And there was only one bed…but plenty of angst!
Chapter 17 of What's Up, Danger?: We're Not In Gotham Anymore
11:45 PM, Sunday—Greenwich Village, NY
It felt like the illuminated blue and magenta neon eye was closely watching them as they approached the shop. Madame Xanadu's name was inscribed around the bright orb. Lambent and inviting, the glowing eye hung perpendicularly off the building and was hard to miss. The dazzling signage occasionally flickered—as if it was blinking like a real eye—for all to see amongst the darkened and closed shop windows that boxed it in.
Tendrils of ivy and green leaves partially obscured the storefront window. Under a replica illustration of the great neon eye was Madame Xanadu's name and large purple font which read:
Enter Freely and be Unafraid
Sabine squinted her eyes, trying to see through the darkened glass to no avail. "So, this is it, huh?"
Red Hood nodded assuredly. The neon sign was a little much, he thought, but it was unmistakably their destination.
He moved to turn the doorknob but as his hand approached the metal device slowly rotated clockwise on its own and the door creaked open, welcoming them inside.
"After you," he said, gesturing with his hand and motioning for her to go inside.
Sabine nodded curtly as a chill took root inside her gut and spread to her limbs. Taking a beat to spare Red Hood an apprehensive look, she stepped inside with the vigilante close behind her. Once inside the strange warmth of the occult shop, the front door groaned as it snapped shut behind them.
Dozens of lit candles illuminated the space with a mystical orange glow along with a handful of ornate lamps. Sabine's nose picked up the earthy scent of sage.
Sabine's eyes couldn't settle on one object in the store for more than a few seconds. There was so much to see and take in. An ancient-looking chest with many small drawers, each labeled with unusual herb names sat below a long wall adorned with masks. Hundreds of tattered books crammed into bookshelves covered the back wall.
A long wall shelf was lined with glowing jars, purples, blues, and greens. She approached it to inspect one that contained what looked like a small scorpion, standing on her tiptoes to get a better look with her nose almost touching the glass. She flinched when the predatory arachnid lashed its stinger at its glass prison.
"Hey, careful there," Red Hood said warily, remembering Dick's warning to not touch anything.
She gave him a tiny childish pout and muttered, "I was just looking."
Her curious eyes continued to zigzag around the shop, stopping at a human skull with a crack along its cranium that was perched atop a small round table and surrounded by blazing candles. In the dark abyss of its eye sockets, there was the faintest red glow. She shuddered.
There was a rustle from behind a colorful curtain of beads as an elegant hand drew them back, and an ethereally beautiful woman emerged wearing a sleeveless plum-colored dress. Pulled back black hair highlighted her high cheekbones and enchanting green eyes. Several silver necklaces were layered around her neck, embedded with gemstones. Her painted lips crooked upwards into a charming smile.
"Good evening, I am Madame Xanadu," she introduced herself in an ageless voice, "how can I help you?" Her eyes peered over the vigilante's shoulder at the young woman who was half-hiding behind him. "Ah, Miss Song. I was wondering when I'd see you here."
Sabine nudged Red Hood as she gasped, "She knows my name!"
Madame Xanadu's light laughter sounded musical as she took her place behind a glass counter. "I know more than that." Her eyes slid back to the vigilante, focusing sharply on him. "And this is the infamous man that emerged from the pit?"
"The pit?" Sabine mouthed, confused.
"We're actually hoping you know about these. Can you tell us anything?" Red Hood changed the topic hastily, not wanting to give the woman a chance to divulge more information about his morbid history. He slipped the black book out of his inner jacket pocket and slid it across the countertop for Madame Xanadu's perusal.
Madame Xanadu's thin brows raised as she inspected the book. She reached out a hand, her long fingers adorned with rings carefully turned the cover over.
"It's a grimoire," Madame Xanadu said plainly as she leisurely turned the thin pages. She noticed Sabine's blank expression then clarified, "A spellbook. Your mother collected them."
Puzzled, Sabine scrunched her eyebrows together. "But why?" And then a more crucial question dawned on her. "You knew her?"
Madame Xanadu took a moment to contemplate her next words. "I met Olivia Aberdeen once. She came to me with questions about her gift, and I sold her a grimoire to start her on her journey."
The sudden anger and hurt on Sabine's face were evident. Her hands curled into fists at her sides as she seethed, "Then you're the reason—"
"—She made a choice," Madame Xanadu corrected her. "When she came to me, I saw two paths before her. Unfortunately, I could not foresee which one she would take. I'm sorry for any pain it caused you." The older woman seemed troubled by her own confession. "I see the same two paths before you."
Sabine's jaw tensed. The revelation was akin to someone slapping her. Anger turned into confusion in a flash. "What do you mean?"
Red Hood couldn't hold his tongue any longer. "So these books are dangerous then?" It didn't sit well with them that Sabine had a fucking pile of these creepy things in her closet.
"Books are not dangerous," Madame Xanadu countered, closing the grimoire sternly with a thud, "intentions are." Her eyes zipped back to Sabine. "You're very much like your mother in spirit. Your auras are similar as well."
Some might take that as a compliment, but Sabine was very much able to read between the lines and unraveled the true meaning of Madame Xanadu's observation.
Sabine frowned. "You think I'll make the same choice as her. Take the same path."
Madame Xanadu offered Sabine a small smile to put her at ease. "The gift is there, it's your choice whether or not to use it and how you use it."
Sabine drummed her fingers on the countertop as she bit her bottom lip. It didn't feel like she had a choice. "Can't I…I don't know, like is there a way to unsubscribe from this whole thing? Cancel it?"
Red Hood bit back a gruff laugh and snorted. "I don't think that's how it works, Donuts."
"I figure it's worth asking," she shot back a little more heatedly than she meant to.
"Miss Song, change is never painful," Madame Xanadu, "only resistance to change is painful. And, as I said, you have a choice."
Sabine dithered, finding Madame Xanadu's advice more bothersome than helpful. She had the niggling feeling gnawing at her insides that the woman wasn't telling her everything.
"Olivia was tempted by the power in these books," Madame Xanadu continued sadly, "as many novices who are untrained in the mystical arts are. It's like jumping into the ocean before learning how to swim. If you are not prepared, the current will unforgivingly pull you under."
Sabine's blood ran cold, and ice pumped through her veins when she asked, "What do you mean?"
"Magic exacts a toll on the user—a cost."
"A cost?" Sabine's voice wavered. "So the price for my mother was her life?"
Madame Xanadu sighed; it was a hushed affirmation confirming Sabine's worse thoughts.
Sabine turned and looked at Red Hood. His expression was unreadable under the mask. "Do you think…you don't think the others—"
"It's possible," Red Hood answered sullenly. Although he really didn't like the idea of multiple magic users living in Gotham undetected. "How well did you know Storrison and Leblanc?"
Sabine licked her bottom lip and admitted, "Not that well."
"Your acquaintances' unfortunate deaths weren't the cost of magic," Madame Xanadu started, her lips pulled down into a disturbing grimace. "It was something else. Something that's decided to make Gotham its home. I've felt its disturbance all the way here."
Red Hood's shoulders slumped. "This just keeps getting better and better…" he grumbled, shaking his head. He was beginning to understand why Bruce found magic and anything pertaining to the occult frustratingly nonsensical.
"It's decided to make Gotham its home," Madame Xanadu repeated, her eyes falling sympathetically on Sabine, "but what I suspect it wants—what it truly wants—is you, Miss Song."
A few seconds of silence elapsed before Sabine threw out a strained laugh, wincing as her chest heaved. "Well, that's not unnerving at all."
A distressing thought then stormed into her mind: It's my fault. My fault they're gone.
Red Hood's fingers curled on the glass countertop, and the leather of his gloves creaked from the movement. Over his dead body that was happening.
"What is it?" he demanded. "And why her?"
Madame Xanadu gave Sabine a piteous stare. She didn't like to give customers news that would burden them. She saw the weight of her words reflected in the young woman when her shoulders sagged, crushed.
"Another gift from your late mother, I'm afraid," Madame Xanadu supplied remorsefully. "In her quest for knowledge and power, I fear she awakened something. Something old. Malevolent."
Red Hood loathed every word he was hearing and yet he needed to know more. "And?"
"That's all it will let me see," she confessed warily.
Sabine's mind was a fumbling mess trying to make sense of everything. She rubbed her temples. "But why now? After all this time?"
Madame Xanadu crossed her arms and shrugged. "Sometimes it's impossible to make sense of these things. They do as they please, some with purpose and others without."
Red Hood reeled in a dry laugh and it came out as a muffled snort. "Great."
Instead of answers, they were only digging up more questions.
He looked down at Sabine, the woman was unnerved and pale as a ghost. His chest twinged uncomfortably at the sight. The urge to put his arm around her and tell her 'everything was going to be okay' chewed away at him.
Sabine's stomach was in knots. She wanted to go home, hug her cat, and forget about this entire night.
Madame Xanadu didn't need her mystical abilities to perceive the heaviness in the air as a result of her words. From a shelf under the counter, she drew out a deck of cards. "Perhaps some guidance from the cards would help you move forward?"
The woman cut the deck with deft hands and fixed her eyes on Sabine, wordlessly urging her on.
Sabine forced out a breath, expelling the air she was holding in her lungs, before glancing sideways at Red Hood. "It couldn't hurt, I suppose."
Under his helmet, his lips and nose twitched to the side. "Knock yourself out."
Madame Xanadu waited patiently as Sabine nervously plucked the top card and laid it face up on the counter.
Both Sabine and Red Hood stared at the illustrated card: a tall white spire atop a rocky mountain. A bolt of lightning had struck the top of the structure, setting it ablaze. Fire poured out of the windows and doors. Underneath the depiction of the disastrous scene were two words in bold calligraphic text: THE TOWER.
Sabine audibly swallowed and knitted her eyebrows together in worry. "Well…that looks cheery."
Red Hood hummed tiredly in agreement as he leaned on the counter with a forearm.
"The Tower. Representative of disruptive changes," Madame Xanadu was quick to explain. "However, sometimes destruction, the tearing down of the old, lets us uncover our best selves."
"Changes," Sabine murmured after a soft smack of her lips. "Feels like everything's been changing lately."
Madame Xanadu reached out and patted her arm gingerly, her eyes moved to Red Hood for a second before shifting back to Sabine.
"Not all changes are bad or to be dreaded," she reminded the young woman before turning her attention to the vigilante. She gestured to the deck with an open palm. "Would you like to see what's in store for you as well?"
Red Hood paused. He was curious, sure, but did he really want to know? He chided himself, it was just a card. Nothing to worry about.
After a half-shrug, he flipped over the card on top of the deck.
The face-up card revealed a knight on a white horse in the middle of a great battle. The young knight brandished a sword as the horse charged forward. Below the image were the words: KNIGHT OF SWORDS.
"Hmm, the Knight of Swords," Madame Xanadu drawled. The card was almost too fitting for the vigilante.
Tension filled him. "Is that a…problem?"
"It means many things," Madame Xanadu explained loftily as she tapped the card thoughtfully with her index finger. "Ambition. Drive. Determination."
"All things I have in spades," he admitted with an amused chuff.
Madame Xanadu gave him a demure smirk. "Oh, I have no doubt about that,"—her small smile waned as her lips pushed together into a thin, concerned line—, "but be careful, ambition can be a double-edged sword. It can blind you to the consequences of your actions."
Sabine tugged on his arm. "Can we trade cards? I like yours better."
"No way," Red Hood chuckled dully, indulging for a beat in the feeling of her fingers wrapped around his wrist, "mine's way cooler."
Sulking, her expression dropped and she released his arm.
Madame Xanadu eyed the two with interest as they bantered. Her bewitching green eyes flitted between the vigilante and the young woman. A mischievous smile tugged at the corners of her lips and her eyes glinted when she asked, "Do you want to draw another card to learn about your love lives?"
Sabine's eyes bulged in shock as she stammered, "N-no thanks! I'm good."
At the same time, Red Hood took a step back and quickly shook his head, taken back by her probing question. "Uh, no thanks."
She hummed, disappointed with their responses but not in the least bit surprised. Although, she didn't need to read cards to know there was a tiny sprout buried inside their hearts that desperately needed watering. Such was the benefit of being able to truly see.
"As you wish then," she said simply. She cleared her throat and extended a hand expectantly.
Red Hood's gaze jumped between her outstretched palm and her face."Can't you put it on Batman's or Nightwing's tab or something?"
Sabine padded her pockets before pulling out her phone. "Umm, you wouldn't happen to do Apple Pay by any chance?" She suggested awkwardly.
"How about an IOU?" Red Hood offered sheepishly.
Madame Xanadu stared at them blankly, unamused and unmoved by their paltry offers. Telling fortunes for free didn't keep the electricity on or the water running.
"Fine, fine," Red Hood conceded as he took a wad of money out of his pocket, peeled several bills out of the bundle, and dropped it in her hand.
Her fingers closed around the payment as she accepted it, smiling once again as her ethereal voice trilled, "Thank you for your patronage."
1:05 AM, Monday
Sabine checked into a cheap hotel for the night because there was no way she could keep her eyes open long enough for the ride back to Gotham City. That and it was freezing outside. She told Red Hood she'd turn into a popsicle on the back of his motorcycle. And, somehow, he agreed with her without much resistance. She looked and sounded dead-tired and he couldn't blame her.
She took Madame Xanadu's revelations better than he thought she would, or maybe at some point in the conversation she turned numb to everything. Bad news piled on top of more bad news, and then even worse news, could do that to someone.
This led to the current predicament: there was only one bed.
"I'll crash on the chair," Red Hood offered instantly after he snuck in through the window and assessed the sleeping situation.
Sabine made a face. "Are you…sure?" Although she couldn't imagine sleeping next to him, or him sleeping at all. For all she knew, he slept upside down like an actual bat.
Red Hood was thankful for the voice modulator in his helmet. It made his tone sound artificially neutral instead of the strangled and cracked mess it was after her question.
"Yeah, it's fine."
He'd slept in worse places, way worse places: on the hard floor with nothing but a blanket, Roy's apartment…the list went on.
She continued to stare at him, concerned.
"The helmet is staying on," he insisted.
Sabine played dumb and put her hands up. "I wasn't going to say anything about that."
"It looked like you had something to say about it."
"Well, I don't," she said, annoyed. Though the mystery of who was under the helmet intrigued her, she was too tired to care.
Red Hood tilted his head in disbelief. "Sure."
They both fell silent.
Madame Xanadu's words wormed their way inside Sabine's mind, tunneling into the gray matter. It bothered her beyond measure that the woman claimed she was like her mother.
Red Hood saw the troubled creased lines on her forehead.
"How're you feeling?" he asked carefully.
She exhaled, long and shaky. "It was just..a lot. How I'm I supposed to go to class tomorrow knowing this stuff? How am I supposed to go on with my life knowing that what happened to them is my fault?"
Red Hood put a hand on her shoulder and she didn't flinch away from his touch this time. "What happened to them isn't your fault. Their deaths aren't on you."
Sabine crossed her arms and chewed on her bottom lip. "It feels like it, though."
He wanted to tell her that she couldn't start thinking that way because, if she did, she'd never stop but the words remained stuck in his throat. He wasn't a stranger to death or people dying. He didn't want to be the one to break it to her that it never got easier.
Red Hood dropped his hand from her shoulder as she paced beside the bed and he moved to the window.
She continued to spiral in front of him. "How is it not my fault? Maybe I could've stopped it, maybe I could've done something with this if I didn't ignore it…" her eyes fell to her hands. Her skin pulsed, and a shimmering aura encapsulated her palms and fingers for a moment before dissipating.
He froze by the window, one of his gloved hands in the middle of partially drawing back the curtain to scan outside. "So, what? You always knew?"
Resigned, Sabine flopped onto the bed with her arms spread out.
"Kind of? I just didn't want to really believe it, you know? Ever since I was a kid, weird things would happen. Like, Roz would be baking cookies and tell me I couldn't have one, and then later one would just appear in my hand. Or the time I passed out in a bathroom at some stupid frat party and woke up in my own bed all the way across the city five minutes later." She took a steadying breath, slowing down. "I wanted to pretend none of it was happening. That I was just stressed or…or losing it. Or there was some logical explanation. I don't know."
"But why?" Red Hood pressed, stoking the fires of his curiosity. "Most people find out they can do magic or have some sort of power and they're ecstatic. Thrilled even. Over the damn moon! Isn't doing magic what most kids dream of?"
She rolled over onto her stomach and pushed herself up on her forearms. Her eyes fixed on Red Hood. "Because I didn't want to be anything like her. I wanted to be normal. Like my dad."
Normal. It took a tremendous effort to keep himself from scoffing. Not at Sabine, but at the very idea that a 'normal' existed.
He certainly wasn't normal. Normal for him would be if he'd stayed buried six feet underground with maggots eating away at his decaying corpse. He was a punchline in some sick cosmic joke.
"It's not like she used magic to improve our lives anyway," Sabine grumbled, heat rising to her cheeks as years of buried anger bubbled to the surface. "It…changed her. Our lives weren't exactly easy before, but we were happy. And then all of a sudden this stupid shit was more important to her than me." Her eyes watered as she said, "My mom chose magic over me and it hurt so much. It still hurts. And now this thing—whatever the hell it is—wants me. It's like I can never move on with my life no matter how hard I try."
Red Hood watched as Sabine wiped a frustrated tear from her cheek. A familiar pain throbbed in his chest. His mother had her own vices too and it was a bottomless ache that he understood too well. Loving someone who struggled with addiction was hard; it was hard and only people who experienced it would ever understand.
He wanted to sit next to her, to tell her that he got it, that he understood. However, memories of his own grief and the desire to keep some emotional distance between them kept him pinned in place. He kept his pangs of sympathy to himself.
He scuffed at the tan carpeting with his boot. Some road trip this turned out to be.
Sabine lowered her head and sniffled. "Sorry for the word vomit."
"No, it's fine," Red Hood waved a hand carelessly in the air. "Better out than in, I always say." He slipped his thumb and forefinger under his chin, cupping it. "Or is that for actual puke?"
Sabine rolled her eyes and sarcasm dripped from her voice when she said, "You're wonderful."
Red Hood shrugged lazily. "I try my best."
The mood in the room shifted from uneasy to extreme fatigue. Sleep pulled at her eyes, the last bit of her energy trickling down the drain.
Sabine padded across the carpet to the bathroom, closing the door softly with a click. He heard the turn of a facet and rushing water.
He wondered if he was too callous or too harsh towards her just now. She'd been crying and he ignored it, pretending to be indifferent.
You're an ass, he told himself. Tim probably would've whole-heartily agreed with his secret admission.
She emerged from the bathroom with her hands dragging down her face, mentally and emotionally done for the night. Her eyes fought to stay open as she plopped back down on the bed.
Sabine fluffed a pillow between her hands. "You aren't even going to brush your teeth or gargle mouthwash? There's some in the bathroom." She set the pillow down on top of the mattress and turned her head to look at Red Hood. "Actually…I don't even want to know what your breath smells like under there."
Red Hood chuckled dryly. "It's not the breath that will get you, it's the sweat. It's sweat city under this helmet."
Sabine grimaced and stuck out her tongue in revulsion. "Blegh." She settled down on the bed, not bothering to pull the covers over herself. It felt illegal to lay down on top of the nice comforter in her day clothes. "Does it smell really bad under that helmet?"
He sagged down in the chair by the window and kicked his legs up onto the matching ottoman. "Fucking horrible."
2:30 AM
Jason didn't even bother to remove his helmet after Sabine began softly snoring well over an hour ago. He turned his head and his gaze settled on her sleeping form; her legs drawn up and bent towards her chest, elbow tucked under her head, and messy dark strands of hair covered part of her face. Peaceful. Not at all resembling the young troubled woman he knew she was lurking under the surface.
He hadn't even tried to sleep, he knew he couldn't so what would be the point? His mind was buzzing nonstop and his body was restless. He allowed himself some time to think about his next move; he'd been hoping that Madame Xanadu's information would bring some resolution to the problems plaguing Gotham and Sabine. Instead, conflict raged inside him.
Something was after Sabine and it was killing people she knew. But why? Maybe to break down her spirit and leave her open and vulnerable to whatever its nefarious plans were for her. After all, that's what he would do.
He could use her as bait, draw it out into the open. At least, that's what he would've done several years ago when he was ruthlessly taking over Gotham's criminal underworld. The ends always justified the means back then.
Jason clicked his tongue disdainfully at the idea. Use her as bait? How could he ever have such a messed-up thought?
Silently, Jason crossed the room, being careful that his heavy boots didn't thump too loudly against the floor. He sat on the edge of the bed, the dip in the mattress from his weight didn't even make her stir.
A part of him still wanted to comfort her somehow, to soothe away her worries. But how could he do that when he was a mess himself? It wasn't his place to even try.
That stupid lock of bright blue hair—that annoyingly reminded him so much of the turquoise in Nightwing's suit—which framed her left cheekbone had fallen in front of her eyes. He briefly pondered if she chose that color deliberately to annoy him.
Jason's right hand moved on its own accord as if possessed, not knowing whether he wanted to tug on the offending blue hair or push it out of her eyes so he could see her dark lashes. It was only when his thumb hovered closely above her brow that the realization of what he was doing ferociously slammed into him, bringing him back to his senses. His whole body stiffened; his outstretched hand tensed.
What the hell was he doing?
Breath caught in his throat, he pulled his hand back to his side.
It was as if Sabine unconsciously sensed his presence near her sleeping form and she rolled over, away from him without waking, and curled herself into an even tighter ball.
Jason hung his head low as he rested his arms on his thighs, pitching himself forward in a depressed slump and wondering what the hell had unearthed these tumultuous feelings inside of him. This unspeakable magnetism that drew him to her like a moth to a flame could only be described as cataclysmic—an utter disaster waiting to happen.
And then something dangerous happened in Jason's mind; he allowed himself the luxury to think of one of the countless what if's that plagued his second chance at life.
What would his life be like if his mother hadn't died?—if he hadn't become Robin or been adopted by Bruce Wayne? If he hadn't tried to pursue his birth mother halfway across the world and…died. Brutally. Painfully.
Would he have gone to college at Gotham University and studied Classics and Literature? Would he spend his nights studying in the library instead of pummeling criminals? Would he still have met…
He shook his head, tearing his mind away from what could have been. It was pointless to fantasize about another life—a different life—now. He was the Red Hood, and there was a deep dark part of him that wouldn't have it any other way.
He liked being so feared that criminals' trigger fingers trembled when they heard he was nearby; he liked hearing the fear in their panicked voices as he took them out one-by-one.
Some days he felt untouchable. Invincible, even.
And other days he felt…like this. Raw. Exposed. Vulnerable. It scared him. He didn't know what to do in those situations.
He couldn't protect Sabine—much less anyone else—when he felt like this.
Jason straightened up and paced over to the window. Although there were only two of them in the room, he suddenly felt stifled. The air in the room was abruptly too hot and too scarce.
He needed to get out. Now.
He turned on the comm line in his helmet and called Oracle. It wasn't that late and he knew Babs oftentimes would listen in on the police scanner and alerts until dawn, keeping a vigilant eye—and ear—over Gotham.
"Do you even know what time it is?" Her groggy voice asked through a muffled yawn after a hiss of static. It must've been one of those nights where she turned in early. Surprising.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," he exhaled apologetically. "I need you to look something up for me."
"Can't you look this up on your phone instead of, you know, waking me up?"
"Don't have it on me," Jason said, keeping his voice low.
"Getting into shenanigans with Roy and lost track of your things again, huh?" she teased.
Tersely, he replied, "No. Work-related. I need to know how much a ticket is from the closest bus terminal in New York to Gotham."
"Oh. Give me a sec." There was a pause. He could imagine her sitting in front of her computer, the bright glow of the screen reflected in her glasses. "Closest Greyhound station has tickets available, 37 bucks one-way."
"Thanks."
Barbara let out a disgruntled huff over the comm line. "Are you going to tell me how you ended up in New York?"
Jason rubbed the back of his neck as he swiveled around, facing the bed that Sabine slumbered on. And there it was, she was doing that eerie hovering thing again. At least one foot off the mattress this time. Yeah, it was time for him to go.
Eventually, Jason said with a hoarse voice, "Maybe another time. Thanks again."
Shutting off the comm line before Babs could say anything else, Jason heaved a sigh. Regret devoured his body.
He couldn't stay. Maybe in another life, another timeline, he could.
He grabbed a pen and notepad inside the nightstand, scrawled a short message, put down the last of the money he had on him, and left out the window without looking back.
8:00 AM
Sabine stirred, her eyes blinked open slowly and she stretched her arms up and over her head. Dazed and foggy, last night felt like an awful blur.
She glanced around the room. Sunlight crept in through the drawn curtains. Bitterness settled into her soul once she realized that she was alone.
She pushed herself up into a sitting position and caught sight of the notepad left on the nightstand. She read over the scrawled sentence on the note:
MONEY FOR THE BUS.
All caps and in messy penmanship, but no sign-off or signature, or acknowledgment that he ditched her.
Next to it were two folded 20s.
How thoughtful of him. Her nostrils flared as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Jerk.
It was silly and naive of her to expect Red Hood to keep his promise of getting her home in the morning. He probably figured that he was still, in his own way, keeping it. But maybe it was better this way. She could just imagine all the gawking onlookers staring at him during their morning commute on the interstate as he whipped past their cars on his motorcycle. That didn't mean that was not not mad at him though.
In fact, she was pissed. Seething. She wanted to throttle him, she didn't care if he was one of the deadliest people in Gotham.
After taking time to straighten her clothes and smooth out the wrinkles in the fabric, she went into the bathroom and splashed cool water on her face. She swiped the money off the nightstand, shoved the bills into her jeans pocket, and peeled the note off the pad before crumpling it.
She helped herself to the continental breakfast in the small lobby down the hallway from the room by grabbing a pastry, a small bowl of fruit, and a tiny cup of orange juice.
While munching on her breakfast, she took a moment to process last night's events. She could do magic, albeit her abilities were unpredictable because she wasn't trained. Even more troubling, something was after her.
The intrusive image of the tower set ablaze on the tarot card barged into her mind.
Change was coming. Inevitable, unavoidable.
But what change? It was hard for her to believe that she'd suddenly decide to pursue magic like her mother.
It was up to her to decide what to do with her 'gift'. Madame Xanadu made that clear. A gift that felt remarkably like an inescapable curse and a permanent reminder of her mother's memory.
How she wished Madame Xanadu could've told her what to do. Sabine craved feeling the relief of someone else harnessing the reigns that steered her towards whatever destiny had planned for her; to give up control and power over herself for even an hour so she could finally get outside her own head and fucking relax.
But what if she accidentally turned someone into a lizard (could she do that?)? What if she accidentally hurt someone?
So much of what she'd experienced was out of her control that she couldn't fathom that she'd ever be able to learn how to harness it usefully in some way—never mind master it. That seemed impossible.
Yeah, she dismally decided, this is a curse.
She was cursed. Hopelessly, endlessly cursed.
Sabine cleared the paper plate and utensils off the laminated gingham tablecloth as visions of lizard-human hybrids swam in her mind before turning in her room key to the front desk.
Outside, she zipped up her jacket before pulling out her phone to navigate toward the closest Greyhound bus station. The blue lines on the Maps screen indicated that there was a bus terminal two miles away from her current location. She hastily searched for the bus schedule; if she hurried she could make the 9:30 AM one departing from the station.
It was difficult for her to focus her thoughts on the arduous task of getting home when she was also furious at the person who got her into this mess.
Red Hood definitely owed her a tourist shirt—in addition to a damn good explanation—and his snack privileges were revoked after this stint.
If anyone deserved to be turned into a lizard it was him.
A/N: I imagine the ventilation in Jason's helmet (and suit) is truly awful…he is RIPE under there and I cannot be convinced otherwise, lol.
Buckle up!—things are gonna get a bit bumpy between Sabine and Jason/Red Hood for a few chapters. :')