Catwoman

by Sarah J. Maas

  Ivy crossed her arms. “I’m not surprised the rich and powerful want to keep such a natural wonder and gift to themselves.”

  Selina studied the ground beneath her feet. “Neither am I.”

  Ivy asked, “If you knew about ley lines, why act like you didn’t?”

  “I didn’t know much, just rumors. And you’re the science nerd,” she said. “I wanted to see if you knew more.” Selina toed the dirt. Not a thrum of energy to be found, at least not through the thick soles of her boots. “And…maybe I wanted to get out of the city for a night, too.” While Harley was off doing whatever it was that Harley did in her spare time.

  Ivy smiled, a few of those flowers blooming again. “You can just ask me to hang out the next time, you know.”

  Selina laughed. “I realize that now.”

  Luke had thanked his parents profusely for the gala—and apologized for the broken glass afterward.

  Just a drunk reveler who forgot to go home, he’d told his mom. She’d given him a look that said she highly doubted it, but asked no questions.

  His dad didn’t need to ask questions, however, when Luke had insisted his parents go to their château in Provence.

  His dad had only said he’d have the private jet fueled up and they’d be on it by midday. How his dad explained it to his mother, Luke still didn’t know. But his father had hugged him tightly before Luke left the estate. He wondered if his dad was worried he’d never get to do so again. If he was remembering the phone call he’d gotten in the middle of the night when that IED landed Luke in a field hospital.

  A few hours later, his parents were gone, flying over the Atlantic.

  That had been three days ago. And since then, Luke had spent that time holed up over at Bruce’s manor—well, beneath Wayne Manor, technically. Reading through any and all files on the League.

  Tigris: deceased. He’d written that into the system himself. And then he’d combed through Bruce’s archives, searching for any sign of Catwoman.

  Luke found nothing. Not a whisper. She hadn’t gone by Catwoman until she arrived here. And either she was young enough to never have made a name for herself at the League, or she’d been kept secret by Nyssa and Talia as they waited to unleash her upon the world.

  Until she’d unleashed herself instead.

  And whatever she was going to sell to Gotham City’s underworld…He couldn’t risk that happening. Gray as her morals might be—ready to kill a woman and then uttering a final rite for her the next—he had no doubt that she’d go through with her plan. Jeopardizing Gotham City in the process.

  Or would she? He was still puzzling over it as he finally returned to his apartment that night. She’d warned him to protect Gotham City from the League. The good people here.

  It made no sense.

  And time was short. There was a GCPD event tomorrow night, honoring the police’s service to this city. Every important cop, politician, and donor would be there. It was her ideal sort of target. The kind that packed a message.

  Luke had no intention of wasting this chance to grab her. Stop this madness.

  He’d already warned Gordon to have extra security: armed guards, bomb-sniffing dogs, metal detectors, snipers on the roofs of adjoining buildings. Every angle had been considered.

  Back in his own apartment, Luke opened his fridge and frowned at the empty insides. Right—food. He had none. He’d been living on Alfred’s mercy these past few days, the older man delivering him sandwiches and tea services and the odd slice of cake or stack of cookies.

  But Alfred’s care went beyond that. The level of trust between Alfred and Bruce…that was a one-in-a-million type of bond. Not easily found or built. Yet Bruce had paid a steep, steep cost for it, one that Luke couldn’t imagine. One that still haunted Bruce, decades after his parents’ murder.

  Luke shut the fridge, the click nearly drowning out the sound of the elevator’s ding down the hall.

  Which meant—

  Pathetic. He was really pathetic, he decided, as he rushed to the peephole in his door and watched Holly approach her apartment. She had shopping bags again—heavy ones.

  He hadn’t seen her since the party at his parents’ house. Since their strange, tense conversation. But it was still normal. She was still relatively normal.

  Not at all like that cool-voiced woman who made him grind his teeth, who took on assassins and walked away. Whose face he hadn’t even seen, but that quiet laugh of hers haunted him.

  Normal. He needed, wanted normal. Even if Holly herself had warned him that it was a cage, he didn’t care.

  Luke flung open his door.

  Holly whirled, keys in the lock, eyes wide.

  He cringed. Perhaps he’d been too enthusiastic with the door-opening.

  A little too eager.

  He leaned an arm against the doorframe. “Hey.”

  Smooth. Really smooth.

  She flicked her eyes over him, body loosening as she opened her door and dumped her bags inside. They landed with a heavy thump. “Hey yourself.”

  Not the warmest greeting. It was probably Bruce-level, if he was being honest.

  “How was shopping?” His mind was a vacant hole, and he scrambled for a question, any sort of sane thing to say to her.

  She flicked up her brows. “Stimulating.”

  Luke tapped a bare foot on the ground. “You eat yet?”

  A pause. A slight tensing of her shoulders. “No,” she said warily.

  He tried not to look too desperate as he asked, “Pizza?”

  Holly considered. Glanced at her bags behind her, then toward him. “Give me five minutes to change.” Luke avoided the urge to sag with relief. “And order two this time,” she added with a hint of a smile.

  And even with Catwoman’s low, sultry voice still purring in his head, the ghost of a real smile on Holly’s mouth made everything vanish.

  * * *

  —

  “I can’t move,” Luke groaned to Holly forty minutes later, patting his aching stomach as they sat a conservative distance apart on the couch. The TV flickered atop the lit fireplace, his apartment cozier than he could remember in recent memory.

  Holly set her pedicured feet on the leather ottoman, stretching out. “I sense a food coma coming on.”

  Luke smiled at her, scrolling through the channel guide. “You want to watch a movie?”

  A casual, tossed-out-there question. One that might very well constitute a date, if he’d asked it at another time and place.

  Holly paused again. He braced himself for the rejection, but she said, “Sure.”

  Luke eyed her. “You’re being…nice.”

  “Would you prefer I not be?”

  “No, I just…I wasn’t sure where we stood after my family’s gala.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but his phone buzzed on the couch between them, and her eyes dipped down.

  Bruce Wayne was displayed in big letters across the front of his phone. Christ.

  Luke gave her an apologetic wince and hurried into his bedroom, shutting the door.

  Luke picked up right before it went to voicemail. “Hey, man.”

  He could practically hear Bruce’s frown through the phone. “Hey yourself.”

  Luke stepped into his walk-in closet, shutting the door there, too. Just to be safe. “What’s up?”

  Another pause, heavy and long. “What the hell is happening over there?”

  And there it was. The call he’d been waiting for these weeks. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  Luke gritted his teeth. “I don’t answer to you.”

  “No, but you answer to the people of Gotham City.”

  “I’ve got it under control,” he repeated.

  “You call three women wreaki
ng havoc on Gotham control? Poison Ivy: she’s been mostly harmless. An environmental fanatic, but harmless.” Luke could have sworn he heard Bruce ticking the items off on his fingers. “Harley Quinn: not so harmless, but has been quiet since her ex-boyfriend went to Arkham. So the way I see it, this newcomer—Catwoman, whatever you call her—she’s the ringleader.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s the one you need to lock up,” Bruce went on.

  “I know,” Luke snapped.

  Another one of Bruce’s Pauses. “I should come back.”

  “No,” Luke growled. “You should not. One, I’ve got it under control; two, you’ve got your own mission to deal with.” That Bruce still hadn’t told Luke about.

  Luke felt just a tinge guilty—just a tinge. Because aggravation aside, the idea of seeing Bruce go head-to-head with Catwoman…It made something in his stomach twist a bit. Just enough that he didn’t want Bruce coming home anytime soon, mission or no.

  Bruce sighed tightly. “Call if you need anything.”

  Luke debated reminding Bruce that he wasn’t some underling, but only said, “Sure, man.” Bruce terminated the call without further farewell.

  Luke sighed, staring at the built-in oak shelves of his closet. No, he didn’t answer to Bruce. Never had and never would. But he did owe this city some semblance of safety.

  Taking a moment to gather himself, Luke loosed a long breath before heading back into the living room. “Sorry about that,” he said, setting the phone on the coffee table before sitting on the couch once more.

  Holly lifted a groomed brow. “Friend of yours?”

  “He’s my boss, so…yeah?”

  “I thought your father was the CEO.”

  “He is, but it’s the Wayne family’s company.”

  “And I suppose you and Bruce Wayne are card-carrying members of the Rich Kids Club.”

  “And you’re not?”

  She blinked at him. “It’s different for boys.”

  He leaned back on the cushions. “Yeah, yeah. Says the girl who told me Europe was boring.”

  Holly rolled her eyes. “A bit of posturing.”

  “Why did you come here, then?”

  The amusement on her face died. Went quiet. Those green eyes again wary and distant.

  Luke pressed, wondering if he sounded like an idiot as he asked as casually as he could, “Bad breakup or something?”

  Holly swallowed. “You could say that. I wanted…a fresh start.”

  He tucked his hands behind his head. “Well, I’m glad you did.”

  “Was that a nice thing you just said to me?”

  Luke chuckled. “Smart-ass.” He pointed toward the TV with the remote. “Pick a movie. Any movie.”

  A challenge and dare. Her green eyes flickered with it. “All right. Carousel.”

  “The musical?”

  “You know it?”

  “I saw the revival on Broadway a few years back.” He shrugged. “Carousel it is.”

  “No, no, let’s watch something you want—”

  “Backing out of it now that I called your bluff?”

  Holly crossed her arms. Luke chuckled, switching over to his streaming service and finding the movie. But as the overture started, he could have sworn he saw her smiling.

  * * *

  —

  There was sand, and blood, and screaming.

  His body was on fire, shrapnel turning into claws that dug deep and shredded. Limbs rained, blood sprayed, and he could do nothing while they died and died around him, while the world turned over and his ears hollowed out, and he knew he was never going home, would never see his mom or dad, would never make it home—

  “Luke.”

  He was going to die here, in this place where he’d come to prove something—to himself, his parents, the world. To prove he wasn’t some spoiled brat, to fill some hole inside himself. Now he was full of countless holes, bleeding out—

  “Luke!”

  He couldn’t stop it. The blood, the dying. Couldn’t move to help his friends, screaming in pain. Or the ones so still—not screaming at all.

  “LUKE!”

  The shouting tugged at him, but it was the pain that slammed him home.

  His face stung, and he blinked, blinked and gasped for air, trying to reconfigure where he was, in the blue-lit dimness—

  “You are in your apartment in Gotham City,” said a steady female voice. “You are alive.”

  Luke shook, unable to halt the tremors, the mortification now burning up his face, or the nausea rising up in him—

  He ran. Not for the bathroom but for the balcony.

  Fresh air. He needed fresh air.

  He reached the door when two strong, slim hands grabbed his shirt. Tugged him into a stop. “Luke—”

  “Fresh air,” he got out.

  Those hands loosened their grip, but remained steady on him. One slid around his waist.

  Holly.

  Holly Vanderhees.

  She brought him to the railing. Let him brace his arms against it, head hanging in the brisk wind, peering toward the drop below as he rallied himself, steadied himself.

  “You must have nodded off.” Right. After the movie had ended, he’d switched to regular cable news and she’d stayed to watch, and he’d been so warm and comfortable.

  “What can I get you?” Her voice was a low, steady purr. And familiar. That tone. That calm—

  “I’m fine,” he said, his voice raw. He must have been screaming. “It’s just the…” He sucked in another lungful, working through his breathing the way the therapist had taught him. “This happens. Since I came home.”

  She was so silent that he glanced toward her.

  He didn’t find the pity he expected. Or the fear.

  Only—surprise. Something else he couldn’t place.

  But it was gone with a few blinks. She brushed sweat from his brow with her bare fingers. She did it again on his other temple. Then his cheek. The other one.

  Tears.

  She said quietly, “I understand. My mother was…abusive.”

  The nightmares, the horror, eddied out of his head. “I’m sorry.”

  Her mother was dead, he reminded himself. If only so that he didn’t contemplate hunting her down and putting her behind bars.

  “I still remember it, too. When she’d come home drunk or high. Sometimes both. I still hear her…rants. Still remember shaking in terror because I knew what was coming.”

  Abuse happened at every level of society. Even the highest one. It made him sick to be reminded of this by hearing what Holly had gone through.

  “She broke my arm once. When I was ten. And it’s such a stupid cliché, but I told the hospital that I fell while climbing a tree.”

  His stomach churned as he glanced at the arm she now touched, like she could still feel that broken bone.

  “Did your dad…?” Her parents were both dead; asking was dangerous territory, yet—

  “He was never there. Didn’t even know it happened.” He stared at her, and Holly did not look away. “I know what it’s like,” she said quietly. “To have those nightmares.”

  Luke swallowed, his heartbeat at last calming, his breath evening out as he focused on Holly and her voice. “We both survived,” he rasped. “We both made it out.”

  Again, that flicker of emotion in her eyes that he could not place. “We did,” she replied, her arm brushing against his. That arm that had seen such pain, such ugliness.

  He studied their touching arms. The fingers that had so gently wiped the tears from his face. He hooked a finger under her chin, lifting her head to find her eyes upon him.

  Luke found himself not caring about who might be watching from the buildings around them, the street far below. He didn’t re
ally care about much at all as he leaned in and kissed her.

  Or tried to.

  Holly pulled away.

  His gut dropped and twisted, his face heating instantly as she recoiled. Rejected him.

  Bad breakup, she’d said. And from the grimace he’d seen when they’d danced to that song the other night, she still wasn’t over whoever had broken her heart. “I’m sorry,” she blurted.

  “You don’t need to apologize.” Her choice—it would always be her choice if she wished to kiss him or not. “It’s fine.”

  Those green eyes darted over him. “I’m not what you need, Luke.”

  “Don’t assume you know what I need.” The words burst from him before he could restrain them.

  She backed away from the balcony, swallowing. Color high on her cheeks.

  His voice was hoarse as he demanded, “Does it scare you?” This nightmare I can’t control?

  “No—never.” There was enough raw honesty in her voice that he was tempted to believe her. She still kept backing toward the balcony doors. “My life is complicated. You are a good man, Luke.”

  And the way she said it…“Are you in some sort of trouble?” He’d find a way to help her; Batwing could find some way.

  “My life is complicated,” she repeated. “It’s unfair to make promises.”

  And before he could find out what that meant, she was gone.

  * * *

  —

  Luke was spoiling for a fight with some of Gotham City’s worst. To do something to stop them.

  He knew that the moment he woke up the next day. When he donned his tux for the GCPD event that night. When he arrived and danced his way through the party.

  Waiting—for her. The one who could give him the fight he was looking for.

  He’d seen her with Tigris. He knew that he could throw everything he was at her and she wouldn’t break. Tonight it ended. No more fooling around, no more letting her edge past him. If she and her two besties showed up tonight, they would find themselves leaving in handcuffs.

  Luke tried his best to focus on the job at hand, and not to glance at Holly. Holly, beautiful in seafoam green, who kept looking like she’d approach him all night.