4.
~ Jim Gordon was getting used to the strange and unexpected. The strange and unexpected were normal and humdrum in Gotham. Had been for the past few years now. He stood at the edge of a broken window of the hospital room. There was an impressive view of Gotham from here. No word on what had happened.
"No body on the streets, no frantic calls to 911." Bullock said. "I'm not sure this is even a murder."
Bullock had somehow gotten even fatter and more slovenly.
"Except for the missing patient." Gordon snapped. "she was in ICU last night and is now vanished into thin air under suspicious circumstances."
"Room is under the name Jane Bennet. Early twenties." Bullock offered. "She was being treated for some kind of drug over dose."
"Jane Bennet?" Gordon rolled his eyes.
Bullock scratched his ear. Clearly he didn't follow literature.
"Her uncle checked her in yesterday and last night the nurses came to do rounds to find a broken window and no sign of the girl." Bullock said.
"No sign of Jane Bennet?" Gordon repeated sarcastically.
"Yeah." Bullock shrugged.
"Well, maybe her sister Lizzy picked her up." Gordon snapped.
"You know this girl? Jane Bennet a friend of yours?" Bullock asked hopefully.
Gordon let out a long sigh.
"The security cameras have nothing. Seems they were wiped out by an outside source. Whoever did it, didn't want us to know what our victim looked like." he said. "We have no picture of this girl coming into the ER, or staying here."
"I've got the nursing staff working with a sketch artists." Bullock offered helpfully. "If you know this Bennet girl and his sister, that helps."
Gordon shook his head. How could Harvey be a detective and be this dumb?
He looked out at the impressive drop to the street below. No one could have survived jumping through this window.
~ Bruce winced in pain and tried to control his breathing. He wasn't expecting a broken rib to hurt this much. Despite his night time escapades, he had never been seriously hurt like this. Not to the point where it hurt to even breath.
"It's broken." Alfred announced without preamble.
"Thank you, Alfred." Bruce snapped back.
His long time friend and butler placed a special high tech patch on the sore spot of Bruce's rib. It was one of Lucius Fox's new inventions. Designed to help bones heal faster. Bruce could already feel the heat of the patch activating and numbing the pain.
"Are you sure Miss Kyle jumped through the window?" Alfred asked.
Bruce pulled down a clean shirt over the patch and stood.
"I'm sure." he groaned.
Bruce had seen Selina jump through the window as though she were invincible. He had managed to scramble off the hospital floor just in time to see her running into the shadows of Gotham. The clear night seeming to swallow her whole. How she had managed to not only break through the glass and land uninjured on the ground four stories below, baffled him.
"It was like she was someone else." he said at last. "Her mannerisms were different and everything."
"Last I saw of Miss Kyle, she was sleeping. Are you sure?" Alfred asked.
"Alfred I know what I saw!" Bruce barked. "Whatever was in that booby trap, has caused some kind of reaction. Selina jumped through that window with no fear. She attacked me for no reason. She wasn't in any danger and she chose to run away. She's not acting rationally. I have to find her."
Bruce was breathing hard at the end of his speech. It had been a very long, very frustrating night. First with Selina's grand escape and his broken rib. Then with having to break into the hospital surveillance systems, and erase the digital footprint of her stay there completely. He could have nothing that proved Selina Kyle was there. This was a much bigger problem now than just the gossip shows.
Alfred leaned away from Bruce and was silent.
"I'm sorry, Alfred." Bruce whispered. "It's just… I wasn't expecting her to…"
"Have the last word?" Alfred offered with his smug little smile.
"Something like that." Bruce agreed.
His jaw still hurt terribly where Selina had punched him. He had been hit before, but nothing like this. When had she gotten so strong?
"Fox is still working of a cure. Hopefully it will prove viable. In the mean time, I'm going out on patrols. I have to find her. She could be anywhere in the city by now and she's in danger." Bruce said.
"Master Wayne, no one can survive Gotham better than Miss Kyle." Alfred reminded him. "She's proven that she can take care of herself."
"Alfred, she's not in her right mind." Bruce argued.
"And you've got a broken rib. It could have punctured your lung if she had kicked you much harder." Alfred retorted.
"The trail is still hot, I need to find her before she does something stupid." Bruce said.
~ "They found Harvey Dent." Bullock told Gordon.
Jim barely heard Bullock as he looked over the five sketches that five separate sketch artists had done of the mystery Jane Bennet. Gordon was always one to cover his bases. Even if it meant over kill. The nurses had remembered the pretty girl and were able to tell the artists every detail. It was a face he knew well enough.
"Where?" Gordon asked.
"Down by the docks. Where else?" Bullock laughed. "He says he doesn't remember a thing from the time he went into the interrogation room until he woke up in some ally this morning. The M.E. is with him now. Says it looks like he was drugged."
"Ivy Pepper." Gordon said coldly.
"How?" Bullock asked. "We were recording her interrogation the whole time. She didn't slip him anything. How did she drug him?"
"Not sure." Gordon said. "But we need to find her. We'll have to see Bruce Wayne first."
"Why?" Bullock asked.
Gordon held up one of the sketch artist's drawings of Jane Bennet.
"Because I'm betting Selina Kyle is somehow involved in this mess and I'm certain Bruce Wayne would hide her."
~ Gotham was her home. The city cradled her better than any mother would have. Not that Selina had ever really had a mother to cradle her.
It was still dark out and her heart was beating wildly from her jump out of the hospital window. She had dove through the glass without a second thought. The fall had been scary at first, but she felt invigorated by it.
When she hit the ground, she started running. Her bare feet feeling like they were floating. As if the ground were really just a trampoline and she was jumping with grace and speed. Before she even knew what happened, she was miles away from the hospital. She could smell the river by Arkham Asylum and realized she was close to the Narrows.
Bruce would undoubtedly try to find her. Selina grinned at the idea of him in pursuit. Of him begging her to come back to him. He wanted to keep her safe and protected. Like those priceless vases he kept in that beautiful house of his. That was how he wanted her. Not free like she was now.
She looked over Gotham River and her eyes could see in perfect detail, Arkham Asylum. Although there were no light in the ruin of the island, Selina could still see the buildings clearly. It was as if she had night vision in her eyes.
She looked around the dark alleyway and saw how alive everything was. She could see the rats behind the dumpster. See the heat from the subway below. A dirty ally had never looked so beautiful.
"What are you doing here?" a gruff voice demanded.
Selina wasn't surprised to see a disheveled and dangerous looking man walking to her. He looked slightly drunk, but mean all the same.
Instantly, she knew his type. She would always run away from a man like this. He was obviously a pimp. He was a very bad man. A rapist and an abuser.
"Come here, girl." he demanded and tried to grab her.
It was as if she were a well trained dancer. Her toes extended and she pivoted away from him. A little smile on her face as the bad man realized she had stepped just out of his grasp.
"You come here now, girl. You're gonna be mine." he ordered. The way he said it, Selina could tell he was used to bullying women. Of hurting them badly with his fists. He wanted to hurt her.
She stepped away again. Only this time she slapped him on the face. Playfully, like a cat toying with a mouse. She didn't want to kill this man yet. She just wanted to play with him.
"Bitch!" the bad man barked at her and made another lunge for her.
Selina, her body more alive than ever, jumped away. A nearby brick wall providing an interesting escape as she ran up it in a vertical climb. She quickly flipped over the bad man and landed behind him.
He hadn't realized she was behind him and was searching the spot he had last seen her in.
"Hello." She called in a teasing voice. The man, befuddled at her antics, turned and was surprised to see her behind him.
She punched the man harder than she had hit Bruce. She didn't like to hurt Bruce, but she wanted to hurt this man. Wanted him to feel the same pain he had leveled on his own victims.
The bad man fell backwards and spat out dark red blood. Not the small about from a simple fight, but like an artery had be severed. Selina looked at him in horror and realized she had broken off part of his jaw.
The man, bad as she knew he was, whimpered at the sensation her was severely injured. He held his hand to his bleeding face and looked back at her with real fear in his eyes.
Selina smiled.
"What's wrong?" she asked him. The need to torment her prey was still very real and pleasurable. "I don't suppose you'll be bothering anyone else now."
She ginned as the bad man spat out his own teeth. The pearl white of broken teeth looked odd in the dark red blood.
He was chocking on his own blood now and Selina decided she didn't want to stay and see it. He wasn't long for this world now. No one would come and help him in this deserted ally anyway. Her feet, still bare but oblivious to the cold concrete, side stepped over the bad man. She was running again. Running into the heart of the narrows where no one would find her. Where she could hide from her white knight.
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