Thank you Persephoniii and FuschiaGrasshopper for reviews!
Sorry I updated a bit later than usual on this one. But the chapter turned out to be a little longer than the others... I've got some things coming up like holidays so I may not get to post as often for the next few weeks. I will post at least once a week though. But if I do get time for more, then I will post as usual. That was super unspecific, I'm going to stop talking now. But I should also say, if you want to leave me some feedback, I'd be happy to hear it.
Grady's grandfather had often warned her that "pride goeth before the fall." Pride had kept Grady continuing business as usual even though she knew Hannigan's boys were following her. "Let them follow" she thought. "They'll see I'm not up to anything." She was so convinced she'd cleanly covered her tracks. "They won't dare come after me in my shop" she had told Oswald. And she was not wrong. They had jumped her in a back alley a few blocks from her shop late one night.
Pride led her to stare through the bars of a makeshift cell at the hated face of Pat Hannigan, blood trickling into her left eye. Pat had a wide, soft grandfatherly face except for the mass of scar tangled on the left side of his chin. His voice was quiet and pleasant in a way that was not all expected for a crime boss. He used his charms at every opportunity but they did not stop Grady from hating him because he reminded her very much of her father who was an old friend of his.
"So Ailis..." he said, peering through the bars at her with a faint smile.
"You could just say Grady," she grunted. She had never been fond of her name which only long dead family members had used. It touched a nerve to hear it from his mouth.
"Aye, but me knowing you since you was wee, just about this high...that's why it grieves me that my boys had to rough you up. But you gave them quite a fight, what could we do..." Hannigan shook his head as though truly saddened.
"I would love to know what I'm doing here in the first place," she mumbled, holding her sleeve to the blood still flowing from the cut above her swollen eye.
"We're here because I do know you Ailis. I know you to be a clever girl. Now my boys have run into some lucky lately. And the thing of it is, luck and Carmine Falcone don't often mix if you know what I'm saying. All these tips from nobodies, bums, and shop keepers, and janitors and the like, putting my boys in the right place at the right time. I'm pleased and all but it seems a bit too convenient, doesn't it? Makes me afraid there's something...untoward going on. Would you agree?"
"I see what you're saying," Grady said carefully. "But a friend of mine told me once, one shouldn't question good luck."
Hannigan stepped closer to the bars. "Ailis, you and me both know that wouldn't be at all wise. There's luck and there's a set up."
He bore down on her, hands wrapped around the bars, staring down into her grey eyes with his murky brown ones. "Now, why you would bait Falcone with Burrow Boys is beyond me...it would be the height of treachery what with happened to your dear departed father. 'No," I said to meself. 'That can't be right.' But I'm looking. And I'm seeing these things...they may look like a good thing but something about the way these operations have run was awful familiar. Reminded me of a young girl I've known a long time."
Grady gave a great shrug. "What do you want me to tell you? I deal in machines. It's nothing to do with me."
Hannigan heaved a sorrowful sigh. "And if not you Ailis...then who? That's the question I just can't seem to answer. I hate to do this to Tim's own daughter but I'm afraid if you don't give me the name of whoever's been scheming and using the Burrow Boys...then oh, Miss O'Grady we will have a problem."
Grady cast around quickly for someone to blame, but there was no one apparent. Given a few days, a few hours even, she could set someone up easily... But right now her head was pounding from being thumped against a wall and struck with the butt of a gun. "I have no idea who's doing it Pat. The Burrow's not been on my radar. I can find out in a day though. You said yourself, I'm clever. You know I can do it."
"It's not a question of can, dear. It's a question of what else you might do if I turn you loose. I'm giving you one last chance to give me a name. And if it was you, well...perhaps we can come to some sort of understanding. You know everything that happens in the Burrow and most of what happens in Gotham at large, I'd wager. You know what's happening here and if you don't want to tell me, you leave me to assume the worst. For which you'll be quite sorry. I'll ask once more. Who's been tipping off the Burrow Boys?"
Her ears were ringing and the part of her brain that skipped five steps ahead of whoever she was talking to didn't seem to be working. Grady knew she must have hit her head very hard. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been in such a fix. She felt like...she could faint. Yes. Perfect. She had lost a small ocean of blood from above her eye and she felt a lump the size of an egg on the back of her head. Just exaggerate. That was all that was needed. She was Irish, she exaggerated stories almost professionally.
Grady grabbed the bars to steady herself. Blinking her eyes furiously, teetering from side to side. It didn't take much acting, she did feel awful.
"Alright," she gasped. "I just - I'll tell you but...I'll be in trouble for it, ach!" She clutched at her head, leaning backward now. "The guy doing it he's...and we..." she let the rest dissolve into a mumble.
"What?" Hannigan barked, soft voice cracking. "Dammit Grady, speak up. No, no, no, no..."
She collapsed into a heap on the floor, knocking the egg on the back of her head on the way down. For a moment she thought she'd really lose consciousness and then all would be lost. There was a sickening tipping sensation as though she would fall through the floor, but then it steadied as she listened to Hannigan's cursing. He dashed out, probably looking for someone able to bring her around.
She wouldn't have long. Grady sprang to her feet, which made her head throb as though a stake was jammed through it. Hannigan's office blurred and tilted, the bars of the cell adding to the illusion. It was a good thing her cage was a makeshift contraption with a crude lock. And Grady could pick locks in her sleep. She fished through her pockets for a long, thin piece of wire and set to work. Her hands weren't steady so it took longer than she would have liked. There were voices nearby, maybe upstairs. Hannigan's headquarters were an old converted tavern that creaked and echoed as old buildings do. She closed her eyes and let the lock's mechanisms speak to her. Feeling it out with the wire, listening to the soft clicks. There was the catch. She had either unlocked it or broken it, but either way, her door swung open.
The room she was in was wide and lined with small windows, it was once the dining room of the tavern. The left hand windows glowed with streetlights. The right were darkened and must lead to the alley. She could only hope it was deserted. She heaved open the window, hands still trembling. The bitter wind bit at her cheeks. A peek outside showed only shadowed old dumpsters. No sign of Hannigan's men. She slid through the window and landed outside with a lot less grace and more noise than she would have liked, but the ground rocked beneath her and the night blurred with each throb of her head.
Grady couldn't go home. Despite the arsenal she hid in her shop, she couldn't take on all of them alone. At the moment, she could barely walk a straight line. Her jacket was frisked before Hannigan locked her up, but it was lined with so many hidden pockets, it would have been impossible for him to find everything. She had happened to stick her phone in one such pocket. Which was odd because she had never put it there before. Lucky. Don't question luck.
His mother wouldn't like it at all, but Oswald had nowhere else to bring Grady.
"I didn't know what else to do," she said when he found her bleeding a few blocks from the Burrow limits. It was a sign of how badly she'd been injured. Grady always had at least five options in mind.
"Who did this?" he demanded.
"Hannigan. Who else?" she said bitterly. "Sorry, I didn't know where else to go."
His mood was black as the night when he led Grady through the door. Perhaps sensing this, his mother didn't object as heartily as he expected.
"The strange woman with the metal boxes," she squawked when Grady entered. "I knew she was no good! I knew she would drag you into trouble!"
"This is more my fault mother," he steered Grady toward the dim living room full of stiff antique furniture. "If you could give us a moment."
"Why would you bring her here?" his mother protested. "She has no business here! Dragging you out until all hours these days! Your poor mother!"
"Look at her Mom," Oswald argued. Grady, quiet for once, swayed dangerously in her seat. "What do you expect me to do? Leave her in the street?"
"Not a bad idea. The state of her...she is already a street urchin," Mrs. Cobblepot sniffed as though Grady were a mangy stray.
Grady almost laughed but it made her ribs sore.
"Mom please," Oswald said again, using the childish tone that usually got him what he wanted. "Grady has helped me many times in the past. We must do something for her now or she may not be so kind in the future."
His mother rolled her eyes, muttering in her native language but disappeared from the living room.
"She's not wrong," Grady said quietly. "I must look a sight."
"You're lovely as always," Oswald laughed. With a gentleness neither of them knew he possessed, he dabbed at her eyebrow with a handkerchief. But his humor quickly stormed over into anger again.
"He's finished," he told her. "I'm going straight to Falcone. We'll have his head."
"In that case..." Grady reached into her jacket and fished out a flash drive. "Some incriminating evidence Falcone will be interested to hear. Tell him you got it from...I don't know. I don't what to tell him..."
"I'll think of something," he stuck the drive into his pocket. "But you agree Hannigan must die?"
"Hang on," she mumbled. She closed her eyes, deep in thought and Oswald waited for her to work her way through it. "Yes, why not," she said at last. "He has to die sometime. Might as well be now."
"You don't hesitate for some ridiculous honorable reason, do you? Some Burrow code?" He raised an eyebrow.
"He has no honor," Grady said. "I was just making sure the stars are right, the planets aligned and all that..." She winced rubbing at the back of her head.
"You may be able to convince mother to give you some ice for that, but I make no promises." He pointed to a door to the right. "My room. You should rest. Not to mention you'll be safe from mother's pestering there."
"Thanks," Grady said and wiped at her split lip. "I intend to repay you. And repay you well."
He looked at her battered face from the cut brow to the purpled eye to the split lip. His blood was humming with anger like it was coursing with acid. Somewhere along the line, he wasn't sure when, maybe it even began at that very moment, but somehow an attack on Grady had come to feel personal.
"And I intend to repay Hannigan," he said. "He dies tonight."
He found his mother hovering at the kitchen door, eavesdropping he was sure. Her big eyes flashed at him with both fear and annoyance. "Where are you going at this hour?" she asked.
"I have to take care of something for Grady. You have nothing to fear, I'll be back in a few hours." He pecked his mother on the cheek and added. "Try to be kind to her. It's just for tonight."
Grady was so exhausted she couldn't bring herself to get up from the couch. Her head pounded like her brain was swelling and threatening to burst from her skull. However, she changed her mind about retreating to the dark quiet of the bedroom when Mrs. Cobblepot stomped over to glower over her.
"What kind of trouble do you get my son into?" she barked, hands on her hips.
Loud. Far too loud. Each word like a hammer to her head. Grady pressed the heel of her palm between her eyes.
"It's me that's in trouble. He'll be fine," Grady gave her a quick glance, and found the woman was quite intimidating so she looked away again. "You should trust him. He's a smart one."
"Smart men can be blinded by women," she said, shaking a crafty finger in her face.
Grady closed her eyes and leaned her head on the arm of the sofa. It was too heavy to lift.
"Ma'am with all due respect," she said. "I'm in this state because I was trying to help him. Not the other way around. If you'll notice, he's the one still standing." Silently she begged Oswald's mother to go and leave her in peace to sleep or pass out or whatever her head was trying to do.
"What sort of young lady finds herself in your state? What you were up to, I would like to know. Something very improper I am sure. What did your mother teach you? To get yourself all bloody with the cuts and the -," she waved at the bruises, clearly forgetting the English word.
"My mother never taught me anything," Grady mumbled, half asleep. "I don't even know who she is."
It was like a switch had gone off. Mrs. Cobblepot did not become tender but with a sigh she straightened from her stooping position over Grady's beaten slouch. Muttering to herself, she went to fetch some ice from the freezer.
"You take this and you do not sleep," she instructed. "You have the..." she waved her hands again, searching for the word.
"Concussion," Grady flinched as she placed the ice on the lump, the lightest touch made it throb.
"Yes. No sleep. You stay out of my son's room. You have no business there," she narrowed her eyes at Grady.
"That's the last thing on my mind at the moment," Grady muttered.
"What was that you say?"
"Nothing," Grady said. "Thank you. For this. And for the shelter."
"Girls with no mothers," Mrs. Cobblepot threw up her hands. "They go out brawling on the streets. It is too dangerous for my son even."
She disappeared into another room.
For a time, Grady used the cold ice to shock herself from sleep. She spent awhile in a murk of lucid dreams and old memories, but as the ice took down the swelling, she became more alert. She sat up after a time, heard the sound of Mrs. Cobblepot's snores from somewhere in the house, which was at least a small relief.
Very early in the morning, Oswald returned. After shedding blood, sounds seemed magnified, the shadows were lighter. It was a peculiar and amazing state, but one he knew it was dangerous to throw himself into too often. For he had a very thin grasp on reason and control. Falcone was pleased for the information he supplied him. A series of audio tracks carefully altered by Grady to make it appear as though Hannigan had planned each strike against him. While the Burrow Boys had spirit, they were never a match for Falcone's power and he had Hannigan in his grasp within hours. Hannigan who bleated in a dead man's panic about Grady setting him up.
"Do you know anything about this?" Falcone had asked Oswald.
"Grady...Grady the mechanic? I have no idea. I'm afraid my grudge against Mr. Hannigan dates back to my time even before Fish Mooney." The lie fell as smooth as silk.
"I don't know who you are boy!" Hannigan raged.
"Of course you wouldn't," Oswald said. And he fed a quick story to Falcone about being mugged by Burrow Boys years ago. And Falcone, grateful to be rid of another Burrow nuisance, irritating, but about as threatening as mosquito, had allowed Oswald to do the honors and left him to it.
"He's dead." Oswald tossed this at Grady in an offhand manner on his way to check on his mother who he found sleeping over her knitting.
"Why are you still out here?" he took a seat beside Grady. "I said you could rest."
"Your mum forbid me," she said with a light laugh. "Besides, can't sleep. I've a concussion."
"I'm sorry if she was...less than hospitable," he eyed the damage to Grady's face, less swollen, but still bright with color. He felt a blaze of satisfaction at having spilled the blood of the man who did it.
"I think she sort of likes me now," Grady said. "Maybe. A bit. Well not really...so, no problems then?"
"None. Falcone was less interested in how I found out it was Hannigan interrupting his operations than the fact that I did catch him at it."
"Falcone doesn't see us as humans...not anywhere near his level. We're like fleas to him," she glowered at her hands as Oswald tried to dissect her. She had lumped herself in with the Burrow which she only seemed to do when someone offended the Burrow in some way. As if sensing him analyzing her, she gave him a reproachful look. "He does the same to you. Doesn't suspect you of telling him anything less than the truth, just buys your old underdog grudge story."
"And it worked in my favor," Oswald added.
"True..." The sun was rising, filling the room with an eerie red light reminiscent of Hannigan's blood, how it had spilled on his crisp white shirt. "Did you get to do it?" Grady asked, her eyes glinting like they did on the night she killed Rice. "Did you kill Hannigan yourself?"
"I did," his heart quickened with the memory.
"And did you enjoy it?" she asked as he had once asked her. She smirked, eyes glittering in the red light. There was that small, but characteristic gap in her teeth. It was as if the entire evening's ordeal was rushing down on him like a wave.
Oswald found his hand under her chin and Grady had a question in her eyes. He felt in that moment that he had to claim this exact smirk, the gap in her teeth and the only way was to press it into his memory. So he found himself kissing Grady, not for long but not at all shyly. And maybe it was fitting that there was the taste of old blood from her split lip.
Having stolen some of her breath, and free from the madness, he released her.
"Well that's nice, isn't it. You and your Ma have both gone mad," Grady looked quite stunned. "I should get myself nearly killed more often."
Grady didn't look unhappy, but Oswald was disturbed. He had surprised himself which was not something that happened often. "Don't make a habit of it then," he rose to go open the heavy curtains. "It's no help to us for me to behave unpredictably."
Grady was equally puzzled and said nothing to this. She stayed on the sofa while Oswald stared out the window watching the sun rise over Gotham.
