"I really don't want to play, Dinah," she explained as the kid thrust a pool cue in her hand. Helena was shutting herself off from having any fun. She stood poised, on guard, careful that all emotions were in check. She mistakenly let a tear slip when Dinah was watching earlier, she was careful not to let that happen again.
Dinah set aside her own cue and a goofy grin spread across her face. "Come on Helena, I'll even give you a chance," she smiled. "I won't even use a stick. Watch." With that, Dinah concentrated on the cue ball and in moments, it zipped across the table, breaking apart the neatly arranged balls and a striped one fell in the pocket. "Cool! I'm stripes!" she announced and looked over to her big sister to make the next shot. Helena stared at the kid, in mild disbelief.
"What am I going to do with you?" she raised her hands in mock defeat.
"Umm? Take your best shot?" Dinah volunteered, still giddy over her break. "Aim for a solid one." Helena had no intentions of playing but for lack of anything better, she took her cue stick, covered the tip with chalk and lined up to sink the easiest solid one she could see. She leaned over the table, her long, leather jacket not interfering in the slightest. The jacket was like a second skin to her. Helena lined up her shot, moved the cue stick back and forth in her hands, preparing to release when a voice piped up from behind, causing her to miss and she ripped the felt on the table as the voice pierced her ears. She slammed the stick down on the table, cracking it in half.
"Gibson!" Helena snapped, "I am not your little peach pit!"
"Scratch!" Dinah snickered and Helena's eyes changed with her feline frenzy, into catlike slits. Dinah was taken aback.
"What?" she asked, the smirk quickly fading from her face. "You know, Barbara did say you aren't allowed to use superpowers to settle arguments," Dinah explained with childlike glee. Huntress did not share in the same sentiment.
"I don't give a damn what Barbara wants," Helena scoffed as she shoved past Gibson, causing him to spill the drinks in his hand. "She obviously doesn't give a damn about me!"
Dinah and Gibson looked at each other with recoil and then towards Huntress. She headed for the door but stopped only for a moment, grabbed a shot glass from a customer's hand and downed it huff. The man stared at her but didn't say a word. No one messes with Huntress. Gibson looked down at the liquid all over his shirt and moved closer to Dinah. He set the glasses on the table and tried his best to wring out the contents from his sweater.
Dinah watched as a pale orange liquid dripped into one of the cups. When no more moisture would escape from his shirt, Gibson held up the glass in front of him, studied it and smiled at Dinah, pushing the glass towards her. "Fruity beverage?" he offered. She scrunched her face at him and then walked off, in search of Helena.
***
Huntress paced back and forth on the desolate rooftop, talking aloud. "How can she do this to me?" she asked, wiping a tear from her eye and flinging her hair back with a quick motion of her head. "Why?" she begged to know but no one was there to give her the answer. Helena stepped over to the ledge and climbed up on the 8 inch wide barrier. She balanced dangerously on the edge and didn't care that it was a ten story drop. Too far a fall to survive should she slip. Loneliness hung heavily in her heart and she had nothing left to lose.
She thought back to the day her mother was ripped from her and all Helena could do was watch helplessly as her blood poured out of the open wound, soaking the concrete. She cried out for her mother but her lifeless body lay limp in her arms. Helena's tears mixed in with the rain and her cries of anguish fell on deaf ears. "Somebody stop him," she begged but no one would listen. Helena's world crashed around her as she witnessed the last gasps of breath escape from her mother's mouth. And with that, Selina Kyle, the infamous Catwoman, was dead.
"Noooo!!!!" Huntress cried out in the night, jolting Barbara from her sleep. Her eyes darted around quickly, trying to get a grasp on where she was and finally realized that she had fallen asleep in front of her computer, head slumped on the desk. Barbara's heart raced as she was ripped from her sleep and realized that Huntress had shouted out, her comm. set still turned on. She reached for her keyboard and remembered that it was across the room, broken, just like her. Huntress continued to shout but instead of responding, Barbara ignored her friend, her family.
"Why did you leave me?" Huntress's voice filled with anguish as it tore through the silence. "You are all I have left!" Barbara listened intently, stone-faced as she ignored Helena's desperate plea. Huntress couldn't take it. She danced dangerously on the side of the building and with a tortured soul, she let herself fall.