Beautiful Deception (Bethany Ford Book 2)

Chapter 5: Secret Weaknesses

Bethany's POV:

I almost threw up. Again.

Whether it was from seeing Ash, or from feeling sick a couple seconds ago, or from going through the boom tube again, I'm not sure. But after I walked out of the boom tube, I ended up doubled on the ground gasping for air.

"Geez, I'm going to hurl." Tim groaned as he ran to the bathroom, his baseball cap falling off as he ran.

Barbara leaned on me, her eyes squeezed shut. "I'm trying really hard not to throw up into your hair." I tried my best to glare at her, but I could only manage a grimace.

Dick's face looked paler than usual and his hand was on his stomach as he said "I really shouldn't have eaten M'gann's sandwich before we left..." He groaned.

I looked over at a quiet Batman. His face was completely stoic, not revealing any sign of queasiness or discomfort from the Boom Tube. Without a glance in our direction, he stalked towards the center of the glowing training circle and a digital keyboard and screen came out of nowhere.

The sound of heeled boots clicking across the polished training room floor reached my ears. Barbara and I slowly looked up to see Zatanna running over to us.

"Oh my gosh!!! Are you okay?!?!" She knelt down next to me.

"Yeah... I just feel like I got socked in the stomach." I groaned.

She threw her head back and laughed, her beautiful long dark hair tumbling down her back. "Not you, idiot! I meant them!"

She pointed at the high patent leather pumps that somehow had still managed to stay on my feet.

I hit her head and she gave me hurt puppy dog eyes. I rolled my eyes and took off the heels, chucking them as hard as I could across the room. Of course, she caught them midair with a little spell and levitated them back to her. I tried to ignore the little guilty voice in the back of my head that complained that I had just tried to throw $1,000 Louis Vuitton pumps across the room.

"I feel like we should take a moment to think about how in the world you even fight in shoes like those." I pointed at her high heeled fashion boots.

She continued to look at me with those big crystal blue eyes, her naturally red lips were pursed in a pout. She motioned to my Gucci purse and whined, "Pleeease?"

I rolled my eyes and took a nice. deep. breath. "Get out of my face." I grumbled and tossed her the bag. She caught it in midair with her magic again and totally ignored what I just told her to do. She continued walking with me to my spare room that I had in the cave.

"I'll be getting that cute skirt and blouse when you're done, too." She said happily.

*****

In exactly five minutes, I was dressed in my Huntress costume and had ditched Zatanna and M'gann, who went to Happy Harbor to get some shopping done.

I approached Batman, who was in his full Batman costume (mask on and everything) and was still at the computer, looking at the secutiry video feeds of the Ravens Corporation building.

"What are you looking for?" I stood next to him.

"Who pulled that alarm?" Batman continued to sift through videos faster than I could process them in my head.

"And most importantly," a voice that belonged to Nightwing came from behind me, "how did they know we were there?"

He came to stand next to me. He was in his full Nightwing costume, but he didn't have his mask on, which was kind of risky considering the rest of the Team was somewhere in the base, too.