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*
Something's off.
Something's… kicking her?
Kate regains consciousness with a groggy and irritated noise, jerking her foot back. She's positioned upright, her arms held with rattling, metal chains against what feels like a massive steel pole bolted to the ceiling. There's no going anywhere like this.
Directly across from her, Alice sneers. There's no hatred in her expression that Kate can find.
She kicks firmly at Kate's leg again.
"Thought you were dead."
Kate doesn't know if Alice is talking about the missing person reports… or waking to a limp Kate across from her… it doesn't matter. It feels like her head has been crammed with prickly yarn. "So, this isn't Hell?" Kate mutters, trying to unslouch.
"Very funny," Alice says dully, crinkling her nose at Kate. She's wearing dark, glittery lace over ripped silk. Dark-smudged makeup.
Nothing's really changed.
Kate smacks her lips. Definitely chloroform. It's easier for a kidnapping. The inside of Kate's mouth feels dry, and tastes bitter and swollen. Very typical for getting drugged unconscious so suddenly. Kate doesn't even remember clearly where she was last.
"Did you sleep well through the night when you heard?" Kate asks, giving her twin a mildly knowing look.
Alice chooses to ignore it.
"I do love a reunion, sis, but I do believe we have more pressing matters. Such as… any ideas on getting us out of this?"
Kate makes a face.
"Don't you have goons, Alice?" she barks. "Hired muscle that follow your every move? Don't they take orders?"
Alice mirrors Kate's infuriated tone, her lips snarling. "They're of no use if they don't know where I am."
"Sounds like a you problem."
"It's about to be a you problem, Kate."
Kate huffs, testing the resistance of the chains. No give. She can't budge at all, and Kate doubts that Alice can either. Or else Alice would be lording it over her, flipping a new switchblade and strolling. "Wasn't that your plan for me? Killing me yourself?"
Alice's mouth twitches. "If a plane crash won't do it, I'm gonna assume my chances are slim."
Something about it — the pretty, long smirk — reminds Kate of when they were little girls. When they would run down the floors of Wayne Enterprise's, tripping each other and dodging security like it was a game. When they huddled in Burnside Orphanage, playing with a oujia board, and Kate always knew her twin sister was trying to scare her by moving the planchette.
Kate knew her sister like she knew how to breathe: it was instinct. She never had to think about it. Kate just always knew.
"You don't have to kill me, Alice."
Like dying bits of sunlight in Kate's memory, Alice's smirk fades.
"That's the problem, I'm afraid," she whispers eerily. "If I can't have you… then nobody can."
Despite the nausea tossing her stomach, and her headache, Kate grins. "You'll always have me," she declares. Kate's foot thumps purposefully to Alice's high heel. "Even if I'm not standing next to you. Even if I'm not in Gotham, and even if I walk out and disappear off the face of the earth—which is still the plan—" Alice's eyes widen. "Listen to me when I say you'll always have me."
"You tricked me."
"I had to," Kate murmurs, seeming more serious than ever. Her brow furrows. "It's complicated, Alice. I need to figure things out. Gotham City doesn't need me like it did. I don't think you do either. You're gonna have to let me go when this is over."
Alice glares, her eyes moistened. "Like hell."
Before they can get into an argument, the only door unbolts. Kate cranes her neck.
A tall, lean man steps into view. The crimson-colored suit looks expensive, accented in gold-pearlescent buttons and a gold-threaded handkerchief. He's not flocked by guards. Kate doesn't trust the pleasantly hollow face on him.
"Ladies," the man greets them.
He whacks Kate across the face with the butt of a pistol.
Kate cringes, moaning a pained hahh! and sinking sideways. Her cheek throbs. Kate's bottom lip turns a puffy pink.
She can hear Alice make a deep, sharp inhale when Kate does.
(Like they're connected still to each other's instincts.)
"My name is Shrike. I work for a gentleman very much invested in Mister Jacob Kane's business with Crows Security. Bloodshed is not necessary. If you both cooperate as needed, then I do believe you may go free in accordance to my client's wishes."
"Excuse me? Yoohoo? Yooohoooooooo~?" Alice interrupts, tilting her head and mocking a wide, girlish smile up at him.
The man glances to her with polite disinterest.
"Shrike? It is Shrike, isn't it?"
Kate internally groans. Fuck, don't.
"Yeah, I would be very careful what you do to my sister in front of me. You see, we have a tendency to hold grudges in my family."
Kate isn't reassured by how Shrike doesn't blink.
"Trust me when I say I'm all for putting Kate in her place…" Alice cackles, low and manic. Her teeth expose. "So, Shrike, you got the first one free… but I would advise you to stop while you were ahead," she drawls in a creepy sing-song.
Alice's eyes round, bulging.
"Or I will find the thing you hold dearest in this world and slit their throat in front of you…"
Fuck.
He's quietly contemplative, studying Alice as if she's a mealworm. Shrike backhands her, quicker than Kate's eyes can follow. Alice doesn't moan or utter a peep as a response, her head hanging forward. Her white-blonde hair drapes over her face.
"Leave her alone!" Kate growls, thrashing uselessly.
Shrike tucks away his pistol. "There seems to be a miscommunication here. You are not in charge," he informs Kate.
"Neither are you, Shrike." Alice looks up and grins fearlessly. Or maybe it's the tendency to act maniac without any good sense. Kate can already see the bright bruise forming on Alice's jaw. "Guess that leaves ME in charge!" Alice concludes with a trill.
This time, a fist slams into Alice's nose. Her left cheekbone and her mouth. Each noise of flesh-on-flesh impact shivers Kate.
"A lack of cooperation will be met with bloodshed."
He says nothing else, removing his gold-threaded handkerchief from his pocket and marching out the door. Calm as calm can be. It's like nothing of importance has occurred to this man. Kate can hear the door's bolting gears clank.
"… You alright?" she murmurs, eyeing a coughing Alice.
The coughs morph into little, breathless giggles.
"Never better," Alice says, smiling and spitting out blood. "Don't have to worry about brushing my teeth if I don't have any."
"Can you get loose?"
"No," Alice blurts out. Dark red blood glistens on her chin. Kate winces. "I get the feeling we will not be negotiating."
"I'm pretty sure if they wanted us dead, Alice… they would have shipped our bodies out to Dad by now."
"That's nice. I don't know about you, but I'm not sticking around to let them get Polaroids of me stripped down to my underwear, bleeding out from an abdominal wound." Alice scoffs, rolling her eyes. "This is Gotham. Freaks like him are a dime a dozen."
Kate raises an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth quirking. "And you don't consider yourself a freak?"
"I consider murder to be part of the natural order. Especially when they deserve it."
"You're psychotic."
"And?"
A commotion sounds from outside the bare, gray room. Someone rushes in. A man who is not Shrike, wearing dark tactical armor, holding out a gun and aiming for Kate's head. She stiffens. "No!" Alice hollers, kicking out her legs and flailing. "No! No!"
Something glinting dark — a Batarang — flies out of nowhere. It knocks the gun out of the man's hand.
Kate watches stunned as one of the zip-lines she's familiar with loops to his ankle. He's dragged away, yelling for help. It's another few heart-pounding moments of a brawl before she doesn't hear it at all. Kate cranes her neck, trying to see.
"Who the HELL are you?" Alice demands, frowning at their rescuer.
"Batwoman."
Kate's mouth slips open.
"Obviously, I'm Batwoman," Batwoman repeats to Alice as if speaking to a child. Kate's wig a lustrous, luminous red.
"Fuck," Alice and Kate mutter in unison.
*
It makes sense that Luke and Mary finally got a tracker on Alice, leading the new Batwoman to her and to this criminal hideout. Nobody was meant to find Kate though. She's gonna make sure it stays that way, not wanting to deal with the outcome.
"Why are there so many Batwomans?"
Alice blows air through her lips in loud exasperation. She's hidden with Kate, shrugging her hands into her leather jacket, behind the park's shrubbery and far away from the local GCPD swarming. Their lights flash red-and-blue in the night.
"You should head out before the Crows get here, Alice." Kate nods, watching the scene unfold. "Dad might be with them."
A pout tugs on Alice's bloodied, bruised lip.
"You can't really leave," she whispers. The gleam of moisture returns to Alice's eyes.
"I am," Kate says hoarsely, meeting gazes with her twin. Her own eyes sting. "We'll see each other again, sis. I promise."
Call it instinct.
Alice sniffs, reaching out and pressing her warm, chapped lips to Kate's forehead.
"We better."
*