A/N: Another chapter, hope you guys like it! Sorry I kinda took a while to update. ~
I took another sip of my mango smoothie I had bought from Smoothie King as I sat and listened to Emily and Sierra talk about how drunk they got at the frat party last Friday and how cute the boys they made out with were for what seemed to be the third time today. Before my shift at work started Emily, Sierra, and Dante decided to tag along with me and hang out at the mall for a while. The Gotham City mall was one of the few places that remained less dangerous than the rest of the city because it resided in the somewhat wealthier part of Gotham. It wasn't exactly the safest place in the world but then again nowhere in this city was. The mall at least remained intact and nice, unlike some areas in Gotham that's had become rundown or littered with graffiti.
So here we were at the food court having smoothies at one of the tables.
"Anyways, Ben was so hot." Emily sighed, gushing over the guy she had made out with from the party.
"I thought you said his name was Blake." Dante scoffed while chewing on his straw. I exchanged glances with him as I stifled a laugh.
"Oh yeah, Blake." Emily waved a hand, but then realization dawned upon her face expression. "Oh my god, now I can't remember if I had been calling him Ben the entire night. Do I even have saved in my contacts under the right name?" She picked up her phone and scrolled along her contacts before slapping a hand against her forehead. "Yep. I have him as Ben. How embarrassing." She whined.
"It wouldn't be the only time you called a guy by a different name." Dante shook his head and smirked, earning a defensive yet amused glare from Emily.
"Hey!"
"Alysa, you should've came with us! Then maybe you would've gotten a guy too." Sierra interjected with a wink.
I scrunched up my nose as I took another quick sip from my smoothie. "Thank you so much for your concern, but I was completely fine not going." I pressed my finger against the top of the straw to suck some of the juice out from the end as I usually did. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Emily roll her eyes at me.
"As if Alysa needs help in getting guys. I mean look at her, she probably has a bunch of guys texting her all the time."
"Oh yeah, true." Sierra scoffed and smacked me across the arm, pretending to be annoyed.
I stared at them in disbelief and pulled my mouth away from my straw to show them my phone screen which revealed a very empty notifications inbox. "What are you talking about? I literally barely ever get any texts the whole day."
"Lies." They all playfully said in unison.
"I'm serious, the only 'guy' I get look forward to getting a text from is Dante when he says he wants to go get food." I admitted, which earned an amused laugh from the group. The said lovely boy held a hand over his heart and faked a sniffle. "Aw babe, that's so touching."
"You know it's true, too." I rolled my eyes, nudging my shoulder against his.
"Don't worry, Alysa. We'll all get boyfriends by the end of the year." Sierra assured with a giggle.
Dante nudged his shoulder back against mine. "Oh but she already has a billionaire boyfriend, don't you Alysa?"
I stared at him in confusion and slight uneasiness as he wiggled his eyebrows and gave me one of his infamous seductive smirks. "What are you talking about?" I reached forward for the straw of the smoothie, unsure if I wanted to even know what he was suggesting.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. Your new boyfriend Bruce Wayne, of course." He chuckled and continued to nudge at my shoulder. I nearly choked on the smoothie.
Oh god, not this again.
"Oh my god yes, I can't believe you actually talked to him!" Emily squealed with excitement and Sierra edged closer to the table in interest to hear more once again. I almost strangled Dante for telling them the first time, the three of them wouldn't shut up about it for the entire day. Then again, Dante couldn't stop talking about it ever since we had left the penthouse party Friday night.
"Like, you actually talked to Bruce Wayne. Bruce. Wayne. What the actual fuck. He's basically a celebrity."
"He IS a celebrity!" Sierra scoffed.
Dante nodded in agreement as he began to speak on yet again with his story. "Can you imagine what I thought? There I was, feeling so bad that I had completely forgotten about Alysa-"
"You did forget about me." I interrupted, giving him an accusing stare. He brushed aside my comment to continue. "Anyways, so there I was feeling bad. I started looking around the room to look for her and there I saw her talking to Bruce fucking Wayne. I shit you not I had to take at least three double takes to make sure it was actually you. I couldn't believe it. My little Alysa was talking to the famous Prince of Gotham." Dante shook his head in disbelief.
Once Emily and Sierra broke into another fit of squeals, I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes.
"It's not that big a deal, he probably talks to every girl at his parties."
"But he actually had a conversation with you!" Emily swooned.
"Yeah, for like a minute. But then he had to leave. That's probably the last time I'll ever see him," I shrugged. As I absentmindedly blended the straw from my drink, a slight feeling of disappointment couldn't help but brushing my thoughts.
Wait, why was I even disappointed..?
I quickly brushed the thought from my head and gave out a scoff. "He's like 40 anyways," I mentioned out loud.
Emily snorted. "He's still hot, not to mention rich. I would totally bang."
We all chuckled. I shook my head and slung my bag over my shoulder, finishing the last of my mango smoothie before tossing it towards the nearest trash can. "Okay," I drawled. "Well, I need to get to work or I'm gonna be late again. See you later guys."
"Okay bye, Aly." Sierra grinned.
"I'll text you later, babe." Dante gave me a thumbs up.
"Try not to run into anymore billionaires." Emily winked.
I stepped away from the table pulled my hair behind my ear, glancing sideways to see if anyone noticed that these people were actually my friends. "You guys are crazy," I said in a sing song voice, trying to hold back a laugh.
"That's why you love us," Dante blew me a kiss.
I waved a final goodbye and made my way out of the food court to get to the Forever 21 store where I worked at. It was a good job with decent pay that a broke college student like me so desperately needed. Since I only worked part-time there, it fit right in between my school schedule.
As I walked inside the store, several of my co-workers who had noticed me arrive briefly waved in greeting and went back to folding clothes and organizing racks. After I dropped my belonging off at the employee lockers, I walked over to the cashier station to claim my shift. One of my co-workers working the previous shift smiled when she saw me, glad that she was allowed to leave now. Once she left I sighed and began ringing up the remaining customers in line.
A few hours passed and I was grateful that there was only an hour left until closing time. Thankfully, my shift today ended earlier than usual since the mall hours began closing at a much more earlier time than it used to due to some suspicious activities going on lately that I didn't know much about, only by hearing rumors around the store.
The customer line was growing smaller by the later hour, probably because people avoided being out at night too long. I definitely couldn't blame them.
A pretty blonde woman came last in line, setting down a blue blouse on the counter with a receipt. As I looked at her face I couldn't help but wondering where I saw her face before. She definitely looked oddly familiar, like I had saw her on television before.
"I'd like to return this, please." She spoke.
"Yeah, sure." I took a look at the receipt while folding the blouse. "I just need to see your credit card that you bought this with."
She handed me her credit card and I swiped it along the cash register.
"With the kind of job I have, I barely have any time for shopping. I just see what I want, buy it, and go. Too bad I accidentally got the wrong size," She sighed with a smile.
"I get you," I chuckled in agreement before handing her back her card. "Your all set to go."
She smiled back at me and took the card back, murmuring a quick 'thank you'. As she fumbled with her wallet to stick her card back inside, I finally couldn't help myself from asking.
"You know, you look familiar."
She gave a small laugh at my comment and slipped her purse over her shoulder. "You have no idea how many times a day I get that from people, honey. I'm a news reporter, that's why."
Once she caught my face expression still trying to make out with who she was, she mimicked the very recognizable news reporter voice, "This is Vicki Vale reporting live from Gotham City.
She laughed again when my face finally hit recognition.
"Ohhh! You're Vicki Vale! Duh, of course." I rolled my eyes at my brief stupidity. "Of course I know you now, you're so cool. If I ever watch the news, it's on your channel." I winked and clicked my tongue at her.
That is, if I ever actually watched the news on TV. Now a days I only got the news from social media or word of mouth. But like I was going to say that when Vicki Vale herself was standing right in front of me.
"Well thank you, honey." She returned the wink. "Good choice. By the way, do you by any chance go to Gotham University? I'm just wondering since this seems to be a popular spot for college kids to work at."
"I do, why do you ask?" I wondered.
"I've been wanting to do a report on Gotham University for a while and I think it would be even better if I got the opinion of a student on how it's like attending University in one of the most crime filled cities. I want to know if they have different lives than any other normal college student."
I shrugged. "Eh, I would say our lives are still pretty normal for college students."
"Well, that's exactly what I want to know. I've also been in contact with one of the Universities journalism professors. I want to make a program where I can take a few students that want to pursue journalism as a career to get a hands on experience on the kind of work I do for a day," She explained.
"Really? That would be so cool!" I inquired. My mind slightly wondered if Professor Roland was the journalism professor she got in touch with. "I'm actually taking a journalism class this semester."
She smiled. "That's perfect. Then you can check out that program when it comes out."
I nodded. "I will, definitely."
"Anyways, I've got to run. It was nice meeting you, honey. What's your name?" She reached out her hand towards mine.
"It's Alysa," I smiled and politely shook her hand.
"I'll be seeing you later then maybe, Alysa." She winked and returned the smile before walking out of the store.
Since it started getting closer to closing time the rest of the employees remaining in the store started closing up. One of the co-workers that I got along with the most started organizing the racks that were out of place at the last minute as she was passing by the cash register.
"Dina, I can't believe you missed her." I peered over at the entrance of the store to see if I could still catch sight of Vicki somewhere.
"Missed who?"
"Vicki Vale was here," I stepped away from the cash register once I had closed it down as well, starting to make my way back over to the lockers.
She gaped at me while proceeding to fold a pair of shorts that had been thrown onto one of the table displays. "No way, really?"
"I'm serious, she just left like a second ago."
Another one of our co-workers Julie peeked around from behind a rack she was organizing. I was surprised she even peeked interest at our conversation since she usually kept to herself most of the time. "Really? She's one of my favorite reporters."
"Yeah, she was telling me she might do this journalism program thing for Gotham University. It sounded pretty cool."
"Lucky," Dina pouted, expressing her annoyance since she attended college at a different school which was a small private liberal college nearby.
After we gathered our belongings from the lockers and closed up the store to leave, Dina and I started to make our way out of the mall and back downstairs to the parking lot. Julie even tagged along this time. I've always tried to make it a habit to leave with one of my co-workers, since Dina and I didn't particularly want to wander around the usually vacant parking lot at night. Even the mall was kind of creepy at closing time since most of the shops were closed and barely any people were left. The lights remained dimly lit since all the closed stores were dark inside. We headed towards the elevator and pressed the button that went down to the parking lot.
As the elevator doors closed and we waited to arrive at our destination, we continued to idly converse amongst each other and talk about little things like work usually.
"Do you guys work tomorrow?" I asked.
Julie shook her head and Dina groaned. "Yes, unfortunately."
The elevator suddenly made a low creaking sound like the rubbing against metal. I felt myself instantly get a little tense but I decided to brush it off as nothing. The elevator was a little old, after all.
Actually, that should probably make me worry.
"That sucks," I continued on with the conversation to try and ease my thoughts, but then my worse thoughts were confirmed once the elevator came to an abrupt jarring stop that made us momentarily lose our footing.
I immediately grabbed onto the railing behind us to catch myself from falling. The other girls fell backwards against the side of the elevator with surprised yelps, clutching onto the railing as well.
"Okay, what the fuck is happening right now." Dina breathed, mimicking my exact thoughts at this moment.
"It's probably just a mechanical problem," Julie glanced over at the elevator door which was currently still shut.
That really wasn't a good sign.
I stared up at the ceiling and saw some of the lights begin to rattle.
Something was definitely wrong.
"Oh my god, what if we get stuck here the whole night?" Dina worriedly exchanged glances with me, her facial expression starting to turn to panic.
I furrowed my eyebrows with worry. "Don't say that, I really have to pee." I helplessly whined.
"Oh, thats what you're worried about!?" She gave me an incredulous look, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh. Maybe I could help ease the tension by at least trying to be funny. But I actually really did have to pee.
When the elevator doors suddenly opened each of us let out a relieved breath of air. However when I saw the unusually dark eeriness of the empty parking lot, I felt my skin start to crawl with even more uneasiness than before. As soon as we heard the loud motor of what seemed to be a motorcycle upstairs; along with screams and gunfire, we immediately backed up against the wall of the elevator and screamed in terror.
"Oh my god, what do we do!?" Dina's voice cried out in a terrified hitch, nearly on the brink of tears.
As soon as the roaring motor of the motorcycle grew closer heading in this direction, my gaze shot open at the clearly visible fact that the elevator doors were still completely ajar. "Are you fucking se-" I cut my sentence off short in disbelief over how stupid we were standing there as I threw myself over to the button panels to furiously press at the button to close the doors.
I felt myself feel a bit more safer once the elevator beeped and the doors shut close, but then we heard a sudden loud thud of someone being thrown against the elevator right as the doors stopped moving. Dina and Julie screamed again as we pressed ourselves back against the railing, terrified that whatever had fallen against the doors were trying to break it open.
We quickly huddled together for safety and remained under a deafening silence as listened to the faint painful grunts and punches being thrown from the other side of the door.
"Is this some kind of a gang fight?" Julie murmured, her voice so quiet I could barely hear.
Dina quickly shushed us from speaking and I briefly shook my head. "I don't...know-"
Some kind of odd looking knife shooting right through the metal of the elevator door was enough to shut me up and send a scream escaping from my throat. Julie was probably too frightened to scream at this point, but Dina was on the verge of crying right about now. We trembled against each other and stared at the knife that had been thrown through the metal. No, it wasn't an ordinary knife, obviously. It wasn't even a knife. It was obviously made of steel like a bullet, but the insignia of it was shaped like a...
Bat's.
I felt my jaw slightly drop as I continued to stare at it. A small red light flashed from underneath the bottom of the insignia, and I was almost nervous that it was going to blow up on us.
"Is that..?" Dina nervously inquired.
The noise outside soon fell into an ominous yet calming silence. The only thing we could hear was the beeping of the elevator, indicating the doors were about to open. I felt my stomach start to turn and the only thing I could hear besides the deafening silence was my heart beating like a jackhammer. Once the doors opened, we were met face to face with none other than...
Him.
I could only imagine how ridiculous we looked just staring agape against the back of the elevator wall.
The normally dimly lit parking lot was covered in darkness, so he easily remained encased in the shadows but we could see still his abnormal gleaming eyes from inside his cowl, remaining emotionless, cold.
The few partial pictures I saw of the Batman in the news was nothing in comparison to how frightening he looked in person.
I was too scared at that point to even notice his glaring eyes looking straight at mine. I couldn't make out his facial expression, that is if he even had any, but from this angle I could see his eyes narrowing in that of almost interest.
"Leave. Now." His distorted deep voice suddenly rang out from the shadows, making the other two girls and I jump and snap out of our terrified trance.
We hesitated for a second longer before stepping out of the elevator, but we decided to not waste anymore time so we each scurried out of the elevator like frightened kittens. We sprinted across the floor of the parking lot and ran all the way outside to where we heard the faint sound of police sirens nearby. Dina and Julie leaned against the wall to catch their breath, while I pressed my hands against my knees to catch mine.
As the police sirens grew closer, we all stared at each other in disbelief.
"Oh. My. God." Dina inhaled.
I stood up straight again and ran my fingers back through my hair, leaving the palm of my hand up against my forehead to process what had happened.
We actually saw the Batman.
I dared myself to look over my shoulder back to where the elevator was. He wasn't there anymore, of course. I looked back over outside and watched as the tires of the police scars screeched across the pavement road. Several police officers exited their vehicles with their handguns by their side to investigate what had went on inside the parking lot. One of the few female officers that remained outside to stand guard ushered us closer to their vehicle.
"Are you okay, girls? What happened?" She questioned.
As Dina and Julie quickly blurted out loud in every detail about what had happened, I found myself spacing out and staring at the sidewalk pavement.
Wait a minute.
I saw the Batman and didn't get a picture of him.
"Alysa?" Dina raised her eyebrow.
I ignored the confused stares of the others as I suddenly swore out loud, mumbling a bunch of profanity in Portuguese.
