I can't stop thinking about what I did.

Junior year was when things started to fall apart, and Bruce was long gone by then. Resentment rooted deep in my heart and turned into something ugly. Anger burned in me and it was more than I could stand.

Alfred tried to help; he signed me up for MMA classes after the second time I was suspended for attacking David Greene. I busted his face after he made some lewd joke about what I wore to a party the weekend before. Alfred wanted me to have a channel for my aggression, but it didn't work out the way he wanted. The classes just gave me the tools I needed to inflict more damage. My rage was good in rapid spurts, but when that burned up I was left feeling empty and hollow for days after.

Resentment made me mean. Mean to Alfred, to Parker, to my teachers. But I didn't see that, not until later. There are a lot of things I'm good at not thinking about until I'm laying in bed, staring at the ceiling and hoping that sleep will come and I can forget.

I never do.

"Is it done?" Beeker asked. This was before that night.

Nodding my head, I took a drag from my cigarette. I thought it made me look older, cool. I also enjoyed how much it pissed off Parker every time he saw me light up. Beeker and I were standing a couple blocks away from school, outside a popular café. It was early fall, but there was a frost in the air that would nip at any exposed skin. I was impatient to get home where it was warm. Fishing my hand into my wool coat, I pulled out a flash drive.

"All of McCallum's tests and answer sheets," I said.

Beeker and his friends were paying me to help them pass their finals, and I say 'help' generously. I didn't need the money, but it beat twiddling my thumbs at the Manor. There was only so much private school could offer in terms of entertainment, but even that was growing boring. It didn't take long to outpace the systems at school and I started to look for challenges elsewhere.

"Here. As agreed," Beeker said as he pulled out a small brown bag and handed it over. He adjusted his scarf, and a large part of me wanted to wring his neck with it. I opened the bag and checked the amount. Somewhere in the distance, the Gotham Clock Tower tolled, alerting the apathetic citizens of the seven o'clock hour.

Tommy Beeker was a good-looking guy. Tall, blonde, athletic, and an asshole. He was one of the school's best football players and had a natural confidence that kept his back straight and his chin high. But he, and a lot of other athletes, were usually up to no good. If it wasn't starting pseudo-fight clubs, it was suspected date-rape and minor drug dealing. Beeker didn't like me on the best of days—I think he didn't like girls who were smart—and I wasn't quiet about the fact I thought he was a knob. But he paid on time and didn't try to cheat me. What he did in his free time didn't concern me.

Our arrangement worked fine, at first.

"What's your boyfriend doing here, Kane?" Beeker said, his lip curled like he just smelled something nastier than what came out of his own gym bag.

I stiffened. Parker wasn't my boyfriend. We were friends, some might have said we were attached at the hip, but I never let it go beyond that. I stopped letting Parker come to the Manor that summer, and I spaced out our hang-outs until I was avoiding him altogether. Instead, I spent more of my time in front of my computer screen in the solitude and safety of my room. I turned to look down the end of the street. Parker was standing on the corner, fuming.

"Don't worry your pretty head about it, Beeker. I'll see you around." I walked away before Beeker could reply, grabbed Parker by the arm, and walked us both around the corner. He was rigid, and I didn't fail to notice the drawback of his body when I touched him.

"Miriam, were you doing what I think you were?" Parker asked. He doesn't use my full name often, only when I've done something stupid. He sounded like dad's do on TV. I shook my head and laughed.

"No, Beeker and I aren't dating, Dad—"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it," Parker said as he pulled me to a stop. I shrank back when I saw the scowl on his face. "What you're doing is so, so, stupid, Miriam. You're playing with fire. If you get caught you'll be expelled, not to mention charged—"

"No one cares about what I do, 'arnab. I'm not hurting anyone."

"Not yet, anyway. And cut the shit, I care about what you do. Me. And you're forgetting about Alfred." Parker smacked my arm when I rolled my eyes. I tried not to laugh when I saw his nose twitch.

I didn't think what I was doing was a big deal—I was just trying out a few new skills and getting paid for it. It wasn't like the big-wigs could tell someone was infiltrating their servers to begin with. At first, it was just me working around the firewalls to look at restricted websites on school computers, and then it turned into something else when I started going through the teacher's files on the shared server. Like me changing my grades when I couldn't be bothered with class, or anyone else's who'd pay enough. Even that was starting to become boring, and I started fooling around with Wayne Enterprise's systems. Those posed the type of challenge I was craving. I really wasn't hurting anyone —t hat's what I told myself, anyway.

"What could happen, Parker? If this is as bad as it'll get, then I'm not too worried about the rest."

"This isn't a joke, Miriam. Someone could get hurt—including you." I was tired of listening to him lecture me. I huffed like a petulant child and tried to walk away. Parker grabbed me by the arm and held me in place, and I glared at him until he let go.

"What is wrong with you? I don't know what's happened to you this last year, but I'm starting to think you'll never change. Yeah, your mom's dead, Bruce is fuck-knows-where, and your dad is scum—but that doesn't mean that you get to act like a moron and not think anything bad will happen. You're smart, Miri. Smart enough to know better. But you're selfish, too. You need to grow up."

"You don't know anything about me, Parker. I'll be fine—I always have been," I spat. My temper flared at the sound of Bruce's name. I wanted someone to hurt just as much as I was, and I didn't stop the stupidity from flowing out of my mouth. "Why are you here, anyway? No one asked you."

I could have, should have, stopped there. I didn't.

"Go play Jiminy fucking Cricket for someone else. I don't need you here. Nobody does." I felt a rush of blood in my cheeks when I saw his eyes well up with tears.

Parker was good at hiding it, but I knew he was battling depression, had been since he was a kid. It was one of the first things he told me about himself. We were spending the night in the basement of the Manor, and Parker wanted to see if we'd experience any 'paranormal phenomena,' as he called it. I couldn't sleep, but I didn't want to tell Parker it was because I was scared. He knew, but we both pretended he didn't, so we stayed up the whole night talking. We shared things we would never tell anyone else and made promises I thought I would never break.

All those promises we made meant nothing to me at that moment. The words came out of my mouth like vomit, and I couldn't take them back. I was being cruel, and I tried convincing myself I didn't care.

I should have cared a lot more.

"Is that what you really want? For me to go away?" he asked.

"Yes." The only noise between us was the whistling of air down the street and the faint murmuring of voices drifting out from the café.

I had to look away when a tear spilled over and rolled down his cheek. He swiped at his face and looked away too. When I peeked back at his face, I could see his jaw clenching and the tendons in his cheeks jumping up and down. I knew he was chewing on his words, deciding how far he wanted to go.

"You know, Miriam, for how much you hate your dad you sure aren't turning out to be much different."

I was stunned. Being compared to my father was the worst insult he could have ever lobbed at me, and he knew it. Walking away, I said nothing. I didn't turn back to see if he was still standing there, or if he looked back at me as I stormed off. I didn't even have a reason to say what I did to him, but some insane urge wanted to make all of it worse. I waved my middle finger in the air and walked from him in silence, like a punk-ass kid.

A few blocks away Alfred was waiting to pick me up.

"How was studying with Mr. Kwan, Miri?" Alfred asked as I ducked into the backseat of his favourite car, his Rolls Royce Phantom.

"It was fine," I said. Alfred looked at me from over his shoulder as he merged in with on-coming traffic. I could tell he didn't believe me, so I stared out the window to hide my expression.

"It may be none of my business, Miri, but good friends are hard to find. And if you're not careful, you won't be left with many." He sounded sad. His British accent leant well to making me feel guilty. Alfred was the one the school would call in for my 'anti-social' behaviour'. He knew Parker was my only friend, and he bore my moods with patience, which was more than I deserved. I wanted him to be angry with me, to smack a sense of decency into me when I wasn't willing to do it myself.

"You're right, Alfred. It's none of your business."

We rode back in silence all the way to the Manor. What Parker said made me livid. Furious. What right did he have to say that to me? Parker didn't know anything. He might know facts about my life, but he certainly didn't know enough to judge me, I thought. But Alfred did. He knew me better than anyone, and I felt like a massive disappointment to the two people who mattered most.

I knew, deep down, that both Parker and Alfred were right. I got away with too much, most people gave me a free pass because of Bruce and the possibility of money attached to his name. I was complicit and exploited people's leniency, and I knew I just wrecked my friendship with Parker and was driving Alfred away. I just couldn't bring my self to care.


I waited outside an old brick building. It was only a five-minute walk to the core of the Bowery district. For the sixteen years I'd lived in Gotham, I had never been there before. From what Mom told me, it used to be the place to be. All the fancy artisans, museums, and high-end restaurants were there. That was before the recession gutted the place, leaving nothing but scraps for gangs to tear each other apart for.

Some of the upper windows of the old warehouse had been smashed, and bright lights strobed from inside and the heavy bass shook the building. I recognized the beat: "Sin City" was an apt song to play in that part of town. The only sign on the building read "The Stacked Deck" in half-lit neon throbs. I'd never heard of the place before, but I knew if it was in the east side of the city, it meant trouble.

A bald, bulky man in a fur-lined jacket stood at the caged metal door that served as an entrance to the club. He looked at me once and ignored my presence. Occasionally groups of two and three would come by and be waved inside. I kept my distance from the door and lit up a cigarette, letting the flame of my silver lighter warm my fingertips. Rubbing my hands together, I looked down the streets, scanning for Beeker, or anyone else, coming up the street.

On my way there, I passed groups of people who looked like they were living rough. There weren't many homeless people around school, and it was easy to forget about the scores of addicts and mentally ill filling the streets outside of Midtown. Dozens of seedy bars and strip clubs filled the old historic buildings. All of this was something you heard about on the news and filed away in the 'irrelevant information' folder until it hits you straight in the face. It was easy when you didn't live in the festering wound consuming Gotham every day. As I stood there, it seemed like Gotham didn't want me to forget anything, but to bear witness to the rot that had always been all around me.

I felt the gazes of the small groups of people huddled in boarded up doorways and the groups of people smoking outside the different bars as I passed, assessing if I had anything of value. Slipping my rings off my fingers, I left them tucked in my jacket pocket. I kept my head down, jacket collar up, and made my hair cover my face.

I put a lot of weight in the fight training I was doing. I thought it was my ticket to keep me out of trouble, but my skills were largely untested in a real combat environment and I had no idea of knowing if they would be effective. Even through all my arrogance, I was smart enough to feel wary as I stood there in the dark. Sure, I could throw a punch, but that wouldn't save me if someone had a gun. I tried not to think of Aunt Martha and Uncle Tom.

Gotham had not been kind to its citizens, but I didn't think about that then —not until the Narrows tore itself apart in a mass psychotic episode four years later, and hundreds of people were left to fend for themselves and after the doctors had declared them 'untreatable.' "The symptoms will worsen before they get better." That's what the doctor's had said about Mom's cancer. In a way, it applied to what happened in Gotham when the Batman came. The phrase didn't prove true for Mom, and I suspected it wouldn't for Gotham either.

Beeker and his friends were late. Looking at my phone, I saw it was well past midnight. I lied to Alfred and told him that I was at Parker's. We hadn't spoken since the start of the fall term a month ago. Instead, I used the cash I had accumulated and put myself up in a hotel for the night. I felt bad about lying to Alfred, but the rush of a bigger job was something I couldn't pass up.

Looking down the street again and seeing no one, I pushed myself away from the building and started walking back the way I came when the metal door slammed open and smacked into the brick wall. Murmured voices came from behind me and I turned to look at the source.

Beeker was standing with Leon, one of his friends who looked like a shorter, dumber, clone of him. They didn't seem to know what to do with their hands, they kept stuffing them in and out of their coat pockets. A man I didn't recognize followed close behind. He wore a dark pair of sunglasses, despite the time of night.

Staying still, I considered my options. I could slip away then and pretend I never thought about doing something so blatantly idiotic, or I could grow a pair and approach the group with as much bravado as possible. Before I had time to think, Beeker saw me and waved me over. I chose bravado.

I lifted my chin and joined the group. Beeker looked nervous, his eyes darted all over and he kept running his arms up and down his sides. His eyes were red and bugged out of focus. I didn't like the look of the man next to him, and the feeling grew when Beeker smiled at my approach.

That should have been the first red flag: Beeker never smiled when he saw me.

"Miriam. You made it," Beeker said.

That should have been the second warning: Beeker never called me by my first name.

I nodded in greeting and mirrored the body posture of the men in front of me, trying to seem bigger than I was. Being the smallest person there made me uncomfortable. Taking a long drag of my cigarette, I tried not to choke. I would never admit this to anyone, but I didn't know how to properly inhale the smoke. I usually gave myself a headache and an upset stomach.

The man with Beeker turned to me and gave me a once-over, but it didn't feel creepy. Rather, it was a quick assessment. I had recently cut my hair to my jaw to seem older, and I was wearing a knee-length wool coat and tall boots. I saw Sofia Boutella wear something similar once in a magazine, and she had the type of sophistication I wanted to emulate, but I probably looked like a kid who raided her mom's closet —which wasn't entirely far from the truth.

The man raised his eyebrows and motioned to me but addressed Beeker.

"Come on, she is your hacker? You are kidding, no? Boss won't like that." The man spoke with a heavy Russian accent and thick mumbling. His teeth were sporadically covered in silver and gold. I almost spat out an insult, but I bit my tongue. The Russian's hand and knuckle markings screamed 'prison tattoos,' and Beeker and Leon were high out of their minds, likely.

"I promise she's as good as I say. Quiet too, right, Miriam?" Beeker spoke quickly, and he was sweating. He and I both knew that was a lie—one of Beeker's most frequent complaints about me was my smart-mouth.

A bad feeling was starting to grow in my gut, but I ignored it, out of some stupid sense of pride. I opened my mouth to answer when the Russian addressed me.

"Inside, then. Mr. Dimitrov is not patient man." He nodded his head towards the door where the bouncer stood guard. The men spoke together in Russian before the bouncer waved us inside with a frown.

Bodies were packed inside from wall-to-wall, gyrating together in one massive movement to Future blaring out of the speakers. Blinding beams of red, blue, and green alternated from the spotlights above, turning the partiers into spectrals of black against a strobing sea of primary colours. Dance cages hung from the ceilings above the crowd, holding girls in lingerie and glowing bars. Women in small dresses and high heels threw their hands in the air and swayed their heads to the beat, their hair sticking to the sweat on their backs and faces. The men who were drunk enough danced with them, and those who weren't stayed along the edges in velvet booths, watching the dancers with hungry eyes. The flashing lights and misty atmosphere gave the scene a dream-like feel. I looked at them all with envy. I couldn't let go of my sense of control long enough to be uninhibited and dance. I had never been completely drunk before, not enough to lose control, and the idea of it terrified me.

Glancing at Beeker's face, I saw that he wasn't any different from the other men who were watching. He had an empty smile, and the look in his eyes was carnivorous. When the Russian touched my arm, I was torn away from my thoughts. I couldn't hear what he was shouting over the noise, but he nodded towards a door that almost blended in with the brick. I followed along, wanting to get away from the music and Beeker. The Russian swiped a keycard and swung open the heavy door, and I was disappointed to see Leon and Beeker following behind. I had enough sense to feel afraid, but not enough to walk away.

When the door shut behind us, only the dull throbbing of the bass was any indicator of the party on the other side. The Russian took us upstairs to a private lounge. A muscular man sat on a leather couch surrounded by several women and men in suits. Mahogany pool tables covered in green velvet, Soviet Union era memorabilia, and expensive-looking artwork depicting shrouded landscapes and holy figures filled the space. I felt like Beeker then: I didn't know what to do with my hands. My nervousness made me nauseous and these people were adults, not kids playing at being one. The Russian man waited for the conversation to quieten.

The muscular man sitting in the centre of the couch was wearing a red shirt that was unbuttoned far down enough to show his heavily tattooed, and hairy, chest. Shapes of birds, skulls, and saints peeked out from the opening. The markings spread out to encompass his hands as well, so much so that the skin underneath took on a blueish hue. He wore a pendant with some sort of animal's tooth, his hair was slicked back, and he sported a thick goatee. He acknowledged us with a flick of his eyes and the conversation around him died.

So this is Ivan Dimitrov, I thought. He was more terrifying in person than he was on TV.

"Sergei, you are being rude. Take our guest's coats, da?" Ivan spoke with a heavier accent than the man wearing the sunglasses. He spoke slowly and took his time to enunciate before speaking.

The man wearing the sunglasses, Sergei, hurried to take my coat. I was glad that I wore an over-sized sweater dress, having my body hidden helped me feel secure. I knew who Beeker wanted me to meet, and I didn't put a lot of stock into GCN's crime bulletin, but I also wasn't a complete fool. Most of the time the Dimitrov family was fighting with the Maroni's, and both had a reputation for not caring who got caught in the crossfire. The city was dying, and it didn't seem to matter who you talked to, everyone had their secrets and problems. Some were just better at hiding it than others.

"You look like kid," Ivan said, looking me up and down, just like his lackey had. He was frowning.

Yeah, well, you look like a geezer. I didn't say that, though. I just really wanted to.

"How old are you?" Ivan seemed to think better of his question and flapped his hand, motioning me to sit at an empty chair in front of him.

"If you do what he says you can," Ivan said, motioning to Beeker, "then how old you are no matter—even if you are related to a Wayne." I glanced at Beeker, unsure of what he told this man. I didn't like that Ivan knew who I was. There was too much he could do with just with a name, I knew that well. Ivan stared at me intently, and I tried not to squirm in my seat.

"Sergei get another drink—and juice, or something, for the ditya."

I can't speak Russian, but the word felt like an insult. I tried to let it go with a slow exhale. I was sixteen, but I didn't know if treating me like an adult would help or work against me there.

Beeker and Leon stood like awkward stiffs by the stairs. It was strange seeing Beeker look so uncertain. He was usually over-confident to a fault. Seeing him act so feeble threw me off. He wouldn't look at me, and Leon kept his eyes trained on some far away spot ahead of him. They were both acting weird.

"I am Ivan Dimitrov, and you are Miriam Kane, da?" he said as he stuck a hand in his jacket and pulled out a cigar. It was a rhetorical question. Ivan wanted me to know who was in charge, and we both knew it wasn't me. He put the cigar between his lips and one of the women next to him rushed to light it.

"That's right," I said. The people sitting around Ivan sniggered and gave me appraising looks. I tried to keep my chin high, but a sudden feeling of embarrassment came over me. It was becoming very clear I did not belong.

"Miriam. That is Hebrew name," he said, taking a heavy drag from the cigar. He didn't mean it as a question. A look of distaste crossed over his features. Sergei handed Ivan a glass of whiskey and me a glass of what looked like cranberry juice. I didn't plan on swallowing any of it, but I played at taking small sips.

"It's also Aramaic. My mom liked the other spelling more. My father is Algerian." Anti-Semitism wasn't something I expected when I agreed to the meeting. Almost no one knew that my father had a crime ring of his own, and I thought it was best to keep any other information about him vague. He also didn't need to know that my mom was, in fact, Jewish on my grandmother's side, but my answer appeared to alleviate some of his worries.

"Ah, apologies. I like to know who I do business with."

Sure you do, pal, I thought.

"Why agree to meeting, eh? I thought someone related to Wayne would not need cash."

It was a valid question, and one I didn't even think about. I didn't have any real reason to do this at all; I couldn't even use boredom as an excuse. No, I was looking for a thrill. Something to knock away the apathy that was consuming me. I wanted power where I felt I had none. But, if I'm being honest, I wanted Bruce, if he was still out there, to notice what I was doing. I wanted him to be worried about me.

I didn't say any of that to Ivan, of course. Instead, I chose to play the haughty rich girl. Arching an eyebrow, I smirked.

"I like a challenge. There isn't a whole lot that can keep up with me now. I was hoping you could alleviate the problem for me."

Ivan let out a short bark of a laugh.

"You have dangerous tastes, ditya," Ivan jerked his chin at the groupies around him and they sat up and left the room quickly. "What has this pridurok told you?"

I thought initially he was referring to someone's name. It took a minute to figure out he was talking about Beeker. From his tone, I don't think he was calling Beeker 'friend.'

"He said you needed information."

"Da, da. This is true." Ivan reached into his shirt pocket and held a folded piece of paper between his fingers. Sergei appeared and took it from Ivan to hand to me. I met Ivan's gaze before reading the long list. It was a series of names. Most of them I didn't know. Other ones were right from GCPD's most wanted list.

"These names, you will take care of them. I want all information," Ivan said. I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Are you talking about banking information, social security numbers, emails, internet browser history—"

"Everything. You have one week. Then I give you next list. You do well, I will pay."

I didn't think of the names and the people attached to them. I even had the gall to smile.

"You got it, Mr. Dimitrov."


Things carried on that way for weeks. Every week a new list was delivered to me. It didn't take much digging to see that the men whose lives I was digitally pilfering were rival crime family members to the Dimitrov's. Ivan was building up a blackmail list, and I tried to not feel bad about helping him. What did I care if a bunch of gangbangers were blowing each other away?

It became harder to pretend it didn't bother me when the names belonged to civilians. Most of them were government or public service workers, some of them were just small business owners. They were harder to find dirt on that didn't make me feel like scum for finding.

Ivan's rivals tended to be more diligent with hiding their information and speaking to one another in code. It was fun breaking through their encrypted data and rooting out their secrets like a voyeur, like I was hosting my own episode of Dateline or something.

The new lists I received were different. Ivan wanted their whole lives laid bare for him to see. It felt wrong. I tried to fudge some of the information I gave him towards the end, just giving him surface-level stuff. But I was never a good liar, and it was never enough for him.

I still hadn't spoken to Parker. He never gave up trying to reach me, sending me messages and random pictures of things I knew were supposed to remind me of the inside jokes we shared: a box of cheerios, weird parodies of shaving commercials, and out of context memes. I didn't reply to any of them because I was embarrassed and ashamed of what I said. I didn't know how to fix what I did, so I did what I knew best: ignored it and hoped it faded away into oblivion.

It was early December, only a week away from the anniversary of Mom's death, when Ivan called Beeker and me for a meeting in a restaurant somewhere in Little Russia. That winter was cold like it was when she was buried, and the early afternoon light was not enough to warm the biting air. I skipped school and took the Skytrain down to the west side of the city. I hadn't missed class in a while, and I was confident the school wouldn't call Alfred. My anxiety rose to a crescendo that almost made me crack and tell Alfred everything as I sat in the grafittied train car. What I had been doing was weighing heavy on me and I needed to tell someone, anyone, what was happening. But I knew it was too lateI had finally let things go too far.

"The Red Square" is what the scarlet canvas banner read in golden cursive above the restaurant. I was across the street, trying to work up the courage to walk up to the two men standing at the doors and be shown inside. I didn't want to do what Ivan asked anymore, and I even started leaving what he paid me in stuffed envelopes for homeless shelters and in SPCA donation boxes. Even doing that didn't scrub the feeling of guilt that coated my skin. All of it needed to come to an end, I just wasn't sure how.

Courage found me, and I walked across the street where the two hulking men stood at attention. I expected them to question who I was and found myself surprised when they opened the door and ushered me out of the cold without a word. Beeker was already there, sitting uncomfortably across from Ivan and a blonde woman.

The large booths were covered in bright red leather, a mossy green covered the walls, and shining white table clothes sat crisp and sharp atop the tables. Gold, like the lettering outside, embossed the walls like living vines and acted as the highlighting feature for the frames and metal-work birds that decorated the space. Most of the restaurant was empty, save for men in suits who occupied various positions around the restaurant exits. My hands began to shake.

"Ditya! You finally show, eh? I start to worry you forgot your, eh… how you say, obligation." Ivan's accent was heavier than it was before. As I approached, I glanced at the table. His glass of whiskey was full and the decanter in front of him was almost empty. My stomach sank deep in my torso. Ivan motioned for me to sit next to Beeker.

Beeker didn't look high this time —he looked afraid. He was shaking harder than I was, making me become very conscious of all the men around me.

"Otlichny! You've done well, ditya. Time we upgrade list, eh? We would not want you to…" Ivan threw his arm around the blonde woman next to him, and as she readjusted the collar of her dress he seemed to lose his train of thought as he stared down at her cleavage. Her blonde hair was long and wavy, eyes were an unsettling blue that seemed to peer through the layers of my winter clothing and see me from within. She was gorgeous, and apparently relaxed enough that she ran her fingers through the hair on the nape of Ivan's neck. I had to clear my throat before he answered. "Would not want you bored, da?"

I said nothing but bowed my head in what I hoped Ivan would take as supplication. He let out a boisterous guffaw and reached into his jacket pocket.

"You take care of these, eh? You prove so helpful," Ivan took out a folded piece of paper and flipped it casually between his fingers, "I may not let you quit." He looked at me from the corner of his eye then. I couldn't tell if that was supposed to be serious, but his words chilled me. He flicked the list towards me and I began to read.

James Gordon, Anna Ramirez, Aaron Cash, Renee Montoya, Carl Finch, Rachel Dawes

When I read Rachel's name, I understood. I knew she was still working in the district attorney's office. Ivan wanted dirt on these people. I thought, even in a place like Gotham, police and lawyers would be off limits from Ivan. I went off the childish notions that the respect and fear people had towards police officers was universal. I knew nothing of how the criminals in this city operated, and I was going to receive a cruel lesson on reality.

Swallowing hard, I tried to think of something to say. I couldn't refuse Ivan outright, but I knew I could throw enough jargon at Ivan to throw him off; buy me some time.

"OK. OK… Look, um, Mr. Dimitrov, I need time to do a list like this. I would need their personal IP addresses, either download malware onto their computers myself or get them to accidentally download it, have access to their work servers, find any back doors or bugs with any work programs they use and spend a few weeks dumpster diving—"

Ivan cut me off, "You say it cannot be done?"

"No, not at all, Mr. Dimitrov. But this isn't something I can just do from any old computer. I would need at least two weeks of prep—" Beeker interrupted me next. I was beginning to be sick of not being able to finish a sentence around these men. I glared at him, hoping it was enough for him to know to shut up. It wasn't.

"Oh, Miriam, you're selling yourself short. Just do what you've done before for Leon and I—" It was my turn to interrupt. Beeker was flapping his gums about something he didn't understand.

"Mining out tests and answer sheets from a rudimentary school network and giving you dirt on a few rivals is a lot different than hacking into a bunch of, I'm guessing, cops and lawyers' personal computers and government regulated networks." I took a deep breath tried to stay calm. Ivan looked amused, but he drummed his fingers against the wooden table. The woman next to Ivan rolled her eyes.

"These idiots cause trouble," Ivan said, pointing at the piece of paper in my hands. "I need, eh… leverage." Ivan jerked his chin at the men standing behind us. They grabbed Beeker by the shoulders and shoved him away from the booth, gripping on his jacket as they moved him towards the door. I followed suit and got up, taking his forced exit as an opportunity to leave. Taking the piece of paper in my hand, I and shoved it in my pocket.

"You have one week to give what I want. Once finished, debt is forgiven—and I will pay," Ivan said, motioning with his hand to Beeker then me. Beeker opened his mouth to argue but was shoved out the front entrance before he could make a sound. I went to follow when Ivan spoke to me again.

"No funny business, da? Rich kids always have something to lose. Like nice house, or old man. Just do job, and there will be no trouble." Ivan was smiling, but it didn't reach his brown eyes. He leaned back in the booth, threw his arm around the blonde woman, and made a shooing motion at me. Nodding, I gave an awkward thumbs up before brushing past the men at the entrance and exiting out on to the bright and damp street. I waited until the door closed to lay into Beeker.

"What was all that about? That is not what I signed up for. I'm not some black hat that can just break into fucking police networks all willy-nilly, you fucking idiot!"

I always swear a lot when I'm scared. What Ivan wanted was beyond everything I ever thought I would do. Ivan mentioning a debt could only mean one thing. I wanted to clock Beeker in the jaw, but I needed to hear what he had to say first.

"Can you do it or not, Kane?" Beeker asked. He wouldn't look at me, and his voice was shaking. For the first time since I'd known him, he looked genuinely terrified. His eyes were wide and he was sweating.

"How much do you owe him?"

Beeker snapped his head up at that. He looked at the restaurant door before moving away a few feet.

"Fifteen grand. And these are the type of guys you wouldn't want to borrow a goddamn quarter from. Jesus fucking Christ."

I shook my head and decided I didn't want to know how he managed to rack up such a substantial amount of debt. Somehow, I guessed, Beeker had leveraged my skill level against the debts he owed Ivan.

"No. I can't do it. I would need longer than a week, and I'm not giving him a bunch of information on lawyers and cops, Tommy. We can go to the police together—"

"Are you stupid, Kane? People like him own this city. He wants info on those guys because they don't play by the rules. We can't go to the cops; most of them are on his payroll! I'm fucked! He's going to kill me." Beeker's eyes were wild, sweat and tears intermingled as he paced up and down the sidewalk. My stomach sank.

Beeker was right about the cops in Gotham. If he was this dumb to owe so much money, there wasn't much I could do. Except Ivan knew who I was, where I lived and went to school. Stepping close to Beeker, I slugged him. His nose broke when I hit it right in the centre, and I started walking down the street while shaking out my hand. His thick skull broke two of my knuckles.

"You—you bitch! What are you doing?!" His voice was muddled and he spat blood on the sidewalk. "You're just as fucked as I am, Kane!" Beeker yelled at me as I continued walking away. I whirled on him and he flinched.

"I'm going to figure out a solution to our problem, since your bloated muscles are useless without a spine, and you seem to have killed off any fucking brain cells that may have inhabited that damaged head of yours," I snapped back. He said nothing as I walked around the corner.

I followed the signs to the nearest Skytrain station and hoped my seething anger was enough for anyone I encountered to leave me alone. There was no way around it—I was completely screwed. Parker's warnings had come true—I was in too deep to get out of the mess I made. I needed help, and it was clear that Bruce wouldn't be the one to give it.