All of the characters and story lines and everything else I can think of are the property of DC comics and the WB network. The only bits that're mine are the words and the voice.
Chapter 5: Survival
Helena crouched in the shadow of a dumpster, trying to gauge her pursuit by the sounds echoing on the adjoining street. She considered her options. The obvious choice would be to leap up and make her escape over the rooftops, but that would be no challenge at all. She might steal food and clothing out of necessity, but that didn't mean she couldn't have any fun in the process. Outsmarting store security personnel—this was what made life sweet. Helena dearly loved to watch them get all flustered and frustrated as she managed to keep just out of their reach. There was one portly, pink-faced piggy of a guy over in the mall who practically gave birth to a moose every time he tried to capture her. God, it was fun! On the other hand, if they caught her, they'd probably stick her in Juvenile Detention. Helena hated cages; her freedom was more precious to her than gold. Sighing, she made the leap. She'd play with the rent-a-cops another day.
She made her way over the rooftops toward home. Home, these days, was a condemned six-flat overlooking pier 16 at 24th and Rollins…apartment 3 south. Helena had asked around: The owners were deceased. The only heir was in a coma. All three had been victims of an automobile accident about a year ago. There wasn't much chance that they'd get around to selling or tearing down the building anytime soon.
Helena had never been very good at school, but she was pretty resourceful, as well as good with anything mechanical. With a little help from the diagrams in a plumbing for dummies book (the words just confused her), she had managed to connect the water back up to the building. This was a necessity. She could—and did—live without electricity. The apartment was equipped with a fireplace which served for warmth and cooking, and Helena also had the ability to see clearly in low-light conditions, as long as it wasn't completely pitch black. Her m…it had run in the family. She also had several lanterns and candles, which served for when she wanted a little more light. Water, however, she could not do without. Helena had always been fastidious about her appearance, and the present circumstances had not changed that. Showers were a must. So was a functioning toilet and sink.
She had at first regretted the hasty decision to go AWOL from the children's home. She'd been acting, as usual, on impulse, driven by her confusion and fear. All she had known at the time had been that she mustn't allow those people to get under her skin. Caring about people was stupid. You were just asking to get your heart ripped out when they…if something should…anyway, it was stupid. She was better off on her own. Still, the first couple months had been hard. She'd been hungry, cold, and frightened nearly all the time. She'd had no idea there could be so much evil in the world, before she'd lived on the streets.
She'd managed, somehow, by sheer luck, to avoid all the traps which ensnared most kids caught out on their own in the underworld of New Gotham. Some, like drugs, she'd known better than to get caught in. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted the escape. Lord knew she'd have tried almost anything if it would have abated the agony which roiled her soul, threatening to burst out at any time. She was canny enough to understand, however, that once you started using a controlled substance, it would soon control you…and then anyone could control you. It was a ploy that drug dealers and pimps used all the time—giving "free" samples "out of the goodness of their hearts." It amazed her that anyone would not see through that scheme. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that there were ulterior motives involved. Helena usually figured, if somebody wants to convince you to do something that is obviously harmful, illegal, or wrong, you have to ask yourself, "What's in it for them?" You usually didn't have to look too hard to find the answer to that.
Other traps, she'd escaped by the skin of her teeth. After several frightening narrow escapes from some of the lewd older gentlemen who prowled the New Gotham underworld preying on the forgotten, she'd met Trey, an older teen who had seemed knowledgeable and street smart. He'd sort of taken her under his wing, showing her some of the tricks of surviving life on the streets and letting her crash at his place, while at the same time, not trying to get close to her on an emotional level. She could live with that—or she'd been able to until he'd begun to insist that she earn her keep. Thank God for her unusual abilities—that was the only thing that had kept her from being a rape victim—or worse.
It goes to show, she thought, there's no free lunch.
Helena refused to think of her…other life, ever. Remembering gentler, happier days hurt too much. Surrounded daily as she was by the harshest and ugliest parts of human existence that life could dish out, she had begun to forget that life even held things like tenderness, compassion, love. As she'd begun to acclimate to her new life, she'd also begun to rely more and more on her animal-like abilities, and increasingly, they had begun to define her, until sometimes it seemed as if the person who had once been Helena Kyle barely even existed anymore. Sometimes, she really wondered if that girl had been lost forever.