Chapter Six
Selina let herself into her apartment. The kitten escaped before she got the door shoved shut. The locks reset automatically.
A case of tuna fish was stacked in the kitchen cabinets. As easy to prepare and serve as it was to store, tuna was one of Mother Nature’s almost-perfect foods—especially when each can was certified dolphin-safe. She opened a can and, leaning over the sink, began eating the contents with her fingers.
Her hunger knots loosened; her thoughts wandered back to the mission. Selina was angry at Old MoJo and the others. They’d used her, they’d used the kitten, and they’d cheated her out of a meal. It was a superficial anger, though, and would be gone before the tuna can was empty. There was a deeper layer of anger, though, that was not so easily erased. The world was full of people who didn’t like cats. Dislike could turn to hatred, but, in adults, it rarely showed itself as stark fear. Rose’s fear of cats wasn’t something she’d carried around since childhood.
Licking tuna slivers from her fingers, Selina set the almost-empty can on the floor for the cats to scour.
There was only one conclusion that felt right: There was a man behind Rose’s terror, but somehow he’d managed to displace her fear from him to an innocent cat.
Selina held her breath as a familiar but not quite comfortable sensation passed over her. She let her breath out raggedly. The transformation from her ordinary self to Catwoman was complete before Selina left the alcove that her landlord called a kitchen. She shed clothes with every step toward the bed and was nearly naked by the time she reached it. The sleek costume fit like a second skin—as well as it should. The garment had been obscenely expensive.