what they wouldn't do | DAREDEVIL

twenty two

Chapter Twenty Two: Recognition

Sarah's head felt impossibly heavy, and her mind couldn't stop bouncing around, unable to complete one thought before it shifted to a different one. She was hit by a wave of nausea and rested her head against the wall behind her, closing her eyes for a few moments to try to collect herself.

When she opened her eyes again, she blinked at the darkness outside the window. It had been light out just a few minutes ago. How long had she been sitting there? Her eyes flicked to the bloody man still slumped in the office chair. She waited for the familiar feeling of panic to well up in her chest, but strangely it didn't come. Instead, she just struggled to figure out what to do.

Her first thought was to call Matt.

No, she reminded herself, resisting the urge to look up at the security cameras she knew were above her. If Jason looked back through them and saw her calling someone, he would undoubtedly want to know who it was. She would have to do this alone.

Sarah struggled to her feet, leaning heavily on the wall behind her for support as the room tilted. Even that simple movement made her head feel like it was splitting open.

She approached McDermott hesitantly, holding her breath as she patted down the front of his blood-soaked suit jacket until she felt the outline of his cell phone. She reached a shaking hand into the inner pocket of the jacket to retrieve it and was surprised to feel not one, but two phones. A smart phone and what felt like a flip phone—probably a burner. Sarah hesitated for a split second, still very aware of the cameras above her, before pulling out the smart phone and leaving the burner phone out of sight.

The smart phone's battery wasn't the removable kind, and she wasn't sure if just turning the phone off would be enough to stop its location from being tracked. Placing the phone on the desk, she grabbed the hammer and brought it down onto the screen. The fiberglass shattered immediately upon contact, and she hit the phone a few more times until she was sure the battery was destroyed.

With the phone out of the way, she turned back to McDermott. Her eyes drifted down to the bottom of the chair and she sent up a silent thank you that the office chair he was on had wheels. Stumbling a bit, she began to slowly and clumsily steer the chair out of the room. There was nothing she could do about the cameras as she guided the heavy man towards the elevator, but surely this wasn't the most illegal thing they had witnessed in this building. Jason was the only one who viewed them anyway.

Several times she had to stop and push McDermott's body upright as he began to slump out of the chair. The process was slow, and she was exhausted by the time she exited the elevator on the very bottom level, which consisted of an underground parking garage for employees. It was mostly empty by this point, save for a few company cars. One of the security guards—a thin, greasy looking man she thought might have been there the night of Ronan's failed kidnapping trap—was lounging in his booth, watching a basketball game on his laptop. Sarah steadied the chair against the wall just out of sight before approaching the booth.

"Hey," she called through the glass, but the guard didn't move. With a frustrated groan, she smacked her hand against the window as hard as she could. "Hey!"

Finally he looked away from his laptop, blinking as he took in the blood that covered the front of her dress. With a sight he leaned over and slid open the window.

"I'm not a cop, lady," he said in a bored tone. "If you need help call 911."

She narrowed her eyes at him as he started to close the window.

"It's not my blood," she snapped. "I need the keys to one of the company cars."

"What?" he scoffed. "And who the hell are you?"