[i][b]Bertinelli Estate, Gotham Heights.
7:32 AM.[/b][/i]

[b]Gasp.[/b]

Shock ripped through Helena Bertinelli's body as it jolted to consciousness. The world spun like a top set to maddening speeds; her eyes blinded by a golden glow that allowed no definition or clarity to her sight. Her body curled fetally as her lungs just tried to breath through the heat. It burned to breath, yet the world all around her was sweetly cool to the touch, like a giant cold compress on a body racked with fever. Hands slowly stirred, rubbing down shoulders, chest, ribs, sides, hips. No holes. The relief set her mind out of panic mode, and dropped it into straight survivalism. 

Slow, careful, rythmic breathing and the best worst focus of mindfulness allowed her brain to compensate for some of it. The golden blinding glow dimmed enough to reveal the light of the rising sun filtered through white curtains bouncing off the white tile of the bathroom, the warmth of the sun mixed with the gentle cool of the tile lulling her eyes to a slow close in the bathroom. The first floor east wing bathroom of the Bertinelli Estate in Gotham Heights. Her eyes snapped open, stretched wide in a new stab of terror. Her father's home. 

[i]I live in my penthouse, not my father's home.[/i]

Her mind snapped to half a heartbeat after her body snapped to stand, arms and hands spreading to catch herself as the world's spin began to slow itself enough to allow her moments of spatial calm even as her heart began to beat into her chest. The day before, the night at STAR Labs, it all came rushing back at her in a tide of reality humbling a waking dreamer. Her eyes danced around the sunlit room until they stopped dead at the sight before her; the reflection of the young woman with the brown hair and the big brown eyes that looked to be watching a ghost, afraid to move for fear of warding the spectral sight away. 

She was wearing a silk robe, floral designed and metallic in material, tied at the waist in a bow. It was something she could never remember herself wearing in the history of all her life; she hadn't even bought the thing. One of her designers had purchased it for her because the designer hadn't a very solid grasp on her style. The robe came ripping off, thrown to the floor as the Italian stepped up closer to the mirror with one, two, frantic steps. The inspection started with both hands sliding under her soft, long, straight hair and lifting it up and off her neck and shoulders; head turned this way, than that, then this again just to ensure nothing was missed. Nothing was missed, but she found nothing, either. 

Her body twisted, checking shoulders, shoulderblades, upper back before straightening her body and checking her collar bone, upper chest, breasts, naval area, midsection, and on, and on, and on it continued until she turned every which way to see every which angle of her body. There wasn't a mark. Not a scratch. Not even a bruise--and from what precious little she recalled from the night before there should have been at least a bruise or two. The ground literally crumbled under her feet. Barefeet made quickfire steps across tile and then the hardwood floors of the first floor as she darted through corridors and to the back staircase, where--

[i]"--first floor office, Ms. Bertinelli."[/i]

Her body snapped to a sudden stop in as sunlight in hues of greens and reds and blues and yellows and blues bathed her image from the two story stained glass mosaic window that stretched from the third floor of the back stairs to the second floor of the back stairs. Her lungs began to burn again, the mind felt like it was beginning to rock in an ocean once more, her equilibrium threatening to disjoint from reality. Her eyes closed, her mind silenced, her thoughts were released as the Huntress began to wait, and listen, like only a life long trained super predator could. 

Ten seconds became thirty, then a minute. Then two. The grandfather clock in the corridor. Birds outside the stained glass window. Every syllable and note an empty mansion ought to make. It only brought stress back into her mind. Nothing out of the ordinary, no sign of someone, not even the hint of an electric whizz or whirl or anything otherwise indicating electroni--

[i]"--you won't hear me anywhere but in your head, Ms. Bertinelli."[/i]

Brown eyes opened until they were the size of saucers. Her breath almost stopped, her heart skipped a beat, several beats, her mind raced at speeds that made the spin of the world around her blush. For a reason beyond her, instinct, maybe, her head tilted just to the side as the analytical recesses of her brain went hard and fast on the question of sanity vs. insanity, of audible hallucinations, of anything that might begin to explain what happened to her. Logic suggested it was something from the night before, that if...[i]wait, the office.[/i] 

Her body sprung off the stairs and onto the perfectly polished hardwood floor of the corridor. In seconds she was going through the open door of the office, and scanning the room: the bookshelves with their leatherbound tomes, the antique desk, the globe, the humidor, the couch with her Huntress suit still draped across it's--waitaminute. On instinct alone Helena gathered the suit up, rolled it up into as tight a ball as she could, and held it tightly to her body in both arms. If her cousin saw it, if one of his men saw it, even if one of the maids saw it--no one was in the house right now, but if they had. If they had it wouldn't just be an awkward tense moment like in some movie.

If it happened she might have to kill someone to keep her secret.

Because it was either that, or her death. Likely her torture, then her death. Assuming they could get her, and assuming...the scenario was shoved, kicked, into the back of her mind. She had other things right now, like the burn and ache of her body, like the dizzying spincycle of her head. Like getting the suit upstairs, in her bedroom, into her closet, and into the hidden safe before anything else. The stairs were harder than they ought to have been, not yet difficult, but not seamless. Her physical motions weren't perfect. But they were fast. When you spent your entire life training, pushing yourself, gauging your body and it's capabilities you noticed little things. Like how fast you were moving. 

The cellphone from her utility belt was snatched before closing and locking the safe, then pressing down on the retracted wall panel so it hissed back into place. The hallucination had been right about the suit. It still didn't explain the robe. It still didn't explain the Bertinelli Estate instead of the downtown penthouse, or the Huntress Lair underneath it. But there was one thing she could do to get some sense of the night before and it's aftermath, one number she could call with a question that should clarify [i]some[/i] part of it all for her, anyway. "Hey, Miranda, can you call the security company we hired for the STAR Labs location and ask if they had an incident last night? Someone said something cryptic to me and it's got me curious, now." 

The lie came easy to Helena; lies came free and easy to her always. They were tools of the trade. When you led a secret double life, you just got used to lying. Some people it tore up, having to lie to family and friends, having to weave webs of lies build upon each other. To Helena it was just life, as easy as breathing. In another life she would've been a great CIA case officer, she was certain of it, or a--"Yeah, I'm still here.....nothing? That's according to the guards they had there last night? Yeah?...okay. No, that's good, I don't need anything else. No, I probably won't be in today, something's come up. Thanks, you too."

The line went dead, and Helena felt numb. 

[i]"That's not surprising. The floor can be rebuilt in under an hour, and the guards were probably 'dealt' with so they wouldn't have reported anything."[/i]

So lost in her own numbness and thoughts, this time, the voice startled her enough to make her jump up--and smash her head instead the tight confines of her pink marbled, white with pink accented, drawers and closet rack spaces. Grimacing and cursing in Italian was just her way of venting a little bit. "Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I don't believe you."

[i]"I have no reason to lie."[/i]

[i]Everyone has reasons to lie.[/i]

...nothing. "Great. I get the voice from Field of Dreams that talks when it wants. Of course I do."

[i]"You didn't respond."[/i]

It wasn't normal. Helena's life was normally crazy, but she didn't her voices. So it wasn't that kind of crazy. Now it was? The smack of her head against the shelving above her closet race space in which the safe hid behind only seemed to make the spin of the world speed up. Or maybe it was the stress of even the security guard idea not panning out? Or maybe it was the voice in her head. "I spoke in my mind."

[i]"Oh. I can't read your active thoughts. I don't think, anyway."[/i]

Helena snorted. "Wonderful, so I have to appear to be talking to myself. And then when people ask I'll just say I was speaking to the voice in my head. The Mob will understand all of that, surely. They totally won't think I've lost my mind and plot to kill me and overthrow me. The Mob would never be so murderous and self-serving. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"

[i]"...you're in the Mafia? But you're a wo--"[/i]

"--seriously don't finish that sentence." Maybe it was the tone, maybe it was the growl, maybe it was the elevated heart rate and sections of her brain that controlled anger and stress. Whatever it was, the voice sounded...sorry? A sorry tone from a meek man with a slight Southern drawl. That's what it sounded like. 

[i]"Right. Okay, I didn't mean...listen, I got you here because I was able to read enough of your memories to know this was home. I'm not very good at it, so I had to go linear-ally through your memory."[/i]

"What did you see? How much did you see?"

[i]"...I saw it all. I saw what they did. I saw what you saw when they made you watch what they did to that other little girl, I'm so sorry, Ms. Bertinelli. That's so awful."[/i] Now she just felt sick. [i]"I don't know how...if that had happened to my little girl, I just...I'm so so sorry you went through that."[/i] Seconds. That's how long it went from bad to worse to Jesus make it stop. Seconds and she was on her knees in the bathroom attached to her bedroom, leaned over the toilet, losing anything she had eaten the day before. Which wasn't a lot.

"...shut up. Just shut up about it."

[i]"You need to get to a hospital."[/i]

Her right hand holding back her hair, the left balancing her against the toilet against the spin, all she could do was laugh. Painfully. "What part of Mafia by day, vigilante hero by night do you not understand Ghost of Christmas Hell?"

[i]"My name is Karl. I'm not ghost, I don't think; I have a body. I hope I still have one...it's a long story, and we need to get you to a hospital. Or a clinic. Or somewhere you can run some tests on yourself to see how far it's spreading and how fast."[/i]

"IT?"

[i]"It'd be a lot easier to explain if I could just show you. Isn't there anywhere you could go to run a few tests?"[/i]

And it clicked. Her father's home, Bristol. Gotham Heights. Bertinelli Estate, right down the hill from Wayne Manor, which meant..."Yeah. Just let me get dressed, it's right up the road." Black teeshirt, old jeans, Nikes. It was the wrong kind of fashion statement, but right now she didn't care about fashion statements. She just needed to get going, to move. In the garage she found one of her older Ducatis. When 'Karl' voice concerns about her ability to safely drive, she chuckled. Granted, he wasn't entirely wrong. Driving straight was difficult, but possible, and she never went over twenty miles an hour. There was no need, it was only a few minutes until she was at the gates to Wayne Manor as it was. The "secret" security system allowed her to let herself in without bothering Alfred, though she was certain he'd be alerted to her presence, if he was awake. And by now he likely was; unless he was up monitoring someone doing something. Nightwing was back, apparently, Tim was around. The kid wasn't allowed to GO out, thank God, and Barbara was on the West Coast trying to forget the Batman or the Batcave even existed. 

Lucky bitch.

When she walked in to the Cave, she heard Karl. She heard exactly what she thought she might: [i]"Wooowww. Is this really...maybe Batman can help you?"[/i]

No. Helena never let Batman help her. She wasn't the other capes. She didn't depend on him. He was a useful ally in a fight against the Mafia, little more. He had asked her help with a few things, when he needed the extra pair of hands, because Nightwing and Batgirl were out of the picture, and Red Robin had been...somewhere. A sidekick? No. Even part of his little clan? No. "He's off with Superman gallavanting around the universe, or some shit that makes him too busy and unavailable to help me. What tests do I need to run?"

[i]"Blood tests. Does Batman have an electro--"[/i]

"Yeah. He's got it."

[i]"I didn't finish?"[/i]

"I know. He's got it. That's..."

[i]"What is it? You hear something. What is it? Robin?[/i]

[i]In his dreams.[/i] Her voice was rough, impatient. She didn't have the time, let alone the state of mind, to deal with snooping and nonsense right now. "Kid, if you think you're sneaking around on me, then your father seriously underplayed how good I am at the games you capes play." Even as she spoke she continued to move, sitting down at the medical level of the Cave, preparing for her own blood sample. "If you throw that thing at me, swear to God you'll need your own medical attention..."