Sweat trickled down Elizabeth's back. Edward had advised her not to show any signs of nervousness but she didn't think she was succeeding well. Her eyes kept darting back and forth between the judge and the lawyers. Lesh and the prosecuting attorney, Greaves, were up at the bench talking to Judge Hammon. Wallace was sitting behind her and she could smell him sweating as well. Elizabeth bit her lip, Lesh looked angry and Greaves looked pleased. The judge dismissed both lawyers.

"Well they assigned Dr. Gullenrow to be your evaluating psychiatrist, I wanted you to have Bartholomew because he's a lot more reliable."

"I see…" Elizabeth frowned. She had been hoping to not have much contact with Dr. Gullenrow, he obviously had some control issues and couldn't stand people disagreeing with him. Maybe she could get back on his good side.

Lesh gestured to Wallace and he leaned forward cautiously. "Wallace, I want you to start rounding up a list of Miss Howard's old colleagues and…is it alright if he goes to your apartment to get your phone book?"

"Yeah. It's in the kitchen by the phone."

"Good. Do that too and make sure you contact her family."

"No!" Elizabeth cried causing both to look at her in confusion. "My family is abroad and can't return, telling them would just make them worry."

"…okay don't contact her family but make sure you get statements from everyone you can."

"Yes, sir." Wallace left quickly.

"It's nice having a gopher-I mean intern." Elizabeth chuckled. It was nice to be away from the stone corridors of Arkham, if only for a few hours. The guards who had brought her down from Arkham stepped up behind her and lifted her from the chair.

"Hey, no need to use force I know I need to go." She said pulling away from them, "and I can walk by myself." The guards grunted in displeasure but let her walk out the door without assistance.

"Miss Howard," a relieved voice said. She looked over and saw Bruce Wayne walking hurriedly towards her.

"Hi, Mr. Wayne, what are you doing here?"

"I was hoping to talk to you, if you aren't still angry at me?" Elizabeth smiled.

"No, I'm not. I would actually like to apologize for reacting like that, it was highly immature of me, I was just scared and confused." One of the guards pushed her from behind. "Yeah, I know. If you want to talk Mr. Wayne I'm sure Arkham will let you when we get back."

"I already tried but they said I couldn't because they didn't want you to react like last time." The guards pushed Elizabeth again and she began to walk. Wayne was walking with them trying to get the guards to stop. "Now hang on one second. I just need to talk to her for a few minutes."

"And we need to leave Pretty-boy, unless you can persuade us to wait…"

"Actually I still need to talk with her, boys," it was Lesh, he grabbed her arm and started dragging her away to an empty corner, "maybe you can talk over me Mr. Wayne." The guards grumbled, they couldn't stop her lawyer from talking to her and the also couldn't stop Mr. Wayne from "talking over" Lesh.

"Okay you have five minutes Mr. Wayne," Lesh said once they were far enough away from the guards.

"Thanks." Mr. Wayne's expression was serious; Elizabeth hoped that this wasn't more bad news. "In arranging the life insurance of one of your…the deceased, my company came across a disturbing find. We found out that Dr. Jyuugatsu was being blackmailed by the Maroni mob."

"What?" Elizabeth said sharply, her anger spreading across her face.

"I know. When we found out we ran a comparison test between the injection you were given and the compound that should have been used…They didn't match. The one that was administered turned out to be a similar formula to the one you were originally exposed to."

Elizabeth breathed deeply gaining control over her anger. "I see…so this means—"

"It means nothing, you need to worry about your trail in six weeks," Lesh interjected.

"He is right Miss Howard. I assure you though, I am investigating the matter myself, were going to see if our actual formula can reverse—"

"No. I still don't want your help. I don't care about getting back to "normal" now. I can deal with any changes. I just want to see those Maroni bastards pay and make sure they can't do anything like this to anyone else."

"Don't talk like that in here," Lesh and Mr. Wayne said at the same time.

"The mob has ears all around the court house," Lesh said glancing around nervously. A pair of lawyers were looking at them intensely. "And in it too."

Elizabeth huffed, "So that's why those thugs got off so easily."

"Yes and it's why you should just let it be. Revenge will eat you alive." Bruce said. Elizabeth averted her gazed, trying to look ashamed, even though she was boiling inside. Wayne put a hand on her shoulder and she winced.

"Sorry…what happened to you?"

"Oh I just fell because of some medication," Elizabeth smiled sarcastically, "and then the guards decided to beat me up." Both men frowned.

"They beat you up?" Lesh said astonished.

"The others said I got off easy."

"What did you do?"

"Well, Scarecrow attacked me and sent me into a similar frenzy to which I attacked the doctors on, I only hurt one guard and not that badly but I guess they still wanted to teach me a lesson." She glanced over at the guards; they were coming towards them determinedly.

"It looks like are five minutes are up. I'll see you…whenever."

Bruce watched as Elizabeth walked away. There was something different about Elizabeth. She didn't sound like the awkward yet determined chemist anymore. Her manner had hardened, she was more confident and seemed a lot more willing to use violence. Not to mention that the words she had said, he had repeated countless times as a justification for avenging his parents. He couldn't allow her to fall into the same cycle of revenge that he did.

"Fox," Bruce said into his voice activated cell phone. It rang twice and his old friend picked up.

"Mr. Wayne, what can I help you with?"

"Do you have the results back for Miss Howard's blood?"

"Just came in a few minutes ago."

"Good. Fax them to my car, I need to take a look at them."

"Right away, Mr. Wayne, and by the way, the matter of Dr. Jyuugatsu, I looked into the records of the rest of the scientists and it appears that Dr. Dysart was being blackmailed as well but no others."

"I see. So it was the genetics department they were after."

"Meaning they made a deliberate move to increase the wolf genes in Miss Howard." Wayne frowned and stepped outside to where Alfred was parked.

"Thank you for your help Mr. Fox."

"Anytime, Mr. Wayne." He hung and got into the Rolls Royce.

"Back home sir?" Alfred asked in his usual English drawl.

"Yes, Alfred. Did Fox's fax come?"

"It is right here," he handed it to him; "I hope there's nothing too terribly wrong with the young Miss."

"I not sure, it turns out the mob purposefully messed with the formula so it would increase the wolf genes."

"Oh dear they're using her as test subject?"

He frowned he hadn't thought of that, though it made sense. "If so they're going to want to see the results."

Elizabeth had just been pushed through the doors at Arkham when Dr. Gullenrow walked up to her looking very pleased.

"I heard the Judge gave your case to me?"

"Yes." 'Unfortunately.'

"Excellent. I have a slot open later tonight so we can have our first session then."

"Oh joy," Elizabeth said under her breath as the doctor walked away. She rolled her eyes and continued towards the elevator that would bring them up to the Rogue level. They were just about to enter when Dr. Leeland, who was talking with the secretary, called out to them.

"Stop." Elizabeth looked back. The doctor was holding the phone and beckoning them over.

"Miss Howard has a call from her sister. Take her to the phone room three so I can transfer it." The guards nodded and dragged her off in the opposite direction, down a long hallway that included the rec room, general cafeteria and the private meeting rooms. After passing several doors they stopped and pushed Elizabeth into a small room with a chair, a small desk bolted to the wall and a phone without a number pad. The phone rang.

"Victoria!?" She said shocked that her sister would find out so soon and surprised she had called her. They never had the best relationship.

"Guess again." The woman on the other line said sharply.

"Oh…Hi Alyssa."

"Don't hi Alyssa me! You're in Arkham and this weekend was our weekend to celebrate you getting back to normal!"

"Yeah, I know, trust me I didn't mean—"

"Don't "I didn't mean to" me! I flew in from Metropolis, a three hour flight! To find out you're in Arkham!"

"It not my fault I went on a psychotic rampage and killed four people! It's the fault of somebody else!" The other line was quite.

"…Are you okay?"

"…I'm not sure."

"What is it like there?"

"Disheartening, unnerving, disturbing but I know it could be worse."

"I read that you're being kept with the Rogues."

"Yeah…it's not as bad as it seems though. They're actually kind of nice."

"Nice? How?"

"Well only Professor Crane has attacked me and that was only once but the Mad Hatter and Ed—I mean the Riddler have been very pleasant. Almost disturbingly so for the Riddler, it's actually kind of scary, two days ago after I got beat up by the guards he bandaged me up, he's been creepily nice to me since Wednesday."

"Wait—you were beat up by the guards?!"

"…I probably shouldn't have told you that…"

"Like hell! Goddess damn it! I'll knock them into next week!"

"Hold on a minute! They do that a lot here, to keep the patients in line and I did accidently attack them." The other side of the line was quiet. "It was during Professor Crane's attack on me, he sent me into another psychotic episode and well…" Elizabeth trailed off; she could feel the disappointed sympathy leaking through the phone.

"Can I come visit you?"

"I don't know, I've had a few visitors but they've been related to my circumstances I haven't had any personal visitors."

"I'll try. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I don—yes actually you still have my spare key right?"

"Yeah."

"Great. I need you to clean out my fridge and unplug all the electronics. Then there is a rose in my bedroom it is still in the vase take it out, dry the stem and carefully place it on the wire drying rack in the corner."

"Can I still spend the weekend there?"

"Totally. Oh! I nearly forgot if a guy called Wallace is there, don't worry, he's the intern for my lawyer."

"Gotcha'."

"Most importantly don't talk to any of the media and don't tell my family, understand?

"Yes…Elizabeth? Are you going to be alright?"

Elizabeth didn't respond, she didn't quite know what to say simply because she didn't know herself. "I should go now. Love you."

"Love you too."

"Bye."

There was a sharp intake of breath; she could tell her best friend was trying desperately not to cry. "Bye."

Alyssa MacKenna finally finished climbing the sixth flight of stairs to reach her best friend's apartment. She may have been a second degree Tae Kwon Do black belt but there was just something more exhausting about climbing stairs with a tote bag than one-hundred kicks. Not that she'd been able to do one hundred kicks since her accident during college. She rubbed her aching knee and started to walk down the hall counting the doors until she reached number 613. She slid the key in, opened the door, and stepped in closing the door softly behind her. What she didn't know is that was already somebody inside.

Alyssa froze when saw the dark figure sketched in the window.

"Don't panic, I'm here to help your friend." The figure said in such a rough low voice that it couldn't be real.

"You're the famous Batman then?"

"I wouldn't use famous."

"Whatever. What the hell are you doing in Elizabeth's apartment?" Alyssa flicked on the lights revealing Batman, who was looking over a small leather book.

"Looking for evidence."

"You asshole," Alyssa said, "There is more than enough evidence to convict her! And you want more! Well I can tell you you're not going to find any here!"

"I didn't mean to convict her, I meant to help her. I said I was here to help earlier didn't I?"

"Yes…" She grumbled kicking off her shoes. "So…what kind of stuff are you looking for?" Batman didn't respond but he set the book down, which Alyssa now realized was Elizabeth's dairy/research notebook.

"Hey! What were you doing reading that!?"

"Your friend is smart," he said moving towards the open window, "but make sure she doesn't do anything stupid." Batman jumped out the window and soared away on his grappling hook.

"Wait," she exclaimed running to the window but he was already gone. "What do you mean something stupid?" She glanced down at the book on the table; it was open but upside down to preserve the page. Curious she picked it up. This was the one book that Elizabeth wouldn't share with her. She knew she shouldn't but there was no way Elizabeth would ever find out. Right?

Her eyes skimmed the page and she immediately knew why Batman had warned her to keep an eye on her friend. Written all over the page were the words "They Will Pay" in large, harsh letters.