Tim woke up to find himself bound to a chair. 

He should have panicked, he should have felt afraid but he felt nothing. It was almost as if he had gone numb.

He was not blindfolded and his mouth wasn't taped shut either. But his voice seemed to have died deep down because when he tried to speak up, no words came out.

He looked around the very blank room with no window and no furniture except for that chair he was seated on. No sign could give away where he was being held and there was no indication of who had brought him there.

At last, the sound of the door creaking open shattered the unnerving silence, and out of instinct, Tim dropped his head at the side again, pretending to be unconscious. Someone stepped in but he couldn't hear any footsteps, it was almost as if the person who had entered was a ghost.

He found that odd but couldn't risk opening his eyes to check.

"I know you're awake," a deep unrecognizable voice sounded, startling him, "open your eyes. There's no need to pretend with me."

When he opened his eyes, he saw the man in front of him was wearing khaki jeans with a brown jacket and a red helmet covering his features. That attire was what the news described as the Red Hood, Gotham's latest criminal menace.

Tim gulped, knowing that if the Red Hood had kidnapped him then there was no way he could escape. He had seen enough news and read enough articles of the Gotham Gazette to know that the man in front of him was dangerous and didn't hesitate to kill.

Despite living a trapped life, Timothy did not want to die so soon.

"Why have you brought me here?" He asked, at last, his voice coming out very timid and low.

"To give you a break, what else?" The man remarked and he was so serious as he said that Tim couldn't ascertain whether he was being sarcastic or actually meant it. His shock must have been very evident on his face because shortly after, his captor elaborated, "I have to keep you here for a few days. If you cooperate with me, you will be good to go as soon as my task is done. If not, I will have to find other means."

He was still quite shocked and trying to wrap his head around the situation. "You're... You're the Red Hood?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

He gulped, "Yes, but... But..."

"Relax, kid. I am not going to hurt you," that once his tone was softer and he filled up a glass of water, noticing that he would be feeling thirsty and that was why his voice was a low rasp. "Here, drink it."

He hesitated but gave in as there was no other option. Thankfully, the water wasn't poisoned or drugged, it was just water and he relished the feel of the cold liquid gushing down his parched throat.

That glass of water seemed to have jolted his numb brain back to a functioning state. He was kidnapped by the Red Hood which meant he hadn't returned to the villa with Black Mask's men after visiting his father at the hospital.

The crime lord might be furious and looking out for him at the moment. Or perhaps he would have thought good riddance and already proclaimed him dead to the public.

How long had he been unconscious? He had no idea.

"What do you want from me?" He asked but the Red Hood gave him no reply just yet.

An awkward silence engulfed them as the Red Hood didn't seem too fond of talking. Tim tried to speak up again but stopped himself, knowing he shouldn't bother the man or else he would be making things worse for himself.

After a pause, the Red Hood finally spoke up, "Are you hungry?"

Tim's head was full of worrisome thoughts by then, trying to imagine what would be going on at the Sionis villa at the moment. He was shaken out of those dreadful thoughts by that mechanical voice that came out from the red helmet.

"What?"

"I won't ask again, kid, so listen carefully," he remarked and Tim straightened, doing as he was told, "Do you want to eat anything? I have no intentions to starve you."

He paused and blinked in confusion but then spoke up, "Actually, can I get some coffee? My head hurts without my daily dosage."

Red Hood realized that the boy was probably a caffeine addict. He nodded and went to the door of the room where Tim was kept, "Alright. Coffee and sandwiches."

"Thank you," he mumbled softly, thinking about who the man was under the helmet and why he was treating him so differently than he had heard about kidnappers treating their hostages.

Not that he was complaining. He certainly preferred not being beaten up or starved or any other form of torture. He had been through enough in his life already to put up with that too.

But if he looked at the bright side, after a long time, he was not under the strict watch of Black Mask's men nor in the leeching company of his daughter. He was still captive but at least the person and the place were very different from what he had to put up with every day.

***

She was pacing the living room back and forth, her impatience and frustration quite visible in the way she held her hands together. The guards had returned without Tim and she knew her father would be furious if he found out that the boy was missing.

Tim was crucial to his plan of strengthening his hold on the city. He needed him to keep controlling Drake Corporate from the shadows and gain a stronghold in the city's corporate world. And without Tim, it couldn't be possible.

Where could he have gone? She was trying to find the answer but there was nothing she could do at the moment.

His phone was switched off and they couldn't trace the location, the guards said there was no sign of where he had vanished to. A lot of people had seen him come to the hospital and go to Jack's room but none of them had seen him leave.

It was almost as if he had vanished into thin air but how could that be logically possible?

He was no ghost, he was just a boy.

"Miss, we are very sorry-"

But she cut Maxwell off, her hands trembling slightly from a mix of fear and anxiety, "Father is going to kill you all for this negligence, you know that, don't you?"

"But we did everything we could. We have looked everywhere. He couldn't have escaped from the hospital..."

"You've done everything but you couldn't find him!" She shrieked, losing her calm and all the men standing around stepped back in alarm. 

There were very few times when Lorena Sionis lost her calm and they all knew it had nasty consequences.

"Where is he? He couldn't have been swallowed by the earth or vanished into thin air, right? Find him if you want your heads intact. Find Tim before Father finds out that he's gone. Because if he does then even I won't be able to convince him to spare you all. Now go! Don't come back until you have found him! Get out!"

The team of guards scrambled off and left the villa frantically to look for Timothy again. Lorena sank to her knees and the shivering had gotten worse, making it seem as if she was going through a panic attack.

The housekeeper quickly came to her aid, holding her as she tried to calm her down. It had happened a few times before but none of them had dared to tell her father about it in fear that they would get blamed for her condition.

"Miss Sionis, you must go to your room," she helped her up, after making her regulate her breathing, "You shouldn't exert yourself so much. Master Tim will come back, I know it."

Her large brown were wide open as she clutched the woman's hand tightly, "No... He won't... He always wanted to leave, he won't come back. And then Father will be furious and he will... He will..."

"Deep breaths, Miss, please calm down," the woman helped her to her room and made her lie down on the bed, looking for her medicine box which contained doses of antidepressants and sedatives.

She filled up a syringe and carefully injected it into Lorena's arm, all the while rubbing her palms to make her rooted to the present. But the young girl was slipping away and that sedative seemed to have done its trick.

"He will kill him... He will kill everyone... He won't spare us... He won't..." The words faded into silence as Lorena drifted off into a forcefully inflicted slumber.

But there wasn't anything else the housekeeper could do. She couldn't risk her life and her job if she breathed a word of it to anyone else.

And so just like on many other nights, that time too Lorena suffered on her own until she was injected with that sedative, temporarily blocking out her struggle as she fell asleep.

It numbed everything inside her until only the darkness surrounded her, and all the raging voices turned to a brief silence.

***