Chapter 3: The Warehouse Confrontation
Three nights later, and the rain had returned, a cold, relentless drill against the metal roof of the old Harbison warehouse. The space was a carcass. Ribs of rusted I-beam curved upward into darkness, supporting a ceiling where shattered skylights gaped like missing teeth. The air was a frigid broth of salt from the bay, the sweet-rot of wet wood, and the iron-oxide scent of blood long since washed into the grain of the floorboards.
Selina moved through the shadows like ink through water, her boots making no sound on the concrete. She was here for a ledger, a physical one, old mob accounting that a certain paranoid shipping magnate paid a fortune to destroy. It was simple work. Boring, almost. A distraction.
She felt her before she saw her. A shift in the air pressure. A hesitation in the patter of the rain.
“You’re getting predictable,” Selina said, not turning from the rusted filing cabinet she was picking. “First a hotel room, now a warehouse. I’m starting to feel stalked, sweetheart.”
From behind a corroded shipping container, Kate stepped into a dim slash of neon bleeding from the dock outside. She was in the suit. The full regalia. The armor gleamed dully, the cowl sharpening the planes of her face, her red hair a stark spill against the black. But the cape was torn at one edge, and a fresh, dark smear streaked one armored bicep.
“The drive was encrypted,” Kate’s voice was filtered, mechanized, but the exhaustion was human. “Military grade. Took my system forty-eight hours to crack it.”
Selina turned the lockpick with a final, delicate click. The drawer slid open with a groan. “And?”
“It was a fucking key. To a safety deposit box in Zurich. Contents: two million in untraceable bonds and a first-class ticket to Bali.” Kate took a step forward. Her voice dropped, the modulator struggling with the raw pitch. “A getaway plan. You were really gone.”
Selina didn’t look at her. She thumbed through the mildewed files. “Everyone has a retirement plan, Batwoman. Even thieves.”
“You left me naked in a shitty hotel room for a ticket to Bali?”
“You left me feeling generous.” Selina found the ledger, a thick, leather-bound monstrosity. She tucked it into a waterproof pouch on her hip. “Consider it a severance package. Now, if you’re not here to arrest me, you’re blocking my exit.”
“I’m not here to arrest you.” Kate’s hand went to the seal at her throat. There was a hiss of releasing pressure. She pulled the cowl back. Her face was pale, circles like bruises under her eyes. The rain had plastered stray strands of hair to her temples. She looked wrecked. She looked furious. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to make me feel… that… and then just vanish into the goddamn sun.”
Selina finally faced her, leaning back against the cabinet. “Feel what, exactly? Used? You were. Get over it.”
“No.” Kate was on her in three strides, armoring gloves closing around Selina’s shoulders, shoving her back against the cold metal. The impact knocked the air from Selina’s lungs. “You felt it too. On the roof. In that room. I saw it. That wasn’t nothing.”
Their faces were inches apart. Selina could smell the rain on Kate’s skin, the ozone of the city, the faint, clean sweat beneath the armor. Her own heart was a trapped bird. “What do you want, Kate? A confession? Fine. You’re a good fuck. Is that what you need to hear?”
Kate’s laugh was short, harsh. “I want you to stop lying.”
One gloved hand slid from Selina’s shoulder to her throat, not squeezing, just holding. A threat. A promise. The other hand fumbled with the fastenings of her own armor at the groin, the tactical plating giving way to the flexible suit beneath. With a tearing sound, Kate ripped the fabric open.
“You want to treat this like a transaction?” Kate’s voice was a guttural growl. “Then earn your fucking escape.”
She spun Selina around, pushing her forward over the top of the filing cabinet. The metal bit into Selina’s hips. Kate’s weight pressed her down, unyielding. A glove grappled with the closure of Selina’s catsuit, yanking the zipper down to the small of her back, peeling the tight material down over her ass and thighs. The cold warehouse air kissed her exposed skin, raising goosebumps.
Selina heard the rustle of more tearing fabric, a wet, soft sound. Then Kate’s body was flush against her back, not skin to skin, but the rough, textured armor against Selina’s back, the heated, bare core of her pressing against Selina’s ass. Kate’s thigh, thick and powerful, shoved between Selina’s legs from behind, forcing them apart.
“You want to go?” Kate hissed in her ear, her breath scalding. “Then come first. Come on my thigh like the desperate thing you are.”
It was crude. It was brutal. It sent a shock of pure, undiluted heat straight to Selina’s cunt. She tried to arch away, but Kate’s arm banded across her chest, locking her in place. Kate began to move, a rough, grinding rhythm, her muscular thigh riding up against Selina’s exposed pussy.
The friction was immediate and brutal. The suit material of Kate’s leggings was slick with her own wetness, creating a maddening, rough glide against Selina’s clit. Selina gasped, her fingers scrabbling against the dirty metal of the cabinet. She hated this. She hated the loss of control, the sheer animal need of it. A low moan crawled its way out of her throat.
“That’s it,” Kate snarled, her own breath coming in ragged bursts. Her hips pistoned, driving her thigh harder, faster. “You’re so fucking wet. For me. Even now. Especially now.”
Selina was. Her own slickness coated Kate’s thigh, the sound obscene in the hollow silence of the warehouse—a loud, sticky, rhythmic slap. The pressure was building, coiling low in her gut, a wildfire spreading from the point of relentless contact. She was climbing too fast, the edge looming after only a minute of this frantic, fully-clothed grinding.
“Kate—” It was half protest, half plea.
Kate’s hand slid from her chest, down over her stomach, blunt fingers plunging through rough curls to find her. Two fingers shoved inside her, curling, and Selina cried out, the fullness splitting her apart. Kate fucked her with her fingers in time with the brutal drag of her thigh, a devastating, overloaded rhythm.
“You’re gonna come,” Kate stated, voice raw and final. “And I’m gonna feel it. And then you can run to your little tropical paradise. But you’ll remember this. You’ll remember me feeling you come apart.”
The words broke her. Selina’s orgasm tore through her with violent, silent intensity. Her body seized, back bowing against Kate’s armor, her cunt clenching viscously around the invading fingers, a flood of wet heat spilling over Kate’s thrusting thigh. She saw white behind her eyes, her mouth open in a soundless scream.
Kate held her through it, movements slowing to a deep, grinding roll, milking the last shudders from her. Only when Selina went completely limp, boneless against the cabinet, did she withdraw her fingers.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the rain. Kate stepped back. Selina heard the soft, wet sound of her adjusting her torn suit.
Selina pushed herself up, slowly, her legs trembling as she pulled her suit back up over her hips. She turned, leaning against the cabinet for support. Kate stood a few feet away, cowl still down, watching her. Her expression was unreadable—a mask of grim satisfaction and something hollow.
Selina’s body hummed, her nerves screaming. She felt flayed open, more vulnerable than if Kate had simply beaten her. She straightened, forcing a coolness into her posture she didn’t feel. She nodded toward the torn opening in Kate’s suit, at the glistening evidence of her own arousal smeared on the black material.
“Looks like you earned your severance package, too,” Selina said, her voice miraculously steady.
She didn’t wait for a reply. She pushed off the cabinet, snatched the pouch with the ledger, and melted into the deeper shadows of the warehouse, heading for a broken window she’d scoped earlier. Her body ached with the aftershocks. Each step felt unsteady.
She didn’t look back. But in the dripping silence, just before she slipped out into the night, she heard it—a single, bitten-off word, swallowed by the rain and the rust.
“Fuck.”