**With Lea.**

She runs back, duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She doesn't stop running, stomping through puddles in her heavy combat boots. Breathing frantically, and wet black hair sticking to every side of her face. Just recently she had gotten off of the phone with Abuse, giving him the address of your home and telling him to meet her there.

She runs through alleys, shortcuts, goes between buildings.

Running up over to a large wooden fence, she's only a couple blocks away from your house. This is where things get a little more tricky, because this is where it actually starts to turn into neighborhood territory. She could get into a ton of trouble for this, but she hasn't seen anymore police officers in the area. One good thing is after they all assumed she wasn't at the house, they branched off around Gotham to continue their extensive search. Gotham's finest, great.

The red interior of her leather jacket has gone a dark violet from the rain, frantically breathing as she lunges back and steadies herself evenly on both of her feet. The extra ankle support in the boots she's wearing has helped quite a lot. She's rolled her ankle twice tonight, not to mention what that drug peddling Leviathan nearly did to her, she'd only have a slightly sprained ankle for about maybe four days. Something she doesn't exactly mind waiting out. Just not now. That needs to be walked off in the meantime, and all the adrenaline? Yeah, it's helping her forget.

She knows she has a gun on her. She's had a gun on her person at all times since she arrived in Gotham. And yeah, she knows you'd do more than just freak out if you found out she had a gun. After everything that's happened to you and your family? She'd rather shoot herself in the foot than let you know she has a gun on her. And it's in the duffel right now, along with some other things.

Slinging her arm back, and chucking the black heavy duffel over the dark brown rain soaked fence. Letting out a grunt of pain when doing so, she probably pulled something earlier. It's all just now setting in. No matter how awesome or cool she thought doing all of that with Abuse was, she'll also admit that it was probably one of the more dangerous things she's probably done. At one point or another? Before things got too serious and scary, she could have very easily said that it was the best night of her life.

But even she knows that Abuse has some things he's going to explain to her that are going to make things not exactly the same as the previous month has been. One of which being why he is the way he is. Lea? Well, she's not falling for it. There has to be a reason why he doesn't wear a mask. She has completely figured it out yet, but she knows she will soon.

Jumping up and wrapping her fingers around the ledge of the tall wooden fence, she lets out another pained groan. The dark sky with even darker clouds just send down more rain, making her fingers slip. She grimaces in pain, the feeling of the wood under her raw fingers. Her gloves are fingerless, her palms are covered and all. But her fingers aren't. And it would have been a lot more painful if the wood was dry, she doesn't feel like pulling out sharp splinters from the pads of her fingers.

Grimacing even more, wincing in pain. Pulling her body up to a point she could stick both of her feet in two open spots on the fence. Bending her knee and shoving it against the wooden bar that's placed in the middle, she jumps off of her right foot and wraps her left arm around the top of the fence, hissing through her teeth as she feels the sharper ends of the fence dig into the softer parts under her arms. Something she probably needs to work on if she intends to keep doing these things.

She hears a car parking into a driveway behind her, snapping her eyes wide open and giving her the motivation she needed to straighten her knee and leg out, shoving it against the wall of the house next to her and pulling her body up and over the large wooden fence. The only real problem with that is she was moving too fast out of fear of being caught, and didn't realize she hadn't let go with her hands in time.

Completely and utterly pulling herself over, she felt her heels tap against the gutter of the roof before completely flipping back over the fence, smacking her back directly to the fence. This let out a howl of pain, seeing as her back hit the center wooden post that had screws and nails in it the hold it in place. Catching her dead center, and by the time the pain doesn't even completely settle in, she's letting go of the fence and falling face first onto the soaking wet and jagged duffel bag.

Groaning in pain, she pushed her body up off of the wet muddy grass. Brown splotches of wet dirt covered the left side of her face, both palms pressed firmly to the ground with the duffel right under her face. All it took was one simple push, but a muscle in her back strained when she was about to get up. Causing her to dig her knee into a deep muddy puddle, that had a sharp rock residing at the bottom of it.

"Shit!" She hissed out an even quieter string of curses directly afterwards, feeling a sharp stinging pain in her knee as she rolls off to her left. Laying on her back, before slowly sitting back up.

She bends over, straightens out her left leg. Her right one is the newly injured one, glancing over at it to see the damage.

"Oh, shit." She hissed through her teeth, wincing in burning pain as she worked her hands towards the bleeding mass. Moving away a wad of dirt with dead grass in it, soaking wet and muddy. She needs to clean this soon, or it's going to get infected. There's so much mud and dirt and for the love of god, she hopes these people don't own a dog.

The jeans are ripped are her knee, tightening in an uncomfortable way around the deep gash left by the sharp rock. She's not crying, but the longer she just sits there with it stinging in pain due to the mud and all the bacteria getting in it? She'll be crying about it later when it's gotten serious effects and consequences for not dealing with it right away. She can already see a dark purple and off shade of green forming around the deep cut.

It's slow, but she stands back up. The duffel bag is even heavier like this, soaked in rain. She knows she should never have come here-to Gotham. She knows that, and she has a sickening feeling that she's only been making things worse. All she can think about is how different things would be if Mason had come along with her. How worse? How better? Or would it all be indifferent.

Hobbling or limping to your house, in the pouring rain. She can't tell which one sounds more pathetic. The limping, or the hobbling. At least she's not crawling.

The second she's able to, she throws the duffel bag on the porch of your house. Next to one of the many potted plants all over the place. Going through it and finding the small handgun. It's only got six bullets in it, and she doubts she'll ever need it. There's an assortment of smaller self defense weapons in there. A two hole ring that has two pointed ends on it, she tore it from a key-chain about a year ago. It's suppose to look like a cat, but it really honestly looks more like some kind of rodent. With long ears? She doesn't know, maybe it's the lack of a bright pink color throwing her off. But she grabs that one as well, and slides the black to hole ring on her index and middle finger. Sharpened edges extending outwards as she holds the gun in a position pointed downwards. So if she accidentally shoots, it's pointed to the ground.

She opens the door, but doesn't expect there to be company. It's dark, so with her free hand and her still going limp, she reaches for a flashlight that's usually kept on the table right next to the door. Your mom's way of being prepared for blackouts. She knew that maybe Abuse would be here, but the people here do not look nearly as tall as him. Or as bulky, really.

It only takes a split second for her to go from aiming the gun at the ground to aiming the gun at one of the men in the living room. The flashlight pointed at the back of a man, the taller of the two. One of them is obviously in a cape, but he can be seen only the dimmer parts of the light. As the main focus is trained on a tan trench coat.

John Constantine turns around when his ears register the sound of a click made by a gun, making the masked vigilante in a red and black long cape turn with him. Red Robin.

"T-talk, or I shoot."

Her voice is breaking, staring at the man she knows on a personal level that has done your family wrong. Red Robin, at his side, shows a look of annoyance. Reaches for presumably a batarang in one of his yellow belts slung across his shoulders, but John only reaches his hand lower to keep Red Robin from doing so.

"Cordelia, I can explain everything. Put the gun down slowly."

It's been so long since she's heard her actual name, upon hearing the sound of it, her fingers only tighten around the gun. Along with the trigger. Nobody's called her that in years, and she was so sure that she couldn't even remember her actual name. Of course, that's a lie. She'd always remember it. Remember hearing how it was said, more likely. In an angry tone, disappointment, relentlessness. The only time she ever heard it in a soft spoken manner like this was before her mother passed.

She looked completely and utterly unhinged. A scowl on her face, half of it muddied by harsh bruises and dirt. She's still bleeding, heavily. She's leaving small droplets of blood wherever she walks or sways. Her hands are shaking, especially the one holding the gun as opposed to the one holding the flashlight right under it. John takes a step forwards, extending his hand in a show of surrender. He's holding nothing. Slowly raising the other next to it.

Lea only takes a step backwards, and once her back hits the wall? It's like everything that's been overwhelming her takes control.

She shuts her eyes tightly, wincing in pain from her knee and everything else, and the sound of her voice letting out a highpitched shriek. And it's like every memory she's ever had that gives her fuel to the reason she and Mason have reason to hate him is right under her eyelids as she shuts them.

While he was still there, in the short time that Lea and Mason were friends with you before your dad took off without a single word, things happened in the house.

Tapping on her shoulders, whispering and clawing on the walls. Sometimes it was more serious things. Like the first time she stayed the night, she went to go use the bathroom. Out of fear, she tore the shower curtian back.

She saw someone standing there, then in a mist of white they vanished down the drain. Mason says he saw similar things, but he's never able to talk about any of it without having issues. Stuttering, looking over his shoulder. Freaking out. Lea and Mason know just as well as your mom knows, that wherever John goes? Those things follow.

And when she shrieks, it just barely comes close to being loud enough to covering the noise that the gun made once fired. She didn't even mean to do it, she just got scared, and then pulled the trigger.

Theres the sound of metal clashing with metal, and when she just barely peeks her eyes open she can see that Red Robin had his arm reeled back as if he had thrown something. Pressing her back to the wall, and sliding down. She lets her eyes open fully to see john holding his hand to his shoulder at the same time she see's the mirror behind them shatter into several pieces, the flashlight rolling to her left and the gun lulling out of her hand.

She's terrified. Just seeing him brings back all those nightmares and memories that she had back then.

"Bloody hell, that's seven years bad luck."

Lea doesn't believe it. She doesn't know what to do. She can't make her lips say the words 'I'm sorry', for shooting him. Or the fact he took a bullet that grazed his shoulder, and then proceeded to crash into a mirror behind him. Not only that? He doesn't seem like he's in serious pain. Yeah, he hissed through his teeth. He's visibly bleeding. He looks like he's in more pain the more time passes by, but all he says? 'Seven years bad luck.' All she can think is 'what the hell?'

But in her state of being so overwhelmed? It's just a mixture of watering eyes and frantic breathing. Being called by her birth name, everything that's happened today, everything that's happened to you, not knowing where you are, just everything. What she's gotten involved in, an assassin nearly shooting her in the head with an arrow? Yeah! She's overwhelmed! And she's allowed to show it!

Theres the sound of a motorcycle being parked in the driveway, and Lea knows that it's Abuse. She see's Red Robin tense up, making his way over to the door. Locking it, but it's quickly broken down by what looks like accident.

In comes Abuse, large brown trench coat and fedora. Holding the door by it's doorknob, Red Robin needing to backup because abuse walks in anyways, ducking his head to come in. Door still in his hand.

"I didn't mean to do that."

**Unknown location, with you**

"Elder Futhark Runes, Enochian script, triangle of Solomon, and the seal of Furcifer. You've definitely got all your work cut out for you, shame this journal isn't really yours. The codex, however, is something you were going to inherit. I know more about you than you know about yourself, don't you find that interesting?" No coat, though Nicholas looks like the type of person who'd usually wear one. But you were obviously left unaware of the fact that the coat your father wears so regularly, was once in possession of someone else. The man before you.

You've given up on moving. It just hurts your shoulders and wrists even more than they already burn in pain. Eyes half lidded and raw from pain, the smoke from the fire below you hasn't quite reached the burning point where it's actually burning your skin. It's still below your feet, there's some metal type box slide keeping the fire at bay. But there's holes in the lid that make the smoke continue to rise up, going forth towards your eyes. Burning, and irritating them.

But the smoke isn't grey like it's from a normal fire, and it doesn't smell exactly like smoke from a woodfire or smoke from a gas fire. It's nothing you've smelled before. And right before he had placed the wood under the metal lid, he went into great detail of the fact that the wood that's being placed under you is from a tree in Nanda Parbat, one of the oldest things that reside in that area. It had some type of spiritual value, and to top it all off? Nicholas grabbed an authentic looking flask and emptied the entire canister onto the wood. Explaining that holy oil can burn for much longer than any other fire starter. Plus, there were other things he mentioned that you didn't want to think about.

Everything below your midriff is covered in burns and bruises. He hasn't yet placed a bare flame directly to your skin, and time seems so irrelevant right now. You wouldn't know that only three and a half hours have passed since you were first removed from your home. It's all just lasted so much longer, feeling so much more intense.

"How would you like to know something about your mother? I know, I know. This is all about John. It's always about him, but there's something I found while digging into your background. She's just about as slippery as he is. As corrupt and wrong as he is. I'm surprised they're not still-"

"SHUT UP!" It's the only thing you've said in so long, lunging forwards in pain with a scowl on your face. Yelling out violently, refusing to care about the pain caused by the ropes and chains around your wrist. Not ignoring it, oh you can feel it. It burns, just like everything else. The black smoke circling your body with your sudden change in emotion. As if enhancing how threatening you were attempting to be. Feeling saliva go past your teeth since you yelled, feeling the need to wipe your mouth. At this point, the smoke wasn't bothering you. You were just so angry, he had the audacity to mention your mother?!

"You're so protective of the people you care about, that's very cute for someone your age. Very admirable as well. Also, a weakness. But did you know she had plans to admit you to Arkham? Well, it's more of an intake. As insulting, either way. I saw your MRI's. Do you remember going and having those taken? Do you remember your 'saint of a mother' show you the results? No?" He walked backwards, smirking before turning around. He reached into a bag that laid on top of a crate, pulling out a large pile of paperwork and the images of your MRI's.

Your eyes were burning again, the smoke settling in your nostrils and sending you into a fit of violent coughs. He only made a small 'tsk' noise over and over again.

"I mean, I understand why dear old mom got so worried. After All, you killed someone. You also started killing birds and rodents. Suppressed anger, would it be? Or something else." He paused, reading through the papers and tossing some into the fire below you, your eyes widening as you kicked out your feet. He's burning proof that your mother may not be all she says she is. Part of you wants to know more, and another part wants to remove all aspects of that image out of your head.

"I could explain everything to you. We could make John think you're dead, but you could know it all-have it all." He went on speaking, appearing to have more of a serious facial expression.

"Have you been expierencing episodes lately? You don't know what you're doing, one minute you're calm, and the next there's something just eating at you. Like there's an intrusion in your head. Someone speaking for you. Someone else doing things for you. Someone else entirely, and you can't remember what they do."

You pause for a moment, and so does he. Awaiting an answer.

You limply nod your head, refusing to look at him. But you just know it, he's smirking in a way that signals he's won.

"You might know it by a different name, but do you know what D.I.D is?" He asked, you shook your head. Closing your eyes tight while feeling them water behind closed lids. Is your mom not a good person? She's a saint, in every meaning of the word. She'd literally adopt Lea if it meant keeping her in a safer household. She'd do so many good things for so many people, even people who probably didn't deserve it. So many things have happened to your mother that she didn't deserve. Why are you believing a single word that comes out of this mans mouth?

"Dissociative Identity disorder. It use to go by another name, personality disorder. In your case, it's to an extreme. A very violent alter Ego that you have no knowledge of. A seventh grader that got away with murder, because your father stepped in without you knowing. You would have been put into an intensive care treatment facility, one much like where your father works at now. Your mother, she wasn't planning on having you become a patient there. More so that you could start seeing a psychiatrist that works there. Call it therapy, because that's what it would be. But she was going to put you in there to get proof, to see if you need to be put-"

"Stop it-pplease." Apart of you wishes he'd go back to burning you. Or just get it over with and set you on fire already.

"Oh, but I haven't gotten to the good part yet. Don't you want to know why you're like this? Why your mother thinks you could go back to how you were so long ago? You only killed one person, because you felt someone close to you was being threatened-"

"P-Please stop it!" Your voice is weak, yelling makes it hurt. A single tear drop lands into the fire below you, through one of the holes in the metal grate.

"I can tell you why. And it all leads back to your father, once again. But I can give you a name, a name that will make you remember most of why these things happen to you. Why you have those moments where you're just so angry, and it suddenly feels like you've blacked out. You've woken up somewhere you know you didn't fall asleep. I know you have. It's written in one of those reports," He paused, points to the fire with his right hand.

"Just a name. It's all you'll hear. so many things will make sense, I can make things better. I can give John the suffering he deserves. You won't even have to die if you just listen to me."

He's manipulating you! He's going to kill you, don't listen to him!

You snap your eyes open in the smoke, pulling your head up and staring at him. The voice- your own voice.

Nicholas watches in amusement as he can clearly see your pupils dilate. Opening his mouth to speak, your ears are listening to every noise in the room.

"Damian Al Ghul."