Chapter Text
Angela ran barefoot through the rain, blood on her hands and fear in her throat. The storm howled around her, drowning out her sobs as she stumbled down the dark alley. Every step was agony—her feet raw, her body screaming. She didn’t know where she was going. She only knew she had to run.
She turned a sharp corner and slammed into a dumpster, slipping on the wet pavement. Stumbling as pain exploded in her ribs, she continued running. She couldn’t stop. Not after what they did. Not after what she saw.
Behind her, voices echoed through the rain. “Angela!” Ocean’s voice—sharp and frantic—cut through the downpour.
“Angela!” That enraged voice belonged to Tom.
Angela ducked behind another dumpster, her breath ragged, crouching low and pressing herself into the shadows. Her arms wrapped tightly around her middle, trying to still the shaking. “She couldn’t have gotten far!” Ocean shouted, her voice too close for comfort. “She’s not even wearing shoes.”
“Hey! You guys need to get back here!” a third voice yelled, one Angela didn’t recognize.
Angela heard Tom snarl, followed by the crash of trash cans. She flinched, covering her mouth with one trembling hand. “Dammit!” he swore, pacing closer to Angela’s hiding place.
“We’ll find her,” Ocean said. Tom swore again. “She’s not going back to her foster’s,” Ocean muttered. “And she’s sure as hell not going to school.”
“We’ll check the tent cities,” the unknown voice said.
“Don’t forget the park,” Ocean added. “She’s made friends with the homeless crowd.”
“We’ll start tomorrow.”
“No!” Angela flinched at Tom’s snarl. “Send people out now. Tonight. I want her found by morning.”
Angela held her breath until the voices faded, only relaxing once the coast was clear as her body folded in on itself. She slumped against the cold brick wall, knees drawn to her chest, rain soaking her hair and clothes. She looked down. Her hands were slick with blood. Her blood. She wanted to vomit.
The pain in her stomach sharpened, and she peeled her arm away to see a red stain spreading across the white gown she’d been forced into. Angela gasped, panic rising in her chest as she began to hyperventilate. She wasn’t thinking about the voices anymore. Or being found. The thunder was deafening—no one would hear her cry.
She beat her fists against the pavement, her screams swallowed by the storm. She’d been violated. She felt broken and filthy. She curled into the smallest shape she could, lying flat on the cold, hard concrete, the rain pounding her like punishment from above. She wrapped her arms around her abdomen, where the pain was worst, and sobbed until her throat burned.
No one would stop for a bleeding girl behind a dumpster. Not in Gotham. And somewhere, through the blur of pain and tears, a thought surfaced like a cruel whisper: Why me? When did my life get so fucked up? Where did it all go wrong?
(Approx. one month ago)
Sixteen-year-old Angela bolted out of the house and clattered down the steps, her worn-out bookbag slung over one shoulder. Another morning, another perfectly good breakfast ruined by a screaming match between the hungover married couple the state called her foster parents.
She tuned out the world as she trudged toward school, dragging her feet and occasionally kicking at stray pebbles along the cracked sidewalk. Her sneakers were falling apart at the toes, her jeans were threadbare and torn, and her oversized shirt—sagging on her small frame—was an old hand-me-down from the last kid unlucky enough to live in that house.
But as long as the bills were paid, the house didn’t stink, and her fosters weren’t leaving bruises on her body, her caseworker insisted there wasn’t anything to be done about the constant drunken brawls between the couple. After all, as the woman had once explained with a sigh and a tired smile, she had forty other misplaced kids to juggle.
Angela didn’t see the point in complaining anyway. Her last placement had been worse by far—a waking nightmare she didn’t like to think about.
She paused at a crosswalk and looked both ways just as a yellow school bus thundered past, filled with shrieking kids. She used to ride that bus—back before she got tired of the fake-smiling, airheaded rich kids, the preppy middle-class teens who sneered at secondhand clothes, and the groping little boys who thought they were slick.
No, thanks. Angela walked now. Always alone. She liked it that way. Or at least, that’s what she told herself. She’d only ever had one real friend, and the last time she saw her, they were both seven. So… yeah.
She tuned out the catcalls from a group of construction workers overhead as her high school came into view. It loomed on the horizon like some kind of cursed fortress, its brick walls teeming with people she had nothing in common with.
Life wasn’t all bad, she guessed. Sure, her foster parents acted like she was invisible, she had no real friends, and the odds of her ending up as a statistic were pretty high; but the food wasn’t moldy, the water worked and was always hot, and no one had tried to kill her lately. So, living with functioning alcoholics wasn’t the worst deal she’d ever gotten.
Angela lingered across the street, staring at the crowd of students buzzing in front of the school’s entrance. Everyone seemed to have somewhere to be. People to talk to. Friends to laugh with.
Who am I kidding? I hate my life. And she hated pretending she was fine. With a long, weary sigh, Angela stepped into the street, heading toward the building she silently referred to as her own personal hell.