Thursday/Friday: 1:27am: Helena’s apartment
Helena felt her eyes shift to feral as Jessica marked her left shoulder. Her heart beat faster as the same lips that had been fastened to her skin brushed her ear.
“One word and I’ll stop,” Jess whispered sliding her hand lower across Helena’s taut, exposed belly. “That’s all it would take.”
Helena arched back into the circle of Jess’ arm pressing against warm, soft skin; against full breasts and firm abs. “More.”
Jess slid her hand even lower, fingers seeking and finding. Helena’s groan of pleasure drowned out the noise of the wallpaper shredding under her hands.
Thursday/Friday: 1:56am: Clocktower
The Delphi beeped drawing Barbara’s attention out of her memories and back to the clocktower. The query on missing kids between nine and sixteen listed more than double the previous month’s disappearances with most of them being 13 or under. The question poked its way to the front of Barbara’s mind. Who are the they she’s meeting with? Helena had only mentioned Jessica Kalen by name but the way she’d reported the vision of the kids Barbara got the distinct impression she hadn’t gotten it from Jess.
He’s running kids. Helena’s voice filled with white hot rage echoed inside Barbara’s head even as her stomach turned. She could understand Jess condoning, even promoting, a gambling operation; gambling was a basically victimless crime. A good theoretical argument could even make prostitution the same kind of crime. Barbara shook her head. The Jess Kalen she’d known would sooner have poked her own eye out with a dull spoon than be a part of King’s new business plan.
“Wow…that’s a big list.” Dinah set down a mug of tea for Barbara and blew across the surface of her own mug.
Barbara pulled up the detailed reports as a second query eliminated kids who had been found in other jurisdictions. That narrowed the list down to small double digits. It wasn’t much comfort. “Don’t forget that you’re probably still listed as missing somewhere. Fourteen kids in a month. Can King’s operation be that big?”
“I hope not. I still think you should have let me follow her.” She shuddered slightly remembering how hard it had been to make that final decision to leave home. Dinah shook her head and tried not to think too hard about what would compel the average, non-meta kid to run away from home. After a year or more on the streets doing sweeps she had a pretty good idea and it still pissed her off.
“Her contacts were very specific, and you know Helena when she gets her mind set.” Barbara smiled and shook her head. The argument over the op, over Helena going into the meet blind, had taken less than five minutes. Barbara knew from experience when it was better to wait Helena out than it was to apply logic. This had been one of those times.
Dinah nodded. “I can still get over there.”
Barbara drummed the arm of her chair tactics and unanswered questions swirling in her head. “No. I trust Helena. Let’s see how it plays out.” She turned back to the Delphi, opened a new window, and began a new search for information on Marcus King.
Friday: 2:56pm: New Gotham High School
“I wanted you to hear it from me and not through the grapevine,” Jess said, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her slacks.
“Why?”
Jess grinned. “Because Mrs. Miller is a horrible gossip.” She grinned wider at Barbara’s laugh. “I’ve got some family business I need to take care of and it’s incompatible with a full time job as a high school guidance counselor. I haven’t been here long enough for a leave of absence so resigning was my only choice.”
“In a few days when things have settled down I’d like to tell you about that, and about some other things.” Jess tilted her head and let the question settle unspoken.
“I’d like that.”
Friday: 4:32pm: Clocktower training room
“Tell me I didn’t just see what I think I just saw,” Dinah demanded.
Helena picked up her water bottle and sat down hard on the bench. She swigged from the bottle, more to buy herself time than to quench any thirst. When she looked up Dinah hadn’t moved; her gaze bore into Helena’s face.
“Judging by the look on your face, I’m going with you saw exactly what you think you did,” Helena muttered. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, as her gut roiled. “Fuck.”
“You’ve probably done enough of that for a while.” Dinah flopped on the bench next to Helena. “Oh don’t give me that look,” she said in response to Helena’s glare. “I’m not the one who went all…” she waved her hands and shuddered at the second hand sensations she’d picked up, “with Ms. Kalen.”[Continue Reading…]