I do not own Batman. That whole shebang is © DC Comics. Eleanor Black and everything that goes along with her and this plot do belong to me. Daria Vaudry/Queen of Spades belongs to my friend. The song titles in the chapters belong to their respective artists, named in the Author's Note at the end of the chapter. This fic is rated T for violence, gore, language and some sexual situations. Enjoy.

Joke's On You
Chapter Ten: War Within a Breath.

"I miss wine."

Bruce looked down at Eleanor, one eyebrow raised above his rather goofy grin. "One of the prices you have to pay," he breathed around that smile; he was in full playboy mode, something Eleanor found rather amusing now that she knew what lay beneath that facade.

She gave an exaggerated frown in the direction of her ginger ale. "I suppose so."

Eleanor smiled up at Bruce and let him lead her towards the dance floor with a hand at the small of her back. They had arrived at the Wayne Foundation Benefit for Literacy—at least, that's what Eleanor thought the sign said. There were so many Wayne Foundation benefit galas that, unless she went to stare at the sign, she couldn't be sure—about two hours ago. After navigating the ocean of press out front and greeting the big spenders of the night, the couple had begun moving throughout the room, participating in the small talk neither were particularly fond of. While Bruce had talked to investors and donators and the other rich in attendance, Eleanor had remained with Adam and Shauna, who were both rather enjoying their first real benefit and their first social event in a very long time.

Adam's wife, Eleanor had recently learned, had left him because he spent so much time working. Eleanor had been shocked to learn of this development, but the grace with which Adam took his situation had calmed her down quickly. Apparently, the split had been amicable and Adam, though upset, had understood the reasons behind it. The split had been one of the reasons—aside from his intense interest in the project—that had kept Adam working in the lab for such long periods of time. It had been by Shauna's coaxing and her desire to get out of the lab that had brought the friends to the benefit; an invitation from Eleanor just provided the opportunity. When Eleanor had last seen Adam and Shauna, they had been seated at one of the round tables, eating and drinking with giant smiles on their faces. Looking for them while her and Bruce danced, Eleanor found them on the other side of the dance floor, Shauna's deep red dress very visible against the gold-hued walls of the hotel ballroom.

"Inviting them seems to have been a good idea," Bruce said quietly as they spun slowly.

Eleanor nodded and then smiled up at Bruce, moving as close to him as she could without hampering their movement. "They both really needed to get out of their lab." She laid her head on his shoulder.

"Has Lucius talked to you yet?"

"Yeah. He just wanted to make sure I wasn't going crazy or anything." She felt Bruce's shoulder tense and she moved back slightly so she could see his face again. "I'm not taking it lightly and I am not going crazy. I'm in no pain and nothing bizarre has happened since the last fight," she whispered.

Bruce held her eyes for a moment longer and then inclined his head in a shallow nod before moving in close again, his lips brushing her cheek gently. As he pulled back, Eleanor pressed her lips against his in a chaste kiss and then offered him a small, cheeky grin before laying her head back on his shoulder and sighing in contentment; she felt Bruce smile into her hair and smiled brilliantly at the room.

When the song ended, Bruce was almost immediately pulled away by the daughter of a couple who had donated a lot of money. He went with a bright yet shallow grin on his face and Eleanor shook her head slightly, fighting the urge to laugh out loud. Truthfully, she was enjoying the "normal" night. Patrol would come later, but for that moment, it was a nice little break. She made her way over to the table where she'd eaten her dinner and settled into the spindly chair, watching the crowd of people with a smile on her face; her solitude was interrupted by Shauna and Adam dropping into the chairs across from her.

"And how are you enjoying yourself tonight Ms. Black?" Shauna asked, veritably beaming.

"Very well, Ms. Messer. And yourself?"

"I love this! I don't know why you hate these things so much. And I love your dress! Where'd you get it?"

Eleanor looked down at the bright blue, floor-length gown she was wearing, having forgotten which dress she was wearing. "I think it was a gift from my Mom, but I can't really remember to be honest. I'm committing a serious faux-pas here. I've worn this dress before!" Her and Shauna shared a moment of mock horror before they broke out into laughter.

"I don't know how you can get dressed up all the time, Eleanor," Adam chimed in. "I hate this stupid suit."

The girls laughed. Adam's suit was a nice suit, fairly expensive, but it definitely had the look of a suit that only came out for weddings and funerals. As Adam wore jeans, t-shirt and his lab coat ninety-nine percent of the time, that was not surprising.

"Stop complaining Adam," Shauna said with a warm smile. "You look great."

"You really do," Eleanor agreed.

Adam's cheeks flushed over his blond facial hair. He scratched at the side of his head and looked terribly awkward under all the praise, but he smiled nonetheless.

"Let's have another dance, Adam, and let Eleanor get back to her billionaire," Shauna suggested with a smirk. As they rose from the table, Shauna leaned close to Eleanor and asked, "Are you doing okay?"

Eleanor waved Shauna off. "I'm fine. Go dance."

As Shauna and Adam rejoined the crowd, Eleanor got to her feet and moved towards the buffet where her parents were standing, talking quietly to one another. Naomi and Liam greeted their daughter with warm hugs and she was more than happy to lean into her father's one-armed embrace. It had been too long since she'd been able to be around her parents without fear of freaking out and hurting them, so she was glad to be around them again.

"I think we're going to head home early tonight," Liam said.

"Surgery?"

"Very early surgery and I don't think my patient would appreciate me falling asleep above his brain."

Eleanor turned to hug her father properly and then repeated the gesture with her mother. "Probably not. I'll come over for dinner soon, now that I'm feeling better."

"Are you sure honey?" Naomi asked.

"That I'm better? Yes. That I'm coming for dinner? Yes."

Naomi smiled again and hugged her daughter, kissing her cheek and her forehead as she did so. "Good. We'll see you later than dear. Love you."

"Love you too Mom, Dad."

Eleanor watched her parents leave the ballroom and something inside loosened. It wasn't as if she expected anything to happen, but she had noticed that since hanging around with Batman, she'd become more suspicious, more paranoid, and had started expecting things to happen at every turn, someone to jump out from behind every obstacle. It wasn't a bad state of mind when you were a vigilante, but when you were trying to be a normal person... Eleanor sighed and ran one hand over her hair, straightening the few strands that had gotten loose from the style she'd pulled her reddish brown hair into. She was not so distracted by her thoughts to not notice Bruce appear at her shoulder.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, his hand squeezing her arm gently. "Are you ready to go?"

Eleanor nodded and they started walking towards the exit—if they didn't start now, due to the press waiting around the exit, they'd never get there. But they barely made it three steps before a loud bang and an eruption of shrill screaming stopped them. They shared a look and turned back towards the ballroom and they didn't have to wait long to find out what was going on. Eleanor smelt the dust and burning substances before she saw the cloud of dust and she heard the clicking of guns before The Joker's laugh tore through the tense air. As her and Bruce were outside the main ballroom, they couldn't see exactly what was going on. That fact made Eleanor want to rush forward to survey the situation, but Bruce, sensing the urge, grabbed her wrist and pulled her back towards the staircase, only letting go when she fell in step beside him and began vaulting up the steps towards the room where Alfred was waiting with the Batsuit and Darkshade's costume.

Shauna and Adam were knocked sideways by the blast, smacking into the floor several feet away from where they'd started. It only took a moment for Shauna to recover—the blast hadn't been meant to kill anyone, just to get into the ballroom, although why they couldn't have used the door, which was right beside the blast hole was beyond Shauna—and she scrambled to her feet, pulling the semi-dazed Adam with her. The dust began to clear and a terrifying chorus of laughs took up the space left in the air.

The dust didn't have to clear all the way for Shauna to know who had crashed the party.

But it did, revealing the Joker, dressed in his garish purple suit with his green hair shockingly bright. There was a large revolver in one hand and his normal demented grin on his face, a grin echoed in scars on the face of the woman standing to his left. Shauna followed the news enough to know she was The Queen of Spades, and the purple gloves she wore were capable of turning anything she threw into deadly projectiles, making her as dangerous as Harley Quinn—standing to the Joker's right—her hammer, and the hyena pups she had on leashes, clutched in one hand.

"What the... Are those hyenas?" Adam gasped, his head finally clearing.

"I think so." Shauna backed up more, slowly and eyes locked on the villains, heading for the door out of the ballroom. She knew Batman and Darkshade would show up at any moment, but until then, all she could think of to do was try and inconspicuously escape. Her hand tightened on Adam's arm and he turned to her, huddling close. She pressed her face into his shoulder and whispered, "Hurry up."

The Joker and his henchwomen started moving, revealing a gaggle of goons behind them, all big, all muscular and all quite scary-looking. Goons started moving into the completely still crowd, shoving men out of the way and grabbing others—all women—by their arms or the front of their dress and tossing them into the middle of the room. Shauna ducked behind Adam, not wanting to be seen and Adam, calling upon some hidden reserved of bravery, moved so his friend was better hidden between his back and the dessert table.

"Mista J is looking for someone in particular," Harley Quinn announced, moving into a position where she could better be seen by all; with her hammer across her shoulders and the hyena pups wrestling at her feet, she cut quite the figure. "If you give her to us, maybe we'll leave you all in one piece."

"Shauna Messer," the Joker barked.

The guests, frozen in fear, began to look confused and Shauna was glad hardly anyone here knew who she was; Lucius, Adam, Eleanor and Bruce were the only ones and none of them would turn her over to The Joker. As that thought faded, another one took its place: why was the Joker looking for her? What did he want with her? She wasn't anyone special—her proudest accomplishment had been getting the position at Wayne Enterprises; she didn't even care about the awards she'd been given—so why were they after her? Regardless of the reason, the Joker and his goons started shoving people around with renewed vigour and, if Shauna could have seen the villain's face, she knew he would be reaching the end of his very limited patience. She clutched the back of Adam's suit jacket and pressed herself closer to him; thankfully, wisely, her friend did not react beyond a small straightening of his back.

"Ah Batsie-Boy!" the Joker suddenly exclaimed. "Took you long enough to show your pointy ears!"

Shauna risked peeking around Adam's shoulder to see Batman and Darkshade standing between the crowd and the villains, both half-crouched and ready for battle and the engineer had to suppress the urge to screech in joy and relief.

When Batman didn't respond to the Joker, the demented clown cackled. "Harley, Queeny," was all he said.

And then all hell broke loose.

Or, that's how it seemed anyway.

The one with the top hat—The Queen of Spades—fanned out a deck of cards and threw them, purplish shocks of electricity vibrating over the squares of paper. Batman and Darkshade leapt to either side, the crowd scattering behind them, screaming and vying for positions of safety, for a passage out of the ballroom where they could run out of the hotel and perhaps call the police. Shauna and Adam were now pressed into the wall, unable to move for the crowd backing into them, too afraid to cross the miniature battlefield.

Shauna turned her eyes away from the doors and the crowd to focus on the fight, on her friend. Batman was attempting to get to the Joker, but was having issues getting past Harley Quinn and the giant hammer she somehow managed to swing around, despite her size; the physics of the situation said that she should have toppled over, if she had even been able to lift the hammer in the first place. But Batman was nothing if not determined and Shauna knew he'd find a way to knock Harley out of the way to get to his target. No, it was not Batman Shauna was worried about. She was worried about Eleanor, cloaked as Darkshade, and currently involved in a grabbling match with Queen of Spades, attempting to keep those dangerous gloves from getting enough room to throw something.

Darkshade ducked under a haymaker swing and, as she stood up, drove her shoulder into Queen of Spades' stomach, pulling the smaller woman clear off her feet before slamming her back into the floor. Queen of Spades laughed and grabbed Darkshade around the neck, pulling her down to the floor as she strangled the vigilante. Shauna managed to keep herself from calling out to her friend, but she silently willed whoever watched over Gotham to not let Eleanor die, not at the hands of the deranged rabble she was fighting anyway. Her prayers apparently answered, Darkshade dropped all her weight on Queen's arms and slammed one knee into the villain's stomach, hard as she could. Queen of Spades let go and Darkshade rolled away, coughing.

Queen of Spades recovered quicker than she should have however, and ran at Darkshade, laughing hysterically.

"DARKSHADE!" Shauna bellowed.

Eleanor turned the ninety degrees she had to, but it wasn't fast enough. What must have been half a deck of cards shot towards her and smacked into her neck and torso, exploding on contact.

"Shauna," Adam breathed, hauling her back towards the wall, hopefully out of sight of the villains. "They're looking for you. Stay hidden!"

She blinked up at Adam and the nodded and allowed him to shove her under the table. Shauna peeked out from a break in the cloth to continue watching the action, to make sure Eleanor was okay, and that there was no innocent—or uninvolved—blood was being shed.

Batman had broken past Harley Quinn's meagre defences—the red and black nutcase was stumbling towards Queen of Spades, dragging her massive hammer behind her—and had the Joker by the front of his purple suit with one hand and was punching him in the face with the other hand. The Joker was laughing, high pitched and crazy, and was fumbling at his belt for something. Queen of Spades' top hat came flying in from one side, aimed for Batman's head. He realized the danger and blocked the hat, the headgear exploding against his gauntlet. It didn't leave any permanent damage, but the proximity to his head sent Batman stumbling for a few steps, creating an opening for the Joker to jump in with a blunt object of some kind—was it a table leg? Or a pipe?—and start beating Batman, hitting any inch of the grey and black figure he could reach. Harley Quinn and Queen of Spades turned their attention to the crowd again and joined the goons in looking for Shauna; the search had become much more violent.

Across the chaos, Shauna saw the dark shape of Darkshade struggle to her feet, holes blown in her clothes and flesh and the bent of her body indicated that she was injured, at least temporarily; the nanomachines would take care of that soon. Darkshade launched herself at the nearest goon and landed an immense punch to his kidney, the force of which knocked him unconscious. Noticing the collapse of his comrade, another lackey made to attack, followed by the others. Shauna had to gape as Eleanor mowed them down with precise movements of her limbs—clearly she'd been training hard—but there was something that had appeared in her face that scared Shauna as well, something dark and angry and violent.

"Hey pretty-pretty."

Shauna jumped and turned, only to find herself staring at Harley Quinn.

The table leg broke against Batman's shin, sending a sharp spike of pain up through his leg. Batman suppressed it and focused on the movements needed to disarm and disable the Joker: he grabbed the Joker's wrist and snapped it, drove the opposite elbow into his chest at the base of his neck before grabbing his skinny arm with both hands and flipping the Joker over his shoulder to slam his back into the ground. The Joker laughed, eyes rolling around in his head.

"I think you've gotten tougher, Batsie," he drawled.

An echoing crack sounded and Batman wanted to turn to see what was going on. First, however, he dropped to a crouch and prepared to affix the plastic handcuffs to the Joker's white wrists, all the while thinking something was wrong with this whole situation, but something heavy—presumably Queen of Spades or Harley Quinn—collided with him and tackled him to the ground. The Joker laughed and climbed to his feet and then grabbed the woman and tossed her to one side.

"No one gets the Bat but me!"

"Then come and get me," Batman growled.

He shifted his position to kick backwards, boot connecting with something solid. A satisfying woosh of air told Batman the air had been knocked by the Joker's lungs and the vigilante spun to his feet, dropping into a fighting stance. He caught a glimpse of the Joker with his hand raised, green smoke starting to leak from between his fingers, and then he dropped the canister and the smoke began to fill the room with earnest; Batman sucked in a deep breath and held it. Coughs and yelps of fear made it through the smoke, as did the fading echoes of the Joker's horrifying laugh. It only took a moment for the smoke to begin to clear thanks to the large hole in the wall, and Batman was ready.

But there was no one there.

Darkshade was standing about fifteen feet away, looking from side to side, teeth bared in a grimace. She grunted loudly and then headed for the hole at a run, her hand drawing the grappling hook from her belt as she moved. Batman followed, ignoring the cries of blame behind them; the police were on their way and would be able to deal with the situation in the hotel. Batman caught up with Darkshade at the top of the building beside the hotel and found her standing at the opposite edge with her hands on her hips.

"They're gone. They got away somehow," she grumbled.

Batman approached the woman, but stopped a few steps away. "We were unprepared. We underestimated them."

Darkshade turned to look at Batman and she was angry. "While I'm pleased to hear you admit you were unprepared for something, this is getting ridiculous. How do they keep eluding us?"

But Batman didn't answer. He was too busy studying the woman in front of him. She must have fought with Queen of Spades a couple times throughout the brawl, for there were pieces of cards half-embedded in her healed flesh, sticking out from patches of drying blood and thicker bits. Cleaning and re-healing those wounds was going to hurt. A lot. "Darkshade."

"What?"

He stepped closer to her and touched the end of one of the cards. Even a few days ago, her healing abilities were not this rapid—the nanomachines were progressing. She winced at his touch, her hand flying to her face.

"Fuck," she breathed, her cheeks flushing red with anger.

"You need to get back to the cave."

"And what are you going to do?" she snarled.

"Finish patrol and see if I can find the Joker or a sign of where he went."

"Then I'm staying with you. I'm fine."

Batman took that final step that put him so close to Darkshade that they were almost touching and stared down at her, her black eyes glaring back at him. "Go get Alfred and head back to the cave."

She glared a little longer before relenting, turning and firing her grappling line to the roof of the hotel, disappearing quickly and leaving Batman alone on the roof. He turned his attention fully to the job and started out across Gotham's rooftops, pressing the button on his utility belt that would start the Batmobile back in the cave and, through the highly advanced autopilot, bring the car to his position.

"Ms. Black, despite your invulnerabilities, if you expect to exit the vigilante lifestyle in the same condition you entered it, you are going to have to be a tiny bit more careful."

Eleanor turned an indignant look to the butler, but then sighed and lay back on the table. They had just returned to the cave. Alfred had immediately begun ordering the young woman around and she obeyed, however reluctantly; she continuously grumbled about wanting to be out with Bruce, but the rational part of her brain knew she had to get the cards out of her skin before they became a permanent part of her. First, she had changed out of her vigilante costume and into a pair of plaid pyjama shorts and a tank top so all of the cards could be easily reached. Then, she had had to wipe away all of the dried blood she could so Alfred could see where the cards had entered her skin. Now, she was lying on the examination table and Alfred was examining the embedded projectiles, his glasses perched low on his nose and his light blue eyes regarding what was before him carefully.

"This is not going to be painless."

"I know Alfred. Just do it."

He looked up at Eleanor, and the look on his face could only be described as fatherly. "I suggest you calm down Ms. Black," he said calmly.

Eleanor closed her eyes and took a deep breath, rolling her head to the opposite side from where Alfred was sitting. She heard the clinking of metal tools on the metal plate as Alfred picked up his scalpel; they had already deduced that local anaesthetic didn't last very long in her system, so they'd be doing this without any sort of pain precaution. Eleanor had always had a rather high pain tolerance and the nanomachines had only increased it, but it still wasn't perfect and the methodical slicing she was about to endure was far worse than anything she'd had to face so far. She winced and almost pulled away when the cool metal of the blade touched her skin, but she forced herself to relax and not react.

The pain from the first slice was sharp and immediate, but what hurt more was extracting the card. Her flesh had begun to bond to the paper of the card and she had to fight not to scream as it was pulled from her flesh. After about the fifth card, Eleanor began to go numb. As her head lolled to one side, she realized she was crying. She tried to stop the tears, but she couldn't seem to, so she instead concentrated on what she could see so she could ignore the tugging and cutting and pain. The main computer terminal stretched out to her right so she watched the flickering lights and listened to the whirring for what felt like an hour but was probably only a few moments. Her attention then turned to the bats fluttering around the ceiling of the cave. The sound of their wings and the faint chirping made her smile through the tears.

An undeterminable amount of time later, Alfred moved to the cards embedded in her face. There were three: two in one cheek, near her mouth and one in the other cheek, up closer to her eye. As soon as Alfred's fingers brushed those cards, pain flashed through Eleanor's nervous system with renewed vigour.

She fought not to scream and pull away, to not fight Alfred's hands, to not hurt him.

"Ms. Black," Alfred said, his calm voice breaking through the remainder of the pain.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were trying to kill me," Eleanor breathed as her mind began to reform. Alfred helped her sit up and handed her a glass of water, which she quickly drank down, and then a Kleenex with which she wiped away the tears still clinging to her cheeks. "Thanks."

"You are welcome, although I do apologize for the pain."

"It's okay Alfred. Maybe I'll get Shauna to develop a super-strength anaesthetic."

Alfred chucked and placed a hand lightly on Eleanor's shoulder. "Regardless of my initial feelings about the nanomachines, you seem to have taken to them well and they are doing wonderful things for your healing."

Eleanor looked down at her arms and chest, where most of the cards had landed. The cuts from the scalpel were still bright red and angry and there was blood drying all over her skin, but the cuts were closed and scabbed—a few hours of healing in just a few minutes. She nodded and smiled at Alfred. "I know you didn't agree with the nanomachines, Alfred, but I know I did the right thing. For me, anyway."

"It is your life, Ms. Black, and as much as I did not want to see you become a vigilante like Master Bruce, let alone put yourself through the torture you have with the nanomachines, if you believe this is right for you and you are willing to deal with the consequences, I will do whatever I can to help you survive."

Eleanor smiled up at the older man, a genuine, warm smile. "That means a lot Alfred. Thanks."

He nodded once then, almost as if he was embarrassed by the emotion in Eleanor's voice, he strode from the cave, the bloody cloths from Eleanor's operation in a bag in one hand and the tools to be cleaned and sanitized in the other. With the promise of some tea and something to eat, he disappeared into the mansion proper. Eleanor remained seated on the examination table, letting the cool metal press against her mostly bare legs, and stared down at her arms stretched in front of her, at the cuts to try and see the skin actually knit closed.

Her efforts were interrupted by her cell phone ringing. She slowly and carefully climbed off the table and crossed to the desk where the small black device sat. "Hello?"

"Eleanor—thank God I got a hold of you! Are you okay? Did you and Bruce get out of that place?"

"Yes Adam, I'm fine. What's the matter? Are you and Shauna all right?"

"No, no, no. I'm fine, I'm okay, but I lost Shauna after the Joker attacked."

Eleanor froze, her breath caught in her throat. "What?"

"The Joker said he was looking for her, so I tried to stay with her. I tried, I tried... but we got separated somehow and then I couldn't find her! I couldn't find her! He got her, didn't he?" Adam's voice broke and he sobbed.

"I... When was the last time you saw her?" Eleanor asked. She was trying to remember if she had seen Shauna during the attack—she hadn't. Why hadn't she tried to find Shauna?

"I don't know... I can't remember!" He sobbed again, and they were angry tears.

"Adam, just take a deep breath," Eleanor told him, even though she was having trouble finding enough breath for herself. "Take a deep breath and calm down. I'll call the police, let them know she's missing—"

"Will you tell Batman?"

Eleanor froze for the second time, until she remembered that Adam only thought she was friends with the vigilante after the whole Doppelganger incident. "I... can tell him, sure," she managed to get out. Her mind was still revolving around the fact that Shauna was missing, that she could be in danger. "You just try and rest Adam. I'll stop by and see you in the morning, okay? Let you know if I find anything out."

"Okay... okay." Adam took a deep and shaky breath, seemingly gathering himself, finding control. "I'm so sorry, oh God, I'm sorry..."

"Adam, this isn't your fault."

"I should have watched her closer. I shouldn't have let her out of my sight."

"Adam, just try and get some rest okay? We'll get her back."

Adam sighed. "Okay."

The line clicked dead and Eleanor was left listening to the dial tone for a few moments, her brain stuck on the fact that Shauna was gone, likely in the hands of the Joker. Shauna was Eleanor's best friend and she couldn't help thinking this was because of her, because of Darkshade, and if that was the case, how would she ever apologize? How could she ever expect Shauna to forgive her? When Eleanor could move again, she took the phone and lay back down on the examination table, the cool metal bringing her slightly back into herself, allowing her to better think. She let out a shaky sigh and held the phone in front of her face.

1:58 am.

Provided things were going as she thought they might, Bruce would be back soon. That thought made her give the cave around her a small smile, made her feel a little better, a little calmer. In that moment of calm, she called the police and, though they were reluctant—it hadn't been forty-eight hours yet—made them file a missing person's report for Shauna Messer. When she hung up the phone for the second time that night however, the device fell to the cave floor and she lay there and cried silently.

"What's happened?"

Eleanor focused her attention into the cave and found Batman looking down at her, concern visible behind the cowl. She slowly sat up and turned to face Bruce, tucking her legs underneath her. "Shauna's missing," she whispered.

Bruce pushed the cowl back off his head. He brushed hair back from her face, the light touch of his fingers enough to bring fresh tears to Eleanor's eyes. She leaned into his hand. With the slightest change in pressure, Bruce pulled Eleanor from the table and she nearly fell into his arms, pressing her face into his chest, arms folded between them. He kissed the top of her head and held her there and just let her worry about her friend for a moment; he knew when Eleanor gathered herself together that she would be ready to work, ready to find Shauna.

Author's Note.

War Within a Breath – Rage Against the Machine.

So... I forgot that Adam had a wife in Reflection of His Enemy. SHAME. But I fixed it!

I need to practice fight scenes, I think... Hopefully they were all right. Definitely not my strong suit.

Are stalactites or stalagmites the ones on the ceiling? I can never remember.

DUN-DUN-DUN.

Next Chapter: Fateful Night; Blood on My Hands.