began bickering over the stupidity of the movie’s hero, to be around other young women, friends or whatever they were. Especially when they were so equally dedicated to not giving a shit.
Selina opened her mouth to explain how she’d escape the killer in the film—rather, how she’d hunt the creep down. But she didn’t have time to.
Something smashed through the ancient glass, rolling onto the soft, thick grass between them and the TV.
Selina had a heartbeat to realize what it was.
Grenade. Homemade. Lethal.
Harley shouted, but Ivy moved, so fast Selina barely had time to contemplate lunging for the bomb.
A flash of green, a snap—
A thick vine that Selina had mistaken for a root in the grass plucked up the grenade and hurled it back toward where it had come from.
It barely cleared the greenhouse before it exploded.
Selina threw herself over both of the women as glass shattered and rained down.
Then silence.
“Shit,” Harley panted beneath her. “Shit.”
They had to move. Had to get out now—
A heartbeat later, something heavy thudded into the grass.
The vine lunged again, but it froze.
Even from a few feet away, the message written around the brick was clear enough:
This was a warning. The next time, there will be more. You three bitches are done.
A warning. The grenade had been a warning.
Selina’s body, still sprawled over Harley and Ivy, didn’t seem to agree. Seemed to keep screaming, We need to run. We need to go on the offensive. We need to get outside.
She took a breath to calm herself. Another. It seemed the other women were doing the same.
“You hurt?” Selina asked them when her heart had steadied enough for her to stand and brush the glass off herself. None had pierced the suit, but the two of them…
Ivy was bleeding. Long scratches down her bare arms and legs. Where Selina’s body hadn’t reached.
But both of them were staring up at Selina. As if they’d never seen her before.
“You jumped in front of us,” Harley said.
“I’m in this suit” was Selina’s only answer. She pointed to Ivy. “We need to clean that up.”
Harley straightened, noting the blood on Ivy, the glass. Her already pale face went ashen.
Ivy gritted her teeth, hissing at the leaking wounds. “There—there’s some salve and bandages in the cabinet next to the sink,” she said. “It’ll help. I—made them.”
Harley lunged into motion, half running toward the indicated cabinet.
Selina stalked for the greenhouse wall behind them, scanning the dark. Nothing. Not a sign of whoever had sent that little bomb and nasty message. “This location is compromised,” she declared as Harley hurried over with the salve and bandages. “You need to move.”
“Not until she’s cleaned up,” Harley said, falling to her knees in the grass to examine the long cut in Ivy’s pale leg. No indication of glass in the wounds, Selina’s helmet told her. She said as much. Harley ignored her, smearing that salve onto the scratch.
By the time Harley reached for the bandages, the skin had started to knit together.
Selina blinked. “How—”
“Nature has an answer for everything,” Ivy said, still shaking. Harley just kept working, pigtails swaying with her steady, efficient movement.
Selina said again, “That message could have come from anyone.”
“Batwing?” Harley asked without looking up.
“Not his style,” Selina said. Too cowardly for Batwing. No, he would have faced them directly and put them in jail alive. “And GCPD would have done a raid. This was some criminal lowlife not appreciating us encroaching on their territory.” Selina surveyed the beautiful lab, the haven Ivy created. “I’m sorry. You need to move. Now. GCPD is likely getting reports of an explosion in the park. And if someone tracked you here—”
“She gets it,” Harley snapped. “Instead of talking, why don’t you help?”
Selina stiffened, but strode for the moss-made couch, brushing off glass before she pulled off her gloves, dipped her fingers into the jar of milky salve and smeared some on Ivy’s upper arm.
“It could have been anyone,” Ivy said as Harley finished up one leg and started with the other. “Falcone, for what we did to his men a few weeks ago.”
Selina considered. “It could be. And that’s why when we retaliate, we’ll do it wisely.” Because that gleam in Ivy’s eyes…revenge was burning there. In Harley’s, too. The hateful message on the brick in the grass behind them seemed to glare as brightly as a neon sign.
“Then what do you have in mind?” Ivy demanded, surveying her plants, the lab she’d made. Her home, Selina realized. This was truly Ivy’s