At least forty-eight hours must have passed since Ted had first pretended to be unconscious. He tried to piece it together from the two figures who appeared around him from time to time. The woman — because by now he was certain she was a woman — was careful to make sure that no routine could become predictable. Even so, the rhythm of tending him betrayed the alternation of day and night.
Her movements were soft, but in truth they betrayed uncertainty. She didn’t seem professional. Ted felt increasingly sure that his act was working: the woman could not distinguish real unconsciousness from the one he was performing. From time to time a man also appeared beside her — not often, just enough for Ted to notice that she wasn’t completely alone. His movements were more decisive; he gave the impression of someone assisting — the kind of person who occasionally handed over an object or held something in place while the woman struggled awkwardly with it.
Ted had no idea how long he had been held captive. His body and mind had switched to the lowest level of survival mode. He wasn’t trying to escape yet — he judged that far too risky. Instead, he remained perfectly still, letting the intravenous nourishment keep him alive. And yet the presence of the two people grew more and more unsettling, as if they themselves didn’t quite know what to do with him.
He had been in prison before, and he had escaped from there. Not through brute force, but through intelligence and persistence. For him, nothing was impossible. And he knew everyone had a weak point somewhere — you just needed time to observe it. And Ted had time now. Plenty of it.
He was also growing more certain that he knew the woman. She didn’t touch him like a stranger would. Although, for Ted, female touch was usually a form of torture, this woman affected him differently. He didn’t feel repulsed by her closeness — and that was rare for him.
At first, he thought he was developing Stockholm syndrome and beginning to feel drawn to his captor. Later, however, he had to admit that this was impossible. After all, the woman practically tortured him at her pleasure. It was true that she clearly disliked bathing him. At those moments, the heavy air of embarrassment and shame settled over the room. She always hurried and fumbled. Sometimes the sponge slipped from her hand, sometimes something else. Her hands were visibly trembling, as if she were trying to resist what her mind was ordering her to do.
Ted was painfully exhausted from watching. He could hardly wait for the woman and her strange helper to finally finish their peculiar, clumsy tending around him. A bag was hung on the IV stand — he had no idea what it contained. A new collection bag was attached to the end of the catheter tube, and a clean blanket was pulled over him. Then the woman appeared with a pillow. The man was apparently not paying attention, because she snapped sharply to draw his attention.
Ted felt the moment had come for a careful but reckless attempt. One of the woman’s hands had already slid beneath his head when Ted suddenly tensed his neck. The movement caught his captor so completely off guard that she lost her balance and tipped forward. Her hand became trapped beneath the back of Ted’s head, so she couldn’t retreat in time — she almost fell onto him. The poorly fitted hair net slid silently off, releasing a soft mass of hair that spilled over his face.
The familiar scent brought recognition in a single instant — the cold, convulsive relief of certainty after weeks of doubt.
The Catwoman.
The woman who had so recently awakened such strange, sweetly torturous sensations in him now caused real, physical agony. Ted’s body surrendered helplessly to another dose of sedative.