He ducked into a shadowy alcove offered by some nearby apartment buildings. His pursuers ran past, babbling incoherently.

Well, that was one danger neatly avoided. He wouldn't be going that way again.

So, now what?

There was a folded piece of paper taped to the door of the nearest apartment. He almost missed the name written on it as he turned away; then something made him turn back. He leaned closer to read it.

K. Crow.

It had to be a sign.

He knocked on the door, with the vague plan of asking to borrow a phone. There was no one in Gotham he would have actually liked to call for help; no one currently owed him any favors, he didn't have what he would have needed to buy a rescue, and he didn't want to go into debt if he could avoid it. Using the phone was just a pretext to gain entrance to the apartment, his potential hiding place.

But the ruse turned out to be unnecessary. The girl who answered the door (K. Crow, he had to assume) was as drunk as anyone else he had seen that night, so tipsy she could barely stand up.

"Pizza's here," she said, ignoring the fact that his hands were empty. "Elena, get the money." The one called Elena, who was sprawled across a chair, looked hardly capable of moving.

It wouldn't be very nice of him to take advantage of them like this.

Then again, he had days' worth of frustration to take out on something, and they were all but begging him to make them the targets of his poorly aimed wrath.

So he invited himself inside.

#

Being road guard at the post in front of the library was the most boring job imaginable. Oh, sure, there were the squirrels, and the occasional odd noise from the Little Round House, but there was no actual work for a road guard to do. People just didn't come that way. (Except for the two fans who offered her a bribe every week, without fail, to let them drive their truck across the quad.)

Well, long, slow nights like this one were why the cadet on duty always brought a radio. Not too long after the squirrel incident, she got bored and turned it on.

A few minutes later, a young man walking past stopped dead in his tracks, shocked by the news report she was listening to.

Soon, a blond man came out from behind the library to join them.

(For the first time in recent memory, the Carrie White of roadblocks was becoming popular…oh, dear.)

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Something happened at one of the on-campus apartments."

"What happened?"

"Well, I can tell you this much…Bryce Lawn is no more."

Author's note: When Jeff orders me to assassinate someone, how can I say no? The target has been silenced. I will expect payment in the usual way.

Merry Christmas, Jeffers!

-3.0