Another day, another dollar

[Drake Evans]

Drake Evans took another swig of his extra large coffee, and rubbed his eyes tiredly as he looked out the open window of the squad car.
He swished his coffee around, the plastic cup warming his fingers.
He was riding shotgun, so he let his free hand dangle out the window, as the cool breeze blew past.

He downed another gulp of his coffee and his partner, Tim MacDonald, muttered, "Do I want to know what you were up so late doing, last night?"
Drake smiled, and shook his head, "I wasn't doing anything crazy. Just couldn't sleep."
Tim rolled his eyes as they rounded a corner. The city monorail system rumbled by overhead, and for a moment both men were silent. Then Tim asked, "I heard they found a body out by the harbor this morning. Some punk got shot up pretty badly."

Drake felt his stomach plummet. He started shaking, but did his best to hide it from Tim.
Trying to act casual, Drake replied, "Any leads?"
Tim shook his head, "Nah. All we know so far is that the guy that killed him, was a crack shot. I saw a photo of the body, entire left side of his face was gone. Nasty."
Drake felt relief flood through him.
Its not the guy I killed. Lucky me.
Tim smirked, "You alright, man? You're shaking."
Drake shrugged, "Must be from the caffeine."
Tim laughed, "Definitely not. It says on the cup that its decaf, idiot."
Drake smiled and cursed himself. No wonder I'm still dead-tired.

A crackle came from the radio, and the sweet female voice of the dispatch said, "Car number 57, please respond."
Drake picked up the responder and held down the button as he spoke, "This is 57, officers Tim MacDonald and Drake Evans, what is it?"
The voice replied,
"We received an emergency call from 163 Brenton Road, north of your location. The caller was disconnected before they could state their business, please investigate."

Drake glanced at Tim, who nodded, a frown on his face.
He tapped the respond key again and said, "That's a ten-four. We are en route."
Tim accelerated, making a right turn and taking them up a small hill.
Drake looked at his partner and asked, "What are you thinking?"
Tim said darkly, "That I hope nothing bad happened."

In less than three minutes, they had arrived at the location. A multi-story house, the pair of Officers strode up the front steps, pulled open the door and walked in. They rounded several staircases, until they found number 163.
The door was ajar.
Tim nudged the door open, and in unison they drew their guns. They held the firearms with both hands, but kept their fingers off the triggers, and kept the barrels pointed at the floor.
They moved silently throughout the rooms, the floorboards creaking under their feet.
Not a sound could be heard.
Drake poked his head into the bedroom at the back and let out a groan.
A man's body lay on the floor, blood pooling beneath him.
"Tim!" He yelled, as he dropped to his knees beside the body.
He checked for a pulse, and found a faint one.
"Call for an ambulance!" He yelled over his shoulder, and began CPR.
He breathed air into the man's lungs, and felt the pulse strengthen a bit.
He found the wound, the man's neck had been cut. He put pressure directly on the cut, doing his best to do CPR at the same time.
Tim called for backup, and dropped down next to Drake, taking over CPR while Drake tried to stifle the flow of blood.
Within fifteen minutes, a trio of paramedics had rushed in, pushed Tim and Drake aside and took over.
Three minutes later, the man was pronounced dead.
Tim and Drake looked at one another, blood covered their uniforms.
They both shook their heads sadly, the words on their tongues remaining unspoken.

*****

Three hours later, Drake was home, washing blood from his body in the hot shower. For the second time in twenty-four hours, he had watched someone die.
One death I caused, the other death I tried to stop.
He tossed down the wet rag he had been using to remove the dried blood, and in twenty minutes he was dried and dressed in casual clothes.
The chief had given him and Tim the next day off, to help them 'get their heads straight' before getting back to work.
Despite being a police officer in Gotham City, Drake had seen very few deaths.
He had been involved in one shootout, and had been the first officer on scene after a pair of police officers had been ambushed by a gang.
Both times there had been two casualties.
In four years of being a cop, he had seen six deaths.
Some police officers might consider that a low number.
It was something one never grew used to. Drake had already promised himself that the day he grew used to seeing death would be the day he resigned and left Gotham P.D. forever.

Drake walked down the steps of his apartment and onto the street. He climbed into his car and started the engine, then drove to a diner he frequented. He ordered dinner and sat at the table for half an hour, staring at his food numbly.
Then his appetite took over and he inhaled the meal in minutes.
He paid and left, taking a walk through the park to get some fresh air.
For a moment, he had the urge to go out that night and fight some crime more effectively than he could in uniform, but he forced himself not to think about doing it.
Last time it almost got me killed. I don't want to end up in a body bag before I'm thirty.
He paused, and sat on a park bench as the sun lowered in the sky.
Then again, I spend every day risking my life to try and solve crimes. Why not go out and risk my life stopping the crimes before they happen?

[Helena Rosa Bertinelli]

The Huntress was used to having busy nights, as much as Helena was used to busy days. Though, when the two combined into a twenty-four hour setting, sometimes the fatigue caught up with her. Even with the seven cups of coffee throughout the day going through her system, she could still feel the toll her lack of sleep was taking on her. Despite the rest her body was desperately calling out for, her stubborn vendetta side took over. She didn’t need the sleep; that’s what the weekend was for.

Helena’s blue eyes peered out of the mask over her face, keeping to the shadows as she watched the sun set in the distance. Her time to hunt would be soon, yet as she waited, she reflected over the last twenty-four hours. It had been quite uneventful, really, besides the last few hours of the night. As she stalked the shadows the night before, the criminals seemed to be at bay for the most part. Whether it was because there was a rumor of the Batman making an appearance, or simply because they were plotting in private, nothing happened until the early hours of the morning.

Shouts from an alley, another mugger of some sort assaulting another victim, probably nothing much. Before she had time to jump in, someone else had beaten her to it. She stayed to the dark, silently scoffing as she assumed it to be another one of the ‘wannabe vigilantes’ out there. What was supposed to be nothing much surely changed after a gun was drawn, and much to the wannabe’s dismay, the trigger had been pulled. Helena half-expected the thug to stand up as the victor, so she was surprised when the opposite outcome took place. She was even more surprised when the wannabe didn’t just take off.

Her suspicions started when the man stayed behind to take care of what he had done. They grew when he seemed to know exactly what to do to hide what had happened. Curiosity taking over, Helena decided to follow him when he began to run. Keeping out of sight was not a problem; keeping up with him was a different story. She almost lost him a few times, even with all of her athletics training. This could not have been some normal wannabe running around – he had some sort of training himself. This stirred her curiosity even more, and when she caught up to find him stepping into a railcar, she did the same.

Helena waited after each stop, peering through the windows for a glance of the man she ‘hunted’, though of course not for the normal reasons. Her prey this time was guiltless; at least he seemed so anyway. She stared out once more at the next stop, finally spotting the man behind the mask. As he passed by to exit the station she caught a glimpse of his face, etching it into her brain for later use as the railcar’s doors came to another close.

As the railcar started up again for the next station, Helena stared into the night. She had been lucky, the next stop being her own. Yet somehow she didn’t feel so lucky. Something about the man’s face had been unnerving. Was it because of the expression he wore, or because the face had seemed vaguely familiar to Helena? A face she passed by day to day, though never took enough time to fully observe and recognize completely. Whatever the case, it nevertheless plagued her mind for the entire few hours before work.

Work had dragged by, the cups of coffee being poured by the hour. Her eyes had constantly watched the clock, leaving the students with some boring short stories to read to help her deal with her headache. When the school day was done she finished up some paperwork back at her apartment, then went over her plans for the night. There had been no talk of her Mafia family making any deals tonight, nor had she caught word of any mob gatherings, so she decided it would be an easy night. Just the usual robberies, drug dealings, muggings and the like. As tired as she was, the weekend was coming soon enough, and she went out anyway.

The Huntress took the streets much more gracefully than Helena did. She could soar over rooftops, dart between buildings, maneuver through Gotham without being detected most of the time. She traveled wherever big deals were being held, or when she could get one of her dear family members alone for revenge. Other times she went to wherever her feet, or the shouts of innocents, took her.

This time, as the sun went down, she had wound up in one of the smaller parks Gotham had to offer. Of course, not many frequented the park alone at night, so when she saw a lone figure sitting at a park bench, her curiosity tugged at her. When she saw the man, for the second time in twenty-four hours, she gaped. He appeared as torn as he had the night before, obviously going through an inner struggle. That’s when she realized why she had recognized him so.

He was a cop!

It explained everything now, she realized. The bravery, the knowledge of what to do with the body, the concerned and confused look he wore now… It all made sense. Helena smiled, admiring the cop in a way, then proceeded to pursue her former prey, stepping behind the park bench he was sitting at and quietly saying, “I saw you last night, vigilante…” Her voice was smooth, sultry even. “Or should I say, cop?”

[/color]

[Drake Evans]

The memories of the day flickered through Drake's mind. The only thing they knew about the murder so far was that it was gang-related.
What gang was related was yet to be discovered. No motives were known as of yet either.
Gangs were something the police tended to try and avoid as much as possible. With the police force partially corrupted by dirty cops, it wasn't uncommon for incriminating evidence to get 'lost in transit' to the courthouses, or for informants to get killed after the gangs received 'anonymous tips' about the identity of the snitch.
He had the feeling that the police may not be able to solve this murder without him doing some investigating in his personal time. He had no idea why, but the murder today seemed connected to the one he himself had committed the previous night.
I need to go out again, a masked vigilante. Justice through any means. Find out the truth from those who know what happened. I'll never be able to get that kind of information with a uniform and a badge.
Lost in thought, Drake had no chance of hearing or seeing the person that came up behind him.
When she spoke, her words dripped with such intensity that he could tell that she wasn't referring to anything but the murder.
And she knew he was a cop. He sprang to his feet and spun around, resisting the urge to draw the taser gun in the chest pocket of his jacket.
Had she wanted to harm him, she would have already, unless she wanted to hear his side of things before dealing her own vigilante justice.
He almost smiled. The irony would not be lost on him had she come to avenge the death of the thug.
A vigilante hunting vigilante's. How perverse.
He wanted to yell at her, to scream and let out his rage. He was furious, but he realized with a pang that maybe he wasn't mad at her for witnessing what the had done.
Maybe I'm mad at myself for being stupid enough to be seen. Maybe I'm just mad because I wasn't cunning enough to keep the gun from going off. Maybe I'm mad because of the murder today.
He didn't know what had him so on edge, but the chances of her going to the police to tell them of his crime was certainly no help.
But he managed to act calm and unperturbed, realizing that angering her wouldn't make things better.
"What do you want?" He asked, keeping himself from yelling, barely.
She had frightened him. Not as much because of her sneaking up on him, but because she knew.
She had put together that he was both a cop and a vigilante. Lawful justice by day, unlawful justice by night.
She must have been following him. Or something. Maybe he would find out later. It didn't matter. What was important was that she hadn't gone straight to the cops. That meant she may want something from him. To blackmail him, perhaps?
To punish him herself, more likely.
He hoped it was something else. Something he could live with. Something that would keep him out of prison cells for the rest of his life.
However, if that was to be the case, his life wouldn't be too long. A cop being arrested for murder would be big news to the gangs and criminals. Word would spread to the prisons, and Drake would no doubt die of some kind of 'workout machine malfunction' or some similarly painful death at the hands of the very prisoners he had put away.
He tried not to wince as he pictured a group of heavyset prisoners beating him to death, and tried to get a good look at the shadowy figure across from him.