Chapter One
The train was crowded with its usual lot of people when Skyler squeezed her way onto it at 7:08 am. It was a cloudy morning, characteristic of most in Gotham and as she made her way to stand at her usual handrail, just a few feet away from the train doors, she allowed herself to think about how sunny it probably was in California at that exact moment.
Her thumb instinctively brushed along the inside of her wrist, over the tattooed sun that she had gotten just after her mom's death. She missed very few things about her past… but she couldn't deny that she missed the ever-present California sun and its caressing warmth.
A disgruntled snore tore her from her thoughts and she looked at the homeless man that had emitted the sound. He slept with his worn shoes cradled in his hands and his body curled up against the window. Her heart ached for him. At some point during the night police officers would sweep through and clear the homeless people off the train, but they would be back again hours after the sweep which, of course, was a temporary "solution" put in place by people who wanted to pretend there wasn't a permanent problem. The streets of Gotham were flooded with desperate people who had nowhere to go which no doubt contributed to its incredibly high crime rate.
She took in the other familiar faces on the train, the weary-looking mother with a three-year-old sitting on her lap, jabbering excitedly about something and pulling on her mother's hair. An old lady who sat a few rows in front of the mother with a copy of Gotham Times in her hand. She was undoubtedly reading about the latest mayhem that was corrupting the city. A man with a cane who sat in his usual window seat across from the lady reading Gotham Times hummed some tune that Skyler didn't recognize.
She contemplated how strange life was and how cruel it was that some of these people would spend their whole lives this way, living a rinse and repeat ritual of scraping together just enough to survive the day only to start all over again the next.
Her gaze shifted to the graffiti that was ever-present on the steel train walls and she noted a new crudely painted image that had been added to the mix. Right above the door with a giant red "X" that looked like dripping blood painted over it, was the Batman's symbol.
The pull of the train and the roar of its breaks as it began to skid to its next stop made Skyler's heart jump. Every morning like clockwork, at the stop after hers, a man came on to the train that made it impossible for her to think a single rational thought.
She didn't know what it was about him that did it. Maybe, it was his icy blue eyes or the way that he always had a playful, knowing smile on his face. Or, maybe it was that every time he came on the train his hand held a different beat-up paperback than the one he had been carrying the day before. Whatever it was, she couldn't deny that she was attracted to him in a way that she hadn't been attracted to anyone in a very long time.
The older lady who was looking over her newspaper glanced up at Skyler with furrowed brows and she realized that she was probably smiling like a loon. She couldn't blame the woman for her look of confusion. It was so unusual to see a smiling face anywhere in Gotham these days, especially at the ungodly hour of 7 in the morning.
The train jolted to its stop and Skyler's feet danced beneath her in an attempt to keep her balance. She perked up as a mob of people simultaneously entered and exited, and then there he was. His tall frame bobbing behind six or seven others, his head buried in a copy of Paradise Lost. He adjusted his glasses with his free hand as he shuffled to his usual handrail.
In a moment that might have been missed had she so much as blinked, the man she had nick-named Dorian Gray after the first book she had seen him reading, looked up and locked eyes with hers. He smiled. Her heart flipped. Lately, she lived for these smiles. The next stop was mumbled overhead and she pulled her backpack straps tighter over her shoulders, preparing to disembark.
When the train once again came to a stop, Skyler maneuvered around the other passengers toward the exit. Just as she was about to take her final step off the train, Dorian Gray's hand shot out so quickly that she had been sure, for a moment that she had imagined it. Her hand tingled as though a million mini fireworks had gone off in it as his skin came in contact with hers and a piece of paper was crushed into her palm by his fingers. Then she was pushed by another train passenger, out of the car. She looked back just in time to catch the twinkle in Dorian Gray's eyes before the train rushed off to its next destination.
Unable to wait, she opened the paper to reveal a neatly written line: Meet me at the Blue Moon Lounge tomorrow night at 9 pm, and for the second time that morning, Skyler found herself smiling like a crazy person.