Chapter Text
Sunlight spilled through the leaves and onto the sidewalk, landing in dappled patches that quivered when the wind rustled through the trees. The air was crisp and sweet with the scent of decay, something damp and earthy. Cass kept her hands in her pockets as she walked next to Stephanie. She kicked at a rock, watched it bounce and skitter onto the road.
“- And I was only there because Trisha had, like, begged me to come,” Steph was saying. “Because Cole Doss was supposed to be there and she’s had a crush on since middle school, but of course he didn’t even show up.”
Steph continued talking, about Trisha and Cole Doss and other people Cass had never met, but knew about through Steph. Steph talked about school, mostly, and about her friends and going to the mall and her mom, sometimes.
Cass liked the way Stephanie talked to her. It was different from the way Barbara would talk, direct and precise and staring Cass down expectantly, waiting for her to say something back. It was different from Batman, too, who Cass rarely needed to speak to in words, just with a flick of her head or a slant in her posture. Steph just - talked. Sharp rolls of her tongue, low drawling vowels, the rise and fall in pitch. Cass liked the sound of Steph’s voice, when it was loud or quiet, bright or flattened, the long spaces she left between words sometimes. She could listen to Steph for hours - had listened to her for hours - and Steph didn’t mind that Cass often said little in return. Or, that when Cass did speak, it was often slow and halting. Steph would wait as Cass arranged the thoughts in her head into words and made her mouth shape out their sounds.
“- and then he started trying to tell everyone the place was haunted.” Steph rolled her eyes. Light scattered through the leaves and fell on them, lighting her irises shiny and pale as ripping water. “Everyone knows it’s just a stupid ghost story. And then I’m trying to find an excuse to leave, but of course I say the dumbest thing, and now everyone thinks my curfew is at nine!”
Steph’s voice rose in pitch, loud and bright even as they passed through the shadow of a tree. Its leaves were starting to curl and die, still on the branch.
“Nine,” she continued, scoffing “Like my mom’s around enough to know when I leave, let alone when I get home.”
“What’s -” Cass started to ask. The sound dragged its way out of her throat, warbled and not quite right. From her peripheral, she saw Steph tilt her head towards her, eyes flickering to Cass. Waiting and listening.
Abruptly, Cass felt a warmth spread in her chest. Her hands squeezed inside her pockets, just once. She started over, a little louder, a little more sure - a little more like Stephanie. “What’s a… ghost?”
Steph’s face twisted, the way it did when she was thinking: the furrow of her brow, the slant of her mouth, the shift of her eyes.
“A ghost is -” Steph started. “When someone dies, sometimes they’ll stick around. Like, not them them,” she said, waving her hand. Cass tracked the motion: the flush of pink along her knuckles, the chipping black polish on her nails. “But their… soul, or whatever, stays behind. Whatever part of them that didn’t die.”
The sun was beginning to creep lower in the sky, hanging round and orange through the glare of it. The points of sunlight on the ground began to go faint and dim before disappearing. Behind them, their shadows stretched tall and dark, like cloaked strangers following them home.
Cass considered this. Ghost story, Steph had said. “Is it a… real story?”
Fiction and nonfiction, Cass had learned from Barbara. Sometimes stories were just stories, but sometimes they weren’t.
Steph shrugged. “Some people think they’re real.”
It was quiet. Not even the blare of distant cars or the echoing footsteps of children chasing each other through the streets. Even the wind had stilled, not a single leaf scraping dry against the concrete.
“We should start heading back, huh?” Steph nudged Cass with her elbow. “I promised Barbara I’d have you home before dark.” She shot Cass a wink.
Cass, unable to help herself, grinned back.
The wind picked up again, whistling through the trees and through the alleyways, cold enough that Steph and Cass huddled close to each other, their arms linked together to try and stave off the chill. Cass had meant to ask if Steph thought they were real - the ghosts, the stories that were just stories, but maybe weren’t.
But Cass had forgotten, too distracted by the press of Steph’s body against hers, the hum of Steph’s voice in her ear, low and quiet, as they walked together through the dark.
Gloria Soto was a stout woman in her early forties, shorter than Steph but taller than Cass. Her face was round and lined faintly around her dark eyes and thin mouth. Her delicately hooked nose poked out of the crack in the door, just above the chain of the deadbolt. Her townhouse was one of the many packed sardine-tight with their sun-faded paint and storm-loosened singles. Her eyes flicker between Steph and Cass.
“Mrs. Soto?” Steph asks with a smile. “Hi, I’m Ella Kurt, we spoke on the phone? This is Casey Mae -” She gestured to Cass. “- We’re here to ask some questions about your daughter.”
“Ah, yes yes,” Mrs. Soto said, briefly closing the door to unlatch the chain. The door swung open, revealing a baby perched on Mrs. Soto’s hip. “Come in.”
Steph and Cass stepped over the threshold, leaving behind the overcast sky and faint drizzle. Mrs. Soto ushered them to take off their coats and take a seat while she put the baby down.
“He doesn’t need to hear this,” she said, hiking the baby up on her hip and saying something to him in Spanish, her voice low and cooing.
The living room is bright and well-lived in, cluttered in a way that feels cozy - a scratched table with three mismatched chairs clustered around it, a china cabinet sticking out far from the wall and filled with brightly coloured figurines, long shelves covered in photos and candles and a few potted plants. A knitted afghan hangs over the back of a worn, blue sofa. Cass pokes at it as she sits, feels the heavy weight of the yarn and the slight scratch of wool.
Steph is still standing, hovering by a bookshelf with her back towards Cass. She’s dressed more subdued than she usually is, in a cream coloured button-up and dark jeans. Her hair is hanging loose, the soft waves lying across her back and shoulders. Cass watches as Steph reaches out and brushes a finger across one of the picture frames. There’s a photo of a young girl, maybe ten or so, with her hair tied into braids and a smile on her face. It’s a school photo, Cass thinks, same with the one next to it, with the girl older, her hair a little shorter but her smile just as bright.
Steph turns away from the shelf, and Cass looks away.
Cass stares straight ahead as Steph takes a seat next to her. The couch cushions dip under the weight of them, making the space between them feel smaller than Cass wants it to. She shifts over a little, trying to widen the gap.
“Your daughter Rosa went missing two years ago,” Steph says when Mrs. Soto has settled in the armchair across from them. Steph keeps her voice soft and careful as she speaks. “Is that right, Mrs. Soto?”
“She did,” Mrs. Soto says, “in May. Went to the library after school and didn’t come home.”
Steph nods. She has a pen held between two fingers and a notebook in her lap. “But the police report wasn’t filed until the second week of June.”
Mrs. Soto’s mouth thins. Her eyes go hard and flat. “Cops wouldn’t listen to me -” she shook her head. “Said she was out with friends, but she wouldn’t, not without calling me. Took weeks for them to file a report. Even then they wrote it off as a runaway.” She scoffed.
Steph’s expression stays soft; her knuckles flex around her pen, tightening and releasing. “Did you ever see the police report?”
Mrs. Soto shakes her head. “I tried, but they wouldn’t let me.”
Anger flashes across Steph’s face like a lightning strike, sharp and hot and gone as quickly as it had come. “I have a copy of it, if you’d like to see it.” Steph takes the file folder and holds it out to her.
Mrs. Soto’s eyes flicker over the page. As she reads, her jaw clenches, her lips going pale and bloodless from how tightly she’s pursed them together. Her fingers curl around the file folder, bending the cardstock.
Cass knows what’s on the page - the sparse, careless notes and incorrect dates. A photo sits on the mantle over Mrs. Soto’s shoulder. Her and Rosa, both much younger: fewer lines around Mrs. Soto’s eyes, and Rosa small enough to fit in her mother’s lap. They’re both smiling, Rosa’s mouth open to reveal soft, pink gums in the space where her baby teeth are missing.
Cass’ nails press into her palms, sharp and stinging.
Mrs. Soto closes the file. She lifts a shaking hand to rub at her eyes, shiny with tears. Her other hand is still tight around the file folder, creasing the edges of it.
“Is there anything else you think we should know that wasn’t included in the report?” Steph asks. Her voice is low and gentle.
“Rosa -” Mrs. Soto clears her throat. “Rosa thought there was a boy from school, following her around - she was a little bit of a heartbreaker, that girl.” She lets out a wet laugh, half-hearted. Her thumb worries at the corner of the file folder. “I thought - I thought I saw someone, watching Rosa, once, when I went to pick her up from school. It might have been another parent, but - I don’t know.”
Steph scrawls down a few jot notes, nodding. “They closed the case not long after opening it - about six months.”
Mrs. Sotto sighs. Her hand rubs at the bridge of her nose. “They said they didn’t have enough evidence. I doubt they even looked.”
Cass says, “They found a body.” Steph glances over to her, a quick flicker of her eyes. “Eight months ago.”
Mrs. Soto nods. “They thought it might be my Rosa, but it wasn’t. Some other little girl who went missing.”
Isbel Gil, seventeen and found bloated and disfigured in the harbour. She had been nineteen and missing for almost a year. Cass knows her face, has a copy of the autopsy report and the posters her friends had put up after the GCPD had stopped looking for her.
“I know she’s gone,” Mrs. Soto says quietly. “Estelle - my sister - thought I gave up too soon. They all did, but I knew.” She wipes a tear from under her eye, placing the file folder down on the coffee table. “She’s here, you know - Rosa.”
Water thumps against the windows, the drizzle having turned into a downpour. The dull, grey light makes the shadows under Mrs. Soto’s eyes look deeper.
Cass tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
“I can feel her,” Mrs. Soto says. “In her room, mostly, but everywhere in this house. She’s waiting, I think, to be found.” Steph shifts, the couch cushions buckling slightly as she does. “We should really move - rent keeps going up, and having to travel so far for work is hard with my sister and her baby.” Mrs. Soto shakes her head. “But I can’t bear to leave Rosa. She was my little girl.”
“Mrs. Soto,” Steph says, “Rosa went to Parkdale Secondary School, right? What grade was she in?”
Steph asks a few more questions, scribbling things in her notebook as Mrs. Soto answers. Cass glances at the bookshelf, at Rosa, fifteen and smiling in her school photo, and tries to see her anywhere else in the room; in the way the rain splatters against the windows or the lamp flickers in the room. But all Cass can see is Mrs. Soto, a mother who had stopped waiting for her daughter to come home. Cass doesn’t know if she finds what she’s looking for.
“I think that’s everything,” Steph says at last. She starts to tidy up, tucking her pen and notebook away. “We’ll be in touch in case anything comes up. Oh - here.” Steph pulls a business card from her pocket and turns it over. She grabs her pen again and scribbles something on the back. “In case you want to reach me personally, but you can always call the office, too, and it will be passed along.”
Mrs. Soto takes the card, the Martha Wayne Foundation logo stamped on the front of it. The card was legitimate even if Steph and Cass weren’t, but even if Mrs. Soto called the laser-printed phone number on the front instead of the ink-scrawled one on the back, it would still be forwarded to Steph and Cass.
“Thank you so much for your time,” Steph says as the two of them shrug their coats down. “Darn, I parked up the street.”
“Oh, I can lend you an umbrella -”
“Oh, no, that’s alright. Thank you, though,” Steph says. “I’ll run for the car and bring it closer so Casey doesn’t get soaked.” She smiles at Cass, brief and tight. Cass can’t do anything but stare. “Be back in a minute.”
Cass and Mrs. Soto watch as Steph darts through the rain, protecting her notebook with her jacket as she runs.
“She thinks I’m crazy,” Mrs. Soto says suddenly. She’s smiling a little ruefully when Cass looks towards her. “That’s alright, most people do.”
Through the flickering blur of rain, Cass watches Steph’s car pull up the street. She can barely see Steph though the driver’s side window, the shape of her distorted and insubstantial, as though it were just a trick of the light.
“I don’t,” Cass tells Mrs. Soto.
Mrs. Soto looks at her for a moment. She lifts a hand to touch Cass’ shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you,” she says. “You be careful out there, won’t you? Keep yourself safe.”
“I will,” Cass promises.
In the car, Steph’s eyes are red, her cheeks flushed and scrubbed looking. She doesn’t say anything on the drive back to the Manor. Cass doesn’t either.
Cass sits on the floor, listening to the distant drip drip of water off a stalactite. A sea of papers surround her - crime scene photos and post-mortems, police reports and 911 call transcripts, printed social media pictures and school portraits of daughters who wouldn’t be coming home to their parents. Seven girls in the last four years, found dead or missing and presumed to be.
In the Cave, Cass sits on the floor surrounded by a sea of paper - crime scene photos and post-mortems, police reports and 911 call transcripts, class pictures and school portraits of daughters who wouldn’t be coming home to their parents. Seven girls in the last four years, found dead or missing and presumed to be.
Cass stares at the autopsy of Emma Yijun, twenty-two and reported missing by her aunt. Her body had been found three months ago, dumped in a back alley two streets over from where she worked part-time as a cashier. Rope burns on her wrists and ankles. Traces of rohypnol found in her system. Evidence of sexual assault. The only suspect had been Emma’s ex-boyfriend, who had been out of state when Emma had gone missing. There had been no other leads, according to the GCPD, and the case had been dropped. The same as Rosa, and the half dozen other victims that were laid out in front of Cass, now.
Montoya had asked Black Bat to look into it. Her. Not Batman, or Batgirl, or anyone else. But when Batman had gotten wind of the investigation, he had ordered Batgirl be put on the case as well. Cass lifts her head to glare at Steph.
On the other side of the Cave, Steph bounces, light on her feet, striking quick and near-silent at the punching bag. Cass watches her - the flex and pull of her shoulders, the snap and release of her arms every time she draws back. Steph was better than Cass remembered her being. Stronger, faster, every movement more sure and confident. She doesn’t flag, even though she had been at it since they had gotten back from Mrs. Soto’s house. The chain squeaks every time Steph hits it. The sound of it grates in Cass’ ears.
She hasn’t sparred with Steph since she had come back from Hong Kong. She hasn’t even been around Steph enough to see her training or in action - Cass took different patrol routes and made herself sparse around the Manor and in the Cave.
Steph turns, maneuvers around the other side of the bag and ducks as it swings out. A bead of sweat drips down Steph’s collarbone, glinting under the fluorescent lights. Cass watches as it disappears under the neck of Steph’s tanktop.
Cass keeps glaring at Steph: the tense line of her back, the bob of her ponytail. Cass feels as raw and irritated as a picked-over scab, as tender and aching as a pressed-on bruise. She looks away before Steph can catch her watching.
The roar of a motorcycle engine fills the Cave, drowning out the thud-squeak-thud of the punching bag. A moment later the sound quiets and Tim rounds the corner, helmet tucked under one arm and his biking jacket unzipped.
“Hey,” he says, giving a wave with his free arm. He stands over Cass, glancing at her spread of papers. “Any luck?”
Cass shakes her head. She’s been staring at the files for so long that she’s starting to feel cross eyed. The frustration at how little progress she’s made throbs behind her eyes.
“We talked to Gloria Soto today,” Steph says, coming over to stand next to Tim. She has a towel slug over one of her shoulders, some of her hair loose from her ponytail and falling into her face. “Didn’t get much that we didn’t already know.”
“What?” Tim asks, noticing Steph’s tone.
“Nothing,” Steph says, waving a hand. “She was just… a little, you know -” Steph seemed to be trying very hard not to say the word crazy.
“She said her daughter was haunting her,” Cass says. “You don’t believe in ghosts?”
She asks it to Steph, turning her head but not meeting Steph’s eye. Cass stares at the space next to her, looking at Steph in periphery, at the shape and play of shadows and light.
Steph’s mouth twists. “I’m not gonna say I don’t,” she says. “Not with the kind of shit we see every day. I mean, B’s best friend is a literal alien, and I know more people than I should who have come back from the dead -”
Cass flinches. Steph isn’t looking, her gaze fixed on some point above her. Her brow is furrowed, just a little, and Cass feels annoyed at having noticed it.
“I’m not judging her or anything,” Steph continues. “She lost her daughter, and that’s - that’s awful.” Her voice has dropped slightly, softer, the way it was when she spoke to Mrs. Soto. “But sometimes, I think the ghosts are just in your head, you know?”
Cass presses her thumbnail against her finger, feels the bite of it sinking in. She does not think about chasing shadows across rooftops in Bludhaven, looking for someone who wasn’t there, who wouldn’t come home. Cass does not think about that ache in her, the bottomless pit of grief and guilt and rage, and the way it had torn at her for months, even after Stephanie was back. Back in Gotham. Back from the dead.
Cass drops her eyes. Picks harder at her finger, until it starts to sting. Rosa Soto, perpetually fifteen and gone from the world- if Steph was to be believed - stares up at Cass from the floor. It was the same photo that had sat on her mother’s bookshelf.
Cass wonders if it was better or worse, trying to hold on to something that might not even be there.