Chapter 13

Cassandra liked the silence. It gave her brain the stillness it needed to think and her spirit the time it craved to figure out what her next move should be. Should she leave Gotham? Why would she stay? If I stay here, should I even try to contact this Cobblepot?

Cassandra sighed and pulled her coat closer around her. It was chilly, but she liked being outdoors, and the zoo was not crowded during the winter. Crowds confused her, distorted her path. It was too easy to get turned around and lost, especially if the crowd was loud and she could not hear for landmarks over the jumbled squawking of people. Sometimes, if she focused only on the smells around her, ignoring the strangers as they invaded her space, she could pick up the scent of food or garbage or sewage or even burning steel or chemicals, and use these clues to help her regain her position. Right now all she heard was the breeze, the cry of distant animals, and the faint drone of vehicles from the streets a few blocks over. There was an aroma of hot chocolate and buttered popcorn in the air—such an unusual combination, but it made her hungry and long for warmth. So their union worked as it was supposed to, even if others thought the two should not go together. The breeze held the promise of ice, but it was playful, lifting her hair to tickle her lips. Cassandra chuckled as she tamed the savage locks, twisting her mane and tucking what she could under her collar.

This was pleasant. The cement bench was making her butt cold though.

She heard a leaf fall to the pavement, only to be dragged away by the delicate wind. The noise conjured an image of a claw scratching its long talon across concrete and Cassandra shuddered, her serenity shattered.

If I stay, do I search him out? And what then? Warn him? She placed her head in her hands. Maybe I should just leave him alone.

She felt like a wraith, not quite in any world, stuck in between. She knew she was supposed to find Cobblepot and she knew what her mission was—to kill him, but she had determined to not go through with it, although she did not understand what was stopping her. She had heard awful things about the man—murderer, arms dealer, price manipulator, thief, mob boss, drug smuggler, general all-around baddie. But something did not sit right, like a bottle cap twisted on at an awkward angle. Just means something was going to leak out. If she could concentrate hard enough, it would. She was sure of it. Then she would know what to do.

It would all be all right as long as he did not find her first. She would be like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, or in her case, keeping with her hobbies—a girl discovered playing with matches above dried grass. If this happened, she knew she would not be able to mutter anything intelligible.

Why is it that I feel as if I am connected to him? She clutched her chest, overcome with sorrow and something else—longing? Desire? A painful loneliness? A fierce determination to protect him? Like a shadow needing both the light and the dark to exist. Am I more light or dark? She was certain she was dark, having been forced to live with it since as long as she could remember. It had terrified her—the dark, but somehow she acclimated to the absence of light.

She had been told she had been blinded as a child, a result of a fire, but she was given no further details by her guardians who only fed her hints about her past every now and then—especially the gregarious female child. The little one could never stop talking. She made up stories—love stories—for Cassandra, and the tales had kept her going actually. Particularly when she was having a panic attack because of the dark. The little girl would pet her and tell her a fairytale. Then others would come and show her how to fight, to keep herself safe, they told her. And, don't forget your medicine, they reminded her.

Cassandra grew to enjoy the fighting and looked forward to the different training—martial arts, weaponry, gymnastics. The activities fed the rage that sat like black, liquid swamp water on the bottom of her heart. She could feel it in her mind too—her very soul became twisted with it. She imagined herself grabbing at the slick, dark thing and cramming it into a box with clasps.

Don't lock it away, they told her. But do not let it control you, you must learn to control it. She had laughed at them then and nicknamed her two teachers: Yoda and Mr. Miyagi—mentors from movies she remembered as child and movie clips suddenly flashed across her mind.

Wait—she remembered. It was then they had increased her dosage.

In fact, she should not be remembering this now, and it confused her. Had she forgot to take her medicine today? Symptoms of withdrawal would include delusions and false memories—delirium, they called it. Said my nightmares would come back. Told her she even might go insane and start slaughtering everyone. This frightened her the most. Hurting innocent people was something she could not live with, not with a stable mind, at least.

She thought about those poor souls in Arkham and pulled a syringe from her purse and jammed it into her thigh, the liquid automatically emptying into her muscle. It always felt weird inserting the needle there, but they told her it would take effect quicker if she did. She had always done as they had told her.

The name Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot kept limping around in her head.

In this case, Cassandra was not going to do what her captors had mandated. It would be the one time she could remember that she ever had disobeyed their orders. Normally, she would be out for the blood and guts and all the gooey parts of a person with Cobblepot's attributes, but again . . . this did not feel right. She had learned to trust her physical senses—that was true. Just because she was blind did not mean she could not see something. She did not need her sight to know that this was wrong. She trusted her instincts—although she could not ascertain why—and not a moment had passed during her captivity that Cassandra had not been on her guard.

She stood. She was going to leave Gotham, but first she would write the man a letter, explaining his peril. The least she could do was send him a warning. Then once her medicine started to run out, she would lock herself up in a room somewhere or hide out in the woods. Let me take it out on the walls or the trees, she thought.

Or maybe in the midst of the meltdown, I will take my own life. Maybe I will not even know it when I do. That thought seemed to soothe her, but still she pushed away the premonition, hoping it would not end with her despairing—whether lucid or not.

But, Cassandra knew better. She knew she would die by no one's hand but her own.