Lost - D.G [ 1 ]

CHAPTER ONE: THE JOB

Leaving Gotham was hard. The damned city becomes an unwanted part of you. The dark streets I knew so well mocked me now, calling me a coward and a quitter for leaving them behind. The cold that always kept me on my feet being slowly replaced by a different kind of cold. Somehow Detroit's cold felt more invasive than Gotham's.

Everyone has a past, some embrace it, and some ignore it. It can help us become better, stronger, but at the same time it can be our weakness, what keeps us awake at night. Personally, I was in the middle. I didn't feel ashamed of it. I was a street kid in Gotham, did what I had to do. But at the same time, some of my poor decisions in life have kept me awake at night for years.

You could say some of my friends weren't as ordinary as you'd expect a fourteen years old girl to have. But if you expect the ordinary in Gotham, you're in for a disappointment. Life has its way and so does destiny, and mine brought me to the arms of Queen of Gotham herself, Selina Kyle.

She took me as a ward. Trained me to be better, faster, and smarter than any other normal street kid. She also had me doing her small work, distractions for the GCPD and the big bad bat and the colorful birdie boy. By the time I turned sixteen she had taught me everything she knew. She had become everything I knew. My family.

Running around with her meant running from or to the Batman, although there were few time I had actually spoken to him. He was Selina's task. Robin was mine. Charm, flirty smile and attitude, she said, that drives them mad –and mad men are easy to manage.

Our encounters were fun. Fun as in fighting and flirting, proper love-hate relationship. Good and bad moments, hurting each other yet sometimes making out as if we were normal teenagers. I would be lying if I said I didn't crush on him during my early days, although the charm goes away the first time he breaks your arm.

But everything had an end, and so did my partnership with the feline-like woman. When Selina got sent to Arkham, leaving me alone again, I decided to go alone and get myself a name. After all it was Gotham, a new kid with a leather costume and a made up name wouldn't be news. And so, over the course of my solo career, I made my name quite wellknown. Thief, spy, whatever I was paid for.

But that part of my life ended when I moved out of Gotham and left the costumes for Halloween season. I found some jobs, some better and some worse –most of them illegal. From hit-woman to bodyguard, whatever I was paid to do. Leaders of the gangs that ruled Detroit would hire me to steal, kill or protect someone dear to them. Never ask questions and never give answers was a second nature for someone from the dark city.

I re-fill the coffee mug again, looking at the whiteboard in front of me. A week ago a new client had contacted me for protection. Payment of seventy-five thousand dollars, half of it beforehand. You had to be someone important or know someone to get my phone number, so all my clients were legit about payment –and if not, they knew what could come off from scamming someone raised in Gotham.

They sent me a name and a date. Rachel Roth, February 16th. The girl, as far as it was explained, was someone important they needed to protect from some hit-men. The date was the day she'd come to Detroit. The day I'd start my protection detail. No ending date.

Words, sticker notes and images hang on the whiteboard. After claiming  some favors and hacking the right places I had found a load of information about her and her mother, but nothing about her father –which made me assume he either was the one trying to kill her or the one trying to protect her. With family affairs, you could never tell. 

It's late when my phone rings, the unknown number flashing on the screen. A simple sentence is written. One that gives me the green light to look for the kid and start my job. The only inconvenience is the place, one I very much wanted to avoid.