Family Portrait

by Harley4479

Kylie Quinzel is living with her grandmother, fairly isolated from the rest of the world. Her mother's visits are spare and she knows nothing about her father. Then, strange changes start to throw her life off balance. For some reason she appears to be of interest not only to criminals, but also the police. The young woman finds herself as a toy in the fight for Gotham City.

5. A trace

Nervously, Blade bit into the tip of his index fingers until he could taste blood.
He cursed quietly and let his hand down while listening to the stead tooting of the mobile phone.
Finally, someone picked up. "
Yes?", someone barked through the receiver.
"It's me", Blade murmured.
"Did you find her?"
Blade swallowed hard
"No. I… ."
"What?!"

The 18-year-old hastily whipped the phone away from his ear, but even now he could hear the furious voice of his collocutor loud and clear.
"You can't be serious! How stupid are you? What's so damn hard at following the crazy nut job woman of this clown?"
"I followed her 'till Goldfield.", Blade explained
"But then I lost her tack. I'm really sure that she's still around here somewhere. She definitely hasn't left this dump… ."
"Around here somewhere, just hearing this! Now listen closely you little scumbag: The Penguin wants this bitch not around here somewhere! He wants to know exactly where she is! And it's your responsibility to find that out, got it? Otherwise you won't have to step foot into Gotham ever again!"
Blade rolled his eyes.
"Alright, alright, calm down a bit. I'm going to… ."
He went silent and his eyes widened.

"What are you going to?", yelled his collocutor.
"Wait a second", murmured Blade.
He stepped out of the shadow of the house at which's facade he'd been leaning and studied the other side of the street.
Over there, a young woman appearing to be around 16 had just emerged.
Her bright hair flickered in the light of the setting sun and her clothes emphasized her slender figure.
Everything about her, even her smooth motions, seemed familiar to him.
Blade swallowed hard.
"That can't be… am I going mental?"
"Hey, are you still here?", shouted the angry voice from inside the phone.
Blade didn't give it any attention, but rather pulled out a crumpled-up photo, out of his jacked, using his free hand.
His gaze sliding between the photo and the girl.
"Unbelievable!"
"Would you respond, you stupid idiot!"
Blade brought the phone back up to his ear.
"I'm back."
"Finally! What was that all about?"
"Sorry, that was an emergency. I just made a pretty interesting discovery that'll probably get me closer to my goal. Tell Cobblepot I'll be calling again soon."
"You can't… ." But Blade had already hung up.