Truth, Unmasked

Part 8

There was no time to think.

The city council had hung the streets with several yards of twinkling lights to make the city appear more festive. Red Hood pointed his gun upward and fired. The bullet cut clean through the wire, falling free at one end to swing towards the ground.

With a tremendous leap, Red Hood's fingers closed around the cable. The horrified gasps of the crowd turned into something almost wondrous as he flew out above their heads on the momentum of the swinging cable. His helmet and jacket are the only things that keep him from feeling the harsh winter wind, the chill sharp as a knife. He kept his eyes fixed on the girl who was falling, falling...like an angel fallen from heaven. The thought flashed through his mind in the time it took for him to reach out his hand.

He caught the girl about the waist. Her skin was cold beneath the thin fabric of her nightgown. Red Hood looked down at her, but her face was obscured by a tangle of dark hair. Still, he could feel that the girl was small, about Robin's size or perhaps smaller. But she lacked the hard muscles of Robin or the soft curves of Black Bat, telling him that she was perhaps also around the same age as Robin; the age between childhood and adolescence.

They were still swinging high above the Gotham streets on that single cable. Red Hood's intention was to let himself and the girl down back onto the streets when the cable swung back, away from the Clock Tower. But the rope was never intended to carry the weight of more than a few dozen Christmas lights and the combined weight of Red Hood and the girl—the latter of which had been added to the rope in a sudden and violent jerk—was too much for the steel cable to bear. With a sickening snap, the threads gave way and Red Hood found himself plunging to the ground once more.

...

Am I dead?

I hope I am.

I didn't know death would take this long. Or is it death that is quick, and the falling that takes time?

...I don't seem to be falling now. No, this feels different. It feels like...

I remember something now. Something from long ago. I was falling too–no, I wasn't falling, I was flying. And the person who made me fly, that person who gave me wings...

It was Robin.

Is Robin with me now? Is that why I am not dead?

I should open my eyes and look. I don't dare to open my eyes and look.

What if we're both dead?

But this might be my only chance to say thank you for that night.

...

This isn't Robin.

The night is black, but his face is red. I've never seen this face before, but it's somehow almost as familiar to me as my own brother's. How can that be?

He is reaching out his hand to me. I don't know if I am reaching back or not. He has caught my wrist and is gripping it tightly now, too tightly.

Why won't he let me fall?

Are you dead, too? I say.

We both will be soon, he says.

Is he angry? I cannot tell. Let go, I say.

His hold on me only tightens. No can do.

Let me go. Let me fall.

Why? Why do you want to die?

I do not answer; I cannot.

Don't look, he says.

Look where? I ask.

He pulls me towards him. Suddenly my back is turned to the cloudy sky I had glimpsed behind him. Still we fall.

Down, he says.