Prologue

Dear Book; My court appointed therapist has insisted I start a journal, something to "externalise my thoughts and feelings. She swears she'll never read it, that its for my eyes only, so I thought, hell, I'll just tell her I'm writing one. But then she scared the crap out of me by telling me that if she found out I was faking it she'd not sign off on the paper work declaring me fit to be a functional member of society and she'd extend my sentence indefinitely... can she even do that?

Anyway so here goes. `

I have had the most interesting yet crap 3 months EVER, my Mother was stabbed right in front of me and nearly died, and the man who Ive been told is my father didn't care enough to hunt down and kill the bastard who did it to her. it was a damn miracle she pulled through, she's the strongest woman I've ever known. I don't know what would've happened to me if Id lost her, I don't think I would have survived it. She told me a few days after she regained conciousness that she'd arranged many years ago (when we came back to Gotham from France) that if anything ever happened to her id be left in the care of her closest friend Barbara, that would have been weird considering I've had a crush on the woman since I was 8 years old. But judging from what was happening at the time I doubt she would have been in any state to "care" for me anyway. See the same night my mother was stabbed, Barbara was shot by some mad super criminal and was paralysed from the waist down and has been recovering ever since.

But see that's not the weirdest thing, definitely up there on the crap scale though!

The weirdest stuff came after the attempts on my mother and Barbara's lives. First off Bab's moved in with us at my mothers insistence, "so that we could all look after each other" she said, and as time went by and they grew closer and I grew more distant for reasons that are still unclear to me, I started to suspect that there was more than friendship to my mother and Babs relationship...don't get me wrong, I have no problems with two women loving each other, it would after all be a bit hypocritical of me if I did considering I've known that I myself have been attracted to women since I knew what the word 'attracted' meant. Although I will admit that the budding relationship between my mother and my crush of 8 years was more then a little disturbing to me, it was something I managed to get under control and deal with. It did take me a while though, actually pretty much up until just a few days ago.

Oh I totally forgot, I should explain why I even have a court appointed therapist.

So during the last 3 months along side dealing with my mom and Bab's recovery and relationship and going back to school and the new "father" in my life who by the way didn't know I existed up until we were introduced at the hospital. I started to notice changes within myself, yeah I know im 16 that's normal.. but these changes weren't normal, in fact they were completely Un-normal (is that even a word? God bab's would have a stroke if she saw this (miss-perfect-grammer-english-teacher) It started off small, like I noticed I had heaps more energy and was having trouble sleeping for more then a few hours a night, It felt like I was being woken up by the shadows and being called into the night. So I used to sneak out my window and go jogging for a few hours to try and tire myself out. The more I snuck off into the night the more it felt right being surrounded by darkness, darkness that was as clear as day to me, clearer even. A few times I ran into trouble and ran off as soon as I could not wanting the confrontation but one night I was caught in an alley way id ventured down by mistake by a group of 3 guys, all older and a lot stronger looking then me. I panicked, my heart raced and I could hardly breath, they came closer and closer to me and I thought that was it for me, id be raped, bashed mugged and killed (im a bit of a pessimist it seems) Then as the first guy got to me and raised his burly first and grinned his rotten tooth smile at me something I'm still not sure I can explain happened. I felt a jolt of sheer adrenaline race through me and I felt like there was fire and ice racing through my veins in perfect harmony, my eyes blurred for a fraction of a second and it appeared as though time had slowed. I could see his fist moving so slowly toward my face, I could smell the dampness in the ally, I could feel the very air around me even though there was no wind. I reacted on instinct no thoughts, only feelings. I grabbed his fist in my smaller seemingly weaker hand, I balled my free hand into a fist and in an instant id broken his jaw, his nose, and had punched him in the eye so hard the skin around it swelled up so much he could no longer see. I let go of his still fisted hand and dove toward the second man pummelling him as the the third ran off without a second look over his shoulder.

I felt exillerated, strong, invincible. I had to have more.

So every night after that, instead of running in to the night to burn excess energy, I ran into the night looking for fights. For men who would challenge me, for a release, for a rush. And every night I found them. I fought and ran and fought some more. Until one night I guess I picked a fight with the wrong guy, turns out he was a cop and I got my arse hauled in jail before I could even fully understand what had happened.

So needless to say Mom and Babs freaked out and basically let the juvenile court have there way with me. I ended with a permanent record, community service and a bitch who try's to crack my skull open and read my thoughts twice a week.

Helena Kyle was broken out of her self imposed writing trance by a door slamming in the other side of the house, confused she glanced over at the clock on her bedside table and gasped Holy shit I've been at it for over an hour.

She quickly dived for her backpack and pulled out the first text book she could find, "Ancient History; Roaming the Roman Empire" And as she opened the book she stuffed her journal in the top draw of her desk and tried to look involved in the history text as she was sure that whoever had come through the door in such a huff will be looking for an excuse to do some yelling, And catching Helena not doing her homework would be cause for such yelling.

"Helena?" Selina Kyle's voice rang around a darkened and seemingly empty house. Angrily she flicked a couple of lights on and called out again for her daughter "Helena Kyle you had better be here or I'm going to-" but before she could finish the threat she heard Helena call out from her bedroom announcing her presence in the house. With out further adue Selina headed for her only child's room to scold her for frightening her.

Helana turned to face the door as her mother entered her sanctuary keeping an imaginary spot in her text book with her finger, hoping to any god or higher to power that might be listening that her mother bought it and didn't give her the 'if you flunk out of school' speech again.

But Selina barely seemed to notice that she was sitting at her desk let alone reading a school book and broke straight in to nagging.

"You scared the heck out of me Helena, how many times do I have to tell you to leave your bedroom door open when your home alone so I know as soon as I walk through the door that you are here and safe!" Helena had forgotten about that little rule, with everything else going on in her life she didn't think so much about what she considered to be the small details, but it obviously was important to her mother so she raised her head to apologise only to be half blinded by the light being flicked on "argggh, ouch turn it down!" Helena begged but her mother just stood there looking annoyed and a little tired. "how on earth do you expect me to believe your actually studying when its practically pitch black in here? I know us kyle women have great night vision but this is ridiculous!" And with that Selina spun around and walked out muttering something Helena couldn't quite make out.

Once her Mother was out of view Helena leaned back in her chair and stretched out toward the light turning it down to about half strength. "That's better" she muttered to herself putting her head on the desk and wondering for the thousandth time why she could see better in the dark. "I guess I'm just a freak".