Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(14)

Luke peered over the rail, craning his neck to see more of the owner of that luxurious blond hair he could just barely make out.

A neighbor was an inconvenience.

He should have bought the apartment next door just to keep it empty.

A stupid mistake. A rookie mistake.

He’d have to be careful now, coming in and out of the apartment. Might have to account for his odd hours if she was a snoop. Especially if she was a gossip. Most socialites were. He’d developed a healthy respect for them. He’d seen socialites take each other down with words and rumors far more efficiently than insurgents had with bullets and IEDs.

His new neighbor vanished along the wraparound balcony. As if she’d been pacing it.

First night in a new city. Perhaps she hadn’t been able to sleep, either.

For a heartbeat, he debated crossing the small hallway they shared and knocking on her door. Introducing himself.

But he couldn’t afford another mistake. Building bonds invited questions. And if Holly Vanderhees had no idea who she was living next to, if she never saw or heard from him, so much the better. Easier to be unaccounted for.

He didn’t know how Bruce did it: juggling the man the world believed they knew with the vigilante who fought to keep Gotham City safe. Luke had asked him throughout their training, but Bruce hadn’t been forthcoming.

It was one of the few things Bruce hadn’t taught him.

Luke had known plenty about fighting, about building clever, useful things, before they’d begun. Even before enlisting in the Marines, he’d been as keen on honing his body as he was on sharpening his mind.

A rare combination, his mom often said, beaming at him. Brains and beauty. Luke always laughed at her, waving her off. Even if the brains part was officially true. He’d been declared a genius before finishing high school. A lot of good that had done him overseas.

He certainly wasn’t doing much with it these days as the millionaire playboy the world believed him to be—son of Lucius Fox, the CEO of Wayne Industries, granted a cushy job in Applied Sciences at the company.

What the job actually did was allow Luke to roll into Wayne Tower, go down to the restricted sublevel seven, and mess around with his suit, his gear, his various gadgets that helped him round up Gotham City’s worst. Luke sometimes even modified Bruce’s gear, since his colleague was always game for a new upgrade. They’d bonded over it—their interest in tech.

Watery gray light began to bleed into the eastern horizon. He had another boxing match tonight. He’d make sure not to mention it to his mother at brunch in a few hours.

You shave years off my life with every match, she complained to him and his dad.

It’s only semiprofessional, his dad often said, coming to his defense. Knowing that the boxing, which Luke had done for years before he shipped out, had always steadied him. Settled his mind. And in the year since he’d returned, he’d picked it up again. As part of his ongoing, endless recovery.

But only semipro, as his dad said. As was befitting a socialite of Gotham City.

Even if he didn’t lose. Ever.

Not a single fight.

What his mom didn’t know, what she couldn’t know despite how much he wanted to tell her, was that he and his dad had decided the fights would not only balance him but help explain away any injuries that might arise during his nocturnal activities. His real job.

Batwing.

He’d come up with the name himself, in part to honor the training he’d done with Bruce, but mostly as a nod to his favorite part of the suit. The part he’d worked the hardest on, and got one hell of a kick out of surprising lowlifes with. Nothing like a pair of retractable wings, capable of gliding over long distances, to make criminals wet themselves.

And to land easily on the roof before slipping back inside the building. A task that would now be infinitely harder with his new neighbor.

Luke frowned toward Holly’s balcony before turning back inside and sealing the door shut, the AC instantly icy against his skin.

He’d figure out some way to make sure she thought he was as boring as possible.

Luke headed into his closet, lights flickering on automatically. He glanced to the wood panel that held a full-length mirror. A hidden touch pad would reveal the extra closet concealed behind it, chock-full of his various mechanized suits, weapons, and gear.

But he opted for gym shorts and an old Marines tee, sliding on his worn sneakers before striding from the room. A full-service gym was open 24-7 a level below. It’d be empty at this time of the night. Day. Whatever four-thirty a.m. was classified as.

Luke caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he left. His skin was still shiny with sweat, his cheeks a bit hollowed out. His mom would worry at brunch—she was too damn smart not to note everything. Especially if he didn’t get rid of the empty, glazed look in his eyes.

A year, and it was still there.

A year of trying to adjust to civilian life and managing his PTSD so that he could finally do something of value to keep this city from falling into ruin. To honor the good men and women who hadn’t returned home—at least not outside of a pine box—and the families they’d left behind.

Luke shouldered his way through the gym door, the fluorescent lights a clang to his senses, all the TV screens above the machines set to various news channels. Even they were full of nothing, filler stories because the truth of the world—that didn’t sell ad space. And Americans watching didn’t really want to have their oversized houses and wasteful lifestyles called into question when faced with the poverty most of the planet lived in. The despair, the ugliness of it.