Roulette hadn't always been her name. Though in a sense she had always been Roulette. The same girl with the Colt .45 revolver and a just uncanny amount of luck. Always the girl running around the back alleys waiting to rob you for the paper in your pockets. If she was going to kill you, she made it a game or Russian roulette. Gun pressed to her own forehead, a spin of the revolver , pull the trigger and nothing. Of course when she pointed the gun at you, it was another story. Just another juvenile delinquent in Gotham. Then the wssc got to her. She wasn't sure exactly why she joined. Purpose? To spit in the eye of the law? Chaos? Take your pick, it didn't matter, she joined for whatever reason. More importantly she survived it. Two years of doing exactly what she had been doing before, with grease paint and explosives. Most of the other raised in better homes, that went to school and never really saw her side of Gotham, most of them lasted only lasted a few weeks. Especially now, working for Tetch. The older girls, the ones who actually knew which end of a gun the bullet came out of, weren't used to being kept inside all the time like this. Sure there had been that one bank robbery, that was at least a week ago. The group was prone to little squabbles over anything and everything and usually ended with yet another corpse for them to clear out.
Of course they were expendable, there would be another one of them if they died. In Tetch's opinion anyway, now there was something they could agree on. Get rid of Tetch and everything goes back to normal. The 'real' wssc members could go back to kidnapping politicians and blowing the city up. The less hardcore girls could go around with spray paint and sharpies to deface public property. And all the other girls who hadn't really known what they were getting themselves into, could go home. So no one was going to come running up the stairs when the screaming started. They heard a door slam open upstairs and rapid footsteps.
Roulette got up from the mass of huddled chattering girls on the floor and started walking around examining some chemicals that doctor had left lying around.
"Wach-you doin?" one of the girls from some southern state she remembered, a damn good shot too.
She smirked, pouring the content of a few bottles across the floor, "Leaving in style, this is how we do business in New York. If you aren't going to help get out. Go home for all I care, probably better for you than this."
They all lingered for a moment wondering if she was just waiting to shoot them when they got up. When they all realized she was serious, about half of them got up and bolted. A few others thought about it for a while before leaving. In a matter of minutes what had been a small army was a few scattered girls whose only real reason for staying was that they had nothing to go back to.
Roulette nodded, " Empty the rest of the chemicals, and whatever you want to keep take it. We're blowing this joint."
They remaining girls jumped up and started spreading the chemicals throughout the first story of the house. Roulette opened the chamber of her gun and took out a couple of bullets so that there was only one. Stowing the leftover bullets in a pocket she spun the revolver idly, but with a somber reverence that suggested a ritualistic quality to the simple act. The last bottle was emptied and the other girls were standing looking at her expectantly. Roulette looked at them for a moment, none of them were the old group of vagabond children from New York. She doubted most of them were even from Gotham. It was an interesting feeling, she decided, to be completely in charge. Yeah, she could get used to this.
"Find him don't go together, if you don't know where to go, figure it out. I'll catch up," she told them picking a cigarette lighter up off the table where the chemicals had been.
The other girls cleared out and Roulette lingered for a moment flicking the lighter on and off. Then she pressed the barrel of the revolver to her forehead and pulled the trigger. Nothing, just the empty sound reverberating in one of the blank chambers. What luck, she smiled and relit the lighter tossing it casually on the floor in front of her. The chemicals ignited quickly and the room burst into flames. Roulette ran out onto the street ready to start doing real work for the Joker again. Before she got very far she caught and odor lingering in the air. Sharp and metallic, blood. The buildings cast obscuring shadows even in the broad daylight, but just into one of the alley ways she saw a fallen body. Mob snipers most likely, Moroni no doubt, getting back at the Joker and taking out Tetch, if she got through the fire in one shot.
Roulette frowned and clenched her teeth, "last one standing, lucky me."
She didn't even hear the crack of a gun before the bullet hit her.
(Toffeerose, sweet rabbit is Hatters nickname for Ellda)
