When Night Comes

Chapter One

My head was pounding as I came to. I slowly sat up, placing a hand on my head and opened my groggy eyes. But I couldn't remember anything. I stood from the concrete and leant against the wall for support, slightly surprised when my hand slipped against the brick. I turned it over to look and saw exactly what I expected. A thick coat of blood. In fact, I was covered in blood from head to toe. I licked my lips, and almost retched at the vile taste. At least it meant no one would find the scene of the crime and condemn me. I slowly moved to the mouth of the alley, still trying to regain the feeling of control over my body, and looked for anything I might recognise. I perked up when I saw a small Wayne enterprises office and stumbled over. The small offices weren't camered, Bruce said that if they held nothing important there was no point spending money on it, not even security guards. It was literally a two-room flat complex like thing with an office and bathroom. Still not sure why he had them either, no one ever came in here. My theory is that they're stop off points for Batman, but he doesn't deign to tell me that. I pushed open the door to the bathroom and almost jumped at the sight of myself in the mirror. So much blood. I quickly stripped off my suit and threw it in the filling bathtub to soak for a minute. I turned back to the sink and began to splash water in my face, over my wrists where some blood had seeped through the suit and my hair. My beautiful hair. The cold water seemed to shock me fully awake and my brain started whirring again.
What day was it? What time was it? Whose blood was it? Why was I here?
Once I was soaked, frozen and cleaned of all the blood I could see I ventured back into the main office to sneak a peek at the clock. 03:48. At least that answered one of my questions. I headed back to the bathroom, picking up a bar of soap and emptied the red water from the tub to start scrubbing my suit. This was going to take a while.

It was getting light outside and I was only halfway done with the scrubbing of the suit, but I had had a proper shower to make sure all the blood was gone from me. All that blood and not one injury on my person, it wasn't a good sign. I'd flicked on the radio in the background, thankful for some noise to break the silence, and finally, the news came on.
"In the past two weeks, 7 people have been abducted from their homes all over Gotham. The police are still looking into these cases and advise anyone with any information to step forward. For more information visit us online." It blared and I tuned out the rest.
6 people. 2 weeks. That answered a couple of questions for me. One being why the blood was so hard to get out, it was up to two weeks old and there was 54 pints of blood all over it. And it must be June now, so schools would have just kicked out. Meaning I've missed my exams. Damn it. I continued to scrub my clothes as music played in the background, trying to come up with my excuse for why I was the only abductee alive. So not feeling the aster.

"Has there been any news on the kidnappings?" Artemis asked as she entered the cave to see the rest of the team waiting, her eyes snagged on me as she stopped, "Where the hell have you been?"
"Busy." I replied, "Batman and I've rescued one of them. Dick Grayson. We found him down by the south river."
"And you couldn't tell us?" She snarked as she sat down next to her boyfriend.
"I was busy." I replied, trying to keep my annoyance down, my emotions were always wild for the first couple of days after.
"Geez, no need to get angry." She rolled her eyes.
"I'm not." I growled.
"Is it your time of the month honey?" She teased and earned a small chuckle from Wally.
"God, you know what I'm leaving. Bye." I said as I stood up.
"It's a joke Boy Wonder, learn to take it." She said.
I didn't respond as I left back to the Batcave, Bruce waiting.
"What do you want?" I said, still trying to reign in my anger, and failing miserably.
"You've been gone for two weeks and seem in prime condition. Just like last time, and the time before and-"
"What's your point?" I asked, not smart to interrupt, but I didn't care right now.
"There's something you're not telling me. The others are never found, but we see you every time. You can trust me Dick." He explained and I felt myself tense up.
"I've told you everything I know, everything every time. You can choose whether to believe me or not." I hissed and stalked past him.
I slammed the door to my room and picked up my Wingdings, throwing them at the wall and into the usual holes they had made for the self, repeating the process until my anger had seethed.
I was being a real bitch at the moment, but it wasn't entirely my fault. I'd just lost two weeks of my life to a murder spree and people were starting to join the dots. By people, I meant Bruce, and I couldn't have him knowing what happened. Well, I mean, it would be nice to have someone to tell me what I did, but I'd already figured out half the picture. I pulled my Wingdings out of the wall and fell backwards onto my bed, letting out a heavy sigh. All I knew was that every now and again I'd black out for a period of time but I'd still be doing something. And that something was pretty gory. I'd figured that out the first time when I ended up retching out someone's eyes. My stomach had grown used to eating human now though. I shivered at the thought. But apart from that, I had no idea, and I didn't like that one bit. I'd already tired camering myself up, but the feed cut out instantly. So then I tried looking for symptoms for the blackout and came up empty. It just happened. And I hated it. But I hated the idea of anyone finding out more, because than I'd be in jail. I think the only reason Bruce hasn't reached the truth is because I'm a golden kid, never even stole a pencil from school. Though I may or not have eaten the head teacher. I quickly ran over to the toilet and threw up, trying not to look at the half-digested remains. Once I was done I flushed the chain and swilled with mouthwash to try and get the taste back out of my mouth. I climbed into my bed, now pale and shaking, and lay there, staring at the door and trying to remember.