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You drive through Gotham, streaks of grey, black, and brown mixing and smearing as you speed along with white knuckles tightly gripping the wheel. Your body is racked with cold chills and shudders that come in waves, you focus on your breathing and on driving. Words float through the air rushing through your cracked window.
"Fucking Brat."
"Bastard."
"The fuckin' son of a whore."
"He'll kill you for this."
It's distracting and more than that it's making you feel physically ill. You take a note from your teenage playbook by flipping on the radio and cranking it. The sound of the music drowning out the disembodied words. After a few songs the words cease but the chills ramp up in intensity, you simply grit your teeth and continue barreling to the address you got.
Before long, you end up in the Narrows.
== 3PM - The Narrows ==
You pull slowly to the curb, the last fit of chills having passed a few blocks away, the mere sight of Hawthorne's old car is enough to make your gut loosen the knot it had been forming. You take a moment to close your eyes. You inhale slowly. Gunpowder. Copper. Chlorine. Your palms feel warm, almost hot. You clench your hands and wriggle your fingers, you can feel thick sticky liquid adhering to the skin, you breathe in again. Following Detective Jones words religiously, holding for three seconds, exhaling for three seconds, and repeating until the scent slowly fades away and your hands go from sticky warm masses to clammy and slick with sweat. You open your eyes and jump violently at the face inches from your window.
Hawthorne leans down with a hand on your roof and looks over you slowly, worry on his face. You crack the door and he takes a few steps back, giving you the full up and down.
"You alright?"
"Just had to psyche myself up. Last time I did this it wasn't.. It got to me."
"I remember, son. I appreciate you going along with it."
"What kind of a boy scout would I be if I ignored a direct order from my TO." You try to joke.
Hawthorne's mouth creases and he looks you in your eyes.
"Can you do this?"
"Yes, sir. You may just have to wrangle me a bit, I have the habit of getting active in these."
He grunts in confirmation, reaching in his pocket he pulls a small badge in a sealed plastic bag and hands it over.
"Let's get inside." You say quietly, staring into the dull reflection on the shield.
Hawthorne retrieves a set of bolt cutters and approaches an old rusted out door, leveraging the tool he grunts as he squeezes once. Another grunt and another squeeze and the chain holding the door shut clatters to the ground.
"Ladies first." He says opening the door. You step in, too engrossed in your own thoughts to respond to his joke.
The room before you is in disarray; old broken display shelves, floor tiles shattered and removed from random points, the square tiles of the ceiling brown and black with mold and water damage, and in the corner a thin staircase leading down.
