Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(81)

Luke wished he could read her face. See whatever was going on beneath that mask.

“They remain at large, but once they see the example we set today, perhaps they will find it wise to turn themselves in.”

Luke’s stomach churned, his heart thundering in his chest. “Don’t do it,” he whispered into the whirring silence of the gym. “Don’t do it, man.”

“For too long,” the DA said to the media, “the criminals of this city have hidden behind masks. Used them to garner fear and chaos. But they are not all-powerful. They are not gods.”

The DA laid his light brown hands on either side of her helmet. “And today, we take a step toward revealing them for the mere mortals they are beneath.”

Luke’s feet were rooted to the gym floor, his breathing shallow and uneven.

The entire room seemed to be holding its breath as the DA lifted the helmet from Catwoman’s head.

Luke saw the blond hair first.

Then the green eyes, full of cold emerald fire.

And his knees gave out from under him, sending him sinking onto the floor, as he found himself staring at Holly Vanderhees’s face on the screen.

The DA recoiled in shock. Holly smiled slightly up at him. Then turned to smile at the camera.

Luke didn’t wait for the media to realize who she was.

He raced through the gym, up the stairs, and into his apartment, his aching side protesting the entire way. He paused only to grab his tool kit from a kitchen cabinet and was out of his apartment in a few seconds. He stalked right up to Holly’s door, some small part of him grateful that his hands held surprisingly steady as he picked the lock.

Her apartment, still shadowed in the early-morning light…Clean. Unremarkable. A mirror image of his own, though the furniture and art had a more feminine feel. She had probably rented the place furnished.

He stormed for her bedroom, barely hearing his steps over the roaring in his ears.

Holly—Holly, who he had danced with, laughed with, tried to kiss.

I’m not what you need, she’d said. Knowing what she was, the rich boy she believed him to be…

Living next door to him. All this time.

Her bedroom was clean, her large bed made, not a thing out of place.

But the closet…

Luke strode in. Scanned the racks of clothes and shoes until his eyes landed on the mirror in the back. He went right up to the mirror and slid his hands over the wood. There were no catches, no buttons like in his own apartment.

A mirror image of his own place. The button was on the other side.

He found it instantly.

A hiss and click, and the secret compartment door swung away. Revealing a dim room, lights flickering to life.

Revealing each detail as they warmed up:

The assortment of weapons on the walls.

The chrome worktable with her tool kit left scattered over the surface, wires and bits of metal everywhere.

The glittering heaps of jewels in the far corner. The piles of cash.

The shoe boxes full of gold bullion.

Shoe boxes.

How many times had he seen her walking into and out of this apartment with shopping bags full of them? They had always looked so heavy. And when he’d offered to carry them for her, she’d refused.

Knowing the weight would give away that she didn’t have shoes inside.

Two sides of the same coin, she’d said.

She had to know that he was Batwing. That they were both pretenders, liars—one serving the light, the other the dark.

Holly, with that sad smile. Who seemed to hate the rich and powerful, and yet lived among them.

Luke racked his brain. He’d never heard of Holly Vanderhees until this fall. Never. She’d arrived on a private jet in August, as if she were a ghost emerging from the clouds. A wraith.

A ghūl.

Holly was a League assassin.

And—Holly had never really existed.

Luke was about to turn on his heel when a sliver of paper on Catwoman’s worktable caught his eye.

Luke stepped farther into the space, her scent lingering—that same floral scent that he’d awoken with.

His name was on it.

Luke.

He picked up the slip of paper, heart pounding. His mouth went completely dry as he flipped over the paper and beheld the three words there:

Protect this city.

Luke was moving before he could think it through. He was dressed and in his loaner car—a silver BMW i8—within minutes. Speeding down the streets of the city moments after that.

Heading to Wayne Industries.

It crossed the line to even think of getting her out of Arkham. Bruce would kick his ass for it. More than that, it was illegal. But…she’d wanted him to find that paper.

As if, should this ever happen to her, she wanted him to know. That she fully realized who had been living across the hall from her. And that her command from all those weeks ago still held.

Protect this city.

Luke’s stomach clenched, as if recoiling from the ghost of the touch she’d brushed down the scar along his torso. Knowing it was shrapnel that had torn him apart. Bringing him to that room, kissing him, because she knew that as Holly, she couldn’t start down that road, but as Catwoman…

What had been real?

A bad breakup had brought her here, she’d said.

Not with a guy, but with the League.

He had to know more.