Chapter 1

Arkham Asylum

Here’s what I remembered much later. The gates loomed large before the shuttle. Dark. Chilling. The letters spelling out Arkham Asylum twisted with a kind of brooding malevolence. Trees crouched over the building with clawlike branches.

But no, that’s not reality. Or only partly. Reality shifting through the lens of a kaleidoscope made of everything I’ve ever daydreamed about Arkham. Also? In my imagination, it’s always storming there. Vindictive clouds blotting out the sun so it’s pitch-black outside, even in daytime. And I’m supposed to be walking in. Not taking a shuttle.

Ah, well. In my mind, I become Past Me, bouncing in my seat and chattering to the girl next to me. “Did you picture it with storm clouds? I always pictured it with storm clouds. Fog, at the very least.”

I peer out the bus window at a sky that is full of fat, happy clouds and blue enough to make a robin’s egg jealous.

The girl chuckles politely. (Great! She hates me!) But then she sizes up the vast Gothic building like she’s trying to think of something to say. “At least the stone is dark?”

“YES.” I seize the opportunity. “Deliciously dark. And those turrets, just--” I chef’s kiss in their direction because words can’t begin to convey their perfection. “It’s like Cinderella’s castle pledged allegiance to the dark side.” I sigh, and the girl laughs, a real cackle this time, not just a polite chuckle.

“I’m Harleen,” I say, holding out my hand because I’ve decided we’re friends now.

“Aria,” she replies with a smile and a solid handshake.

I try not to heave a huge sigh of relief like a cartoon character. Next to me, Aria’s chest relaxes almost imperceptibly. This is the secret. Every other new intern on this bus is just as scared as we are. Every first-year in my dorm too. They’re all petrified that they won’t make a connection with anyone. Or that it’ll happen too slowly, be too tenuous. And then that’s it. Everyone will know, and it’s like getting picked last for kickball, only instead of kickball, it’s ALL OF COLLEGE. It’s basically terrifying, but I find that taking as many flying leaps as possible helps.

“Are you a first-year too?” I ask. (The subsequent leaps are always easier after you’ve taken the first one.)

“Yep. I’m in Kane Hall. You?”

“Elliot.” I still can’t believe I live there. I, Harleen Frances Quinzel, go to school at Gotham University. For real this time, not just as part of a gap-year program. We’re already two weeks into the semester, and I can’t help but wonder how long the reality will take to sink in.

The bus spits us out in front of the main building. I hop down onto the curb and look up and up and up. I’m going to do big things here. I can feel it. Think up new ways to help patients: a more definitive test for diagnosis here, a treatment with a better success rate there. I picture my ideas rippling into hospitals and private practices across the country.

Have you tried the Quinzel Method?

Of course I have! It’s genius.

Aria steps down next to me, tufts of her black pixie cut fluttering in the wind. “Did you hear they brought The Joker in last week?” she says in a hushed voice as we walk inside.

My eyes light up. “I’ve only read everything about it I can get my hands on.”

“Same!”

We both go a little quiet because there’s a metal detector ahead and guards, and I don’t know, but the whole thing just feels tense. We start taking everything out of our pockets, and Aria is just setting a teal handbag (or was it navy?) on the conveyor belt when a girl behind us pipes up: “Are you talking about The Joker?”

She’s less quiet, so now everyone is talking about The Joker as we fill plastic bins with our keys, cell phones, wallets, and, in my case, eyelash glue. (What? It’s really good for a variety of emergency situations.)

A self-satisfied voice cuts through the others. “He hasn’t spoken a word since he arrived.”

“Really?” Fascinating. I turn around to see who might be able to tell me more about one of the most interesting minds in Gotham Ci-- Oh. It’s Graham. He was in the Gotham University Bridge Scholars gap-year program with me last year. (It’s where overachiever kids from the roughest high schools in Gotham City do mentored research in labs at Gotham U.) But don’t be fooled by the fact that his name is one-third of the ingredients necessary for a s’more. Graham is the human equivalent of biting into a chocolate chip cookie only to find out that the chips are actually raisins. (Side note: more people should make oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them. Why is this not a thing?)

“Did you read that somewhere?” asks Aria, eyeing him somewhat suspiciously. “Because I’ve read everything out there, and I haven’t seen that.” (Did I mention she’s my friend now?)

“Well, actually”--Graham crosses his arms and gives her the smuggest smile in the history of humanity--“one of my gap-year professors is on the board here. Dr. Crane mentioned it at brunch.” He waves a hand like there are just oh-so-many brunches with important people, and he can’t be expected to keep track.

I mime vomiting into my handbag, and Aria snorts, but Graham narrows his eyes at me. Oops. I thought I was out of his line of sight.

Anyway, we’re through the metal detector now, and the checkpoint with the guards in riot gear, and, no, I do not currently have any weapons on me, thank you very much. (I left my pocketknife at home, and I feel positively naked without it.) Then this total Boy Scout of a boy steps in front of us in his white lab coat that I can’t help but notice is straining at the biceps, and he’s all,

“Hi there. I’m Winfield Callaway. I’m a third-year at Gotham U, and I have piercing blue eyes the color of the ocean, and I come from the kind of family that uses summer as a verb. I’m the lead intern this year at Arkham Asylum, which means I’m in charge of new-intern orientation. I’ll be giving you your tour today, and I’ll also walk you through the mountain of paperwork you’ll be filling out.”

Note: He did not actually say that part about the eyes or the summering. Also, ugh, paperwork? Way to suck all the fun out of putting together minds like so many puzzle pieces. I feel like he must be able to see what I’m thinking, because he throws me a sympathetic smile. With dimples. Of course he freaking has dimples. NOT THAT I’M LOOKING.

I decide to walk alongside Winfield the Lead Intern with Dimples and ask him a few of my most pressing questions. Namely:

Have you gotten to meet The Joker?

Is it true that he isn’t speaking?

Do you think Killer Croc is immortal? Because I heard that alligators are genetically capable of being immortal; it’s just that they get killed off first.

And: Where are the vending machines with the best chocolate?

His answers: No. Yes. That’s an interesting idea. And: Near the second-floor break room. (In case you were wondering.)

Winfield stops in front of a panel of windows that look in on a cafeteria. Inmates I recognize from the news sit hunched over their lunch trays. King Shark, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze. You can tell who the major players are: Mr. Freeze is in some kind of maximum-security, climate-controlled pod, and Two-Face is flanked by no fewer than three surly guards AND his hands and feet are cuffed to the table where he sits alone.

It’s weird, though, because even with all the extra security, they don’t look exactly like you’d expect them to. More like a dulled version of the pictures you see on TV. Take Two-Face. I know it’s him because of the way one side of his face is burnt and the other side looks like it belongs to some suave investment banker who uses moisturizer that costs more than a semester’s worth of textbooks. But there’s something almost sad about seeing him in a prison uniform--identical orange on the left and the right--instead of a flashy stitched-together suit. I watch Mr. Freeze lean forward in his pod so he can take a spoonful of soup (cold, I’m assuming). I wonder who I’ll work with. What secrets they’re hiding. How much longer I have to wait before I can start working through their issues like so many crossword puzzles. I’m so enamored, it takes me a second to realize what feels off about this situation: none of them are looking at us.

“This is the inmate cafeteria. The glass is a two-way mirror. Bulletproof,” says Winfield, confirming my suspicions.

Now that I know, I can’t help but move closer. I drift down the hall until I’m standing opposite King Shark. He’s positively majestic; there’s no other way to describe him. His massive head and torso look like every picture in the great white shark books I used to pore over in the elementary school library. Power walking through the hallways as fast as I could, because we weren’t allowed to run, but if you didn’t book it, all the sharks in all their photographic glory would get snapped right up. His shark-y upper half is so distracting, you almost forget to notice that his torso feeds into an oversized pair of Arkham standard-issue orange pants. Also that he’s got arms. I stare in awe as he moves one of said arms--sharkskin-covered, leathery gray, with webbed fingers. He picks up a spoon that seems impossibly small. He takes a bite of his peas, then a bite of his mashed potatoes, then half a fish stick, then a sip of his first juice box, then a sip of his second one. He repeats the actions in this same order, so peaceful. I am transfixed.

I watch as he goes through the cycle a third time (a fourth?). He’s so contentedly busy that he doesn’t notice Maxie Zeus strolling up behind him. I notice. Zeus’s uniform is artfully torn to resemble a toga, and he’s wearing a laurel wreath fashioned out of napkins. Honestly? He looks like the kind of guy who lifts weights on the beach and trips skateboarding children. He nudges the inmate next to him. “Check this out.”

He balances his tray in one hand, and with the other, he swipes one of King Shark’s juice boxes (the apple one, which frankly seems a lot more treasonous). King Shark turns, lightning-quick, much faster than you’d guess his size would allow. He stands up up up, towering over Maxie Zeus. Holy crap, he’s enormous. He’s at least seven feet tall, and also HE’S A MOTHER-FREAKING SHARK. Maxie seems to make this realization at exactly the same moment I do, perhaps because King Shark is so large that he has cast Zeus and his friend in shadow.

The other interns, sensing an impending bloodbath, rush next to me at the window. The guards are wise now too. They materialize from every corner of the cafeteria, ready to neutralize the situation. But despite their Tasers and billy clubs, they look around like they’re hoping someone else will make the first move. King Shark opens his mouth to reveal row after row of razor-sharp teeth. I’m fairly certain he could swallow a man whole. I think I remember reading that in my shark books. King Shark takes the apple juice back from Zeus gently, so that none of the juice shoots out of the straw in the exchange. Maxie Zeus gulps the way you do when your entire life is going by in flashes and you wish you could get a do-over.

And then it all happens so fast. Those great white jaws snapping shut. The bone-crunching sound of teeth chomping through something solid. I lean forward, my nose nearly touching the glass, expecting to see pieces of wannabe Greek god all over the place.

His lunch tray, I realize with relief. King Shark just bit the guy’s lunch tray in half. It’s almost comical, the perfect shape of a shark bite carved into the plastic, an apple wobbling in one corner of the tray. Maxie Zeus looks like he’s about to pee himself, and honestly, he deserves it.

Aria whispers, “Ho-lee crap.”

“Seriously,” I whisper back.

Another intern lets out a low whistle.

King Shark sets his apple juice down on the table, right back where it was, right next to his grape juice. He sits, causing the entire table to groan under his weight. And then he returns to his gentle routine like nothing happened.

I am intrigued.

And, let’s be real, a bit smitten. Tenderhearted monsters do that to me.

“Okay,” says Winfield, clapping his hands to pull us away from the great white distraction in the window. “So, mealtimes aren’t usually that dramatic, but it’s a good reminder that this isn’t your usual mental health facility. This is Arkham. We help rehabilitate people who are criminally insane, but a lot of the people we help are . . . unusual. Very dangerous. Very high-profile. Often those with special powers or abilities. You can never forget to be careful when you’re here.”

He leads us through the rec room, the staff room, the kitchens, the laundry room, the outdoor area. After a lunchtime shark attack, everything else we see feels tame in comparison. That is, until we pass a hallway that seems like all the others except for the fact that Winfield jerks his head meaningfully in that direction. “The Joker’s down that way,” he says. Quietly so that the other interns don’t hear. “End of the hall.”

“Realllllly.” I notice there are two guards stationed outside a door, and I stretch all five feet seven inches of me, trying to get a glimpse of him.

Winfield glances around before he continues. “Crane has a propensity for sending in beautiful women interns to see if he’ll talk. So. Be prepared.”

A grin forms on my face. I can’t even help it. I ask him slyly, “So, you’re saying you think I’m pretty?”

And . . . he trips over his own foot. Literally. The dude practically face-plants on the sad gray floor. “What? No. I mean, you’re not not pretty. I just meant--”

My grin grows bigger. “Beautiful. I think your exact wording was beautiful.” He is turning red, so I bat my eyelashes for good measure. It’s fun to watch him squirm. “Anyway, do you think it’ll work?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. He’s still not talking. But one time, he seemed tempted?”

“Fascinating!” I say. But what does it mean?! I’ll definitely be discussing it with Aria later.