"Why didn't he shoot the kid?" Cat and I had bolted the second the killer/mugger had left the scene. He'd been seconds away from shooting Bruce, too, but at the last second he changed his mind and walked away. Why? He couldn't possibly have morals: I'll kill any man and woman, but I draw the line at children! Yeah, right. The gun shots still rang in my ears, even after the alley was long behind us; I could still hear Bruce's wails as he realized his parents were dead. I hated my parents with every fiber of my being, but even so I'm not sure what I would have done if my last memory of them had been… That. 

Cat was a freaky sort of calm. I imagined this wasn't the first time she'd seen people shot and killed. Maybe she was just used to it by now, but I couldn't imagine that, getting used to seeing people dying all the time. Who the hell watches someone get murdered and thinks 'eh, whatever. Everyone's gotta go sometime.' It was sick. Fucking insane. "Why do you care? They're just a bunch of rich snobs." 

"I don't." That was a lie, but I didn't have a better answer. Why did I care? Their deaths didn't affect me; it wasn't like they were related to me or anything. The truth was the world would probably be better off without another rich, white, socialist couple in it… Still, I couldn't get the image of their dead bodies laying on the concrete out of my head. The broken pearls. Martha's head rolled to the side. Thomas staring, blank faced back at her. The blood pouring from the wounds, staining their clothes. Even from where I sat on the fire escape I could see all of it, clear as day. I couldn't imagine seeing it all up close the way Bruce had. Did the sound of their bodies hitting the ground ring in his ears too? 

We'd just left them there, didn't even call the police (not that they'd do anything -- they'd want to close the case as quickly possible).  I wanted to do something, but really there wasn't anything to do. I couldn't stop that man from killing the Waynes, couldn't tell Bruce it'd be okay -- for one thing I didn't know him so it'd be weird, and two, that'd be a lie. This would be the worst moment of his life for the rest of his life. I couldn't find the guy who'd killed his parents either. I didn't have any resources. What would be the point anyway? That wouldn't bring them back, it wouldn't give Bruce any closure. It wouldn't do anything. "I  just think it's a little weird." My mouth was dry, but my stomach hurt too much to ask her to steal a drink for me. 

"Of course it's weird, it's Gotham." Cat spun around to face me, poking me in the chest. "Look, just forget about it, okay?" I really wished it was that easy. "People die all the time. It's no big deal." No big deal. Yeah, right. She had no idea how wrong she was. The Wayne murders, as it would turn out, would jump start a whole new kind of batshit crazy in the city of Gotham. 

The weeks went by, and in that time the police were quick to murder -- I mean, take care of -- the Wayne's murderer. Mario Pepper. He resisted arrest, ran from the cops, and pulled a gun on them. They shot him because self defense in the line of duty… That's what they're telling everyone anyway. I thought they were just spewing bullshit again, but what could I do about it? I was just some stupid street kid, a Black trans girl at that. No one would ever listen to someone like me. 

The cops that shot Mario Pepper's names blew up, but one in particular kept popping up everywhere after that. Jim Gordon. He was one of the two on the Wayne case, he chased down Mario Pepper, and his name was on a boat load of other crimes. They made him out to be some sort of flippin' hero -- they even had it printed on the front of the newspaper: Hero Cops Catch Wayne Killer. I guess it made sense that he'd be the one on the job when street kids started disappearing, too, but that didn't make me actually like the guy. I didn't trust the cops, the ones in Gotham least of all. 

I wasn't sure when it had started exactly, but it had been going on for weeks. Street kids disappearing without a trace. No one even knew, hell I probably wouldn't have noticed either if I hadn't been one of them. We gathered around a fire under the bridge; Cat was spatting around a silver heart necklace, her curly blonde hair poking out from under the hood of her jacket and goggles. The gesture made her look something like an actual feline. Almost kinda cute. I figured she'd stolen the thing, though, and that sorta ruined the whole aesthetic. I was just trying to finish the sketch I'd been working on the past three days in the pad she'd gotten me. It was probably also stolen, but I'd learned a long while ago that it was better to not ask where Cat got the things she did. 

The van parked a few feet away, tires squealing against the broken pavement, getting everyone to look up. A woman exited the vehicle, plastering a big ol' grin on her face, showing off these pearl white teeth that somehow seemed as bright as the sun even in the midst of the fog and shadows of the streets; she was dressed in fifties sitcom style (because I guess no one with money in this god forsaken city could afford any style). A big floofy black skirt, a gray button down cardigan, white dress shirt, and one of those weird short tie things that made a bow around her neck. Her hair was pinned up in a tight bun at the back of her head, her glasses glinting against the shattered street lights and crackling fire. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something about her movements seemed all too robotic. 

She gave us a little wave, that grin of hers way tighter than it ought to be. What was wrong with her? "Hi, I'm Patti. This is Doug." She gestured over at her buddy. He wasn't exactly plump, but he wasn't all that skinny either; and he had an identical robot grin. Same fifties style. Black cardigan, gray button down, matching black slacks, thinning salt and pepper hair. He was carrying a big picnic basket, but somehow I doubted the two of them planned to have a romantic evening here of all places. "We're with the mayor's homeless outreach project." What? I'd never heard of anything like that before. Since when did the mayor give two shits about the homeless? "We have some sandwiches and soup." 

"We got cookies, we got candy," Doug added on. "Who here likes chocolate?" Well, that was a bribe if I've ever heard one… 

I glanced at Cat, and that was it. I knew we were in trouble. She was backing away from the robo freaks, taking each step slowly so they wouldn't notice. Cat had astounding survival instincts; if she didn't trust these people there was a good chance that they were dangerous and sketchy. Unfortunately, the other kids didn't seem to see it that way. They marched right up to the basket to get their sandwiches and candy. 

One of them -- what was his name? Felix? -- turned back to us. "Ain't ya hungry, Cat, Dez?" The truth, I was starving; and the food really did smell great. Fresh ham and mouth watering juices wafting over and intoxicating me. The warm chocolate chip cookies that looked like they'd melt right in your mouth, chewy candy and seven different kinds of soups. It had been ages since I had something that wasn't stolen out of the dumpster. It was oh so tempting, but one shake of Cat's head steered me in the other direction. 

It took less than three seconds for things to go to shit. The woman withdrew a long, silver pin from the pocket of her cardigan, jamming it into a kid's neck before proceeding to do the same to the others. My eyes widened as, one by one, they dropped to the ground unconscious. A homeless man from across the street shouted at her, running to help, but before he got anywhere near her she whipped out a pistol; and for the second time in just as many weeks I heard a loud bang! as she fired the weapon. The man dropped in a pool of red. 

Cat grabbed my hand and we ran, but I couldn't move without tripping over myself. The shot still rang in my ears, my stomach in knots all over again. I thought I'd be sick. It didn't seem right. The Waynes were murdered after going to the movies and the cops were immediately on the scene, solved the case within a few days. This guy… The cops wouldn't even bother identifying him. They wouldn't bother to solve his case, because he was a nobody. He wasn't rich, he wasn't white, he didn't matter to the system. And those kids? Who the hell even knew what was going to happen to them. No one would even notice they were gone, half of them didn't even have families. That was why they picked them, I guess. Easy targets. No heat. 

"Hey." Cat was staring at me, her brown eyes flickering over my face. I hadn't noticed we'd stopped moving. We were all the way on the other side of the city now. How had we moved so fast? I hadn't even noticed any of our surroundings change. "You okay?" I was the furthest thing from okay. My chest was burning, and my vision was full on red. I wanted to cry, scream. I don't know, what could I do? 

"I, uh…" Kicking at a rock, I cleared my throat. I really hated the sound of my own voice; it was much too deep for my liking. Too masculine. Especially when I was upset, it got all raspy and whatever. But it was a lot easier to focus on how much I hated that then how much I hated everything else. "Yeah. It's just…" I wasn't about to tell her that I felt bad for the poor sap, who's name I didn't even know, or that I was scared for the kids who were as good as dead. You couldn't look weak in front of people like Cat, not unless you wanted one long lecture about how you needed to toughen up. "I don't get why they didn't just poison the sandwiches. It would have been a lot easier." That got an eye roll from her, but at least she didn't think I was a wimp.  

🦇🦇🦇

"What, so they call you out and now you pretend to care?!" The cops were rounding up street kids. It was an excuse to lock us up, a guise to make people think they were ever actually planning on doing something about it, not that any of the people really cared, they just pretended. Everyone was a pretender. The papers found out about us getting snatched, wrote an article about it right on the front page. In response, the mayor issued a warrant for our arrest, giving some bunk about 'getting them into the loving arms of juvenile services.' It was the biggest load of shit I'd ever heard. He didn't care about us. Only his public image. They'd tracked Cat and I down, along with a group of other kids, carried us off; they planned to send us up state. "Screw you people!" 

"Hey!" The cop glared at me, his eyes narrowing from under the trim of his fedora. (Seriously, who wears fedoras anymore? We weren't in the 1920s!)  He was one of the cops from the Wayne ordeal: Bullock. I could smell alcohol on his breath and it was only eight in the morning. Did he come to work drunk? Nice, real professional. He reminded me of a smoker for some reason too, but I had yet to see any packs of cigarettes or even a lighter. I didn't know where that idea came from. "You think I want to be here anymore than you do?" He jabbed his finger at himself. "I got better things to do!"

"Like what? You guys don't do anything."

He made hand gestures like he wanted to strangle me. I thought that was a pretty big accomplishment. "Just tell me your name or else you're goin' in as a John Doe." John Doe. For guys. Ugh. I hated when I had to present as male, everyone always thought that's what I was -- a guy. I hated that I couldn't just be me, but it was safer this way. People got freaky when they saw girls on the streets, I'd seen it enough times with Cat. (She could handle herself, sure, but that didn't mean it wasn't unnerving every time some idiot thought they could have their way with her just because she was a girl and no one would miss her.) No, I wasn't taking any chances. Not now. 

"I have the right to remain silent. I don't have to tell you anything." 

"You're really trying my patience, kid!" For a moment, I thought he might take a swing at me; my hands curled at my sides, I sat at the edge of my seat. Preparing for a fight. I didn't know much, but I knew how to hit. My dad had made sure I knew at least that much, forcing me into a dozen and one self defense classes as a kid.  "Tell me your name so we can ship you off to juvie since you refused to get on the bus with all those other little street delinquents!" 

He was shouting. My body was on high alert -- it was always the same. Screaming first. Swinging second. Fights are inevitable. With cops especially. They don't handle people like me well. I was preparing for the worst in my head. Planning out what I'd do. I couldn't run. Too many other badges. Too risky. I could hit him back. That wouldn't end well for me though. He could hit me. No one would stop him. No one would care. But I'd be damned if I was going to just sit there. Trapped, useless.  

As much as I hated him, my dad's voice rang in my head. Don't act out. Don't give them a reason. Easier said than done. It took everything I had to sit still. To be decent enough I didn't provoke anything. 

"Bullock!" It was the other one. Gordon. I didn't see where he'd come from, but he didn't look too thrilled. Nostrils flared. Harsh light in his eyes. His gaze isn't fixed on me, it was aimed at his partner. 

"What?!"  Bullock swung around, glaring right back at Gordon. "He's being a pain in the ass!" 

"He's a kid, Harvey!" Gordon snapped. 

"So what? He can handle it!" 

He. Really hated that word. It didn't help my nerves, rattling me up even more. I huffed, pulling my hood over my head as Gordon pulled Bullock off to the side. They kept arguing. Arms waving around in a wild series of gestures. They were so loud. Could hear them clear across the room. My heart was still hammering. Hands still balled up. Fingers hurt. The adrenaline was built up. I needed to hit something. Run. Yell. Scream. Couldn't sit still. Everything was too much. I don't know, I just needed out of there. Staying was not an option. But nowhere to go. Nothing was safe. In here it was the cops. Out there, child snatchers. I was stuck. Dead either way. 

"Wanna hear a riddle?" New voice. It took everything I had to look before swinging. Don't give them a reason…

The new voice belonged to a thin man in a gray suit. His eyes were big, wide behind the frame of his glasses. They were too nice to be a cop. Too nice to belong to a citizen of Gotham.  He had a goofy grin. Excited. Too excited. 

I tried stilling my overactive mind. He wasn't a threat. Weird maybe. But not a threat. He didn't seem threatening anyway. Looks could be deceiving though. An image of the child snatchers flashed through my mind. They'd looked friendly too. Look where that got my friends. Nope, not taking any chances. Stranger danger. I tried ignoring him, but he kept staring at me, waiting for a response. He bounced on the balls of his feet, his grin growing, fingers twitching with anticipation. "Do you?" 

My head was foggy. Brain lagging. It took way too long to register what he was saying. Then, even longer to form a semi coherent response. "I -- what?" 

"Do you want to hear a riddle?" he asked again. He leaned forward on his toes a bit. "You look stressed. I thought it would help. So, do you?" 

"I…guess?" What the hell was with this weirdo? 

His grin grew even larger. "There is a one story house in which everything is yellow: walls, doors, furniture. What color are the stairs?" 

I stared back at him, without really thinking. "Yellow?" 

He shook his head, looking all too happy with himself. "Trick question. There aren't any stairs. It's a one story house." 

I gave a soft laugh, mostly just to humor him. He seemed excited about this riddle thing, and I didn't want to rain on his parade. My hands did loosen up though, and I managed to relax into my chair a little. "Makes sense." 

"Wanna hear another?"

"Sure. Why not?" 

"What can you break even if you never pick it up or touch it?" 

"Uh…" 

"A promise. What goes up but never down?" 

I sat up. "Wait. I've actually heard that one before! It's age." 

"Yes!" His grin widened a little more, and I couldn't help grinning back that time. It didn't seem like too many people indulged him around this place. "What is always in front of you but can't be seen?" 

"Ed, stop bugging the deluqunt," Bullock scolded as he and Gordon came back. He seemed extra moody now. Apparently he lost whatever argument he and his partner had been having about beating me senseless. Like it should have even been a discussion in the first place. "Don't you have some dead bodies to dismantle or something?" 

"Oh." Ed's grin fell. "Right." He turned to go. "Wait." I wasn't sure why I stopped him, maybe just to spite the cop. I couldn't hit him back if he started swinging at me, not if I didn't want to escalate things for myself, but I could annoy the ever living hell out of him. "I want to hear the answer." I was pleased to see the cop glare back at me, as if he knew I was purposely wasting his time. 

The weirdo turned again, his grin reforming. It was almost adorable in a dorky sort of way, like someone paying any amount of interest in his riddles gave him the utmost happiness, something that was otherwise not seen in Gotham City. I wished I had something that I cared that deeply for, but I just couldn't find the energy. "It's the future." 

"The future," I repeated. "Cool." 

With another impatient look from Bullock, Ed turned again, taking a few steps. "Bye, Riddler," I said. That made him pause again; he gave me a perplexed expression -- the nickname threw him off I guess. "Bye bye," he said. Then, he was gone. 

"Hm. You should be more like him," I told Bullock. 

"A massive dork?" Bullock deadpanned. 

"Likeable." 

He threw his hands out at me, turning to Gordon with an exasperated sigh like I was proving whatever point he'd been trying to make to his partner earlier. "See what I mean?!" 

"Why don't you tell us your name so we can help you?" Gordon asked. He looked all innocent, but it didn't look nearly as good on him as it did on Ed. Gordon was too high strung. 

"One, you won't help with shit," I said. "Two, I don't want to." 

"Fair enough," Gordon sighed. I could tell he was getting frustrated too. "But if you tell us who you are, you might not have to go upstate. We could find your family --" 

"Oh, he wants to find my family!" I laughed. Probably too loud. It lasted way too long, but I had to prove my point. "Yeah, that's not gonna happen." He stared at me, opened his mouth to say something -- probably wondering if they were dead or what. I cut him off before he could get a word out. "They're the reason I was on the streets in the first place! They kicked me out!" 

"Why would they do that?" His voice carried a disbelieving edge. He couldn't imagine his own parents doing such a thing, I guessed, so of course that meant no other parent would either. All parents were good and pure, can do no wrongs, who loved their kids absolutely and unconditionally. Not mine. They had one condition. I couldn't be a girl.

I shrugged. "They're terrible people." I wasn't going to tell my whole life story to this idiot. Why should I? What right did he have to any information about me? 

"Well, you can't stay on the streets." 

"I have been for, like, a year now. Why bother pretending to care now?" 

He didn't have time to respond to that one. Their police captain walked by, the mayor of all people trailing behind her, footsteps falling in a rush. She was breathless; the mayor was all twitchy, like something urgent was going down. "Bullock, Gordon. My office, now." The two partners exchanged glances with one another, told me to stay out, and hurried off after their boss. 

I wasn't there when they got back.