HER PULSE GALLOPS wildly && stereo symphony greets her ears where dinah’s cracks along with her. impotence seizes between her shoulder blades. vining tension bundles tighter, winds across notched vertebrae. she reaches for the keyboard because it’s the only thing she knows to do ( they only thing she can do ) only to find her fingertips stalled
dinah’s breath picks up, a measured gasp into her lungs.
&& she strains, struggling to calm because her canary is trained for this. this isn’t their first rodeo.
dinah’s laughing tease about getting killed flits to the forefront of her flawless memory so brightly that it yanks a string of bile up the back of barbara’s throat like a flame on a wire. she folds over her searing gut, confined to her chair in her tower with her best friend on the line a whole continent away.
❝ ❞ her mouth forms silent encouragement when a pointed boot swings into frame to fell the attacker in front of her before the snare roll of bullets peppering the air freckles her hearing, disrupts the signal further. vital signs climax at her lefthand screen, all adrenaline but still singing, still alive. && that, here, where barbara has situated herself at the brink once more, is EVERYTHING.
guilt already streaks along in the wake of her scalding fear.
hope springs on a font behind her breast as she watches the fray. flawless as always, blows land on their targets; skill wins out from kicks && punches, crunching bone giving way so that she can almost feel the impact beneath the heel of her own palm
then, the discord reaches the peak of its opus with a note barbara recognizes so well she could pick it out of a hundred guns. it haunts her nightmares, every moment in which she travels back to the past. a single shot, the mountain valleys of her monitor halting
&& then the camera ducks, crimson slathered across the five-fingered splay of shock.
❝ DINAH! ❞ she calls out, desperate && frantic both. jamming the comm does nothing as the angle of her picture slants, steeps high && starts a free-falling descent toward nothing….
❝ please, no… dinah, NO. ❞ her voice hitches && panic blooms in her belly along with a small dash of denial. so many times they’ve been through this, so many times they’ve succeeded unscathed.
a heavy slap of water, of a flat back unguarded by strength beats the image out from her purview.
&& the lines to the left, beeping so quick with a heartbeat && respiration just moments before, go SILENT.
HER NINETEENTH && FINAL crudely etched tally mark was the last image she had
of that dank hole of a home she’d made for herself in that cargo ship; a memory which
she planned on burying deep in a bottle of whiskey within the hour. a throb of pain in
her abdomen resonated through her as she hauled herself onto the dock, finally free of
the ship’s confines && it’s less than pleasant sailors. there were few things in her past
that topped the misery of her last three weeks of existence.
how she managed onto the ship ( && undetected at that ) was a true mystery; she had
no recollection beyond the assumption of an adrenaline-powered determination, or hell,
maybe arthur was involved--- the alternative couldn’t be anymore far-fetched. but the
salvation she had thought she’d found had been short-lived once she’d realized she’d
become a stowaway on-board the same organization that’d shot her in the first place.
gotham’s glowing high-rises greeted her like a warm smile; it was rare a sight like that
filled her with such reassurance--- but the bright, round, orange beacon of the clocktower
...of her clocktower--- it loomed in between the cracks of it’s taller steel brothers, calling
her home.
her feet began to carry her on their own accord, dinah pulling up the borrowed shirt she’d
managed to scavenge earlier in the week to check her poorly attended bullet wound. the
shot had been clean through ( something she felt incredibly lucky for; just another scar to
join her already plentiful collection ) so cleaning && dressing the thing hadn’t been as
horrific as it could have been. she knew babs would force a proper doctor on her &&
she would oblige, though she felt could live without--
her feet moved faster, closing the remaining blocks between her && goal in a trot;
the motivation of the relief on the best friend’s face cancelled out every single jolt her
wound sent her as a reminder. it’d been nearly three weeks && the bat symbol painted
the overcast sky--- there was no way to even tell if she would be there, but she wasn’t
going to let that stop her.
she ascended the same way any other costumed street lackey would, slowly making
her way through the lower roof’s trap door ( a little slower than normal; she never made
note of how much twisting was involved before ) && closed her eyes as the smell of
herbal tea && the hum of computer servers wrapped around her. following the promise
of the cold glow of computer monitors around the corner, her heart leaping into her throat
at the sight of red hair silhouetted like a halo.
‘ hey---- ’ her voices rasped out with barely a whisper, another reminder she
hadn’t spoken or slept in nearly three weeks && a wave of exhaustion washed over
her. she leaned into the doorway for support, clearly her throat && wetting her lips.
‘ ----please tell me some of that chicken fried rice is for me. '
blakekathryn
janainaart
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
kaledo-art
