the hall, the shouting on both sides was rising. The assassins had the skill, but the Joker’s men had the numbers on their side. And the wild desperation.
Just as gunfire started breaking out, the noise deafening in the tiny space, Selina prowled down the empty hall behind them. Turned right and then stepped through the hole blown open in the outer wall of the brick facade, revealing a sunny fall day, the dried-out lawn beyond. The gaping holes in the Gothic-style fences.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Inmates still poured out, shoving past each other to get through the spiked iron fences, sprinting for the long road that would take them down the hill on which Arkham was perched. And into the city itself.
She knew some weren’t heading toward Gotham City to escape.
Some were heading there to have fun.
Selina opened a panel in the arm of her suit and dialed a number she hadn’t called in years.
She spoke as she walked out of Arkham, the towering Gothic building looming above her, and then ran down that burnt-out lawn, through the skeletal trees.
Time.
She had been living on borrowed time.
And it was about to run out.
* * *
—
All hell was breaking loose.
Luke got the alert midway through dissecting what and who Holly had been.
A lie. It was a lie, all of it.
But as he beheld the explosions at Arkham, as he beheld the inmates pouring down the bleak road, past the weather-worn Statue of Saint Nicholas, and into the city…He had a second suit at the offices. Changed into it and was out within minutes, soaring between the buildings. A veritable army of cop cars flew down the streets.
Faster. He had to be faster. Lives depended on it.
Luke caught a sharp wind, rising high, spearing for where smoke stained the horizon, gunfire already ringing out along the hill on which Arkham squatted, a hulking Gothic beast.
Chaos. Utter chaos.
And every criminal in the city would be heading there, to get their people out, to engage in what seemed to be all-out war—
She’d orchestrated this. Somehow he knew that “Holly” had gone into Arkham so that this melee could happen.
Weaving between buildings, he spotted Gordon’s car and a small circle of police vans and armored trucks a few blocks from the road that would take them to the foothills—to Arkham. Luke soared for them, pushing his wings to the limit.
Gordon seemed to sag in relief as he landed. Startled, some of the other cops went for the guns at their hips. The commissioner motioned them to lower their weapons and pointed to the arc of video screens before him, the live feeds off of several city cameras. “Shut that road down now!” he barked into the walkie-talkie in his hand. Someone on the other end asked how to do it. “Barricades!” Gordon roared.
Luke scanned the screen, the feeds from the road. Too late. Too many of Arkham’s worst had made it into the city. Into the streets. People were fleeing—into shops, into apartment buildings, going anywhere to escape their path.
“The hospital,” Luke breathed, pointing to the building just a few blocks into the Coventry district, right in the path of the road. “Get them to the hospital—”
He braced himself to take off, suit humming.
But Gordon swore.
And Luke looked at the feed of the security cameras right outside the hospital.
They stalked around corners. Down the streets. Armed with baseball bats, brass knuckles, lead pipes. Anything they could get their hands on. Their claws on.
Luke’s heart stopped as the Leopard girl gang prowled for the vulnerable, unguarded doors to the hospital.
“I need backup at GC Medical Hospital immediately!” Gordon roared into the walkie-talkie.
Luke stopped him with a hand on the shoulder.
Because the Leopards…
That was Mika Ikedo. Alpha of the Leopard Pack.
Taking up a defensive, guarding position at the hospital doors.
Flanked by Ani Hernandez, her Second.
Tiffany McBride, her Third.
And at every door, in front of every low-hanging window…Leopards stood watch.
Leopards held the line.
“These people are unbelievable,” Gordon hissed. “They’re guarding the drugs at the hospital for Falcone’s men.” He reached for his walkie-talkie again.
“No, they’re not,” Luke said softly as those girls, some as young as fourteen and some as old as twenty-eight, faced ahead, unafraid and unbowed as the chaos of Arkham barreled for them down the streets. “They’re answering a call for aid.”
Gordon blinked at him, walkie-talkie lowering. “Catwoman.”
Luke nodded.
“Why?” Gordon scanned the screen for any sign of her. “Why not go to Arkham to get her?”