Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(55)

Luke said, “Thank you.”

And for a heartbeat, she was back in that dirty, dangerous hallway—as he tried and failed to pull out his keys.

His fingers were bloody, swollen. She caught the keys before they could hit the ground, saying nothing as she fitted them into the lock, opened the door, and flicked on the lights.

“Ice pack is in the lowest drawer on the left side of the freezer,” he managed to say before slumping onto his couch, his knuckles smearing blood onto the dark leather.

Selina readied the ice pack, leg protesting with every movement, and brought over some paper towels to wipe up the blood. He leaned back against the cushions, pressing the ice pack to his eye, saying nothing while she dabbed at the leather.

Only when she rose, jaw clenched so tightly to keep in her grunt of pain, did he say, “Why were you out so late?”

“I had a date,” she lied.

He went still. “With whom?”

Props for good grammar. She tossed the bloodied paper towel into the trash under the sink. “I get the feeling that the moment I tell you, you’ll use that Wayne Industries database to look up his records, so…pass.”

“That’s assuming I care enough to do so.”

Well then.

“Feel better,” she said a bit tightly, heading for the door.

“Holly—”

But she was already gone. Even though she hated herself for it, Selina lingered by her own door for a moment longer than necessary, just to see if he’d come after her.

He didn’t.



* * *



—

“Let’s blow up the stage where they’re hosting that kiddie beauty pageant.”

“Jesus Christ, Harley!”

“What? Not while the kids are on it, obviously. But those contests are gross.”

Selina wasn’t sure how she’d gotten here. She’d given Ivy a call to say that tomorrow they were hitting up another target, but instead of agreeing and hanging up, Ivy had invited her over. To hang.

So here she was. Wearing her suit and helmet. In a lab teeming with plants that Ivy had constructed in the mammoth greenhouse adjacent to the abandoned grand hall of Robinson Park.

The entire place was something out of a dream: Trees grew from the floor itself, rising right through the glass ceiling, their thick leaves providing a roof. Paths lined with blooming flowers wended between the dense underbrush of dangling vines, ferns, and trickling streams. A few birds called sleepy good-nights to each other.

Selina could have sworn that some of the zoo animals they’d freed the other week during one of their Merry Band of Misfits adventures now lurked between the trees and oversized roots, eyes gleaming in the dark.

The air was sweet, warm—not quite comforting. The scent of fresh earth all around. A beautiful, if unsettling, place.

A lab-slash-apartment, apparently, from the little open grassy area tucked against a far stone wall that they now sat in, a rare spot of the greenhouse that hadn’t been overwhelmed. Ivy and Harley sprawled on what seemed to be a sofa constructed of velvety moss, Selina perched on what she could have sworn was an oversized toadstool.

But at least the living furniture all faced the ancient TV screen currently playing some slasher flick.

How Ivy managed to create electricity and get cable out here was the least of her concerns.

“If there are children at the pageant,” said Selina, wincing as she rotated her still-aching leg before her, going through a few of her gymnastics warm-ups that she could do while sitting down, “we don’t risk it.”

Harley rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you going to take off your helmet?”

“No.”

The two women swapped glances. “You ugly or something?” Harley said, eyes full of challenge.

Selina had dealt with enough Harley Quinn types in the Dolomites. “No,” she simply repeated.

Harley snorted but turned back to the TV.

Ivy asked, perhaps deflecting, “Why do these idiots always run upstairs when the killer comes?”

Selina shot Ivy a grateful look that the woman couldn’t see.

Harley stretched out her tattooed, fishnet-covered legs on the flower-speckled grass. “Because they’re not good with explosives and don’t have an army of killer plants to bring with them everywhere they go?”

Ivy chuckled and flicked Harley’s white-painted cheek. “Smart-ass.”

Harley batted her away and went back to watching, though Ivy’s green eyes lingered on Harley for a moment longer. Tenderness filled them—and longing.

Ivy noticed Selina’s attention and gave her a tight smile. But Selina only inclined her head. Secret safe. If Harley didn’t want anything beyond what they already had, for whatever reasons of her own, then it wasn’t Selina’s place to say that it was obvious Ivy felt differently.

Ivy’s smile widened into a wicked grin. “It really is weird—to only call you Catwoman. If we guess at your name, will you tell us if we’re right?”

“Maybe.” They’d never think of Selina. She asked before Ivy could start guessing names, “How long did it take you to make all of this?” She gestured to the lab, the teeming forest around them. The little fireflies, late for the outside world, that bobbed between the trees and flowers.

“Two years.”