what they wouldn't do | DAREDEVIL

chapter five: doubts

THE FOLLOWING MORNING BEGAN normally enough. Sarah arrived at work on time as usual, and even had a good half hour of time to herself to get paperwork and filing done before anyone came through the door. For a brief time, it seemed as though the day might pass uneventfully.

But as the morning continued, a strange atmosphere fell over the workplace. An odd current of excitement and catastrophe ran through the entire building. Ronan disappeared upstairs for far too long, and on her way back from the bathroom Sarah heard snatches of a conversation between two employees speaking lowly to each other by the copier.

"—left actual finger marks on his neck, I heard—"

"—oh, that's sick, I knew he wasn't as heroic as the news says—"

The employees continued on their way and their voices faded out. Sarah watched them go apprehensively, debating whether they had been talking about the person she thought they were, or if her imagination was simply lending context to their conversation when it wasn't really there. She had to wait another hour to find out, when a tall man in a leather jacket came out of the elevator and headed towards the front door. Another man who had been coming out of the stairwell hustled to catch up with him, calling out to the taller man to wait up.

"Hey! I heard you were one of the ones that found Yates," the shorter man said eagerly, huffing slightly from his jog across the lobby. "So, uh, what's the story? What happened?"

Sarah listened closely, being careful not to look up from her computer screen. She had a strange feeling of dread hanging in her stomach.

The first man felt around in his pocket and retrieved a pack of cigarettes before he responded. The two appeared not to even register Sarah sitting there, and she tapped randomly on some keys to give herself the appearance of being busy not listening.

"Looked like an interrogation gone wrong to me," the tall man responded. "Guy was tied to a chair, and he was kind of bloodied up, like someone had been smacking him around."

"So, what, he got beat to death?"

"Nah. I guess whoever it was got tired of interrogating him. Choked him to death."

"That's what everyone's gossiping about?" the shorter man said skeptically. "Christ. I thought it was something interesting. I mean, it's not unheard of for people to get choked to death around here, am I right?"

"Well, word has it that this one was the work of Daredevil. Some neighbor saw a man in a black mask leaving Yates' apartment last night, and when we stopped by this morning Brian was long dead. Guess Daredevil didn't like whatever the poor guy told him, huh?"

Sarah heard a ringing in her ears, and her mouth was suddenly very dry. She could barely comprehend what the man had just said. The two men continued out the door together to smoke their cigarettes, and she took her shaking hands off the keyboard and pressed them to her mouth.

Brian Yates was dead. The man whose address she had given to Matt was dead.

His words echoed in her head, and suddenly it was like a horrible fog had been lifted, and she could clearly see how stupid she had been for the past week. Playing spy with a vigilante like this was a movie. This was real life, and a man had just been murdered. A man whose blood could very well be partially on her hands. If what those men in the lobby had said was true, and Matt did kill him...what did that make her? An accomplice? An accessory?

Holy shit.

Sarah shoved her chair back abruptly and grabbed her purse. As she rushed towards the front door, she almost ran directly into Ronan, who made a snippy comment about her leaving her post.