Chapter 8

That evening, the thought of the wound up wire in his pocket, his one hope for escape, cycled through his mind like an excitable child. He sat alone and kept to himself during his meal - he knew there'd be no reason to interact with anyone anymore since he was about to leave. Truthfully, that in itself was somewhat of a relief. Socializing with others felt like a muscle he rarely flexed and had to put up a front for the most of it. It wasn't that he didn't eventually grow to care about some of the men. But it also felt good to be alone with his thoughts, especially on a night such as this.

"Are you alright, Bruce?" Sandra asked, looking at him with concern as she accompanied him back to his cell.

Immediately, he gave her his full attention. A little regretful that he'd been distracted enough for her to notice. "Yes I am, I'm just worried about you." Lying was becoming much easier for him. "I hope you'll feel better soon."

"Oh," she seemed flattered. "Thank you, I do too. I'm sorry I dozed off for a bit during the earlier part of your training."

"Don't apologise. We all have our downtime," he replied, discreetly thrilled that she remained in the dark about his secret exploit.

She put a hand on his arm, and that stopped him in his tracks. "Bruce, I just wanted to say that even though I've had my doubts of your ability to learn, seeing as it wasn't exactly your will to be brought here in the first place; I can see that you've worked hard towards learning and improving yourself. Your progress has been beyond impressive, just as the master predicted."

The master... Five months imprisoned in the mountains and he had yet to meet his captor. By then he'd quite given up waiting. The only thing that had kept him going was the training he'd had with Sandra. He touched the wire in his pocket - at least the hard work wasn't going to be a waste. "You've been a good teacher. I couldn't have done it without you." He figured if there was one person he was going to miss in that place, it would be her.

"You were the one who put in the hard work. I rarely come by someone as focused as you've been, especially at your age," she said, continuing down the corridor back to his cell.

For a moment, he considered telling her goodbye. But he stopped himself short.

No one must know, not even her.
__________________________________________________________

An hour had passed till he was left alone in his cell. The benefit of being the only prisoner in the god-forsaken place was that there'd be no eyes on him. No one to watch him practice on the lock.

He carefully twisted the wire with his fingers the way Selina had taught him, then inserted the knob portion into the keyhole. Jiggling it just about right, he listened for the click. There was none. He moved it about a little, feeling for the mechanisms on the inside, and depressing them together. It took a couple of tries to get the lock open, and eventually, it did.

There was a grin on his face - alone in the dark where no one could see.

Stretching a hand between the bars, he pulled the wire over, and clicked the lock back into place. It was good that he'd managed to get the gate open once, but he needed to do it again and be faster about it. Much much faster.

Making himself comfortable, he began to work on the lock again.
__________________________________________________________

Morning had arrived, and he'd barely got a wink. All night he'd been practising till his fingers had gone raw. But he'd gotten the movements down to a five-second timeframe, and he felt fairly confident about working the lock to the balcony within that amount of time. Picking up the towel on his side table, he folded it neatly and stuffed it into his other pocket, together with the pencil that he had only used once. Not enough to dull it.

Like clockwork, a guard arrived to escort him to the war room. There were three guards in total that rotated this duty. Two of moderate size and frame, and one who was slightly larger than the other two. It was fortunate for him that it was the duty of one of the smaller framed guards. He never spoke with any of them, though from time to time he did make it a point to smile. That day, he did not.

The guard unlocked his cell, unaware that the lock had been opened and shut a thousand times that night. He rapped on the iron door outside, and the two guards opened it for him, allowing Bruce through. They ascended the stairs to the top of that air-well, just as Bruce's adrenaline began to kick in.

With a firm stab, Bruce embedded the sharp end of the pencil into the guard's upper thigh. "I'm sorry...." he apologised as the guard yelled and fumbled about in surprise, falling to the ground as he did.

He dashed to the gate leading to the balcony, pulled out the wire, and began putting all he'd practised into action. He could already hear footsteps on the corridor downstairs. Time was wearing on and his palms were getting sweaty just thinking about the possibility of getting caught. Thankfully the lock didn't take too long, and the gate swung open on its hinges, creaking loudly as it did. Voices were nearing him.

Sprinting out into the snow, he pulled out the towel at once, wrapped it around one of the long wooden beams that led below. Till that time, he hadn't a clue what the balcony was overlooking, but he knew he'd to take the chance in order to get away. With a large heave, he placed his weight entirely on the towel, and began sliding downwards on the beam. Faster and faster as he sped downwards with the freezing wind slapping onto his face, whipping his hair away from his face. By then, smoke was coming out from the towel in his hands, and he could smell burning fibers. He sped over the balcony and down the edge of a cliff where he noticed that the beam that he was on would soon make a vertical plunge down to the rocks below.

Within the fraction of a second, he wedged his foot against the vertical beam and threw his weight in a circular motion, that he might slow down his descent. For a few moments, he spun around and around on that beam till his feet slipped and touched the ground beneath. Looking down at the rocks that he was standing on, then back up to where he'd come from, he couldn't believe he actually made it down in one piece. Part of him imagined breaking a limb on the way down, or even possibly dying. But he had descended, without so much as a scratch.

Echoes of voices from above caught his attention. The men of the League were looking down on him as he hurried stone over stone. The cloth shoes that he'd been given weren't giving much protection, and he felt his flesh getting cut on the rocks, but nothing would stop him then.

At the end of the slope of rocks was a large glacier, one that would lead to an alpine woods, and possibly to safety. The cold was beginning to seep into his bones as he slid across the smooth glacier, his arms spread out to give himself balance.

"Bruce..." came a deep voice some distance behind him.

He spun around in surprise and almost lost his balance when he did. He thought he'd be alone on that glacier, but just fifteen feet from him was a hooded figure in a dark maroon cloak, standing plainly on the ice as though he had never moved. His face was shrouded from the light. Standing against the glowing white landscape, he looked to be a harbinger of death. "Who are you?" he yelled back.

"I'm the one who's seen you, and the one you are to become."

The first name that came into his mind was... the master. He knew then that he had to put all his effort into getting away. He'd strived so much to meet the man behind the League, but now was not the time - not when he was just a few feet away from freedom.

However, scrambling on ice turned out to be a fatal error as he found his legs slipping and sliding in all directions, sending him hurtling onto his front. The impact of his fall caused a large crack to network its way through, right below him. The sounds of creaking stretched some distance away. Bruce took in a deep breath and tried not to move.

All at once, the ice crumbled to pieces, dropping him into a frigid stream. Desperately, he grasped onto something that felt solid and firmly planted, struggling to pull himself up, yet felt his limbs gradually lose all sensation. He didn't know how long more his fingers would be able to hold onto the edge of the glacier, especially with the stream rushing against drowning him, dragging him towards the deep. In that final moment, he thought of Alfred, he thought of Selina, he thought of his parents. They swam around his thoughts like fading memories of a life that could've been.

But just as he was about to give up, he felt himself being dragged out of the water. He didn't know how, or who had done it. In his exhaustion, he felt his chest being pumped, water leaving his mouth and nostrils.

And then... a gentle welcoming sleep.