Disclaimer: Oh, eff! I completely forgot to add the disclaimer thingy. So. Right. Yeah. I don't own Batman or Gotham or anything. I'm just a girl, tail-gating on someone else's creative genius. Not making any money off anything here. Moving along...

Prologue

For the first time in years—hell, in as long as she could remember—Carrolly knew what it felt like to have hope.

At first, she hadn't recognized the emotion. At first, it simply manifested itself as a lack of fear, and then, it grew, inspired by the hunch that for once, she had a chance for something different, something other than the life of misery to which she had long ago grown accustomed.

Hope was a funny thing—it rendered Carrolly introspective. It was strange, actually, how life had brought her here…how years of being one of the Arrows' floozies actually got her out of the mess her life had become when she took off at fourteen. Carrolly wasn't stupid, not even then. She knew that she wasn't headed anywhere good when she ran away, but anything had to be better than where she lived, with her horrible brother and her indifferent parents. They had never had much time for her, and they certainly never believed her when she tried to tell them what their darling son had been doing to her. And so Carrolly knew that she had to look out for herself, or else hers would be a short life.

And she had made it this far, hadn't she? She was just turning thirty-two, there was still plenty of time to do something with herself. Sure, she looked a little rough—fifteen years with Arrows would do that to you—but she wouldn't have to give up her body any more to get by. She'd be taken care of. She knew it.

And so, on that late summer evening, Carrolly sat on her couch in her little studio apartment, and felt what it was to hope. Happily, she took a sip of her Cabernet, ignoring the cheap plastic wine goblet and instead focusing on the rich warmth of the alcohol as it spread into her stomach. She had always watched how much she drank—life wouldn't get any easier if she turned into a lush, after all—but she figured that tonight, of all nights, she deserved it. She had just finished a 10-hour shift at the café, and her boss had told her he wanted to put her in charge of the day crew. After work, she had made her way up to her cheap, furnished studio, and it was there that she had received a call from Them. They had struck a deal—after the trial, she'd be moved to another city, established in a job, given money to go to school. And until then, protection.

Them. Carrolly knew their names, of course—she just couldn't stop thinking of them in divisive terms, Us versus Them. Even though They were the ones who had ultimately rescued her, had given her the chance to get away. It was just that she had been with the Arrows so long, it was hard to think of herself as being one of Them. But for all intents and purposes, she was, especially to the Archers. They were gunning for her, and she no longer belonged on their side. Fifteen years as an Arrows call girl meant that she had seen and heard a lot, and that's why They had wanted to work with her.

It had taken her all of ten minutes to agree to their proposal, and she had done so with very little guilt. Sure, in their own way, the Arrows had taken care of her, but at what cost? Christ, it had been an awful way to live. Carrolly fancied herself a survivor, and she knew that there would only be so much longer she could survive at their tender mercies. Especially since Boy-o had joined.

A chilly breeze, unexpected for the season, fingered its way past the open windows, and elicited a shiver from Carrolly. Reluctantly she bestirred herself from the couch and made her way over to the window. Just before she pulled the window closed, she leaned out to look on at the dark Gotham night. It wasn't a million-dollar view, to be sure—but it wasn't the Narrows, either. Yes, there was hope for Carrolly.

It was just incredibly short-lived.

Later that night, she huddled under her comforter, and listened to the wind as it howled outside. That chilly breeze had been a harbinger of a coming storm, and it was now breaking overhead. The crashing thunder and the wind rattling against the windowpane masked any other noises there might have been, which was very unfortunate for Carrolly. Because she wasn't alone in her home, and if she had been able to hear over the storm, she would have heard the sounds of her modest hopes dying.

Out of the shadows in Carrolly's pathetic little studio, a figure emerged—tall, incredibly thin, but no less frightening for that reason. He crept towards Carrolly's bed and smiled almost tenderly. She always looked so much younger when she was asleep; sleep robbed her of the years of rough use she had experienced at the hands of so many—including himself. Boy-o, called thus because of his angelic, boyish face, loved her as he loved all his women—as his toys, his objects, simply his...And when you take away a boy's toy, well, do so at your own risk. Boy-o didn't spare much thought to Them. He didn't fault Them, those men that had taken Carrolly away from him. No, Carrolly had been a willing victim, going along with Them, just like Helen of Troy, a willing betrayer.

His hands twitched a little. He longed to touch her, to claim her, to remind her to whom she belonged, but there was little time for that. Too little time; the time for words, even gestures, had passed, had passed long ago, the last time he had struck her. He had tried to tell her that she didn't need those teeth, he still loved her, but she didn't give him the chance. Just said she was going to go to a dentist, and then disappeared. And now, six weeks later, here she was, and there he was. But not for long.

A bluish-white flash of lightning illuminated the room, and it was then that Boy-o saw that Carrolly was awake, staring at him, paralyzed in fear. And before she could speak, draw in a breath, scream, anything, Boyo was on her, crushing her, and just like that, Carrolly knew Hope for what it was: a fickle, fickle friend.

It was really rather amazing how many people could fit into a tiny, 350-square-foot studio apartment, Commissioner Jim Gordon noted as he stepped into the dark, cramped space. Especially considering the current circumstances. How many people were there? Himself, two of the forensics staff, the coroner, three detectives…and Carrolly. She may be dead, but Gordon wasn't ready to stop counting her. Not yet. She deserved at least that much.

Detective Montoya approached him, looking like death on a platter. She hated the graveyard shift, usually because it was during these hours that the completely whacked cases turned up—the suicides, the incests, the gang rapes, the truly violent deaths. Including this one. "One of the neighbors was taking her dog out for a walk this morning, said the dog passed this door and went nuts. Howling, whining, scratching at the door. Wouldn't budge for anything. So she called us. The dog probably smelled the blood."

Glancing around, Gordon could see why—the sleeping area was completely saturated in blood and gore. The figure in the bed only vaguely resembled a woman—the majority of her body had been bludgeoned, and only random pieces of evidence attested to her humanity—one preserved hand that somehow escaped the violence, a lock of brassy-blonde hair that managed to stay free of the blood. "Coroner estimates the time of death around four-forty AM. Says that she sustained blunt-force trauma to the head, probably killed her instantly."

Gordon drew closer. "What about the other injuries? The bludgeoning?"

"Sustained postmortem."

A tiny exhalation escaped Gordon, and he found himself relieved. Glancing over at the younger detective, he saw an identical emotion in her eyes. She shrugged. "In this line of work, boss, you learn to count your blessings pretty quick. A quick death, hopefully. You take what you can get."

They watched silently as the investigative crew began to wrap up. The coroner pulled the sheet up over what was left of Carrolly's head and turned to Gordon. "The crew is going to be here in about an hour to pick her up. But I've got a John Doe uptown that I need to investigate, and we can't leave the body alone. You going to be here a while?"

Gordon nodded. "As long as it takes."

They watched as the rest of the crew filtered out of the tiny studio, and then Montoya turned to him. "You want me to stay, Boss?"

"Not this time."

Not for nothing was Montoya credited with being a particularly sharp, perceptive detective. She picked up on the cryptic tone behind Gordon's words, and knew not to question him. She packed up her kit, gathered her notes, glanced at her watch. "I'm going to call you in a couple of hours. Let's get some coffee later."

Gordon barely nodded as she left. And then he sat down to wait.

It didn't take long.

How the Batman managed to make it through that tiny window, seven stories up, Gordon really had no clue. But he had stopped questioning the feats of his caped comrade long ago, and now only stoically accepted his unconventional ways of making an entrance.

The two men looked at each other, neither saying a word. And then the Batman broke his gaze and turned towards Carrolly. Silently he approached the bed, crouched down, and stared. And Gordon stared at the Batman. It was only during these godawful moments, when together they contemplated Gotham's luckless victims, that Gordon was reminded that there was actually a human under that get-up, a human with human emotions and human vulnerabilities. And it was these godawful moments, strangely, that reassured Gordon that he was working with a genuine human being, someone capable of normal emotions of compassion and empathy and horror and revulsion. Somehow, that reassured Gordon that he wasn't completely insane in trusting this enigma, and that this person was, under all of the black and gadgets, relatively normal.

Finally, the Batman spoke. "This was Carrolly, right? Your crew set her up here?"

Gordon nodded unhappily. "Carrolly Cooper. She was one of the Arrow's girls…she'd been with them for years. Ran away from home at fourteen, spent a few years as a prostitute before she fell in with the Arrows. She'd been with them for about fifteen years…turned up at Gotham Memorial about six weeks ago, really beat up. One of the Arrows had gotten over-zealous with her, and she was scared enough to go to the hospital. One of the trauma counselors got wind of her situation, referred her to me…"

He passed the file over to the Batman. "She's the third one in as many weeks. Another Arrow girl, another witness."

The Batman shook his head. "Not anymore." He read through the files, the interview transcriptions, the sworn affidavits, the small pile of papers that were now the only testament to the life of Carrolly.

"She was excited," Gordon said, trying to make her seem even more like a real person, as though that would further stimulate the Batman's interest in the case. "One of our men spoke with her earlier in the evening—we were going to set her up in Metropolis, help her with college. She was talking about becoming a nurse. And her testimony would have taken out at least two mid-level mobsters."

What neither man acknowledged, and what remained uncomfortably unspoken between them, was that it had been her testimony that made her a person worthy of their attention. Had she not been connected with the Arrows, the most powerful mob in Gotham since Falcone's fall, she would have been just another woman, another prostitute, another nameless victim lost on the streets of Gotham. But it was only now, in death, with her body mangled beyond recognition, that Carolly's life began to take shape, have value, be seen for what it could have been.

But it all came back down to the investigation. They had been working on the Arrows for close to half a year now, and it was the various Arrows women who had defected that were proving to give them the most valuable information. And now…three dead. Some how, someone was leaking their whereabouts, their new identities.

Time was running out. And so was hope.