucking steam valve.”
“I see that,” Toller muttered, his voice a low rumble in the dripping dark. He shifted his grip, getting a better hold under Reese’s arms, careful to avoid the seared flesh. “You look like a bad roast. Can you walk, or am I carrying your dramatic ass?”
“I can walk,” Reese gritted out, pushing himself upright. The tunnel spun for a second. He focused on Toller’s blunt, unshaven face. “How’d you find me?”
“Mask had a tracker on the crossbow case. Genius,” Toller said, starting to half-drag, half-guide him back the way they came. “Said you’d do something stupid and noble. He was right.”
Each step was a fresh hell. The cool, damp air of the reservoir chamber hit the burn and it felt like being branded all over again. Reese sucked air through his teeth. “He got away. Crane.”
“He’s a cockroach. He’ll turn up again.” Toller shouldered open the metal door. “Your job was to sting him, not martyr yourself. You stung him good. He’s running with a bolt in him. That’s a win.”
“It’s not a win,” Reese snarled, but it lacked force. He was concentrating on not vomiting from the pain.
The climb back up the grated stairs was an ordeal. Toller took most of his weight, his own breaths becoming labored. They emerged into the vast, ghostly main hall. Reese’s discarded crossbow lay where he’d dropped it. Toller scooped it up without breaking stride.
“Leave it,” Reese said.
“This thing cost more than my car,” Toller grunted. “Mask would have my kidneys.”
They moved through the skeletal ruins of the waterworks, the night a cold blanket after the tunnel’s humid throat. The grey sedan was a vague shape in the mist. Toller helped Reese into the passenger seat, his movements surprisingly gentle for a man built like a dump truck.
Reese leaned his head back against the headrest, eyes squeezed shut. The cab light illuminated the ruin of his jacket and shirt. The fabric was melted into a shiny, angry patch of red and blistered flesh across his ribs and hip.
Toller got in, started the car, and cranked the heat. “Gotta keep you from going into shock. Look like a ghost.” He pulled a half-empty bottle of water from the door and handed it over. “Small sips. Don’t chug.”
Reese took the bottle, his hands shaking. He managed a swallow. The water was lukewarm and tasted like plastic. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.
Toller pulled out of the container yard, the tires crunching over debris. The city lights began to smear past the fogged window. “So,” Toller said after a few minutes of tense silence. “You wrestle a mad scientist and a pipe bursts. That the summary?”
“Pretty much.” Reese’s voice was tight.
“And he’s got your knife.”
Reese hadn’t even realized he’d dropped it. He touched the empty sheath on his belt. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Toller agreed. “He’s gonna be looking at that, wondering who you are. That’s a custom piece. Mask’s symbol on the hilt, right?”
Reese just nodded, staring out the window. The world outside was blurring, the pain a relentless, throbbing center. He felt stripped raw, physically and otherwise. He’d failed. He’d been seen. He’d lost a weapon that could be traced.
He’d let Roman down.
That thought cut deeper than the burn.
They didn’t speak the rest of the way. The garage of Roman’s building was a silent, polished void. Toller helped him out, supporting him to the private elevator. The ride up was a slow, silent ascent. Reese watched the numbers climb, each floor a monument to how far he was from the dripping, industrial dark where he’d lost.
The elevator doors sighed open directly into the penthouse foyer. The air was still, thick with the smell of polished stone and aggression.
Roman stood in the doorway to the living room, a silhouette against the low light. He had changed into a black silk robe. He held a fresh glass of whiskey. He didn’t move forward to help.
Toller guided Reese in. “He’s hurt bad, boss. Steam burn. Side and hip.”
“I have eyes, Toller.” Roman’s voice was calm, detached. He took a slow sip, his gaze cataloging Reese’s condition with cold, clinical precision. The ruined clothing. The pallor. The way he leaned on Toller.
Reese shook off Toller’s arm, standing on his own. The room tilted, but he locked his knees. “Crane’s gone. He took my knife.”
“I gathered,” Roman said. He didn’t sound angry. That was worse.
Toller shifted awkwardly. “I got the crossbow back. It’s in the car.”
“Leave it.” Roman’s eyes never left Reese. “You can go.”
Toller hesitated, glancing at Reese. Then he gave a small nod and retreated to the elevator. The doors closed, leaving Reese alone with Roman in the vast, quiet space.
The silence stretched, thick enough to feel. Roman finally stepped closer. He didn’t touch Reese. He just circled him slowly, like an appraiser examining damaged goods. “You disobeyed me. I said we would go together, with a team.”
“A team would’ve been cowering in a cloud of his gas,” Reese said, his words clipped by pain. “I got closer than anyone else has.”
“And look at the cost.” Roman stopped in front of him. His free hand came up, but instead of touching the wound, his fingers brushed the unburned side of Reese’s face, tracing the scratches Crane’s nails had left. The contrast between the gentle touch and his icy demeanor was jarring. “You’re bleeding elsewhere.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s evidence,” Roman corrected softly. His thumb smeared a drop of blood from Reese’s cheekbone. “Of a struggle. Of a failure.” He dropped his hand, taking another drink. “You reek of panic and pipe sludge.”
Reese’s temper, smothered by pain, flared. “He was right there. I had the shot. A fucking pipe burst.”
“A pipe burst,” Roman repeated, his tone flat. “And you let Toller bring you home.” He said the last word like it was a foreign concept, a place Reese merely visited.
“I couldn’t walk straight,” Reese shot back, heat rising in his throat. “What was I supposed to do, crawl after him?”
“Yes.” The word was absolute, delivered without a hint of irony. Roman’s blue eyes were glacial. “You should have crawled through that tunnel until your hands were bone. You should have died there before you let him escape with my knife, with the knowledge of your face, with the satisfaction of having broken something of mine.”
The words landed like physical blows. Reese felt them in his gut, deeper than the burn. He’d expected anger, violence maybe. Not this… cold disappointment. This total negation of his effort.
“I got a bolt in him,” Reese argued, his voice losing its strength. “He’s hurt. He’s running scared.”
“He’s a scientist who dissects fear. He’ll take that bolt out himself and study it.” Roman turned and walked toward the bar. He poured another whiskey, not offering one to Reese. “You gave him a new puzzle. And you gave him a trophy.” He turned back, his expression unreadable. “Take your shirt off. Let me see the damage.”
It wasn’t a request. It was an order. Reese’s hands were clumsy, fumbling with the buttons of his ruined jacket. The melted fabric pulled against the burn with every movement, drawing a hiss from between his teeth. He got the jacket off, letting it fall to the floor. The henley beneath was worse, fused to the skin in a wide, ugly patch.
Roman watched, his drink untouched now. “All of it.”
Reese gripped the hem of the shirt, took a sharp, bracing breath, and pulled. It stuck, then tore free with a sound like Velcro, taking the top layer of blistered skin with it. The air on the raw wound was a new kind of agony, a cold fire. He swayed, seeing black spots at the edges of his vision.
Roman was there in an instant, his arm around Reese’s waist, holding him up. His grip was firm, impersonal. He guided Reese not to a chair, but toward the hall that led to the bedrooms and the lavish bathroom beyond.
“You’re cleaning that before it festers,” Roman said, his voice close to Reese’s ear. “And then you’re going to tell me exactly what he said. Every word.”
He half-carried Reese into the cavernous bathroom of black marble and chrome. He eased him down to sit on the lip of the enormous sunken tub. Roman turned on the faucet, testing the water temperature with his hand.
Reese sat, shuddering, looking at the brutalized landscape of his own side. The skin was an angry, weeping red, speckled with white blisters and black, fused threads of his shirt. He felt hollowed out, stupid.
Roman turned, a clean white washcloth in his hand. He knelt on the floor in front of Reese, his silk robe pooling around him. For a moment, he just looked at the burn, his face a mask of intense concentration. Then, with a care that belied his earlier words, he began to gently dab at the edges of the wound with the cool, damp cloth.
Reese flinched, a sharp intake of breath hissing through his teeth.
“Be still,” Roman commanded, his voice low. He didn’t look up. His focus was entirely on the task, his movements methodical, precise. “This will hurt. The alternative is infection, and that hurts more.”
He cleaned the wound in silence, his touch clinical yet unnervingly intimate. The cloth came away stained with soot and blood. Reese watched the top of Roman’s head, the sharp line of his jaw. The only sounds were the drip of the faucet and Reese’s own controlled breathing.
“He called me a subject,” Reese said finally, his voice rough. “Said I resisted the narrative. He was fascinated.”
Roman’s hand paused for a second. Then he continued cleaning. “He sees people as experiments. You were an anomaly. That makes you a target.”
“He was scared at the end,” Reese offered, needing to give something, some shred of victory.
“Everyone is scared at the end,” Roman replied, dipping the cloth again. The water in the basin was turning a pale, rusty brown. “Fear is just a tool. He uses it as a weapon. I use it as a currency.” He rinsed the cloth once more, then set it aside. He picked up a tube of silver sulfadiazine cream from a mirrored cabinet.
He squeezed a generous amount onto his fingers. “This will be cold.”
The cream was a shocking, greasy chill on the fiery wound. Reese tensed, his hands gripping the edge of the tub until his knuckles turned white. Roman spread it with a slow, even pressure, coating every centimeter of burned flesh.
“You should have let me come with you,” Roman said, his voice barely above a whisper now.
“You were…” Reese trailed off, unable to say the words scared, vulnerable, not yourself.
Roman’s eyes flicked up to meet his. They were no longer icy. They were dark, complex pools of something Reese couldn’t name—rage, possession, a bruised kind of pride. “I was compromised,” he stated flatly, finishing his sentence for him. “And you saw it. You handled me.” He said the last word like it was both an accusation and a confession.
His fingers, slick with cream, lingered on the edge of the burn, on the border between damaged and whole skin. “Now he has seen you. He has your knife. He knows your face.” His thumb stroked a slow, deliberate arc just below Reese’s ribs. “This changes things.”
“I know,” Reese breathed.
“No,” Roman said, his hand stilling. “You don’t.” He finally leaned back, wiping his hands on a towel. “Before, you were my interesting blade. Now, you are my exposed nerve. A weakness he can probe.” He stood, looking down at Reese sitting on the tub’s edge, shirtless and vulnerable. “We have to hurt him first. Much worse.”
He extended a hand to help Reese up. Reese took it, the grip firm. Roman pulled him to his feet, steadying him as he swayed.
“Can you stand on your own?”
Reese nodded, testing his weight. The pain was a constant drumbeat, but he was anchored. “Yeah.”
“Good.” Roman walked to the bathroom door, then stopped. He didn’t look back. “Sleep here tonight. In the room next to mine. I need to know where you are.”