Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(79)

Harley kept a safe distance away. Knowing that if she got close enough for Selina to reach her, those bombs would be out of her hands. “Lead the way, Cat.”

Selina looked to Ivy, who shook her head in warning. And in apology.

Love—as venomous as one of Ivy’s plants.

“Let’s go, then,” Selina said, and started into a walk.



* * *



—

This particular warehouse in the docks was so decrepit even the lowlifes didn’t bother with it. Didn’t sniff around, or look at the hidden lower level, the trunks inside.

Harley kept her bombs at the ready the entire time Selina unloaded whatever smaller stolen items the duffel bag could carry, Ivy’s hands shaking as she helped. And when they were done, Harley ordered, “Go find a buyer.”

So Selina did. With Harley breathing unevenly behind her, she led them through the maze of the slums, to the abandoned fish-processing plant at the river edge of the Bowery. She’d placed the call with a burner phone to the number of the man who used this place to sell things that couldn’t be traded in legal markets. And as they entered the cavernous, reeking space, Selina said, “Now we wait.”

“How long,” Harley demanded. Her eyeliner had smudged, some running down the side of her face in a mockery of tears.

“No more than an hour,” Selina said calmly.

Ivy stepped up to Selina’s side. “Harley—put the bombs down. We’re here now. It’s fine.”

Harley only turned one of those bombs on Ivy. “The hell it is.”

Selina let out a quiet laugh, temper straining. “What does that bastard have on you to get you to so easily turn on your friends?” On Ivy, who loves you for whatever reason I can’t see?

Harley’s own laugh was broken—jagged. “When we unleashed the Joker’s men, you know what they did? They went right to my mom’s house.”

Selina’s heart stalled a beat. “Batwing brought them in.”

Harley mimicked, “Batwing brought them in.” She spat on the ground. “Your little boyfriend didn’t get to them fast enough. They had hours. And since my boyfriend knows who I am, he made sure those bastards went to my mama’s house first.”

Selina’s stomach turned over. That’s where Harley had been last night, why she hadn’t been at the apartment. “Is she all right—”

“Don’t pretend that you give a shit.” Harley’s chest heaved. “He told her to tell me that if we don’t spring him free immediately, he’ll make sure my mom receives his own brand of justice.”

Bile coated her throat as Selina pleaded, “Put the bombs away, Harley. If they’re dragging your mom into it, we won’t mess around. He’ll be out tonight. Just put those bombs away.”

Panic flared in Harley’s blue eyes, right beneath the rage. “He is going to hurt her—”

“I know,” Selina breathed. “And I won’t let that happen. I swear.”

“Your promises are shit,” Harley hissed. “You think we don’t know where you went last night? Who you went with?”

Selina shot Ivy a look. So much for a code of not screwing over allies. Ivy mouthed, I’m sorry.

Selina said to Harley, “It’s not what it seems.”

“Part of the game?” Harley mocked. “Hooking up with the enemy?”

“Put the bombs away, Harley,” Selina said.

Ivy was shaking beside her, looking like she’d vomit over the stained concrete. But she said, voice clear and steady, “If the Joker is out, Harley, you know how bad things might—”

“He won’t touch you,” Harley snapped at Ivy. “I told you that. You, my mom—you’re safe.”

“But what about the other people?” Ivy demanded, voice trembling. “What about them?”

“Who gives a shit?” Harley’s left thumb shifted on the bomb.

“I do,” Ivy breathed. “I do, Harley!”

Selina cut in, “If the buyer sees those bombs, you can say goodbye to the bribe cash.”

Harley leveled a seething look at her. “How about we show him whatever’s under that mask instead—”

The warehouse doors blew open in a cloud of smoke, the windows exploding a second later.

And a SWAT team from the GCPD stormed in.





Selina had marked the exits and defensible locations in the warehouse. She rolled toward a hulking tower of machinery as Harley lobbed her bombs, swearing.

They detonated with a flash and bang that shattered windows and sent dust raining from the ceiling. Ivy sprinted for Harley’s side, thumbing free a few of those beautiful flowers. She hurled them toward the police, smoke instantly filling the space.

But the GCPD had marked them, too. And the SWAT team that burst through the doors were all wearing gas masks. Ivy lobbed more flowers toward them anyway, vines snapping into the fog, the smoke now near-impenetrable.

The police had the exits guarded. Gordon was taking no risks.

But the window closest to them, twenty feet away…“Here!” Selina shouted through the smoke to Harley and Ivy. “Now.”

Harley had slid on a gas mask courtesy of Ivy, and as she emerged, throwing bombs blindly into the smoke, police shouting orders to fall back, to cease fire, a trickle of blood was sliding down her arm. She’d been clipped. Nothing bad, but Ivy was pressing a hand to Harley’s wound. Blood coated Ivy’s pale fingers, her wrists.