Stiff legs seemed to revert back to elasticity, slowly easing into her muscles. Kate Kane looked down at her sports watch, and set the GPS and Time, brushing her short, dyed vibrant Red bob from her vision, and pulling it into a tight ponytail.

A rare elation made her heart thump in her chest before she even started, she closed her eyes and sucked in a long, languished breathe. The cool air condensed around her, plumes of vapor rising into the air. She could feel her body steaming already, in the cool, mist morning.

She checked her watch again. Fifteen minutes to do three kilometres. Plenty of time.

She paused, rolling up the sleeves on her GCU Hoodie, pulling the hood down. Slaughter Swamp, filled the air near her apartment, adding its own heady mixture of peat and mulch scents to an already damp, cold and mouldy apartment building. Her part of Gotham had a different climate to the rest – cooler, damper, more disregarded.

Fog swamped her feet, leaving her barely able to see her ankles, muffling the sounds around her. A disquiet fell over her. Cars were few and far between at this end of town. A battered old car sat disused on a street corner, near a broken dumpster.

She stepped off the stairs to her home, and into the fog, stretching her hamstrings a few times before setting off at a gentle run. She felt that familiar pull at her body, the longing for speed, for endurance. To push. Her body knew what she needed, but she was in search of something more. She wanted the hard psychological reset of the Runners High.

Each run was her life in a microcosm, a mirror held up to her existence. The repeating pattern of foot to the ground. Repetitive. The same streets, the same faces. Just a constant wearing down of her senses. Forging ahead, because her legs ached and her chest hurt, but stopping wasn’t any option, because if she stopped now then she’d stop forever.

Her legs ached, deeply in her thighs and calves. Her chest loose and fluid, her arms tight in the shoulders, especially her left. She rolled it around a few times, trying to loosen the tightening fascia in her joints, trying to work out her injury that never really healed.

She had never needed anything more than a pavement and some shoes to quiet her mind, but she needed the act of physical exertion, at her limit, the effect of exercise to loosen the contents of her stomach almost, to feel alive.

But like any drug, abuse negates the effects. Each exertion left her less alive, less lose, less quiet. Her mind was awash with thoughts, her stomach knotted. Her breath fractured and arrhythmic

The moment her stride changed and her body took over from her, conscious efforts ceased and it was biomechanics in beautiful action. The moment her body freed her mind. The moment she stopped thinking and being, and was simply movement. The moment she didn’t have to contend with reality anymore, she simply, was.

The Sun crept over the horizon, filling the ordinary Gotham with a dappled, broken, dull light, dispersing through the seemingly thickening fog. Light always burned the fog away, but on its first encounter, the Fog always one. Darkness always damped the light.

She paused, shaking her head. Philosophy wasn’t her strong suit, and neither was maudlin poetry.

Kate rounded the block on the 20th Kilometre of her mid-week run. Shoulder aching, she never knew how to release the kinks in her body, she always needed someone else for that. She heard the engines of a plane descend to Gotham City Airport.

The arrivals. Returns.

She continued her run, which with every step turned into a spring. She couldn’t directly remember the quote, but she remembers a famous, world record breaking runner says If you can’t go anymore, Go Faster.

Tearing around a bend, she saw Gotham City Airport before her. She stood in the fog shrouded shadows of the building overlooking the runway, pausing, and standing to attention.

She watched the plane land, and the returned military personal, disembark.

“Semper Fi,” she whispered to herself, before turning on her heels and heading back to her apartment.

Dear Elizabeth,

It has been Years. I have not written, nor seen you, for too long. There is a shame inside me that I cannot quite contain, that I cannot give voice to either. There is a shame in that we are together, always, yet forever separated.

Dad would be ashamed. We never left each other behind before. Not after Mom.

But I feel as though, after letting you down, the world never stopped to hold me up either. I am left to fall further and further from the life he had, and wanted. That the mistakes I have made along the way have left me in a place where I am barely alive.

As I write this letter I feel as though I truly understand you, that, at some point, you cease to exist and the ebbs of the world slowly bleed you dry, leaving only a husk, an empty shell of a person. You know me. I am not prone to these displays of naked emotions but I am diminished, Elizabeth. I am not Kate or Katherine or Katie. I am…laid bare, and there is nothing left to fill me.

I thought of you every day, and, as much as you may find the idea laughable, I found you always to be a beacon of hope.

Even though you are trapped here, you’re a Light in the Sky – You are, at least trying.

Especially after Mom. You tried, harder than any of us.

Dad, did not.

I, did not, truly, try. I am not over what had happened.

I thought I was, but I was wrong. Deluded.

It happened again Liz.

It happened to me again.

I have left the Forces. Discharged. Dad would be ashamed. But they let me down, Liz. They let us down, again and again. I thought I was repaying a debt, but it was not. I was replaying our pain. Pain which broke you, and damn near fractured me apart.

I am back in Gotham, and soon, I will pluck up the courage to visit you. Soon.

But not this week.

Love, always,

Katherine

HOMECOMING

By Ed Ainsworth

“Kate?”

Kate’s eyes opened slowly. Her alabaster skin seemingly thin, tight and reflective of the harsh, white lights of her bedroom.

“Grigorio?” She asked, her eyes barely open. She rolled onto her front and buried her face in the pillow. “What time is it?”

“It’s 7:30pm,” he said. He stared down at her with kind, focused eyes, and slightly wry grin in the corner of his lips. Kate has always loved that he found the fun in any situation, but lately, he seemed to smile less and less around her.

She snorted.

“You’re early, then, aren’t you?”

“Wednesday,” he said, sitting on the end of the bed. He removed his scarf slowly and folded it a few times, neatly, before putting it on the bedside table. “I’ve tried calling.”

“Yeah? Phone Dead.”

“Yeah,” he said, “Kate, the door is open.”

She snorted again, her eyes tightly closed against the soft, warm comfort of the pillow. Days old black makeup smudged against her eyelids and across her face, creating a mask of darkness that spread and thinned as it reached the edges of her temples.

“OK?”

She could hear him adjust himself, and the soft sigh escaping from his lips. She imagined the look of disapproval and the frustration tic he had where he chewed the skin around his nails.

“Kate,” he said quietly, “I’m not alone.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, “Shilo is with me. You don’t have anything in your cupboard except Coffee. No Food, and your purse has been emptied onto the table.”

“Damn,” she said, into her pillow, “I knew that girl looked like trouble.”

Grigorio put his hand on Kate’s shoulder and rubbed it softly.

“Get up. Put some clothes on. We need to talk to you. Shilo will be wanting to make a coffee and shout.”

“Sure, sure,” she said, pushing herself onto her elbows, “I’ll get right on it.”

“NOW, Kate,” Shilo yelled from the Kitchen, “I’m done waiting.”

Kate turned her head slightly to give Girgorio the a confused, lopsided look.

“He is an escape artist, Kate, and if you don’t try something new here, he’s looking to escape your friendship.”

She closed her eyes and laid back into the bed.

“Let him,” She said, “Let it all be done.”

Dear Elizabeth,

I sometimes wonder if the events that led to your treatment had affected me in a similar way. I find myself increasingly focused on the Existential nature of Life and Death. I find myself wondering, honestly, if I am just filling time until I die, and nothing I have or hold is of value.

I thought, being part of the service and defence of this Country, that it might give me the same meaning that Dad had, but I can see I was wrong.

I am too different from what they want, I think outside and act outside of the norm. All the training was a waste on someone like me.

I am listless, without purpose. I run, but by bones and muscles, they scream in protest. I’m not unfit for the exercise, but unfit for life.

Why am I even here, Liz? Why am I here and not where you are?

Love Always,

Kate

“Welcome back,” Shilo said, pushing some salad around in a Plastic container, “Something to eat? Drink?”

Kate said nothing and sat at the table. A steaming cup of black coffee was placed in front of her. Shilo gestured for her to take a sip. He sat down in front of her, a well built lithe man with an imposing presence. He seemed to fill the space around them, and act as a perfect counterweight to Grigorio. While he was persistent and quietly kind, Shilo was loud, and brash. Even the clothes he wore seemed to contrast the Italian Man. A white three piece suit with an affected, purple tie to contrast his dark skin.

“I would say something completely dramatic like this is an intervention, Kate, but you really don’t seem to care.”

Kate offered a slow nod.

“Shilo?” Grigorio asked.

“You need to sort your shit out, girl,” Shilo said, forking a mouthful of greens, “Since you’ve been back you’ve been so far from the Kate we knew that it’s starting to make us think you’re an imposter.”

“Not unheard of,” Grigorio said, “We’ve had giant Tentacle Monsters,”

“Starfish.”

“Those have Tentacles, though.”

“Well,” Shilo said, “Technically, those are arms, not Tentacles. Without getting into the whole semantics thing here, Gio.”

“The point,” Grigorio said, more firmly, “Is that we’re losing you. Seam’s like we’ve already lost you, actually. You’re so withdrawn, you’re not…”

“You got no agency, Kate,” Shilo said, scraping some more greens around the side of his bowl, “You’re letting stuff happen. This whole situation with your living situation, the obvious signs of a robbery? What were you doing?”

“Were you drunk?” Grigorio asked, “Again?”

Kate shrugged.

“Probably. I think I met her at a bar? I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What do you wait for them to approach you and what, ask for sex? A drink? A place to stay?”

Kate shrugged again.

“I don’t know,” she said, and rubbed her temples, “Is there any Coffee?”

Grigorio sighed, offering a small gesture to the already existing coffee before her. He pushed the plastic cup towards her with his index finger, emphasizing its continued existence. She took it and sipped it, slowly and carefully.

“You look like Shit,” Shilo said, “Like actual, week-old shit. White shit.”

“I know,” Kate said, “Hey. Don’t touch those.”

Shilo was leafing through letters she’d stacked on the side.

“You going to post these?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“You don’t want to, I don’t know, acknowledge them with us?” Shilo asked. His face was expectant. Kate turned away from him.

“Nah, didn’t think so. Well, I tell you what. I’ll let you know if their contents escaped into the mind of Mr Miracle, and you can explain to me when you’re in a better place. Or I’ll read them when we find you murdered in your bed after a weeklong bender.”

Shilo pushed the chair out and threw his plastic fork onto the table.

“Sort your shit out, get a break, get some food and coffee and get rid of the drink. Remember the Kate who was driven and was someone we all looked up to. Not this sad sack of shit we have to look down on. You’re not even a shadow of the woman we love.”

“Go,” Grigorio said, “You’re not helping.”

“Neither is she,” Shilo said, putting his hat on, “Lock this fucking door.”

Shilo stormed out, slamming the door behind him. Grigorio sat in silence, resting his chin on his thumbs while he watched Kate stare into nothing.

“Do you have anything you wish to share with me, Kate?” he asked.

Kate blinked a few times and slowly, deliberately shook her head. Grigorio clucked his tongue once and pushed his chair back with the back of his legs.

“Shilo is an expert in escaping. I am a Magician of, some, not insignificant abilities. Both require drive and passion. Fire. For a time, Kate, you had more fire than us all. I will not say that I know what happened to you while you were away, nor shall I ask again, but…we are your oldest friends. We love you. Care for you. Please. Explain to me or to us why it is you are so..hollowed?”

“Gi,” she said, looking up at him, finally, “I can’t.”

He nodded once, slowly, then he closed his eyes and returned to the bedroom.

“It is cold outside today, Kate,” he said, returning with his scarf, now around his neck, “Perhaps you will be running? Perhaps not.”

Kate said nothing, staring into the coffee before her.

“We are here should you need us, Kate, but I feel…Shilo feels…we are not needed or wanted at this time. Please try to limit the destructive behaviors, if you can.”

He kissed her on the top of his head, before leaving quietly.

Kate stared into her coffee, seemingly for hours, before leaving it, and heading back to bed.

A knock at the door woke her, although she didn’t know how many hours after Grigorio and Shilo had left. She quietly got out of her bed and opened the door. Two women stood before her, one with beautiful, tightly maintained blonde hair, and the other, a mane of dark brunette.

“Katherine Kane?”

“Yeah?”

“Detective’s Margaret Sawyer & Renee Montoya,” the Blonde said. She stared at Kate with piercing blue eyes, “May we come in?”

“What’s this about,” Kate said, her eyes heavy. Her body sagged underneath a seemingly invisible weight once again, something in the pit of her stomach turning.

“We want to talk to you about Sophie Ellis,” Montoya said, “Do you know that name?”

Kate closed her eyes slowly, and shook her head. She opened the door fully. Montoya shot Sawyer a side-eye’d look, and filed into the apartment, with Sawyer closing the door behind her.

“Appreciate it,” Sawyer said. Montoya moved into the kitchen area, where a stale cup of coffee sat, along with the contents of Kate’s bad.

“Coffee?”

The Blonde detective looked around the wreck of the kitchen. A full sink, no food on display, no washed dishes, and a half-empty bag of instant coffee by the percolator.

“Ms. Kane, are you OK?”

Kate raised an eyebrow half-heartedly and sat down at the kitchen table.

“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Ellis?”

Kate tilted her head to one side and looked at Montoya out of the corner of her eye.

“Mrs? Married?”

“Typically, that is what a Mrs signifies,” Maggie said, sitting down opposite Kate, “Coffee will be fine for me.”

“I’m good,” Montoya said, holding her hand up and rolling the corner of her lips.

Kate got to her feet and walked to the percolator, switching it on and pouring some new water and granules into the filter.

“People who cheat on their spouses tend not to advertise it too obviously.”

Kate spread her arms across the kitchen counter and let her head hang.

“How long was she here for?” Montoya asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What did you do?” Sawyer asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Talking? Netflix? Dinner? Sex?” Montoya asked, starting to get visibly irritated.

“I don’t know.”

Maggie leaned back in her chair.

“You know, if I wasn’t sat in your shithole of a kitchen while you make me week-old coffee from a shitted machine, I’d say you’re lying to us, Kane.”

Kate turned to look at Maggie. She expected some level of anger, or worse, disgust, but found something far more brutal.

Pity.

“I’m fine,” Kate said, her monotone hanging in the air for a minute too long before Maggie responded.

“Sure,” she said, “So, Mrs. Ellis, what talks to you? You proposition her?”

“No,” Kate said, “It isn’t like that with me.”

“You pay?” Montoya asked.

“No, I don’t have anything to pay with.”

“We know. Ellis stole your Credit and Debit cards, and they’ve got fuck all on them,” Montoya said, “I’ve met Homeless people with more liquidity than you.”

“What are you asking me,” Kate said.

“What was the nature of your liaison?” Montoya asked.

“I think, if she is the woman I met at the bar, then I met her when I was at…,” Kate said.

“You think? How drunk were you?”

“Blackout,” Kate said, quietly, “I don’t remember coming home. I was woken up this morning, by my friend.”

“Convenient. Anyone able to corroborate that?”

Kate nodded slowly.

“My friends Grigorio Del La Vega, and Shilo Norman.”

“Norman,” Maggie pursed her lips, “Yeah. We know him. Prickly.”

“Prick,” Montoya said from the corner of her mouth, quietly.

“So, she picked you up, blackout drunk, you…what…navigated home with your Echolocation, and then…I guess, had semi-consensual sex with a married woman and don’t remember it?”

Kate sighed and poured a soupy coffee into a dirty mug. She set it down on the table and rubbed her bleary, bloodshot eyes.

Montoya leaned over and whispered something into Sawyers ear. The blonde detective’s eyes never left Kate’s.

“Nah,” she said, to her partner, “I don’t buy it. Look at her. Look at her skin. She looks like she’s not seen the sun for months. Only comes out at night.”

Montoya cocked her head to one side.

“I like her for it.”

Maggie tapped her finger to her nose.

“Your preferences aren’t evidence, Renee.”

“Your bleeding heart isn’t either, Sawyer. We’ll carry this on down-town”

“Katherine Kane,” Montoya moved around behind Kate, gripping her frail wrists tightly, “You’re under arrest for the Murder of Sophie Ellis.”

Next Issue: GCPD’s Finest…