Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(13)

And then the roar. The screaming. The exploding sand and metal.

The blood and chaos. Gunfire.

A world away—a different world, different life. A different hell.

Because for Luke Fox, hell wasn’t fire and brimstone. It was friends he’d laughed with in the morning at the canteen winding up in body bags by lunch.

Night after night: this dream, this moment.

A year had passed since he’d returned to Gotham City, and Luke was still crawling back toward who he’d been before.

Whoever that person had been. Whoever had been ripped apart that day, along with the flesh of his ribs, where the Kevlar hadn’t been covering him. As if the enemy they’d been dispatched to put down had known precisely where to strike with the IED that went off beneath the tank lumbering ahead, sending shrapnel tearing through the air.

Through him—and his soldiers.

Had it been worth it? The grueling training and the three years in the Marine Corps. Had he made a difference?

They were the questions he asked himself over and over. That haunted every step, every breath. The questions that drove him each night into the streets of Gotham City.

Luke blew out a breath, his muscled chest rising and falling as moonlight leaked in through the windows, highlighting the jagged line along his ribs, the scar stark against his brown skin. He scanned the sky, his penthouse apartment offering an unobstructed view of downtown Gotham City.

No bat-shaped sigil lighting up the night.

Luke couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or not.

He glanced at the clock beside his bed. Only two hours ago, he’d crept back into his apartment after a quiet night of patrolling. Apparently, the August heat had made even the worst of Gotham City decide to stay indoors.

Luke snorted, imagining some of the usual suspects opting to seek out an air-conditioned movie theater instead of terrorizing the streets.

At least he still had his sense of humor. Sort of.

Bruce Wayne didn’t have one. Or hadn’t revealed one in the months Luke had been training with him.

It had been his dad’s idea. Right after the family’s annual Fourth of July fireworks barbecue at the beach house last summer. After the Incident.

Luke had been standing among the crowd gathered on the back lawn, beer in hand, when the fireworks had exploded over their private beach, as they’d done every summer that he could remember. But unlike all those summers before, as those initial fireworks bloomed and boomed in the dark sky, his body had gone absolutely haywire, as if it had been programmed like one of his gadgets. He’d been unable to get a breath down, to control the undiluted terror that swept through him. Pushed in on him, as if the ground were about to swallow him up, as if he were again in that blood-soaked desert, and his nightmare was all playing out again.

His first full-blown panic attack. In the middle of his family’s annual party.

Bruce had been standing next to him when it happened. And had instantly noticed the symptoms and gotten Luke’s father to help discreetly escort his son back into the house.

When he’d finally been able to breathe, when the world had crept back in and the desert had faded away once more, it had all come spilling out: he hadn’t been able to save them. His team. He told them he had no idea if he’d made a difference that day, or any day in his life. His father and Bruce had sat with him, just listening. Like they had nowhere else to be.

The subsequent diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder, triggered that particular night by the crackle and boom of the fireworks, by the flashing lights.

And then the treatment: group therapy once a week and private sessions every three days. That was fine—that was good. Necessary. Vital.

But his dad’s suggested treatment had been just between him and Bruce and Luke. A visit to Wayne Manor a week later. To a secret chamber beneath it. If Luke wanted to make a difference, Bruce had said, perhaps there was something he could do about it.

Luke had learned a lot in the thirteen months since. About himself, about what haunted him, and about the man who lived in Wayne Manor.

Giving up on sleep, Luke swung his legs out of the bed and padded onto the balcony. Even at four in the morning, the air hung hot and sticky against his skin. He again scanned the city, listening for sirens. Anything to call him out of bed, out of his penthouse apartment. Anything to do in these final few hours before dawn when he knew sleep would no longer come.

Nothing. Only muggy heat and silence. Even the stars seemed small and faded, the constellations he recognized as well as family members blurred under the blanket of heat. Their names rattled through his head, more instinct than intentional thought: Lyra, Sagittarius, Hercules…

Luke rubbed a hand over his short hair. He’d let the sides grow in a bit but still kept it military-short.

Movement to his left caught his eye.

Every sense went on alert as his body slipped into a loose fighting stance.

Being thirty floors up wouldn’t keep the more creative criminals from finding their way here to loot the troves of one of Gotham City’s richest.

A flash of gold at the corner of his balcony.

No, not his balcony, but the edge of the balcony for the penthouse that shared this top floor, the corner of which was just barely visible from where he stood. Along with the source of that gold: long blond hair, slightly curled at the ends.

There were only two apartments up here; the other had been sitting empty for months. Until yesterday, he remembered. The apartment had been leased by some socialite—old money, the gossip sites said when he’d checked them in the evening for any hint of trouble ahead. Holly Vanderhees.