The Heart Of The Assassin

Chapter 1 - The First Meeting

Willow Brooke sighed heavily from where she sat on the rooftop, the snowflakes dotting her dark brown hair, melting on her shoes and clinging to her finely arched brows. The cold had never bothered her, not even now, as she braced herself against another furious gust of icy wind that bought a flurry of snow sweeping across the top of the building.

She embraced the cold, in fact, for she had always found it soothing, or numbing, as she preferred. It had quietened her once-fiery temper, but also her will to stand up for what she believed in, her individuality, her will to resist the poor treatment that most, if not all of the Arkham City inmates received...

Then again, Willow was not entirely convinced that it was bad thing. She had heard stories of inmates who'd had the fight beaten out of them by the Tyger Gaurds - or drugged out of them by Professor Hugo Strange himself. She had even overheard that some inmates were shot, but as she scanned the rooftops, her chocolate brown eyes stinging in the face of the sheer wind, her gaze came to rest on the red and black sign mounted high above the heavily-protected entrance in The Bowery, informing them all that 'lethal force' was authorised in the event of resistance. Yes, all in all, they had a grand little set-up, what with being watched all the time, having tiny, under-furnished apartments and being mistreated by the Tyger Gaurds.

Now twenty-five years of age, the curiosity inside her had burned out, also. She remembered a time when she was first bought to Arkham City a little over a year ago, a time when her head had been filled with questions. Many of them she already had the answers to, if she thought a little deeper, or more rationally.

Why was she here? Well, the underground fighting matches she had been involved in were illegal, that she knew. She had been arrested when the Police had stormed the arena, (owned by the Penguin) and they had all been carted off in the stuffy, dull prison vans to a place far more stuffy and dull by comparison, even though its appearance, a large city and in which inmates were given their own apartments, seemed to be a step up from the average prison.

Why was she starving, bored and lonely? Whenever the food parcels were dropped from the helicopters, the other inmates, as though at the flick of a switch, turned into savages, diving, scrambling, fighting for the already no more than scraps. Willow remembered that this was indeed a prison. Having fun wasn't exactly a punishment for her crimes. She knew why she was lonely; she didn't want to cause any trouble and preferred to keep away from the other prisoners to avoid the very crime she was in here for.

She sighed once more, knowing that one day, in about three years time, she would eventually be free. At least, that was what the judge had said. She was an utterly reformed individual now, having witnessed the horrors of Arkham City...

She didn't know how long she had been sitting there, contemplating climbing back down the fire escape to her window, when a quiet, eerie sound resonated through the area from behind her, bouncing off the drab grey stone of the buildings nearby. It had sounded almost like footsteps. Light, fast footsteps, but who would run across the rooftops in the snow?

Suddenly, she felt a twinge of insatiable curiosity, only for a second, but she had most definitely felt it.

Perhaps this was a sign? Perhaps, now that her interest had been ignited, this would be the start of something new...

Without warning, her body rose from the hard surface on which she sat, willing her to approach the direction from which the sounds had come. She realised she was in too deep, now, and that to dig herself out of curiosity's trap would be a fool's errand at best.

Following nothing but pure instinct, she slowly started to make her way to the middle of the rooftop, her bones having to break free from the heavily set-in cold that she barely noticed. Treading carefully due to the slippery white ground underfoot, she strained her eyes to see if she could notice any tracks in the snow.