Chapter One

There was so little to do in this place, it was all I could do to stop myself gouging my own eyes out in sheer boredom. I sighed and tilted my head back against the dirty ceramic wall, my eyes heading towards the damp patches on the ceiling, the grew like yellow cigarette burns on the white peeling paint.

I balled up the piece of paper in my hand and threw it at the damp ceiling. It stuck. That was disgusting. I glanced at it for a moment longer to see whether it would unpeel itself and fall again; it didn't show any chance of budging. I pushed myself up off the floor and headed to the doors, they weren't locked at this time of the day so I pushed them open and stepped bare foot into the cold and wintery court yard. I didn't mind the cold concrete under my bare feet and I headed over to the only bench that wasn't broken in the entire square.

I liked it outside. It felt so much better than being trapped in that building, as we were for so many hours of the day, when the doors were locked because it was deemed 'unsafe' for us to be outside. This was Gotham after all; regardless of whether news was infiltrating this four walls or not, we still new what it was like. Enough. I looked back up at the building behind me, with contempt on my face and strongly hoped that it would simply fall down with the intensity of my gaze.

'Gotham's Girls Institute' was an orphanage/young woman's home. A place where they took all the abandoned or alone girls in the city, and quite literally, dumped them in a cage to rot until the home considered them fit for release. Either in there to rot or to gather the will to get out and make something of yourself. The only thing good about this place was that in the spring and the summer, the garden, the place where I was currently sitting; came to life. It bloomed into fantastic colours of red, pink, yellow and green, each year bringing a little injection of happiness into this place. I leaned over to the left and ran my fingers along the stem of one of the rose plants, letting my fingers run over the thorns, in a way so I wouldn't get cut, my fingertips moving up to where I knew the new buds would start to surface in a few long weeks time.

"IVY! ARE YOU INSANE? YOU'LL CATCH YOUR DEATH OF COLD OUT HERE" I looked up as I heard the voice of one of the care staff from the doorway. She had an angry expression on her face that did nothing to make her look anymore beautiful in the horrible graying aprons that the institute staff wore.

"Get in here this instant!" she said after I didn't move from my seat. I looked at her steadily through a moment, before getting to my feet and moving silently back to the doorway. As I came within arms reach, she roughly grabbed my shoulder and pulled me inside.

"What on earth were you thinking? It's freezing out there!" she said shutting the door with a slam. I said nothing and watched dispassionately as she locked the door with a key that hung on her belt. Locked from the outside for another day, because sure as hell they wouldn't open it again for us today after this incident.

I still said nothing to her as she took me up the stairs to the first landing of the building, the sounds of children shouting at each other becoming clearer with every step.

"Now why don't you go upstairs and clean yourself up, you've got half an hour before your appointment with the new doctor" said the woman with her hands on her thickening waist.

I didn't reply to her even then, I just moved around her and headed on up the stairs, the three flights up the penultimate floor and the floor where my shared room was situated. Three girls shared this room and it showed; it was a complete tip. I stepped lightly over the clean and dirty piles of clothes that frequented the floor, and avoided stepping on the half-eaten bowl of cereal that one of my roommates and snuck up here after breakfast this morning. I headed over to the wardrobe and opened it out to be presented with all that was mine in the world.

Looking over the contents was intensely disheartening because the sum total of what was in here was two pairs of jeans, a black mini skirt, three t-shirts and a fake leather jacket. The pair of pyjama trousers I was wearing at the moment were damp at the bottoms, and I pulled them off along with the top. I hung them over the rail on the side of my top bunk bed, hoping that they might dry off somewhat before I wore them to bed tonight.

I pulled on a pair of black skinny jeans and a white v-necked t-shirt. I pulled my long red hair out of my collar as I shoved the shirt on. My hair was my greatest asset in my opinion; beautiful red curls that reached down to my hips. It was natural as well, dark red like the leaves on the trees in the autumn. I headed over to the bathroom and flicked the light on, before washing my face with a cool splash of water, my green eyes stared back at me in the cracked and dirty mirror.

Some of the people who had come and gone through the institute had called me a beauty, a stunner. I couldn't see it really. Then again, I never had access to make up, or any sort of hair products. I was just me, plain and natural, and boring. Until I got out of here, I guessed it was going to have to stay that way.

"Ivy!" I heard my name called up the stairs and my eyes flicked in the mirror to the clock that hung on the wall in the bedroom. It had only been twenty minutes; this new doctor must be a keen one. I flitted out of the room and down the stairs towards the interview rooms. I saw a warden and a young man I didn't recognise stood outside one of the rooms as I headed towards them. This must be the new doctor; he had short brown hair and wore glasses that framed dark brown eyes, he was holding a briefcase and something about his demeanor suggested an sort of intense calmness, if ever that emotion were possible.

"Ah, Ivy" said the warden whose name was Mr. Haal, I guessed he must have been of Swedish origin or something, "This is your new doctor; he's called Dr. Crane".