Chapter 8: The Scissor Lock
The scent of gun oil won.
It was faint, layered under the jasmine, but to Selina it was the only smell that mattered as she hung from a microfiber wire outside the penthouse window. Gotham’s wind, sour and relentless, whipped at her. Her muscles screamed, a symphony of pleasant aches from the night before—the burn of the ropes on her wrists, the deep, satisfying throb between her legs. She’d worn the memory like invisible armor all day.
The window was locked now. Of course it was. A silent, biometric seal. Kate’s dare had been an invitation, not a concession. Selina smiled against the glass. This was the language she understood.
She pulled a small, flat device from her belt, its screen glowing a soft blue. She placed it against the seal. It hummed, searching for the frequency of the locking mechanism, not to break it, but to mimic the unique electrical signature of Kate Kane’s heartbeat. It was a piece of tech she’d liberated from a Wayne Enterprises R&D lab two years ago. She’d been saving it for something special.
The lock clicked. Silent. Smooth.
She slipped inside, a drop of shadow into deeper shadow. The penthouse was still, the only light the city’s own grim glow. It felt different in the silence, a museum of a life she wasn’t meant to see. She moved past the bed, its black velvet comforter still crumpled from their bodies. She didn’t let herself look at it for long.
The safe was behind a panel in the dressing room, disguised as a mirror. Selina stood before her own reflection, a ghost in tactical black. 10-24-18. The numbers felt like a live wire in her mind. A birthday? A death day? A coordinates? She entered them.
A soft hydraulic hiss. The mirror slid aside.
Inside was not just a drive. There was a service pistol, clean and oiled. Dog tags on a chain. A photograph of a younger Kate with another woman, both in uniform, smiling under a blistering sun. And a plain black encrypted drive. Hastings.
Selina reached for it. Her fingers closed around the cool metal.
“I knew you’d come at three a.m.”
Selina didn’t jump. She let out a slow breath, her back still to the voice from the bedroom doorway. “Predictable?”
“Optimal. Low city noise. Shift change for the building’s security. You’re a creature of optimal patterns, Selina. It’s why you’re so good.”
Selina turned, the drive in her hand. Kate stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. She wasn’t in the suit. She wore grey sweatpants and nothing else, her torso a map of pale skin and defined muscle in the low light. Her arms were crossed. She looked tired. She looked ready.
“You gave me the combination,” Selina said.
“I did.”
“So this isn’t stealing.”
“It’s accepting a gift. Which is worse, for you.” Kate pushed off the frame and walked into the room. She stopped by the bed. “You have what you came for. Now what?”
The challenge was back in her eyes. The same challenge from the night before, stripped of sex but throbbing with the same current. Selina slipped the drive into a pouch on her belt. It wasn’t about the drive anymore. It hadn’t been since Kate whispered the numbers.
“Now,” Selina said, her voice quiet, “you try and take it back.”
She saw the decision flash in Kate’s eyes. Not as Batwoman. Not as a soldier. This was something else. Kate moved.
It was not the disciplined combat of their first fight. This was raw, personal, and silent except for the impact of flesh and the rustle of fabric. Kate lunged, a fist aiming for Selina’s solar plexus. Selina twisted, taking the blow on her ribcage, the air huffing out of her. She drove a knee up, catching Kate’s thigh. They grappled, stumbling against the dresser, a perfume bottle crashing to the floor, its spicy scent exploding into the air.
Kate got an arm around Selina’s throat from behind. Selina dropped her weight, breaking the hold, and elbowed Kate hard in the stomach. Kate grunted, her grip loosening. Selina spun, shoving her backward. Kate fell onto the bed, the velvet swallowing her form.
Selina was on her in an instant, straddling her hips, pinning her wrists to the mattress above her head. They were both breathing hard, chests heaving. Selina looked down at Kate, at the fierce blue eyes glaring up, at the pulse hammering in her throat.
“Got you,” Selina whispered.
“You have me,” Kate corrected, and the meaning shifted.
Selina released her wrists. Instead of rising, she leaned down and kissed her. It was nothing like before. It was slow, deep, a tasting. Kate’s lips parted, her tongue meeting Selina’s in a wet, searching slide. Her hands came up, not to fight, but to cup Selina’s face, pulling her closer.
The fight bled out, leaving a heavier, more desperate energy in its place. Selina broke the kiss, her mouth traveling down Kate’s jaw, her throat, sucking a dark mark onto the pale skin above her collarbone. Kate’s head tipped back, a low groan escaping her.
“The rope,” Kate breathed, her voice ragged. “In the nightstand.”
Selina didn’t question it. She reached over, yanked the drawer open, and pulled out the same coil of black silk. This time, her hands were not steady. This time, it was a collaboration. Kate lifted her arms, offering her wrists. Selina bound them, loop after loop, knot after knot, and secured them to the intricate chrome headboard. Kate tested the bonds, a sharp tug, then relaxed into them, her body surrendering to the restraint.
Selina sat back on Kate’s thighs, looking at her work. Kate Kane, tied to her own bed, utterly vulnerable, utterly trusting. The power of it was a drug.
“Tell me what you want,” Selina said, her hand resting on Kate’s lower belly.
Kate’s eyes were dark. “I want you to make me forget my own name.”
Selina’s fingers hooked into the waistband of Kate’s sweatpants. She dragged them down, Kate lifting her hips to help. She was bare underneath. Selina spread her legs, kneeling between them. She didn’t use her mouth. She used her hands, her touch merciless and specific.
She pressed the heel of her palm hard against Kate’s clit, a steady, grinding pressure. With her other hand, she pushed two fingers inside her, curling them, searching. Kate cried out, her back arching off the bed, the muscles in her arms cording as she pulled against the silk.
“You’re so fucking wet already,” Selina murmured, fucking her fingers in and out in a slow, deliberate rhythm. “Just from the fight. Just from knowing I’d win.”
“Shut up,” Kate gasped, but her hips were pumping, meeting every thrust.
“No.” Selina scissored her fingers, stretching her. She added a third, the fit tight, making Kate gasp. “You like this. You need it. You need to be taken apart. Tell me you need it.”
Kate’s composure shattered. “I need it. God, I need it. Please, Selina, don’t stop.”
Selina drove her fingers deeper, harder. She leaned down, her teeth grazing Kate’s nipple, biting down just shy of pain. Kate’s whole body shuddered. Selina could feel the tight, frantic coiling inside her, the precipice.
“Come for me,” Selina ordered, her voice a whip-crack in the quiet room. “Come on my hand. Now.”
It was the permission, the command, that broke her. Kate’s orgasm slammed through her with a silent, breathless intensity. Her body locked, her cunt clamping down rhythmically on Selina’s fingers, a pulsing, hot flood. She shook, a long, drawn-out tremor, her head thrashing side to side.
Selina gentled her touch, working her through the waves until Kate went limp, boneless against the sheets, her chest slick with sweat.
For a long moment, Selina just watched her. Then, with careful reverence, she untied the knots. The silk fell away, revealing faint red bands on Kate’s wrists. Selina brought one wrist to her mouth and kissed the mark.
Kate’s eyes fluttered open. She looked drained, peaceful in a way Selina had never seen. Without a word, she reached for Selina, her hands clumsy with aftermath. She undid Selina’s belt, pushed the trousers down, her touch urgent now.
“My turn,” Kate slurred, her voice thick. She rolled them over, reversing their positions with a surge of residual strength. Now Selina was beneath her, half-dressed, exposed.
Kate’s mouth was everywhere. She kissed Selina with a hungry, open-mouthed desperation, her hands pulling off the remaining clothes. When Selina was naked, Kate paused, just looking at her, a strange, almost pained expression on her face.
Then she lowered her head between Selina’s legs.
There was no art to it. It was devouring. Kate licked into her with a focused, animal intensity, her tongue flat and broad, then pointed and probing. She sucked Selina’s clit into her mouth, her hands digging into Selina’s thighs to hold her open. The sounds were obscene, wet, desperate.
Selina twisted her hands in the sheets, the pleasure too acute, too direct. “Fuck, Kate… right there…”
Kate groaned against her, the vibration tipping Selina over the edge. Her orgasm was a swift, violent punch to the gut. She came with a sharp cry, her vision whiting out at the edges, her hips lifting off the bed.
Kate didn’t let up. She lapped at her, gentler now, drinking her in, until Selina had to push her head away, oversensitive and trembling.
Kate crawled up her body and collapsed beside her, their skin sticking together. The room smelled of sex and shattered privacy. The city outside began to bleed from night into a grim, grey dawn.
After minutes of tangled, quiet breathing, Selina spoke. “10-24-18. What is it?”
Kate was silent for so long Selina thought she wouldn’t answer. “The day I got discharged. The day I stopped being one thing and didn’t know what to be next.”
Selina turned her head on the pillow. She looked at the profile of the woman beside her, at the tightness around her eyes. The drive in Selina’s pouch felt suddenly heavy, insignificant.
“Why give it to me? Why that number?”
Kate finally looked at her. The loneliness in her eyes was a vast, cold ocean. “Because you steal things. I thought maybe you could steal that day, too. Make it mean something else.”
Selina reached out, her fingers tracing the line of Kate’s jaw. It was the most vulnerable thing either of them had said. It was a greater theft than any she’d ever attempted.
She didn’t have the words. So she kissed her, softly, a seal on a confession. When she pulled back, she swung her legs off the bed and began to dress. Her body felt used, glorious.
Kate watched her from the bed, not moving. “You’re leaving.”
“The sun’s almost up,” Selina said, fastening her belt. The drive was still in its pouch.
“And the drive?”
Selina walked to the door. She stopped, her hand on the frame. She didn’t look back. “You dared me to steal it. I did.”
She left Kate in the rumpled bed, in the fading dark. Out in the hall, the elevator ride down was silent. In the lobby, she nodded to the dozing security guard. On the street, the first cold drizzle of morning began to fall.
She took the drive from her pouch. She looked at it, a small, black rectangle. Then she dropped it into a storm drain. It clicked against the concrete below and was gone, washed toward the sea.
Carlton Hastings wasn’t her problem. The file was a ghost. The number, though. 10-24-18. That was something she kept.