Chapter 15

  “Batgirl” Robin called, as he cautiously made his way down the alleyway, halfway, he saw her propped against the wall, her eyes were open, but hazy,

  “Are you ok?” Robin asked, quickly kneeling next to her,

  “Alice, she was taken” She said, through pained breaths,

  “Tell me what happened” Robin said, as he began unzipping the top of her costume, to check her injuries,

  “Deadshot was waiting for us, he shot me and Kara, Alice was with me” She explained, wincing as Robin peeled off her armored undershirt, she cursed, as he lifted her second layer of body armor,

  “This whole thing had to be a setup, Lynn’s was gone before we even arrived, they were probably hired to take Alice back, we should have seen this coming”

  “I don’t think so, it was Tetch” Robins attention was ripped from the large bruise near her ribs,

  “Are you sure?” He asked, Batgirl nodded,

  “I’m sure” She said,

  “Fuck, ok, there’s no way all three were a coincidence, this was too well timed, but why?” Robin said, running a hand through his hair,

  “Who is that” Starfire asked, Beast Boy and her had been checking on Supergirl, Robin glanced at the still unconscious Kryptonian, and then back at Batgirl, who was clearly still having trouble keeping her eyes open,

  “We’ll explain later, first I need you 2 to get them back to the tower” He said,

  “What about you?” Beast Boy asked,

  “I’m gonna do what I can to track Tetch, when you get back to the tower, lookup Dr. Jada Thompkins, she’s an old friend, she’ll patch them up, she already knows about us” Robin instructed, Beast Boy nodded,

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Got it” He said, her leaned down and worked his shoulder under Batgirls arm, as Kori took hold of Kara, they started to walk away, Batgirl looked over her shoulder,

  “Be careful” She said, then Robin was alone, closed his eyes and took in a large breath.

  Dick Grayson,

  You scan the alley, rays of sunlight are just now peeking through the buildings, you can see where Alice landed, her boot impressions heavy in the grim, the impressions are also heavy where she stood in front of Barbara, you can see where he had been hiding in the shadows, where he stepped forward, each step leaving debris from his mud caked shoes, he swung something, something like a baseball bat, no, you see the pipe he discarded under a nearby dumpster, there's no sign of struggle once she hit the ground, so she was probably already unconscious.

  He then pressed his dirty boot to Barbara’s ribcage, right next to where the bullet had just struck, you noticed the mud transferred to the front of her jacket, once she was out of the way he returned his attention to Alice, it would have made the most sense to sling her over his shoulder, but he drags her across the concrete instead, you can see the streaked grim leading away from the street, beyond the alleyway is a playground, surrounded on all sides by apartment buildings, used by the dock workers, and their families.

  You notice the wood chips surrounding the playground are disturbed where he dragged her to the slid, this transferred mud and debris from the back of her uniform onto the weathered plastic, after this he must have carried her off the ground, as you can see only a single set of heavy shoe prints indicating his next moves, you end up at the mouth of an alley opposite where you began, you follow the alley to an empty street and find the next trace he left, mud and ash from the alley scuff the comparably clean sidewalk, the trail of grime fades, before disappearing completely.

  You see the small flashing light of Alice communicator on the ground of another nearby alleyway, it’s laying beside the black metal stairs leading up a fire escape, you climb the fire escape to the top of a 4 four building, checking each window on your way up, just to be sure, but you know they won’t be open because as Jarvis Tetch climbed the shaky stairs crusted dirt was knocked off his boots, leaving a trail straight up, on the roof he propped Alice against the small brick wall around the top of the building, and sat beside her.

  Near where they had sat is a dried stain, likely Tetch pulled out the small flask he carries with him, the 1 with the ornate tea cup painted on the side, at some point it must have tipped over or spilled out, causing the stain, when he's done he drags Alice across the adjoining roofs, smearing mud on the dirty cement, he reaches another fire escape and drags her down the metal steps, her legs dragging on each step, when he reached the second floor landing he dumps her over the rail, her body lands on a pile of trash bags, she must have been injured when he slid her over the rusted metal rail because there’s fresh blood present on the outside of several of the trash bags, you follow a trail of disturbed dirt to a parking lot just outside the alley, to a parking spot where it’s clear a car had sat parked for an extended period of time, you look around and spot a security camera crudely attached at an angle to a store front.

  You easily get in and out of the small bakery, it takes less than 10 minutes, you find a roof to camp out on while you sift through the security footage, you plug the small USB stick into the port on your phone, it takes a second to load, but soon enough you have access to the last couple hours of grainy security footage, the footage records in blocks of 30 minutes, you start with the first recording and quickly scan through it, it’s not the first 1, but it is the second, near the end of the second recording you see Jarvis Tetch carry Alice into frame, he walks to an old car, the footage is black and white so all you know is it’s a lighter color, he opens the back door and shovels Alice into the footwell, he glances around nervously, before quickly entering the drivers door, and driving off, as the car turns into the street you get a head on view of the license plate, but the footage is so grainy that you can’t make it out, you curse under your breath, knowing you can’t steal the footage from every security camera in the area, so you’ll have to come up with a new plan.