Saving Grace: a Batman fanfiction

Chapter 13

Marianna was missing.

Grace had been living in the group home for about two weeks now. As the oldest girl there, she was treated less like a kid and more like a staff member. 

Not that she minded. The owner and boss of the group home was an embezzling, cheating, mean-hearted man that could care less about the children. But the actual manager of the group home was a sweet and caring, although stressed and overworked, woman named Fatima. 

"Have you seen Marianna, Grace?"

"No," replied Grace, looking up from her sketchpad. "Why?" 

Grace would never be described as motherly in disposition, but she would force herself to follow through with anything she put her mind to. Including protecting these children.

"I can't find her anywhere and nobody's seen her since yard time." Fatima looked extremely worried, and Grace understood why. Marianna was four and the youngest girl in the group home. 

"You think she… wandered off during yard time?" Asked Grace, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

"I hope not," said Fatima, and when her eyes filled with tears Grace understood the severity of the situation.

"I'll go look for her," she offered, heart pounding up in her throat. (The Narrows. At night. Alone.)

"Oh, Grace," said Fatima, chronically tired eyes softening in relief. "You shouldn't go, not at night." Fatima had sent Grace to various stores and errands, but always in the broad daylight, and always close by.

"I have to, don't I?" Responded Grace, and she could tell by the slightly pained but relieved look in Fatima's eyes that she agreed. 

She had to.

It was raining, because of course it was. Thankfully, it was just a mucky drizzle and not a downpour, so Grace pulled her battered coat tightly around herself and ventured forward, the heavy smell of cigarettes and dumpsters filling her lungs. 

"Marianna?" Her cry was soft; she didn't want to advertise the fact that she was a young girl alone and looking for someone at night.

Grace glanced nervously over her shoulder-- she was already three blocks away from the group home. Her chest tightened every time she heard a noise.

But Marianna was just 4. She was more scared.

So Grace swallowed, hard, and soldiered forward.

"Marianna!"

"Grace!" The younger girl's voice was hysterical, and Grace broke into a run, heart pounding.

She ran into an alleyway and crashed into a wide-set big-boned man. Grace was knocked to the ground. There were four of them; four huge, mean, thugs, and Marianna.

"Let her go!" Grace squealed, at the same time crawling backwards away from the man she'd knocked into.

"Do you think we ought to, Scarface?" The thug asked, breaking into a creepy smile.

"I don't think so, Sharktooth."

"Let her go," Grace pleaded. "She's just four years old. You d-don't need nothing from her. She's an orphan girl from a group home, a-aint nobody paying any ransom for her, anyway, she's got nothing!"

"Girl's right, Dogbite," said Sharktooth, growing gutterally. "The baby will get us nothing. Let it go."

"Go back to the group home, Marianna," Grace shouted. "Run!"

Then, she tried to follow her own advice, but Scarface grabbed her around the waist and bashed her head into the brick wall of the alleyway.

Grace cried out in pain, feeling her sticky forehead, dripping with blood.