sides, in easy reach of his weapons, even though he had the urge to cross them. “About what?” he ground out.
She was so still. It was an animal’s stillness. Even Bruce, trained and lethal, never stood with that sort of stillness. Like she might blend into a shadow and never emerge.
“Far bigger players are coming to Gotham.”
A chill skittered down his spine. “Is that who landed a punch tonight?” As he said it, his suit zoomed in on the damaged helmet, lighting it up. A long, wicked-looking scratch sliced down one side of it, straight through the cracked glass. That had to have been made by one hell of a blade. And a shallow wound sliced across her thigh, the blood caked on too thick to get a glimpse at the skin color beneath.
She gave a little nod. “More are coming.”
“At your invitation?”
A pause. “More are coming,” she repeated. “Worse than any of the criminal factions here. More powerful—and with a deadlier agenda. Keep your eyes open.”
“Why warn me?” he demanded.
That stillness settled over her again. “Because this city won’t survive them.”
“And that’s not what you want?”
She looked him over. Or he thought she did. “There are good people in Gotham. Protect them.”
It surprised him enough that Luke couldn’t think of a reply. Didn’t need to.
Because one of the cop cars still parked at the docks below exploded, the boom and fire and shouting filling the world.
And then he wasn’t in his body, wasn’t on that footbridge anymore.
He was in sand and sun and blood; he was on the side of a road. He was cut up, body screaming, but not as loud as his men, his friends—
He had the dim sense of slamming to the ground. Of being unable to breathe, of his suit going haywire and sending a frantic feed of internal assessments: heart rate too fast, breathing rapid, blood pressure spiking—
Not here. Not here and now.
“That asshole,” he heard someone—heard her—hiss. In another world, in another life.
He had to move, had to get up, had to get air into his lungs—
“You’re not hurt.” A quiet observation.
He reached for the overpass railing to pull himself up. Tried and failed, his hands shaking so hard that even his suit couldn’t stabilize them.
He hadn’t had a reaction like this in months, and the last time, Bruce had been there to help get him away, but now—
A different matte-black helmet filled his vision. Lifted his head for him.
It wasn’t a real face. Wasn’t human. As inhuman as the people who’d set that roadside bomb—
The lenses slid upward into her helmet, revealing a pair of shadowed emerald eyes. Bright. Steady. Human.
“A car exploded,” she explained calmly. “A device set off by Harley Quinn.”
He knew that name. In his other life, new life, beyond the desert, he knew that name.
“It was a message—to me. The car was empty; the cops aren’t hurt.”
Cops. Harley.
She scanned his face, the helmet he himself wore. Cunning and calm. “PTSD,” she murmured.
He refused to acknowledge it. She’d tell the others. This sort of information would be worth a ton of money.
Grab her. He had to grab her now and bring her in before she sold him out.
She let go of his face and backed away to the opposite railing, limping slightly. A horn wailed through the night.
Move. He had to move, had to apprehend her.
His body refused to obey. Refused to uncurl, refused to stand.
She climbed onto the railing, graceful despite the injury on her thigh. As if she had been born balancing on a few inches of steel. And while she stood on the rail, flicking her broken lenses back down over her eyes, she said, “It does me no good if you’re dead. Your secret is safe.”
Before Luke could find a way to get his body to cooperate, to get a full breath into his lungs, she leapt.
His heart stopped. Until the train swept past, barreling toward the tunnel beyond.
He spotted her atop it, a lone, dark figure. Looking back, as if to watch him, the light from the burning police car dancing on the silver train.
As the train neared the tunnel, she smoothly slid onto her back and vanished into the underground.
A queen returning to her underworld.
* * *
—
Shadow and light flashed and eddied overhead, the train car beneath her a rumbling, thunderous rocket shooting beneath the earth.
Selina lay on her back, hands tucked behind her head, watching the tunnel pass by.
She’d meant what she said to Batwing. His secret was safe