Catwoman: Soulstealer (DC Icons #3)(90)

Her face was white as death. Blood covered her suit. A stab wound in her back, piercing through the shoulder. Still bleeding out.

Yet she still held her sister over a shoulder. Fingers white-knuckled as they clenched her.

She’d been stabbed, and yet Selina had carried her sister here.

Tears began sliding down her face. Her mouth trembled.

And the look in her eyes as those tears brimmed and slipped free—exhausted. Despairing.

She thought he was going to stop her from saving her sister.

Terminally ill. Incurable.

She’d built the Pit to save her sister. Had discovered and taken the chemicals to make it and the money to buy everything she required, including the chaos in Gotham City. She’d rallied the allies she needed to fight the army of League assassins who would come for it—what she’d stolen. What she’d pretended to broker to gain those allies: the formula for the Lazarus Pit.

“Please,” Selina whispered.

One word. Just one, as those tears rolled down her face, through the dirt and blood.

Please.

Luke’s chest cracked.

In the distance, a plume of dirt flowed down the road. And before it, barreling toward them…a black SUV.



* * *



—

Selina saw that car. The dust and the speed.

She was out of time.

“Who—” Luke asked, hand going to some weapon at his suit’s side.

“League assassins. At least two.” Her words were a broken rasp. “Nyssa’s best.”

He turned toward her and removed his helmet. Showed her the face beneath. The one she knew so well—the one she’d known was beneath that night on the balcony, when his PTSD had seized him.

“They’ll kill you,” Luke said.

Selina let out a low laugh. “I’m already dead.”

And as if the words were a promise, her knees gave out. She felt Maggie’s fragile form tumbling from her, tried to stop it— Luke was there in an instant. Grabbing Maggie from her in one swift motion, before her little sister could hit the ground.

Selina’s knees slammed into the dirt, the world spinning, pain clawing at her.

Luke straightened with Maggie limp in his arms, her curls a tumble over the metal plates of his suit. On her knees before him, Selina watched Maggie’s chest rise—just a bit. Heard that car nearing.

For a heartbeat, Luke held her stare. Scanned her face.

And then he pivoted, Maggie in his arms, and headed into the factory. To the Pit.

She managed to claw her way upright. To stand again. Managed to put one foot in front of the other and follow Luke into the factory. Down the narrow hall. Through the heavy door that led onto the factory floor.

Getting every bit of equipment into place had been hell. But the factory had enough working parts that she’d been able to modify what was there. The raising and lowering platform, once used to dip objects into whatever chemicals had filled the enormous vat in the center of the room, was one of them.

Selina braced a hand on the doorway as Luke gently laid Maggie upon the grated bench of the platform, right where it hovered at the edge of the pool.

He turned toward her, the machines along the pool edge shiny and new. Built by Selina herself. “Tell me—”

Gravel crunched outside. A car engine rumbled and shut off.

They were here.

Luke was at Selina’s side instantly, assessing the outer door down the hall. The car they could just barely glimpse through the tiny window in the metal slab.

Not now.

Luke whirled to her. Scanned her face, his brown eyes bright.

He kissed her.

Just once, swift and fast. A promise—and a farewell, she realized as he said, “I’ll buy you whatever time I can.”

Before she could say anything, he was gone. Shutting the factory door between them, throwing the heavy outer lock over it. Barricading her inside.





Luke chose his battlefield carefully.

Donning his helmet again, he felt it whir to life, giving him a read of every advantage and pitfall in the narrow hallway. Not many of the former. Too many of the latter.

Right as three League assassins strode in through that outer door, sunlight leaking in with them. A ray of brightness, blinding him, before dark settled in again.

Luke marked their faces, his gut churning. Two women and one man.

Nyssa al Ghūl hadn’t just sent some of her best. She’d sent her three top ghūls to execute Selina and get the Pit formula back.

Cheshire. Onyx. Rictus.

Cheshire—for that wild, wide grin that never faltered, even when the dark-haired assassin made her gruesome kills. And left similar smiles carved into her victims.

Onyx and Rictus, the two notorious killers identified by the intricate matching tattoos banded around their necks. And by the way the man and woman stood with utter stillness as they stared calmly at Luke. Living ghosts—that’s what Onyx and Rictus were. Their list of victims too long for even Luke’s brain to memorize.

He didn’t have to fight for long. Just long enough.

Luke braced his feet apart, angling his head at the three assassins, all wearing Selina’s black battle-suit. None bothering with helmets. They wanted Selina to see their faces when they executed her. Wanted her to know who it was that ended her.

From Cheshire’s wide grin, Luke knew precisely what she’d do to Selina’s body afterward. His own. Maybe even Maggie’s.