A/n: Hi! This is my first story so sorry if it sucks. Ive also posted it on AO3 if you want to check it out there too. I update more often there. I know I'm a little late on the Gotham fic faze train but I've had this on my google docs forever too afraid to post it. Now that Gotham's over I thought I'd just do it.
Hope you enjoy!
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At the age of 10 years, Isabelle Cheranova was recruited by the agency known as GRU, to be their spy, she was trained in virtually all forms of combat and use of weapons. Having stood out among the other children, Isabelle was selected for the Turing Project, who was to deploy units in bio-mechanical Wetware at age 16. Her mission was compromised and she went undercover, where she met Jerome Valeska. She is now around 18 just like the red headed twins.
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The circus didn't have many people to like. The Lloyds: annoying, and rude alcoholics. A family of clowns would be. The Graysons: petty, and vein as royalty. There were other families, just as bad but Isabelle didn't want anything to do with them. The only reason she knew anything about the Graysons and the Lloyds is because of all the rumors that spread between the other families constantly. They knew nothing about her either. Years of nothing but eat sleep and work had caused her to loose her fight on flight attitude she developed as a spy. As far as the families knew, she was just an orphan providing for herself.
The circus families may be full of liars and horrible people, just like who she was trying to get away from by running to America, but she wouldn't be here long. The only one she could tolerate was Christine Horace. She takes care of the money in the circus. She's the one that took in Isabelle. Taught her how to count American money. They shared a trailer. Christine was always kind to Isabelle. Told her after she became old enough to live on her own she'd leave this horrible place, maybe get a real job and have a good life.
After she became old enough to live on her own she'd leave this horrible place, maybe get a real job and have a good life. Shouldn't be too hard, she thought. Only a few years. It wasn't too bad if she avoided everyone she's could. Everyone left her alone anyway. Too busy with the Lloyd-Grayson drama anyway. Except Jerome Valeska. He loved to constantly pester her, mess with her, make fun of her Russian accent, entertain himself in anyway he could. She's knew why, his mother was a nightmare. He needed something to distract himself with. And to her annoyance, he chose her.
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After the night's show started Isabelle decided to go to bed early. Tonight had been a full house and she left the ticket booth exhausted.
As she approached her trailer heard a blood curdling scream. She stops, thinking of all the horrible scenarios that could possibly deserve a scream like that. Once she was close enough to find the source of the sound she froze. Jerome was standing over his mother's dead body. The hatchet he was holding covered in blood. Jerome slowly turned his head to look at Isabella. Once their eyes met his widened, not expecting to see her.
"Isabelle" Jerome dropped the hatchet.
Isabelle's eyes drifted to Lyla's still bleeding body. Jerome ran to her, she stayed frozen.
She hadn't seen blood in years. Not a drop. The flood of memories made her nauseous.
She turned to run and tell someone. But she didn't get far before Jerome was tackling her to the ground. She tried to wiggle out of his hold, but with his full body weight on her she couldn't move.
"Get off of me!" She yelled and tried pushing him off as they struggled.
"What have you done?" A voice asked. The teens looked up to see Mr. Cicero.
With the boy distracted Isabelle pushed Jerome up by his shoulders and slid out from under him.
"What are you doing here?" Jerome ask in a threat sounding tone, getting to his feet.
"I could ask you the same question" Mr Cicero responded. "Let me help you Jerome, come clean up in my trailer" he offered.
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Mr. Cicero instructed Jerome to change his clothes and tried to give Isabelle a piece of paper he had draw strange symbols on for her to carve onto the hatchet's wood. On the back of the paper was an address of an old bridge nearby.
"I want no part in this Jerome Valeska." she sneered at the boy.
He snatched the hatchet from the old man and held the blade next to her face. "Then maybe you shouldn't have stuck your nose in someone else business, hm?"
They stared with equal angered expressions.
"We better get to work before someone notices Lila is gone." Cicero warned and left the trailer. Jerome smirked at her and she yanked the weapon from his hand by it's wood handle.
While the teens got to work Mr Cicero took care of Lila's body.
Making her way back to Jerome's trailer, Isabelle was stopped by Haly the ringmaster's voice calling her name. She walked towards him and the people he was with.
"Have you seen Lila? Detective Jim Gordon here needs to speak with her." Haly said, gesturing to the man on his right.
Isabelle froze, not knowing if Jerome had cleaned himself up yet. "No I haven't." she said slowly, trying to get away from the conversation as soon as possible.
"What about Jerome?" Haly asked.
At the mention of someone Haley had not brought up Jim and his accompanist exchanged glances.
"In their trailer" she replied, trying not to sound nervous.
Lee was noticed her thick accent. "Do you know where that is?" she asked.
Isabelle stared at the woman. "Yes"
"Mind taking us there?" Jim asked with a forced smile, getting impatient.
Haly already knew Isabelle and knew she was naturally shifty and quiet, but Jim and Lee found it strange.
She decided leading the three of them to Jerome and his mother's trailer would seem the least suspicious thing to do since she already said she knew where it was. Jerome answered the door after a few short knocks from Jim.
"GCPD we need to speak with Lila."
"She's not here." Jerome said walking down the steps of the trailer, putting on a jacket. "Why what's happened?" He asked with concern. "Where is she?" Jim asked, ignoring Jerome's question.
"Uh, I don't know. She was supposed to be home ages ago." "Are you a relative?" Jim continued to question. "I'm her son, Jerome." He replied.
"Jerome? When did you last see her?"
"This morning. She was here when I left for the library."
"Relax Jerome." Haly cut in. "He's just here because Owen and Al had a disagreement." Jerome looked at him. "Your mother's fine. Gone on a spree no doubt you know how she is." "A spree? Without her hat, her coat, or her purse?" Jerome asked looking back to Jim.
"Look at Sheba. She's distraught, she knows somethings wrong." Jerome said approaching a snake cage. "The snake does seem to be agitated." Jim said sarcastically.
"Sir?" Haly cut in again. "She's what you call a party girl." He said getting closer to Jim, hushing his voice. Jerome rolled his eyes. "Coming back in the morning with her knickers in her handbag, sure as eggs." "Well she didn't take her handbag did she." Jim pointed out.
"How fast does an animal like that move?" Gordon asked. "Uh, fast walking pace. They rely on surprise mainly." Jerome replies. "Let her out." Isabella looked to Jerome. "I'm sorry?" "Let her out." Jim repeated. Lee looked at Jim, wondering what's going on in his head.
They let the snake explore, slither across the circus ground. Using her strong sense of smell to find anything irregular.
Isabelle leaned close to Jerome and lowered her voice to almost nothing. "That creature can smell blood, you know this?"
"Course I do, shut up." he hissed. He knew he was screwed. And as always, he was taking his anger out of the girl. All he could do now was keep up his innocent son act.
After a while of search the snake climbed into the back of a truck with a white tarp on it. Jim pulled the tarp off of the truck to reveal Lila's dead body.
"Oh my god." Lee said. Jerome playing his part, fell to his knees whimpering. To the surprise of Isabelle, Jerome wrapped his arms around her legs and cried into them. Isabelle played along knelt beside him, pulling into an awkward hug.
Jim looked to Haly, who looked unfazed. "You knew." He accused, walking to him. "You knew she was here." "No". Haly defended. Haly looked to the ground. "Look at me." Jim demanded. Haly looked at Jim and shook his head. "She was like that when we found her."
Jim looked back to Lila's body, then back to Haly.
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"What do you know about Lila Valeska?" Jim asked Isabelle. The office door was closed and a small amount of light coming in though the blinds.
"Nothing"
"Nothing?" Jim asked, not convinced. She shook her head. "You seem to know her son." Jim accused.
"He's my friend." She lied and shrugged.
"But you don't know Lila?"
Isabelle chose her words carefully. "She's not home often." she said, trying to keep it simple as possible.
Jim sighed. "Do you have a phone?"
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After interviewing everyone about Lila's death they were sent back to the circus. Jerome said they needed to talk and asked Isabelle to his trailer. She reluctantly followed and Jerome locked the door.
"You don't seem afraid of me." Jerome asked leaning against the locked door.
She looked up to him from her spot on the wall opposite of him, making sure her expression was unreadable. "I've done worse"
He smirked as intrigue filled his green eyes. "Worse how?"
"None of your business."
He simply smirked. "So were not so different."
"Yes were are." She spat, not wanting to be categorized with Jerome. "I've killed because I had to. You killed because you wanted to."
Without answering he moved from the wall and began to walk over to her slowly. Isabelle didn't move, knowing she could handle herself if he tried anything. He stopped, mere inches away from her. The new attitude and smirk on his face making her heart race.
Jerome opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by Isabelle's phone ringing. "Where'd you get a phone from?" Jerome asked.
"Stole it," she said with a sarcastic tone, though she wasn't lying. Isabelle flipped the phone open and looked at the bright screen to see it was an unknown number. She answered it anyway. "Ok well be there soon." she said, then hung up.
"Who was that."
"Detective Gordon"