CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: FACE-TO-FACE

Taylor barely made it three steps before a voice cut through the night.

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

She let out a heavy breath. Spoiler.

Taylor turned, already bracing for a fight—because that was what this was, wasn’t it? A fight. Not with fists, but with words, with the weight of everything unspoken.

“Move.”

Spoiler didn’t. She stood at the alley’s entrance, arms crossed, shoulders rigid. Her mask hid her face, but Taylor didn’t need to see it to know what lay beneath—anger, frustration, concern.

“I told you to stop.” Spoiler’s voice was tight. “I told you this was getting out of hand, and you ignored me.”

Taylor’s hands curled into fists. And?

“And now you don’t get a choice.”

Something crackled in her ear. A second later, another voice joined the conversation—calm, level, and all the more dangerous for it.

“Batman knows,” Oracle said.

Taylor stilled. Her gaze flicked upward, scanning the rooftops, the shadows. But of course, she saw nothing. Just Gotham, stretching out before her as always—dark, endless, watching.

She should have seen this coming.

“You ratted me out,” she said flatly.

Spoiler’s hands clenched at her sides. “I warned you.”

Taylor almost laughed. “Right. Because you care so much.”

“Damn it, Taylor—” Spoiler took a step forward, jabbing a finger at her chest. “You think I don’t know what this is? What you’re doing? You’re not fixing Gotham. You’re not stopping the Calculator. You’re just pissed off, and you’re making everyone else pay for it.”

Taylor’s jaw tightened. “What would you have me do?” she asked, voice dangerously quiet. “Walk away? Let them win?”

“No,” Oracle cut in. “But you’re not stopping them, either. You’re just playing into their hands.”

Taylor shook her head. “You think you know everything.”

“I know enough,” Oracle said. “I know Batman is paying attention now. And I know what happens when he decides someone’s too dangerous to keep running around unchecked.”

Taylor forced—what little they could see of—her expression to stay neutral, even as her pulse pounded against her ribs. “He won’t kill me.”

“No,” Oracle agreed. “But Gotham will.”

Silence.

Then Taylor moved.

Spoiler grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”

Taylor wrenched free. “Try and stop me.”

Spoiler’s teeth clenched. “I can’t just let you—”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Taylor stepped past her, out into the street. Spoiler didn’t follow. Oracle didn’t say anything else.

That was fine.

They weren’t going to stop her.

Nothing was.

. . . . .

The rain had started again by the time Taylor reached the Narrows.

Cold, relentless—the kind that seeped through fabric and into bone. It made the city look even more miserable than usual, casting the streets in a dull, wet sheen.

She moved quickly, keeping to the alleys, ignoring the ache in her body. Every muscle screamed for rest, but she wouldn’t give in. Not yet. Not while the Calculator was still out there.

Not while this was unfinished.

She slipped through the ruined fence, stepping onto cracked pavement. The building—what was left of it—loomed ahead. Half-collapsed, skeletal, burned out from an old fire no one had bothered to clean up. It wasn’t much, but it had been hers. A place to rest, to plan.

Now, she just needed to catch her breath. Just a second to think.

Then she’d keep moving.

The moment she stepped inside, she knew she wasn’t alone.

She didn’t freeze. Didn’t hesitate. Just kept moving, eyes sweeping the dark, muscles wound tight.

Then a voice cut through the silence.

“I told you before. Smart people know when to walk away.”

Taylor stilled.

The shadows stirred, and a figure leaned forward, half-lit by the flickering streetlight bleeding through a broken window.

She knew that voice.

The words weren’t random either. He had said them before—weeks ago, buried in a threat through a voice modulator, before she started burning through his network.

Now, there was no distortion. No filter. Just an infuriating calmness.

The Calculator.

And he was waiting for her.

She didn’t react. Didn’t let the tension in her spine show. Instead, she took a slow, careful step inside, scanning the room. No guards. No visible weapons.

He was alone. Fingers steepled. Not a hint of fear.

That set off every alarm in her head.

“I thought you’d take longer,” he said, watching her with a small, knowing smile. “But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

She didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

“Sit,” he offered, motioning toward the debris-strewn floor. “You’ve had a long night.”

Taylor’s fingers twitched. “I should kill you.”

His smile didn’t falter. If anything, it deepened. “But you won’t.” He said it like a fact, not a gamble. 

The Calculator leaned back slightly, studying her with something almost amused. “What you should have done,” he continued, voice smooth, “was take my advice.” A slow shake of the head. “Would’ve saved us both a lot of trouble.”

She moved closer, still wary. “You’ve lost.”

“Have I?” He tilted his head. “Because from where I’m sitting, it seems like you’re the one who’s running out of moves.”

Her fists clenched.

“I told you before,” he continued, easy, unhurried. “This was never about me.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

“Then what was it about?” she asked, voice low.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You.”

Her chest tightened, but she kept her expression blank.

“This city has a way of breaking people,” the Calculator said. “Grinding them down, stripping them to their worst instincts. You think you’re different?” A flash of teeth. “You’re not.”

She exhaled slowly, forcing back the anger rising in her throat. “You’re trying to get in my head.”

He chuckled. “I don’t have to.”

Silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

Then, softly, he said, “Look at yourself.”

Taylor didn’t.

She didn’t need to. She knew what she’d see.

Blood on her hands. Violence in her wake. The pieces of a girl who had once been something else, someone else.

And she had done it all thinking she was in control.

That was the real joke, wasn’t it?

Oracle was right. She had played right into their hands.

His. The Shadows’. Gotham’s.

This was never about winning.

It was about what she would become.

What they wanted her to become.