Chapter 2:
Well here is chapter 2: THERE IS A TIME LAPSE BETWEEN ONE AND TWO! Just so nobody is insanely confused. Yep, well BYE! COME BACK HERE BUNNIES!
Filthy scum. That is what I am fighting right now. Scum. He growls and lunges at me. What is with scum and lunging when they are fighting? I punch him in the nose, sending him flying to the side, and blood running down his chin. I wipe the blood onto my jeans. I jump back as he starts to try to get back at me for his quite obviously broken nose. I snort. Wow. It is amazing what people will do when they are trying to defend their dignity. Even if it means losing the rest of their dignity. It doesn't make sense to me either. I duck down, and kick my foot out making contact with his knee he screams like a girl, and drops to the ground clutching his probably broken knee. I smirk, my eyes boring into the criminal, well not that I'm any different, but I am better, so I have rights. Including stripping people stupid enough to mess with me of any cash on them and any clothing that I want. With this piece of junk I just want the cash. I have gotten a good leather jacket off a dude before. Its been around six months, and it is still in good shape. A little beat up, but nothing major.
"Hand over the wallet." His eyes widen, and then shrink, and I lift up my leg, aiming my next kick for his broken or fractured knee. I twist and bring my foot down on the joint.
"Wait! Please!" He winces, and pulls out a beat up leather wallet from his back pocket. He hands it to me.
"That's what I thought." I open up the wallet, and take out the fifty dollars. "Thanks, and as I told you earlier it would have gone easier for you if you had just given me the money. By the way the girl you brought out is long gone, so don't try to get payment." He nods, and I walk away. I cut through another alley, and am faced with Stripes.
"Ellie." The one word tells me that I was in serious shit. Except for the fact that Stripes doesn't control me. Like at all.
"What do you want Stripes?"
"Walk with me kiddo."
"Don't call me that. Besides we are already walking. And HEY this is my territory Stripes."
"Ellie, you took that to far, and you know it."
"I did not. That guy was worse than the landlord, and besides. I got what I wanted and I gave him a chance to just give me the money, and he didn't." He stops.
"Ellie you broke his knee!"
"Not necessarily! I could have just fractured it."
"You know you broke it. What happened to you Ellie? You changed, and from what we can tell not for the better."
"Who are you to say what is and is not good for me! You don't own me Damian! Whether you think I am going over the line is not for you to decide." Stripes stares at me. Probably trying hard not to punch me for using his real name. Well that is why I did it.
"Ellie. Jim and I are worried about you. What happened last year. You did change. You became dark. A lot darker than we have ever seen even on the streets. And we want to know why. And Big Jim agrees with me on one thing if you don't stop being so reckless you really need to go to another city. You are putting a lot of people our friends or partners in danger."
"Why didn't Jim come too. I mean if you both really think I am to reckless then why isn't he saying so himself or is he just to chicken?"
"Jim had other priorities, but he is going to be here soon."
"Look Stripes, I am fine. I don't need you or Jim holding my hand. I am not a little girl anymore. I don't need help at all, and most definitely not from you!"
"Ellie-"
"Just shut up Stripes. You can't help me. Jim can't help me, nobody can help me. Not anymore." I am so sick of everybody telling me that I am not good enough, and everybody has. Everybody and there mother. How is it that I have survived almost on my own for seven years, and yet nobody gives me credit for being able to defend myself. I am not defenseless no matter what anybody says.
"If it has really come down to that kiddo then we have all failed." Big Jim steps out of the shadows. At six foot five, and a huge bulk of muscle, the name Big Jim was welled given, Stripes is skinnier, more scrawny, but still somebody that you want having your back in an argument or in a fight, and now he was not on my side.
"Look Jim I am fine. I don't need help, and if you really want me to leave then fine I will."
"Ellie its not that we want you to leave its that if you don't stop being so reckless then you need to. You are now at an age where they can track you more easily, you have to be more careful."
"Says the guy who steals at least a hundred dollars a night." '
"Look Ellie-"
"Stripes is doesn't matter, because I am not changing! There is no fricking reason for me to change. NONE!"
"What about Mathew Ellie?" Crud. Mathew the little kid I had kind of taken under my wing. His mother and him moved in around a year ago. The tramp he called a mother, was a former stripper, and was now a drunkard. She did vodka, beer whatever she could get her hands on.
"He can take care of himself." Jim knew he had struck something. Mathew would have left his mother long ago, except for the fact that she needed him, and unlike me he was soft hearted, kind of.
"Ellie, even he is noticing a difference. How do you think he would feel if you left?"
"Jim get this through your head, I cannot change. I can't. Even if I wanted to I could not change. And if you, Stripes or anybody else in this friking town can't understand that then I don't belong here."
"Kid,-"
"DON'T CALL ME THAT! Don't call me that, I'm not a little kid anymore, I can take care of myself." Stripes comes to comfort me but thinks better of it.
"Ellie, I give up, if you don't get your act together, then you do need to leave I tried being nice and comforting, but you need to leave. If you decide in a year that you are ready to come back home, then be our guest, but you are putting more than yourself in danger, and I can't do anything but give you money for a ticket, and luck for the future."
"Fine, I will leave, and just so you know I won't be coming back. At least not until I find what I am looking for."
"What are you looking for Ellie?"
"Hope, vengeance, and my family."
"Well then all I can say is good luck, and I hope you do end up coming back, because I know that we will all miss you."
"Sure Jim, sure." I start to walk away to leave, but Stripes grabs me on the shoulder.
"Ellie, here is money for a ticket, and a good luck symbol. Where are you thinking about heading?"
"Gotham." Stripes looks shocked, but he hands me a handkerchief looking thingy, and what looks to be fifty dollars.
"Are you sure you can deal with the bat and his bird?"
"I can deal with a dude with no superpowers in a Halloween costume."
"Just be careful, and if you hurry you might be able to catch the six o' clock train. The faster you are off the faster you can find what you are looking for and the faster you can be back."
"Okay, well then bye." I turn and walk towards the train station on 42nd street. Stripes comes up and twists me around before giving me a hug. I resist the urge to elbow him in the stomach.
"Sorry not gonna see you for a while Els. I will save your room." I groan, and walk away, feeling the stares of the two people who had actually taken care of me for three years before I learned how to take care of myself. The train station wasn't that far away, and even with the failed intervention attempt I have time to get to the train station. It is not super nice, and most times any kid who comes there is running away. There are adults, but they sometimes work in Gotham, or are visiting the home of the speedsters, and don't want to pay the expensive ticket. Either way it suits my purposes, but isn't the nice part of town. So, people in suits don't really go there.
I stick the cash in my pocket, and the handkerchief looking thing into my other pocket. It doesn't take me long to reach the station. There is trash everywhere, and it is in the shabby side of town. I really don't care, and I walk up to the counter. It is run by a greasy guy who just plain old reminds me of a snake. Slimy, and just yucky. Oh who am I to talk I'm not all that clean either.
"Gotham please."
"Run away?"
"Kind of?''
"That'll be thirty dollars, you for the six o'clock?''
"Yep." I hand him thirty dollars, and he checks the amount once, twice and then hold the money up to the cracked bare bulb.
"Your good, here 'ya go." He hands me a ticket, slightly grubby from touching his hand. I go and sit on a bench staring at the graffiti on the walls, I considered putting my mark on the walls once, but I decided against it. I didn't have one, and even if I did I still wouldn't put it on. People can track you with your mark, because once you mark once you are supposed to put it on the places you trash, or stuff that you ruin. I look at the rest of the station. It used to be really pretty, with white marble and tile walls. Then the new one was built in the richer part of the city. People liked being around the richer part better, so the old one fell down the drain-hard.
There is a cracked clock on the left wall, and I don't know if it has the right time, but it reads five thirty eight or so. A black train subway hybrid looking thingamabob I can't really tell pulled up to the station. A few people cleared out. Some in ragged clothes, others in torn suits. There is more chance for poor worker jobs in Gotham, you know with millionaires, and all that jazz. After around five minutes a man calls out for us to board. There is another boy, with ash blonde hair, and bright green eyes. He has a black eye, and a cut lip. The other people on the trip are older, middle aged, and what it looks like down on their luck.
I sit near the middle, in a window seat. The windows are smudged with dirt, and there are a few cracks. I lean my head back on the seat settling in for a couple hour journey. Not many people get on. Most people will get on the train in the nicer part of town. I pull out the handkerchief thing and look at it. It has dark red swirls on a black background. I tuck it back into the pocket of my black jeans. I pull my legs up next to me on the seat. I lean on my hand trying to get comfortable. I have a slight pit in my stomach. I haven't eaten since like noon yesterday, and I am starving. I will have to get some form of hot dog, or breakfast thing when I get to Gotham.
The train lurches, and starts to move. I lean my head back on the seat and close my eyes hoping to get a few hours of rest; since I have no clue when I will be able to get rest in Gotham. Finding an area to terrorize without getting caught. Trying to figure my way around the city, and the entire reason I'm moving find my brother. I don't know why I want to just move, and not find him, and book it back to speedster city, but I don't just want to find him. I want to haunt him. Make him pay. And I kind of want a fresh-ish start.
I don't know when I started dreaming, but I just did. I hate dreams, because I can never just dream. I have nightmares, memories. It sucks-like really sucks, but I deal with it.
I'm sitting by the door of my parent's bedroom, its closed, and covered in scratches. Their yelling at each other, horrible things that I cannot make out. I huddle by the wall crying quietly. I hated it when they fought. I hated it. Half the time when they fought this badly, for this long they had been drinking. A lot.
"YOU WILL NOT DO THIS TO ME CATHERINE! NOT AGAIN! I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!" My dad continued to scream, and yell at my mother. I just sat in a ball, waiting for it to stop. I heard crashing in the room things were breaking. I slid back, away from the door, afraid that something was going to come flying through the wall.
I heard a large crack, and my mother screams. My brother comes running out of the bedroom.
"Ellie, are you okay?" I nodded shaking like a leaf. Jason bends down, and hugs me, pulling me close. My father slams the door open, and almost hits us. His eyes were bloodshot, and wild. He just stares at us, I cower under the evil eyes, and I shiver. I see my mother come out of the room, and I hear Jason breathe a silent sigh of relief. She is wide eyed, and bends down to whisper something in Jason's ear. I still remember exactly what she said.
"Call the cops, or he will fucking kill us all."
