[[I'm trying so hard to keep writing. This, the stuff I dream of publishing, all of it. But her just walking out on me has made everything feel impossible. It's hard to keep caring about anything when you're suddenly without the person you cared about most.]]

Sister Katya brought the sobbing child out from the basement to Father Nil's office. The priest returned only twenty minutes later and was taken aback, first by the smell and then by the sight that awaited him.

"Sister Katya, what have you brought me here? Is that boy the thief?" The priest stepped past the two to his desk. With every attempt to examine the child he shuddered.

"He is, but I don't think he meant us any harm. Look at him, Father, he's in terrible condition."

"Well, I should say so. But why did he come here? He doesn't look like he's from the congregation. Why did you come here?"

The boy said nothing, he only pointed first to his lips and then laid a finger on the scar that ran across throat.

"He hasn't said a word. He coughs and chokes when he's crying, but no real words," Sister Katya said. "He keeps pointing at that mark. I don't think he's able to speak at all."

The priest looked over the child: the scars all over his face and neck, the green that looked to have been beaten into one of his cheeks as if on impact. Father Nils crossed himself before he spoke again. "Have you contacted the authorities?"

"I wanted to consult with you," Sister Katya said. "I don't know where he came from, but what if it was his parents who gave him all those marks? Will the police try to find them? If he ran away, he clearly had a very good reason."

Father Nils nodded as she spoke. "Your heart was in the right place, but the police will not turn a child back over to his abusers. Hopefully they will be able to locate another relative he can go to." He picked up the phone on his desk. "I'll contact them, we can speak with someone together."

Another hour passed before Father Nils rose and stepped out of the office to greet Officer Zurowski with the Department of Child Services. The priest's little office was growing crowded, so he motioned for Sister Katya and the boy to follow him out. The child only rose with the nun's motioning and kept within a few steps of her as the four made their way inward and sat in the church pews. When Sister Katya blessed herself at the font, the boy sloppily did exactly likewise, which made Sister Katya giggle a bit in spite of herself.

Officer Zurowski pulled a pen and paper from his dress shirt. "You said he's been stealing food from your stores?"

"Someone has been for the last week. We don't know if it was all him, but it probably was," Father Nils said.

"When did you discover him?"

"I found him there this morning," Sister Katya said.

"Any idea why he came here?"

"He didn't look familiar to us," Sister Katya said. "Maybe he's been to another church before and knew there are sometimes food stores."

"Mm." Zurowski nodded and turned his attention toward the boy. "On the phone you indicated he either is not or cannot speak. Is that correct?"

Once again, the boy pointed, first to his lips and then the white-hot line across his throat. Again, Zurowski nodded and noted. Afterwards, he tore a piece of paper out from his pad.

"What about writing? Do you know if he can write?"

"We didn't test that," Father Nils said.

Zurowski directed the piece of paper and the pen toward the child, but the boy looked at him blankly. Only when Sister Katya set an hand on his back and said, "Oh ahead. It's all right. Take them," did he accept the objects. Still, he held them and looked back and worth between the adults in confusion.

"I just want to know if you can write," Zurowski said. "Do you know how to write?"

After a little hesitation, the boy shook his head.

"Do you at least have a name? Do you know how to write a name? Or maybe just form one with your lips if you can't write or talk?"

Again the boy looked between the three, longest at Sister Katya, before he even attempted a response. He did know his title, but had never attempted to imitate the action of speaking it. To the best of his ability, he mouthed the phrase.

Zurowski raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, could you try that again?" The boy cooperated, Zurowski's frown deepened. "One more time?" The child did the motion again. Zurowski shook his head. "I don't know what he's trying to say, but it's no name I've ever heard."

"What will happen to him?" Sister Katya asked.

"There's only so much we can do if he literally can't give us any information," Zurowski said. "I want to ask some more question and match his appearance and prints with some other runaway reports. But assuming we can't get some more details, he'll need somewhere he can be fed and cared for for a while."

"The church sponsors a home for lost children just a few blocks from here," Sister Katya said. "Would it be acceptable for him to stay there?"

"There's some paperwork that will need to be completed before we can make anything even temporary official, but it's fine by me." Zurowski said.

Father Nils eyes Sister Katya as she spoke before he looked between her and the boy. "You seem like you've already taken quite an interest in him."

"I only want to see him well, Father," Sister Katya said.

The sickly boy looked at the three again and again, but his eyes always stayed most secured on the nun.

On the fourth floor of Gotham General Hospital was a wing designated for those injured while suspected of criminal activity and the uninsured brought in with emergencies. A young police officer sat at the desk usually designated for a receptionist. Despite Gotham's usual chaos, the hospital wing usually kept quiet. There was yet another section of the hospital for criminals with a decorated history and always had several more cops on duty. The uninsured remained on the west side, the lesser criminals laid cuffed to their beds on the east. Every window on the east side was surrounded by intersecting iron bars to prevent escapes and suicides.

In room 408 laid a gangly young man of 19. His stint with the other Reapers had cost him his full-ride scholarship, his father was footing most of the medical expenses but hadn't said a word to him since and he'd probably be carted off to prison as soon as his lower body healed. Richie Plier at least got used to the misery as the weeks passed. The memory of being thrown out of the apartment building was worse than anything else.

Richie had just considered nodding off into sleep for the night when he heard the ting ting ting on his window. He looked toward it but couldn't really make out anything making the noise. It took him a minute to even realize something was obstructing his vision. A black shape had come between him and the city outside.

The room was overtaken by the screech of shattered glass. A black leather fist punched through the window. Richie Plier screamed. The officer ran in from the hallway with a hand toward his gun.

"What the hell was that? The officer looked back and forth between Richie and the shattered window.

"Someone was trying to break in!" Richie sat up and stared at the barred window.

The guard stepped closer to assess the damage that had been done, knelt and examined the broken pieces of glass. "Hm, he's got an arm, that's for sure." He pulled the radio from his belt. "Officer Shay, it's Officer Matthews. We've got some kind of intrusion on the fourth floor, over."

"Shay here, do you understand the nature of the situation, over?"

"Someone would have had to scale the building or something." Matthews felt around his belt and found a key. "I'm getting a better look."

"Don't!" Richie's breaths were fast and heavy. He had no way of identifying the threat that had smashed the window, but everything seemed too familiar for comfort. "Don't touch that!"

"Settle down, Pliers." Officer Matthews unlocked the bars and slid them aside. Pistol in hand, he cranked open the window and stuck his head outside.

Richie was at a bad angle to view what followed, but he could still hear the crack and the shout as the officer's body spasmed. An unseen force pulled Officer Matthews toward the outside. Richie screamed again and tried with all his power to get up, but the handcuff and his broken lower body kept it impossible. As if in one motion, the cop's body disappeared out the window, followed by less than a second of screaming.

For a few moments, everything stopped.

Then the body, like it was made of shadow, slipped through the window. Richie threw out his lungs and screamed again as he faced the opponent that had debilitated him.

The Odmience moved with intense purpose, but Richie's screams quieted slightly when he walked past the bed. But as soon as the young man realized he was only grabbing a chair to prop against the door to keep it shut, the calm was eradicated again. The Odmience turned to face him, Richie could do nothing but keep screaming. As the shadow closed in and grabbed ahold of his windpipe, he shut his eyes and prepared to disappear.

"Ugh, thank you! That was getting grating."

Richie didn't know what to make of the words and it took a few seconds before he opened his eyes. The Odmience, still with his hand on Richie's throat, held a video phone up to his face, an older man with a scarred face and blonde hair smirked back at him.

"Richard Pliers? Codename Figment? So nice to see you. I'm sure you and my student have already met."

Richie tried to respond, but all he could manage was gurgles thanks to the Odmience crushing his throat.

Lipov sighed. "Odmience, release his neck. And break it if he starts shrieking again."

If not for Lipov's threat, Richie would have done just that. As was, on the boarder of hyperventilating, Richie spoke. "What the hell do you want?!"

"We were just having some technical issues and needed to call for some support." Lipov pulled back the phone and revealed the two women by his side.

Richie double-took. "Jill? Tracey? What are you guys doing with these freaks? I thought I heard you were in jail."

"Scarface and his mute kid broke us out," Jillian said. "We just need a hand getting back in business."

"You bitches are out of your mind!" If Richie could move a single muscle in his lower body, he'd have scrambled off the bed minutes before. "He's the reason I'm like this! He threw me out a window! He—"

"Yeah yeah Richie, we already know," Tracey said. "You were kind of a warning shot for the rest of us."

"I don't want anything to do with this, you can tell this creep he can just throw me right out another window for all I care!"

"Don't go throwing away opportunities so easily," Lipov said. "Haven't you considered what would happen if you had that suit of yours back?"

"I told you, I don't—"

"Suppose you could start making duplicates again. Would they be able to get up and walk? Would you be able to move freely again?"

Richie held his tongue in the middle of his complaints. It was not something he had considered, but the thought seemed to both slow and accelerate his heartbeat.

"I… what?"

"Think of it as my apology," Lipov said. "I broke your body, but perhaps I can give it back to you."

Richie's body still shook as he looked back up at the Odmience. He could only barely make out anything he hadn't seen before. He stood completely still, the black suit seemed to somehow mask his breaths. All that was any more obvious in the light was the chilling blue of his eyes.

There was some exchange Richie couldn't understand before Lipov passed the phone off to Jill. "Listen, Richie, we're just trying to get the old armor back. The cops screwed up the tracking software. You said you had a backup protocol to track them, we just need to access it."

The young man swallowed hard as his mind raced. "I don't want back in on this. I nearly got killed last time."

Lipov stepped back into frame behind Jill. "There's nothing illegal about this you know."

"Helping you guys break into government storage space?! Yes! Yes that is very—"

"No one's going to punish you any worse for sharing this secret. Not when your life is on the line."

Richie was about to say something more, but the Odmience grabbed ahold of his throat again. Even the gentle squeeze nearly made him scream.

"It's very simple, Richard," Lipov said. "You tell us where to go, he won't break you again. You don't, and he will not be so gentle this time."

Richie tried to swallow again, but the Odmience's grip on his throat didn't let the saliva through. He'd decided he couldn't live that kind of life. He didn't want to keep fighting freaks in spandex, that maybe he could get off easy with the courts. That he didn't want to risk being killed again any time soon. The last concern swiftly became the most pressing.

He tried to choke out the words, and when the Odmience saw he couldn't his throat was released. After a hacking fit he said, "You guys on the computer then?"

"Yes," Tracey said.

"The tracking system backup is a in a folder marked, 'Tagged in the ear.'"

"Subtle." Jill rolled her eyes and there came a click of keys.

"Run the EXE," Richie said.

Two more clicks. "It needs a password."

In spite of all his fear, Richie couldn't keep the red from his cheeks and a groan. "I know. It's 5318008."

Jill slapped herself in the face, Tracey uttered a, "Ha!" Lipov raised an eyebrow.

There came a pounding on the room's door. "What the hell is going on in there?"

"Crap," Jill said. "Richie, do we need anything else?"

"No, it should get going as soon as it loads."

"We're breaking down this door if we have to!" It was an officer. Clearly an officer.

"Odmience, make some distance. We have what we need," Lipov said.

The figure in black glared at Richie a last time before he approached the still-open window. A police siren had just started to howl.

"Wait!" Richie shouted.

The Odmience, video screen still pulled up, turned back toward him. The beating on the door grew louder. The wood was beginning to splinter.

"Get me back my suit and get me the hell out of here!"

Sister Katya gave the rest of her day to caring for the boy. As she examined the mess he'd made of boxes and wrappers in the kitchen, it was apparent he had just been tearing open containers without much thought of their contents. At some point he'd eaten a beets straight from a jar and may have consumed some flour raw.

"I don't know when the last time you must've eaten anything warm must have been," Sister Katya said as she began to simmer a pot of water for soup. "But we'll make that right."

As the ingredients cooked she led the boy into a washroom and helped him clean himself from his hands to his elbows. "A good bath to wash away the dirt and silt. You'll need that too."

In time he was served a meal of soup, bread and dried fruit. The child was ravenous in his consumption and Sister Katya had to place a hand on his back and say, "Easy, son. You'll make yourself sick if you eat too fast."

The boy followed all of her instructions whenever they came. Though is smile seemed somehow uneasy, as if he had never shown it much, Sister Katya could sense he was grateful.

The nun led him for three blocks to a small store of discounted clothes. She was hesitant to dress him in them before wiping away all of the grime, but was sure he'd smell better if she disposed of the soiled clothes he was wearing. The section for children's clothes was a small space in one corner of the store and most everything was plain looking, only differentiated by color.

"Pick a few things, I will let you know if they are affordable," Sister Katya said.

The boy's eyes widened and he looked toward the clothes and back to the nun, as if he had no knowledge of what she was saying.

"Go ahead. I have final say, but you get to pick."

The boy stepped closer to the racks and very gently sifted through the clothes, as if he expected to be corrected at any moment. When Sister Katya did not stop him, he pulled a black shirt, resumed searching, pulled a second and then a third.

"You can pick something else, you know," Sister Katya said.

Again the thought looked as if it made the boy uneasy and he quickly shook his head. He went about finding pants in the same way and searched through the racks for black. It seemed a little troubling to Sister Katya, but she decided the important thing to do was let the boy make his own decisions.

After a mostly quiet journey the rest of the way to the orphanage, Sister Katya said, "We still don't even have anything to call you, do you?"

The boy looked up at her as he led him and, again, tried to mouth the only name he'd ever known.

"Could I help you pick something?"

The boy gave pause for a few seconds and nodded.

"Since you came to Saint Raphael's, I think he would be happy if you shared his name. Can we call you Rafal?"

As they kept walking, the boy lowered his head for a moment before he looked up again. The uncomfortable smile had returned and he nodded.

"That's a good name then," Sister Katya said. "Rafal you will be."