Authors Notes:
This is my sequel to "Two Intersecting Ideas". Enjoy.
Zoe was scared.
Zoe was very very very scared.
She sat, trembling in fear, in the cold, dark room they had left her in. Huddled against the furthest wall from the door (as far as possible from them) she waited, tears streaking down her face, staining the top of her pink nightgown an ugly red and somehow making her colder than she was before. Before, when she had been carried into the bitter ice-cold night, then into the warmth of some kind of vehicle, and back into the cold, into whatever building this was and then left here. In this small room - cell some part of her whispered into her thoughts - where she had immediately scooted away, huddled as far as she could from the dreaded door.
What would happen if it opened?
Who would open it?
From the gap of light shown underneath the rusted over door a shadow paced, as it had been doing for the last few hours. Or maybe it had been minutes? Zoe felt as if she were in limbo, time has slowed itself down, she could not remember how long she had been in this cold cold room. How long it had been since she was just a normal student staying up late to do her homework. Had anyone noticed she was gone? Her mind had raced to think of who else was awake at this time, but now her fears were more lethargic, not because she was calm, but because she had been scared so badly (she had looked up at her kidnappers recognized them and then he had said "She looks a bit like a mommy's little girl, -" and didn't remember much after that). What if they didn't? Surely they would notice that she was gone, surely they would … she had a life and friends. They should notice her. Notice the lack of her. … Would she be stuck here for the rest of her life?
(However long is left of it whispered that same, high, childish voice, artfully tugging at Zoe's most hidden fears and bringing them to light, as it had always done when she doubted her mother or her father or her grades. But in those instances she had been able to prove to her innermost fears that her parents loved her and that she was the top student in her class. But here? She had no way of proving that she would live, and this terrified her.)
A soft sob came from her, before she could stop it, and she quickly clamped her hands over her mouth, but too late. The pacing feet outside the room she was in had stopped. Her breathe caught in her throat as she watched the shadow of the pacer become larger - moving closer - another sob was wracked from her lungs, through her throat and past her hands without her permission. The feet shadowed half the door and for an indescribable amount of time Zoe was once again in limbo, the shadow stayed where it was and Zoe huddled further into herself, the wall providing a now comforting cocoon against her back - before it had felt like the bars of a cage, and now it felt like the solid comfort of her father when he hugged her after their days out, or her mother, when they sat together and read one of Zoe's assigned literature books together, it felt safe, like home - as she waited.
The doorknob began to turn.
Sobs were wrung anew from her throat, as she stared at the obvious movement in the previously still darkness. Light broke into her space, a small sliver of it, as the door was pulled outward, and then suddenly there was a sharp noise, something that Zoe was too familiar with in her years at a Gotham citizen.
A gunshot.
The door slammed closed.
(In the dark of her room Zoe could not see it, but blood was now seeping under the doorway, slowly inching it's way towards her.)
The shadow covered all but an inch of the light from underneath the door.
And a voice started yelling.
"What the FUCK did I tell you about her?"
The voice was young, female, and something that Zoe - and any Gotham citizen - could recognize and would never want to meet in anywhere between a dark alley and a grocery store. That was the voice of Harley Quinn, the most feared woman in the city, who had once broken into a once-popular morning television show to beat the two anchors to death with a bat because they had complimented Batman's takedown of the Joker. The show had continued airing throughout her 'punishment'. Zoe's mother had luckily been in the room at the time, and had turned it off as soon as Harley appeared on set and ordered her two goons to hold down the two anchors so she could beat their heads in. Many of Zoe's classmates had not been so lucky as to have their parents ready to turn the television off, and had to miss school for several days after the event (poor Bradley hadn't returned, the teachers never had to ask why).
A strange sound met Zoe's ears, and the shadow covering her door moved, another sound and another movement. It continued to happen until the sound of wood meeting concrete was heard.
Oh.
She threw-up quietly, then and there, when she realized the sound she had been hearing was what had happened to the two nice news anchors she used to watch before school. Vomiting was unpleasant, something she had never enjoyed experiencing, but she barely noticed now as she leant over and vomited into the ground in front of her, and continued to retch after last night's dinner was long gone.
The dry heaves were loud in the silence that followed the last crack of wood.
Harley Quinn's voice was louder.
"Sweetie pie?"
The two words seemed to echo into Zoe's room, reverberating off the walls and back into her brain. A flash of thought crossed through her mind - who was she calling - before the shadow under her door was pulled away.
She waited and then … footsteps echoed through the door and into her room, slowly getting quieter, until she heard no more.
The silence after that was dreadful. Zoe was tempted to crawl away from her stinking heap of regurgitated food, but not tempted enough to move from her safe spot. She didn't want to get any closer to the door. She couldn't. She wanted to wake up to discover that this had all been a Horrible, Terrible, Terrifying nightmare. She wanted to wake up to find her mother at the end of her bed, telling her to get ready for school. Hell, she wanted to wake up to her mother's boyfriend - Flynn - shaking her awake. Anything but this.
Somehow Zoe drifted to sleep. Sitting upright, in a cold cold room, a puddle of vomit next to her, and a slowly encroaching pool of blood across the room.
She dreamt of everything but this.
(Orphanages and foster homes and smiling faces and glaring eyes. Dead mothers in a police morgue and alive mothers in jail. Her teddy bear, held by another, kept in the crook of her arm, or fought for - viciously. A white, blonde woman, skin as pale as her counterpart holding her hand as they signed papers, a white, green haired man smiling down at her as he announced she would be a gift for a 'special someone'. Zoe - as if seeing herself in the eyes of a crowd, perspective switching every blink, the crowd of invisible people all gathered around her, watching - sat on a chair between her parents, wearing a white dress. Another dream, Zoe sat between The Joker and Harley Quinn, wearing the same white dress - this time it was covered, small etchings, scribbles, several large diamonds and large gaping smiles.
A father who smiled at her from behind bars.)
…