The pain in her leg felt worse every step she took, Naomi was extremely close to collapsing in the alley. Her only motivation to keep going was that she knew they might catch up if she slowed down.
"Come on Blake, pull it together!" Naomi cursed herself out in an attempt to self-motivate. After cutting out her tracker she was left with a painful wound on her leg.
The traffic ahead was loud as she desperately limped closer, wanting to be closer to people. It was around 9pm so only some were walking that night, and Dick Grayson was one of them. As he passed an alley he heard a whimpering sound, instantly whipping his head around. "Hey is anybody down there?" he called out, hearing sobbing a second later.
"Fuck please." Naomi cried, biting her knife as she tried to wrap her wound with a belt. She looked up and saw a tall man, looking down at her in confusion.
He looked at what the problem was, seeing the wound through her cut pants. "Shit!" Grayson cursed, getting down to help her off the floor.
"No I'm alright!" Naomi told him, pushing him off as she tried to hide her pain. Obviously she wasn't, so Dick put his arm around her and carried her out of the alley.
"What the hell happened?" Dick questioned as he sped off to the closest hospital, looking over at her every few seconds.
Naomi was so disoriented she didn't know what she was doing. "Just drop me off at a bus station and I can get a ticket!" she was gasping for air, he shook his head violently.
"You're aware that your leg is bleeding right? Did you do that or somebody else?" Dick questioned, clearly very stressed as he increased speed. Naomi didn't answer, she couldn't get the words out. "I'm a cop, you can trust me!"
"I'm not trusting a fucking cop." Naomi spat out, breathing heavily as they stopped outside a hospital. Dick jumped from the car, picking her up and rushing Naomi inside.
He ran to the front desk as Naomi was almost completely gone, she couldn't even focus on who was around her anymore. "What's your name?" she heard Dick ask, a gentle hand on her face.
A few hours later Naomi felt her eyes flutter open, seeing a hospital room around her. "No no no, get me the fuck out-" she snapped to attention and tried to leave the bed. Dick sat up from his chair and got her back down, pushing down on her shoulders.
"Don't worry, you're safe." Dick promised her, which she immediately denied. "My name is Dick Grayson, I'm a detective here in Gotham."
"Gotham?" Naomi would never admit defeat, but this was never a place she'd heard off before.
Dick didn't know what to answer, pausing to rub his nose. "What's your name? How old are you?" She paused for a long second, looking at Dick trying to decide if she should trust him.
"I want to leave." Naomi stated clearly, her hands were shaking now but she hid it.
"Not until you answer my questions." Dick stated with the same tone, leaning forward in the chair.
Naomi sighed, shutting her eyes for a second. "My name is Naomi, I'm 15." she told him, exhaling. It was no use lying to cop about something as useless as your name.
"15?" Dick replied, realizing he might've sounded too surprised. "So who did that to your leg?" he cleared his throat and asked.
"Nobody." Naomi replied, god was that a stupid answer, she regretted it a moment later.
Dick sighed again, coffee next to him on the table connecting to the bed. "Boyfriend do that to you? He's a piece of shit if he did."
"No, I wouldn't let somebody hurt me." Naomi answered him, annoyed at how protective his sentence sounded. "I did it to myself."
"Did you want to hurt yourself?" Dick sighed once more, he was too young for all this sighing.
Naomi looked around the room before looking down at the floor. "If I tell you this shit, you've gotta help me. I need you to promise."
"Promise." Dick replied without hesitation, licking his lips and preparing for the story.
"They had a tracker in me, I cut it out of my leg in the alley before you found me." Naomi explained to him, taking another look around the room.
Dick looked puzzled, not knowing if he should be calling her bluff or not. "Who's they?"
"They're watching." Naomi spat out, seeing the red dot out of the corner of her eye. She got up but this time Dick didn't stop her, she looked the camera dead in the eye and ripped it off the wall.
"Is that a-" Dick questioned as she handed it to him, standing in front of where he sat.
"We need to get out of here." Naomi interrupted, going for the door when Dick took her bicep.
He looked down at her, Dick still didn't know what to believe. He truly wanted to think that Naomi was just crazy, but after the camera he didn't know what to think. "Promise you're not bullshitting me?"
"Pinkie promise." Naomi winked, leaving the hospital room without a limp now. Dick was shocked at the quick recovery, starting to gaslight himself into thinking it was adrenaline.
"Detective Grayson." two men in black walked over, they both had sunglasses and guns on their hips. Once they got close enough Naomi twisted one of their arms, kicking the other in the face and leaving them both on the floor.
"Okay who the hell are you?" Dick called as Naomi ran towards the parking garage, with the detective close behind her. They made it to the level with Dick's car, which she immediately waved off. Naomi began to hot-wire a random car, getting into the driver's seat. "Hey adults only, you aren't 16."
Naomi rolled her eyes, gesturing towards two men running towards them. After slamming into both with the vehicle, Naomi sped out of the parking garage and into the roads. "Have you got any safe houses around here?"
"Take a left." Dick instructed, he was so jacked on adrenaline himself that he no longer questioned the situation. Naomi sped up after seeing a black car tailing them. "Who the hell are these guys?"
"My captors." Naomi replied, taking a sharp right turn all of a sudden. "Just got out after 8 years."
"8 years?" Dick exclaimed, he tried to rake his brain for cases of missing girls in the area but he couldn't.
Naomi, suddenly spun around and caused the vehicle to crash into a wall before she drove off in the other direction. "How about I explain this to you when we aren't being chased?"
"Take another left!" Dick yelled as she almost missed it, so another sharp turn she took. After a few minutes they lost the agents, pulling up to a solid wall.
"The hell is this?" Naomi looked to him as Dick hit a button on his phone, opening the wall. "This is some superhero level secrecy." Dick couldn't help but laugh, they parked the car and the wall closed once more.
They walked inside, it was almost completely dark, mainly because everything in this lair was black. Naomi turned her head around to look at cars, weapons and screens everywhere. "Dick Grayson!" a loud voice called out, which made Dick flinch.
"That's me, Dick!" he called back and Naomi let out a giggle, biting her lip as she looked around her.
"Who is this?" Bruce Wayne came out of the darkness, this time nobody flinched at the sudden entrance.
Dick stood up to Bruce, crossing his arms as Naomi walked over to join. "Bruce, I found her in an alley, she's some sort of enhanced who's been missing for years."
Naomi made eye contact with Bruce, not breaking it for a second. "Look all I need-"
"Stop." Bruce interrupted as Naomi put up her hands in defence. "Where did you come from?"
"Here in Gotham." Naomi replied, she still didn't completely trust them. "Now can I go-"
"Where in Gotham?" Dick now interrupted her, both were facing Naomi completely.
She swallowed, now slightly intimidated. "They called it the C.A.T project. I was the last one, they killed everyone else."
"What was the project?" Bruce calmly replied, he had an idea where this was going. Dick nodded, a way of saying she could trust him.
"They took me when I was seven, killed my mom. They use a technology to assess who has the best genetics for the training." Naomi explained, suddenly her throat felt dry.
Dick nodded again, knowing there was more she had to share with them. "Who is they?" Dick asked her.
"All of them had masks, except for the big guy, his name was Dalton." Naomi admitted, this went against literally all of her training.
"Describe him to me." Bruce inquired, pulling up a photo on his computer as they spoke.
Naomi looked to Dick and swallowed, her hands were shaking again. "6'4, dark hair and eyes. Strong and a scar on his eyebrow."
"Is this him?" Bruce produced an image onto the screen, his voice sounded deeper now. Naomi nodded, not being able to say much else about the man who ruined her life.
"Shawn Dalton." Dick shook his head, if she wasn't lying this was astounding to him. "What kind of training Naomi?"
Naomi tapped her fingers, deciding to tell the complete raw truth. "They were training us to kill, to be personal assassins for rich men."
"You killed people?" Dick looked at her, she was too young for him to think about her doing that.
"I had no choice, he'd threaten to hurt me if I didn't. But it didn't matter, because he killed them all." Naomi looked down to the floor, she hadn't fully thought about what'd happened yet.
Bruce tapped his fingers on the table now. "Who did he kill? Why did Dalton kill them?" he asked.
"I don't know why he killed them, but I'm the last one out there. He kept me alive to watch, I was Dalton's favourite so he wanted to keep me." Naomi explained as Dick rubbed his head stressfully.
"His favourite?" Bruce repeated her words, not wanting his assumption to be correct. Naomi was leaving a key part out, they could feel it and she knew it.