In the end, Selina decided not to stop by Muerte's. Whatever Eddie left for her there, she didn't want to have it on her when she led the Feds on a merry little (and very believable looking) chase. Better to come get it after. She'd have plenty of time - at least she was counting on having plenty of time. They'd let her off the leash while she was in the JLA; she didn't see why they'd bother locking her up in Belle Reve now. She wouldn't be good to anyone in Louisiana, and she wasn't dangerous, not in the traditional sense. It was a risk, but she thought the odds looked good, especially with Waller and Stevie at the helm. Waller had never liked her very much, but Stevie trusted her. He'd put in a good word. After all, he thought they shared a common heartache; it made him nicer to her, because he was a good old boy down beneath all that pathetic.
But those were logistics. The kitty cat had absolutely no desire to concentrate on why she was doing this, on what it said, on anything. She'd given Edward a chance to tell her it was stupid, and that was as much introspection and foresight as she was willing to concede to. If she took time to think before jumping, she would never have made it past kittenhood, not in Gotham.
And it was like taking candy from a baby. A few badly handled thefts in Metropolis, far enough from Gotham that a Bat wouldn't swoop down and ask her why she was making such a mess of things. Diamonds dripping from her wrists, and the kitty cat made the chase good. Her heart was racing by the end, her pulse too, and she'd almost forgotten she wanted them to catch her.
But catch her they did, and she wasn't even sure what was in the tag that caught her shoulder. One second, there was pain, and the next there was nothing at all.
The holding tank in Belle Reve was nicer than anything Blackgate ever offered, and Selina woke up there an indeterminate amount of time later. Her head ached, and she was shackled tight to the wall behind her cot. She smiled pretty when Waller walked in, and she listened while Waller gave her the spiel.
"It's cute, that you think you're actually giving any of us a choice," she said of the spiel, of the papers Waller held on the clipboard in her hands. "Death row or Project X. What kind of choice is that?" she asked. And she already knew the answer - no choice. She'd known when she let them chase her down. But she'd also known they could find her anyway, that eventually they would. They had before, and this Gotham didn't offer the kind of protection hers did.
And, truthfully, she didn't want to hide in another door for the rest of her life.
Those were selfish little things, and selfish little things made her feel better. They made her fur feel right, and they made her feel less exposed that any altruistic truth - however truthful that truth might be.
She meowed and hissed, hemmed and hawed. In the end, she signed Waller's little papers, and she pretended she believed the little lies about a limited number of jobs. No one ever left the Suicide Squad; everyone knew that.
Well, no one ever left until now. Until her. Because this? This was so temporary.
And, admittedly, she wasn't expecting the doctor and nurse to come in next, scrubs and a thick needle on an aluminum tray. But there wasn't any turning back then, and she hissed when the needle was shoved into the base of her skull. The pain was excruciating, and she didn't know precisely when the world went black - she only knew that it did.
And then she was on her way home, a worthless contract in her pocket, and a regular check-in at Blackgate that (she hoped) would get them some decent intel. Home, but she didn't stay there. Oh, no, she went through the door and back to Marvel.
She had an unexpected nanite problem to deal with.