Justice League And The Hounds Of Hell

Chapter 18: Misguided Love and Misplaced Trust

I collapsed on the bed assigned to me in Titan's Tower. Out the window of my room I could see part of the cliffside, and the rough waters of the ocean crashing against the rock far below. Hints of the sky were starting to brighten at the furthest corners from the rising sun. Luckily, my room faced more northward, so I didn't get the butt of it like the OPS room did.

M'gann let me know when Tim gets here. I'm going to rest a bit.

I heard her giggle. Bedtime? The sun is rising.

I rolled my eyes with a smile and pushed the cowl back from my face. My scalp itched in all the places where my hair started to poke up, and everything above my cheekbones felt an odd sense of cold vulnerability for a second. With a sigh, I closed my eyes...

Jezebelle was hanging on to Ronny's arm, admiring the ring with delighted bright eyes. I could hear her saying something about the money he spent on such a treat. She's trying to sound upset, but she loves the ring, and she thinks it's so incredibly sweet of him to have bought such an expensive piece of jewelry. He jokes that he dipped into their non-profit's treasury. She slaps his arm and says not to joke like that. All it takes is a grin to disarm her, she knows he would never do such a thing.

The truth is much more horrid: He abused weaker creatures to get it and I tell this to her. Only, it isn't her--Jezebelle--I'm talking to. It's Her--my mother, with little Jay-Jay in her lap. I'm trying to say that James will be the death of her, but she just keeps humming a silent lullaby and fixing tufts of the baby's hair.

I reach to touch her, to get her attention, because James is going to die and come back a monster, and destroy so much more. She just gets farther each time I reach. I scream in frustration, but the only sound out of my mouth is a pocket of smoke.

Wayne manor is on fire, the sparks born right out of my anger. I'm begging Alfred to help me clean it up so Bruce won't see it.

"This is a big mess." Alfred tsks after snuffing out a flame. "How do you get into these messes?"

The kids next door were teasing me because my parents weren't married. Mom still signed with her maiden name, Rocha. They called me a cockroach. I cried to dad-- James... he was still dad and he had a hole between his eyes that made me turn away--he said it was a compliment. "Roaches can live through anything. They eat the mess."

A roach crawled out of the drain while a girl brushed her teeth. I caught and cradled it in my hands, dodging flying projectiles--a hairbrush, a bottle of shampoo, Irish Spring-- to set it free outside. I swear it looked at me with grateful black eyes and twitching antenna. When it opened its wings to fly I saw no reason why it couldn't be a fairy as well and I made a wish, I wished for my family. The other kids shuddered and refused to share with me. I was defiled and exiled for saving it instead of killing it.

I punched a man in the throat after he snuck into my room one night to smother me with himself and while he clutched his trachea with white hands, I gazed into his red sweaty face and bulging pink eyes. I leaned real close and whispered that I was a cockroach and he best not forget it or I'd lay eggs in his mouth. When I stood up, I couldn't fly out the window because there was a mirror in its place where I confronted myself. Sticking out of the cowl were two, long, hairy, dripping antenna. Terror seized my heart--

He's here.

I opened my eyes. The shadows were shorter, the sun was higher in the sky, but it was still early morning. I had a weird feeling that I hadn't been breathing for some time and my chest shook as I sucked in a massive breath. My eyes felt sticky. I didn't dream too often, so when I did it was startling. I brought my hands to my face and rubbed my eyes, stuck on that last feeling of shocked terror and remembering the desperation to get my mom to listen to me.