Asprin, Robert Lynn – Catwoman – Tiger Hunt (With Lynn Abbey)

Selina was the last to recover. The huddling nuns, Rose’s mottled, terrified face—none of this was part of Selina’s world. She saw the cardboard box on its side. She looked for the kitten and found him, fluffed out and panting, as far from Rose as the room allowed him to get. She gathered him against her breast. The beating of her heart calmed him.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered. “It’s not your fault.”

Selina stayed in the shadows beside the wall until the kitten emitted a blissed-out purr and made cat-fists in her sweater. She endured the prickly claws until Catwoman’s hyperalertness had subsided and she was her ordinary self again.

The sisters, led by Mother Joseph, were determined to find evidence of the drugs they blindly believed were the root of Rose’s problems. Selina started to tell them that they were wasting their time, but thought against it before they’d noticed her. Old MoJo’s reaction was understandable. Drugs usually were the cause of everything here in the East End—especially if alcohol was counted as a drug and growing up surrounded by it was called drug abuse. By that standard, drugs were to blame not only for Rose, but for Selina herself.

Getting a firm grip on the kitten, Selina headed for home.

You had to draw the line somewhere. If you accepted that you were a victim, you stayed a victim. Somewhere you had to stop being a victim. You didn’t have to become a wild-eyed crusader; you just had to stop being anybody’s victim, ever again. Batman was a crusader; whoever Batman was behind his mask, he had been a victim. Of what, when, or why Selina couldn’t guess, but she was certain of her conclusions.