Gallows
Chapter 2 'Head Strong'

(Alley way near the IceBurg Lounge.)

Gallows looked at the woman standing before him. He was holding a gun and she looked to be completely calm. Of course his former life made him pretty well calm about gun fire anyway. He snuffed the thoughts of who he was before this happened away. If he had been at home Janey would be alive, and he wasn't. He was out trying to make a better life. Granted it was one that he was going to include Janey in, but a better one anyway.

"Running won't get you anywhere." The woman in front of him said.

"Wrong, it will get me closer to that raping, murdering son of a bitch that hired those animals. He's going to pay for every mark, for everything that happened to her. And no one, not the Bat, not you are going to stop vengeance from finding him." Gallows said as he fished a noose out of his pocket and held the gun on her.

"You should have left this to the police." Came a baratone voice from behind him.

"Maybe, but they wouldn't do anything. Malone has people paid off in this city and in the state. He won't see a stint of jail time." Gallows said as he backed toward the wall.

"We will bring you in." The woman said.

"You'll have to kill me." Gallows said as he threw the noose and it wrapped around a gargoyle above them.

He grabbed the rope and began running up the wall like he was trained military. before he made it twenty feet Bruce threw a bat-a-rang and cut through the rope. Gallows lunged forward and grabbed the piece uncut and started to pull himself up. He heard something shoot and felt something connect to his back. The Bat was going to pull him down and ruin the chances of him getting to Malone. He shrugged off the duster and let it fall. In those few precious seconds he climbed like he had never climbed before, and he heard the sound of Batman coming up after him.

Gallows turned and faced the Dark Knight. His revolver in his hand and he fired a shot, but not in the direction of the Batman. The direction of the shot was toward the place where the Batman's grapple had hooked into the stone of the building. It struck the grapple and he watched as it started to give way. A moment later he felt something wrap around his foot.

".GO! They raped her! They beat her! They deserve what they are getting!" He screamed as he pulled against the rope before him.

"It's not up to you to decide. It's not up to you at all Patrick." Bruce said as he pulled the cord attached to Gallow's foot.

"They gave up their lives the moment they touched her!" He screamed before he lost his grip on the rope and fell to the ground.

Bruce started to step toward him and two shots rung out. The first caught him in the shoulder and spun him around. The second caught him right below the knee and knocked him off of the ground.

"I won't let them get away with this!" He shouted as he stood. Diana closed in on him and reached out. She grabbed him and forced him to the ground.

"The men that did this will see justice, but not by your hands." She said softly as she held him.

"They killed her, they killed my baby sister." He said as a glowing gold rope touched him.

"Daddy beat us something awful, but I got away. I joined the marines to make a better life for us, but then she ran away from home... She came here and wrote me 'bout the city. She was so proud to be out from that old bastard, but then... the letters stopped coming. I left on leave and found out she was murdered. They didn't even give her a name. They just burned her like trash and didn't give her a name!" He shouted as he struggled.

"What those men did was unforgivable, but you can't be the one to punish them." She said softly.

"I have to be." He said as the sound of his gun firing erupted from under Diana.

The Princess felt the bullet hit the material and stop thanks to the body armor, but it didn't stop it from hurting. She loosened her grip on him and he managed to get free. He turned and looked into the white lens of the Batman. Before he could say a word he found himself on the pavement with his head spinning.

He tried to make sense of what they where saying as his vision teetered on blacking out.

"Everything he said was the truth." The woman said.

"It doesn't matter." Batman replied.

"It doesn't matter? It doesn't matter? This man's sister was raped and murdered here in Gotham! It matters a great deal to him!" She said.

"He should have left it to the police." Batman said as he neared Gallows.

"And what would they do? The only one that seems to take a real interest in the welfare of the people is Jim Gordon, and he can't be everywhere at once." She stated.

"What he did was wrong." Batman stated coldly.

Their banter was enough to give Gallows the time to get his head together. He slowly reached and grabbed his duster. The moment the woman stopped the bat and made him face her he took that second and moved. He began running into the darken alley knowing that the distance he made between Batman and the other woman would be lost in a few moments.