A/N: I'm back! Yeah! First off, I want to apologize for forgetting to mention my wonderful beta-reader in the first chapter. She helped me so much with this chapter and the last one. Many thanks to SirenoftheStorm for her helpful pointers, suggestions, and criticism!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Dark Knight, but I own Camille, Jason, Hoshiko, and any other characters in the story that aren't in the movie.
Chapter 2
Camille's eyes suddenly snapped open. Her eyes scanned the room, trying to find something familiar. As soon as they landed on the cracked window, it all came flooding back. She sat up stiffly and smoothed the wrinkles out of her shirt. Her eyes felt swollen and her nose was stuffy. Completely miserable, she stood and stiffly walked across the cool floor to the window. The sun had begun its descent across the sky and she knew she had cried herself to sleep.
She licked her fingers and rubbed under her eyes and along her cheeks where she thought her mascara might have run. Part of her wondered why she even cared, but she could give it no answer. All she knew was that she did not want to appear as though she had been crying. Showing any kind of weakness in a situation like this would not be to her favor. When she had finished scrubbing her face, she took a look at her knees. They had stopped bleeding, but were still caked with blood and debris. There was nothing she could do about it now.
Footsteps coming towards her room reached her ears. She turned towards the door, strangely unafraid, and watched as it opened. An Asian man who looked a couple years younger than her stood in the doorway.
"Come on," he ordered and motioned down the hall.
She obediently followed. His pace was fast and she found it made her knees hurt to walk, but she remained quiet. He led her down another hall that she had not noticed at first. Towards the end of the hall on the left was an open door. He entered and walked over to a couple of other men near the back of the room, but she paused in the doorway. A few windows on the far wall illuminated the entire room, giving her a good view of it and everyone inside. There was a desk directly below the windows and another desk adjacent to the first one. On top of the second one was a computer and monitor that were already turned on. The Joker was leaning against the desk under the window and looked up when she paused.
"Ah, there she is!" He exclaimed in mock excitement. Camille entered the room hesitantly. He kicked a chair out from under a desk and shoved her down into it. She held in a yelp as her aching knees protested the sudden movement. He twisted the chair around and she noticed a computer with a wireless device idling on the desk. "You know what you're supposed to do."
Her nerves suddenly came to the surface and she gulped and fidgeted absentmindedly with the bottom of her skirt. "Can I, um, have some privacy? I can't work with people watching."
A couple of the men behind her chuckled at her comment. The Joker, on the other hand, found it hilarious.
"Leave you alone so you can contact the police?!"
She kept her eyes locked on the keyboard. "I wouldn't contact them."
His laughter subsided into a slow chuckle and he brought his mouth closer to her ear. "I've been in this business for a while, doll face. I know you better than you think."
A chill ran down her spine.
"Now get to work," he added darkly and something flicked into her peripheral vision from his right hand. She glanced over and froze. A knife. He leaned back against the desk next to hers and laughed like nothing was wrong. "This is in case you can't get it."
Gulping, she managed to tear her wide eyes away from the shiny blade. Her trembling fingers rushed over the keyboard as she first checked the capabilities of the computer. To the best of her knowledge everything would be fine, much to her relief.
"What bank do you want it from?" She asked quietly, still watching the screen.
"Yours," he answered without pausing to think. "We have some, ah, unfinished business there." With that, he laughed again, obviously enjoying himself.
She entered the website link to her bank and while it was loading, she downloaded some hacking software that she thought would work for the job. She had downloaded hacking programs from the site years ago when she was an active hacker. After it had successfully downloaded and installed, she opened the software and typed in the website URL in the provided area. It soon went to work, pulling up passwords along with their matching usernames.
She pulled up the bank's site again and went to log in. There was another pause while it loaded and she caught sight of the knife flicking in and out. The trembling began again, but she tried to hide it as she began entering a username and matching password. She hit enter and held her breath as it loaded the next page. One more area to fill out appeared: the bank's code that only employees knew. She typed it in and hit enter again.
"I'm in the system now," she said, not taking her eyes off the screen. "They haven't found me yet. Where do you want it transferred?"
A man behind her casually stepped forward and tossed a wadded up piece of paper onto the desk. She unfolded it and looked down at the numbers that had been hastily scribbled onto the sheet. An account number.
"How much do you want?" Camille asked, trying not to think about what might happen after all of this was over.
This time there was a pause before the Joker answered, "Half."
She typed in the account number and set about draining numerous accounts as quickly as possible before she was found. She felt horrible about taking so much money from so many innocent people, but she was not about to let her morals get her killed. After several minutes of putting money into the new account, she paused to see how much was in it compared to how much was left in her bank. Then her heart sank when she saw the new bank's address: Switzerland. She knew that country did not recognize United States laws and therefore any hope that the money might be tracked was pointless.
"Um…" she hesitated then bit her lip.
"Hm?" The Joker asked, sounding somewhat bored with the entire process.
"The new account is in a bank in Switzerland," she replied, pointing at the address on the screen. "Even if you have someone there to get the money, I highly doubt the bank would have that much in cash readily available. I'm going to have to transfer manageable amount of money into various banks that have branches in Gotham and then you can have someone pick it up."
"And I thought I'd have to have Hoshiko tell you what to do now!" He exclaimed with a snicker. Camille glanced up at him then over her shoulder at the three men behind her. From the sound of the name, she guessed it was the Asian man whom he was referring to.
Drawing her eyes back to the screen, she began to work on transferring the money back to America.
-------
"Commissioner, we've just received a report from Gotham Union Bank. Half of the money in its accounts was drained into a single account and is currently being transferred out of the bank."
Gordon looked up from his desk to see Officer Robert Marshall hurrying in with a few sheets of paper stapled together. He took the sheets and leafed through them quickly.
Jason looked up from the paper he had been filling out on Camille. "That's not how much they took earlier, is it?"
Gordon shook his head and flipped back to the second page. "No, it says this just happened a few minutes ago. Marshall, what bank is the new account in?"
"It's a bank in Switzerland," the other man answered promptly.
Gordon sighed and dropped the papers down onto his desk. Obviously, this was a thief who knew what he was doing. "Well, there's no way we can track the money now."
Jason glanced between the two men and asked, "You don't think it was Camille, do you?"
"It might have been," Marshall answered nodding towards the papers. "They could've forced her. Does she know how to hack into bank accounts and things like that?"
Jason scanned the messy desk in front of him, trying to remember if she had ever mentioned something about it. "No, I don't think so."
Gordon nodded and slid the papers aside. "We'll count that as a separate case for now. You said you had a recent picture of Ms. Houghman?"
"Yeah," Jason reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He leafed through various credit cards until he found her picture. He handed it to the man across the desk and put the wallet back in his pocket. "Is there anything else I can do to help find her?"
Gordon shook his head and looked the picture over. "No, I'm afraid not. We've put out an APB and we have detectives working on the case. We'll find her."
Jason nodded and only hoped he was right. The Joker was a maniac who would not hesitate to kill on a whim. Jason had never sent him to jail before, but now he desperately wanted to. And he would do his best to make sure he was placed in a prison that could actually keep him locked up forever.
-------
Camille worked for most of the day, but did not get nearly finished with it because of the huge amount of money she had to work with. Finally, long after she had developed a headache from staring at the screen and a backache from sitting there so long, the Joker sighed and stepped over behind her to see what was taking so long.
"Are you almost done yet?" He asked, sounding slightly impatient.
"Well, there's a lot of money," she replied, glancing over her shoulder to see whether he was holding his knife or not, but she could not see his hands. She turned her attention back to the screen and continued, "I can't put too much in one bank or else they won't have enough cash on hand for your men to withdraw all of it."
There was a pause before the Joker grabbed her by the arm and jerked her to her feet. Her knees immediately began to hurt again.
"You're done for now," he said and shoved her towards the door. "We've got other things to do." Then, to the other men in the room, "This'll be the easiest bank job we'll ever pull, boys."
"And we don't even have to do anything," one of them said with a soft chuckle. She quickly shrank back into a corner.
"We'll turn her into a criminal yet," the Asian man, Hoshiko, added with a smirk in her direction. She was really not liking all the attention she was getting from them now.
"Take her back to her room," the Joker ordered and brushed past her as he walked out the door. She shrank back against the wall as he walked by, but Hoshiko grabbed her by her arm and pushed her along to her room.
Once there, a couple of hour slipped by without any interruptions. At first Camille paced around the room, trying to think up ways to escape. All the plans she could come up with involved coming face-to-face with the Joker or his men at one point. Eventually, she found a nail sticking out of the window pane and tried to pull it free in a desperate hope of using it to break the window, but it held fast and would not budge. After she gave up on the nail, she slouched down into a corner and tried to imagine she was somewhere else, anywhere else.
The sun set and the room got even colder and lonelier. She pulled the tattered blanket around herself and paced over the cold floor. When her feet got too cold, she sat down and tried to tuck them under her. The aching in her knees was a constant, dull throb now.
She let out a sigh and looked out the window. It was a cloudy night, the moon peeking out from behind thin patches of cloud cover. Suddenly a spot light hit the clouds and in the center of it was a dark bat. Her eyes widened in recognition and she rushed to the window. She pressed her face up to the cold glass and grinned. It was for her! She just knew it!
"Yes!" She suddenly screamed and jumped up and down in place. Almost instantly, there were footsteps coming down the hall. She whirled around and made a lunge for the light switch. If she could obstruct their view of it for a few minutes longer, the spotlight might go out before they ever saw it.
She flipped it on, sat down on the cold floor, and tried to act nonchalant. Her eyes were innocently scanning the ceiling when the door opened and there stood the Joker. The thought crossed her mind that she had somehow disturbed him by yelling and he was now going to rip out her voice box.
"You seem excited about something," he stated and, as if he could read her mind, flipped off the light switch.
Instantly, Camille's eyes darted towards the window. The signal was still there. The Joker apparently saw it too because he strode over to the window and looked out. He laughed. "The Batman's out tonight! This'll be fun."
He turned to her and tossed something onto the floor next to her. She instantly shrank back, clutching the scratchy covers closely as if they offered some kind of protection. She looked down at the dark, crumpled object and looked back up to him. "What is it?"
He laughed at her and knelt in front of her. "You're a woman and you don't recognize clothes when you see them? What's wrong with you?" He smacked the side of her head fairly lightly. "Hm?"
She tried to shrink into an even smaller ball. "Are they for me?"
That made him laugh yet again. He grabbed her chin and forced her face upwards. "You're too much fun, you know that? Now put them on."
He turned and walked back to the window. She looked between him and the clothes. Part of her wanted to ask if he meant to do it now, but most of her told her to do as told. Sure, he was amused by her now, but she did not know how long that would last.
Silently, hating every second of it, she stripped down and pulled on the new set of clothes as quickly as possible. It was a baggy shirt, a pair of pants, and oversized shoes, probably from one of his men. She knew just by looking at him that his clothes would be too big for her. When she got done and was just awkwardly waiting, he strode towards her, eyeing something. "You don't look like a man with hair like that."
Almost instantly, she pulled her hair up into a little bun on the back of her head. Seemingly satisfied, he pulled out a roll of tape and put a strip over her mouth. Her eyes widened in horror. He was going to get rid of her.
She let out a muffled scream and lunged for the door. He grabbed her around the waist and jerked her back. She tried to kick back at him and successfully hit his shins a couple times. Suddenly, before she knew it, he had her pinned against the wall with a knife to her throat. She whimpered through the tape. She wanted to shut her eyes, but the intensity in his kept them open.
"Unless you want to die now, you'll behave for me," he stated darkly, no hint of a smile on his face except for the curving scars. "Got it?"
She nodded, trembling all over. He stepped back and she leaned up against the wall. Her knees felt weak, like they would not hold her up. He pulled out a clown mask and tossed it at her. She managed to catch it as he shoved her towards the door.
Outside at the van were several henchmen. All of them wore clown masks. Camille warily eyed them and pulled her mask on as well. The eye holes were large enough to see clearly through, but she felt half blind without her peripheral vision. Every chuckle or noise from the other men made her jerk around to see what was going on. The fear that one of them was going to shoot her while she could not see was a constant presence in her mind.
Suddenly, someone grabbed her by the arm and shoved her into the very back of the van. She plopped down in the familiar trunk and the doors slammed shut behind her. She hauled herself to her knees and watched as the rest of the men piled into the other seats. They all seemed occupied with loading their guns with ammunition or making sure their knives were in order.
The thought crossed her mind that possibly this was not all a ploy to get rid of her. Maybe they were doing something else and needed her to blend in. A robbery, maybe? She sat back down and tried the door. Locked again. She could see the smears of blood on the window she had left earlier. Climbing back up on her knees, she looked out the front window again. The van was moving now, almost out of the abandoned warehouse area. She watched closely, determined to remember the way so that if she were rescued she could lead the police to their hideout. Suddenly, one of the men in front of her turned around. He raised the butt of his gun in the air. "Mind your own business!"
The gun rammed itself against her head and she blacked out.
-------
Commissioner Gordon watched without really seeing as the steam rolled up off his cup of coffee and faded into the cold night air. Part of him wished they could build a switch for the Bat-signal somewhere inside the building, but until that happened he would be forced to come up onto the roof of the police department and turn it on himself. Shoving his cold hands into his pockets, he turned back to the spotlight and looked up to where the signal touched the clouds. The dark bat rode over the moving clouds monotonously, patiently waiting until the man it signaled appeared.
"Is he ever going to come?" Jason asked impatiently, setting his cup of coffee down on the ledge of the building.
Gordon eyed the sky again. "He'll come."
"When?" The other man snapped.
"Is now a bad time?" Came a gravelly voice from the shadows. Both men turned to see a dark figure slowly approaching.
"Now's perfect," Gordon answered and turned off the signal. "We have a kidnapping on our hands."
"The Joker?" Batman asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Yeah, he took my girlfriend," Jason replied.
"What's her name?" He asked.
"Camille Houghman," he answered, reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his wallet as he continued, "She's twenty-six, has dark brown hair and green eyes, and is average height." He paused as he searched in his wallet for a moment. "I was going to give you a picture of her, but I forgot already gave it to Commissioner Gordon."
Chuckling, Gordon fished around in his coat pocket, retrieved a picture, and handed it to Batman. "Here you go. I made copies."
Batman took it, studied it for a moment, then folded it up and put it in one of the pockets on his belt.
"I'll find him," he said. "And I'll get her back. Alive."
"You're the only one who can," Gordon stated with a small, ironic smile.
-------
Camille slowly opened her eyes. The side of her head throbbed. Her vision blurred slightly before focusing on the object in front of her. She was not sure what had happened until it registered in her mind where she was. Groaning, she pulled herself up and looked out the front of the van. She was alone. Freedom was only a few feet away.
Instantly, she was on her feet, climbing over and then around the rows of seats. She dropped down into the driver's seat and began searching for keys. She pulled down the visor, but there was nothing. Cup holders were empty, the dash full of scrap paper, no sign of keys. She threw open the door, got out, and crouched down. She jerked off the mask and duct tape and tossed them both back into the van. Softly shutting the van door, she scurried to the next car in the sparse group on the parking deck.
She ducked behind it and the poked her head out to check for signs of the Joker. When she was sure the coast was clear, she ran to the next car and repeated the process. Her heart was pounding in her ears from the excitement of escaping and her fear of being caught. She finally reached the last car, which was several yards from the down ramp. Almost as soon as she was getting ready to dash around the corner, there was an explosion and gunfire.
Camille ducked and peered out from around the front of the car. Several men in clown masks were running out, shooting back the way they had come. Her breath caught in her throat as one opened the driver's door and shouted, "Hey, the girl's gone!"
"Find her!" Another replied and there was a scramble around the van and that general area to try to find her.
Camille gulped back her fear and scooted close to the edge of the level and hung her legs over. The drop was around ten feet to the car's roof below and heights had always made her nervous.
"Here she is!" One man shouted. His voice was close.
Camille looked back over her shoulder to see him running towards her. Instantly, she ducked under the guard rail and dropped down onto the roof of the car below. The car's alarm started blaring just as an explosion rocked the parking structure. Tires squealed on the level she had just dropped from.
She quickly jumped down off the car and took off running. Her tennis shoes slapping on the concrete beneath her feet sounded loud enough to give away her position to everyone in the entire parking deck. The van screeched around the corner and the motor revved as the driver pushed the gas pedal down farther. Another explosion echoed through the parking deck, and the van was closing in. There was more gunfire from above, or maybe behind; she could not tell. She leapt behind a car and the van rushed by. The brakes squealed as the vehicle skidded to a stop just around the corner.
Camille turned and began running back the way she came just as one of the black cars she had hid behind came screeching around the corner. She instantly stopped and began running back down the slope. Shots fired from behind her and bounced off the car beside her. She ducked behind a small car and just as she did, there was another explosion, this one even closer. The blast threw her and the car forward. She hit the concrete again first and sprang to her feet and began running again. She could feel the car hit the slope again and begin rolling downwards, chasing her.
She managed to dart around the corner just as the two cars that had been chasing her rolled into the concrete wall at the end of the parking deck. Almost instantly, a pair of arms wrapped around her and her feet left the ground.
"Let me go!" She screeched, trying to kick whoever was holding her. One man grabbed her feet and tied them together and another did the same to her hands. Another strip of duct tape was placed over her mouth and wrapped all the way around her head. She was then dumped into the back of the van again and the doors slammed shut behind her.
"Thought you could escape?" One man jeered at her from the seat in front of her. "Wait 'til the Joker gets hold of you."
She whimpered as the van began to move. They quickly wound their way out of the parking deck and onto the main street. Nausea at all the fast turns began to set in, but she held it together and was grateful for the straight stretch of the city streets. Once on them, the driver drove calmly so as not to attract attention. She could hear sirens whizzing by them as they rushed towards where the explosions were.
Suddenly there was a deep rumble and she could see a golden flash out the back windows. The Joker started cackling from the front seat and the rest of the men laughed along with him. Camille silently laid her head down on the floor and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping it would all end soon. Escape had failed and no one knew where the Joker's hideout was. And now she knew she was doomed to a slow demise when they got back.
The ride back to the warehouse was faster than she would have liked, but it was long enough for her to determine that she was not going down without a fight, as much as she would have liked to give up. Besides, the outcome of her struggle would not matter because she knew she would not survive the night. The van stopped in its usual place and the men clambered out. One opened the back door and grabbed her arms. Another grabbed her feet and they carried her back into the warehouse.
"What am I going to do with her?" she heard the Joker asking sarcastically in the distance, and laughing.
The two men carrying her dumped her on the floor of her room and cut the ropes from her hands and feet. She scrambled to her feet and stepped back, watching the knives. As soon as one was out of the room, she leapt onto the remaining man's back. He was so startled he dropped his knife. Quickly, she kicked the door shut and dropped to the floor. The door slammed open just as she grabbed the knife and drove it into the first man's shin. He yelled. Just as he did, she felt a piercing pain rush up her left leg. She looked down just in time to see the second man pulling his knife out of her thigh. She groaned through the tape and tried to kick at him with her other leg. Two big hands wrapped around hers and the knife was easily wrestled from her grip.
"What's the matter, Murray?" The second man asked with a smirk. "Almost got beat by a girl?"
Camille rolled over and was trying to scurry away when Murray kicked her in the stomach. Instantly, her breath left her lungs and she was sent flying about a foot away. Her vision blurred and she vaguely felt her own hands holding her aching stomach. She could see Murray's boots drawing closer, but lay helpless and hurting.
"You stupid little-" he continued and was about to kick her again.
"Hey!" The second man interrupted and stepped forward. "The Joker said he'd care of her, remember?"
Camille could not see the first man's face through his mask, but knew he was glaring down at her. Without another word, he jerked around and left. The second man followed close behind and slammed the door.
Camille watched the door a second after they left before shutting her eyes and clenching her teeth. She reached up and pulled the tape down off her mouth. Gasping, she sucked in as much air as she could until finally she caught her breath. She was trembling all over as the adrenaline's effects began to wear off. The seconds ticked by slowly until she wondered if it had been an hour yet. She took another deep breath and forced herself to sit up. Blood had drenched her pants around the wound and had soaked the floor underneath. Whimpering, she dragged herself up against the wall underneath the window.
It was then the door opened. Her eyes jerked up to see the Joker. Fear shot through her and the pain drifted into the background. She did not want to take her eyes off him for fear of what he might do.
He strolled towards her, flicking a knife blade in and out with his thumb. He made a tsking noise at her and knelt down in front of her. His eyes dropped down to her blood soaked pants and then to her face. "You didn't behave like you told me you would."
She gulped and knew he was not surprised by that fact. Absently, she drew her legs closer, afraid of being stabbed again.
"Do you know what happens to people who don't keep their promises to me?" He asked and licked his lips, a smile beginning to form at the thought. "Hm?"
"Y-you kill them?" She asked, still shaking.
"Now you're talking!" He said with a laugh. He brought the knife up to her face so that it touched her cheek. She turned her head and clenched her eyes shut. "You know what I've noticed about you?" The back side of the knife moved down along her jaw, not cutting, just touching her skin.
"What?" She asked, not daring to open her eyes.
"You're a fighter," he replied, moving the knife around to her chin. "You act all meek and terrified when you're threatened, but when you're forced in a corner…" he paused as if for dramatic emphasis, "you fight back. When you see the chance to escape, you take it." He put a little pressure on her chin and forced her to turn her head back to him. "I like that. You don't just roll over and accept things."
She opened her eyes timidly and met his. They were dark and dangerous. That in itself was nerve-racking, but it also looked like he was planning something, which made her even more nervous because she had no idea what. But beyond that, she could read no more and that struck a new chord of fear inside her.
"You're not going to kill me?"
He licked his lips. "Not yet. You're still useful. But, uh, next time you decide to try to escape, remember, I won't hesitate to slice you into little squares and feed you to the fish. And believe me, I'm a man of my word."
She gulped, the hair on the back of her neck starting to stand on end. "I understand."
He flashed her a twisted grin and stood. "Good."
She watched as he left and shut the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, she exhaled and looked back down at her leg. The fabric around the wound had grown darker. She glanced around for something to tie over it to staunch the bleeding and found the ratty, old blanket. Grabbing it, she glanced around and found the nail sticking out of the window frame. She looped part of the blanket over it and then yanked both ends down to tear the blanket in two. The material ripped easily because of its age and poor condition. The smaller of the two pieces she tied tightly around her wound and over her bloodstained pants.
Grimacing at the new onslaught of pain, she leaned her head back against the wall and tried to focus on something else. She had been given another chance. She had not expected that in the least and the turn of events surprised her. Then she remembered that she still had to get him the rest of the money he wanted.
There was a loud smacking sound in the other room and a few men shouted. She lowered her eyes and peered at the door. A few seconds passed and then the only sound to be heard was the television and muffled conversations.
She looked up at the ceiling, still hoping, praying, that she would be rescued soon. The police had told Batman about her, she was sure. That was probably why the signal had been lit. Jason had probably insisted on it. He loved her so much, yet she had never fully been able to let him in. It made her feel guilty, but some things were better left unsaid. Regardless, she knew he would not stop looking for her. He was the one person she could count on in this world. But now everything, her whole world, had turned upside down in a matter of minutes, and now she might never see the ones she loved again.
-------
"Rise and shine, dolly!"
Camille's eyes snapped open and she jumped up into a seated position. Instantly, pain shot up her left leg. She groaned and grabbed onto it. Suddenly, a newspaper dropped down onto her lap. She gave it a confused look before looking up at the man who dropped it.
"You made front page news," the Joker stated, obviously thinking it was humorous. "You're even above my two stories."
She looked back down at it. "Camille Houghman Kidnapped by the Joker" was plastered boldly on the front page. An enlarged picture of her was pasted below it. She looked back up at him dully. "Okay…?"
"Now, now, now," he said in a scolding tone and knelt down so he was level with her. "Where'd that fire go that was here yesterday?"
"It disappeared with my chances of escaping," she answered dryly, staring him in the eyes.
"Hm…" he frowned in disapproval and grabbed her head and twisted it from side to side as if looking for something. "It's gone." He let go, but added in a deeper voice. "You'd better find it. You're no fun without it and I don't keep things that bore me."
Her eyes widened. Find this so called "fire," or she was dead. She was not even sure what it was. With a chuckle to himself, he strode back out the door, leaving the newspaper sitting on her lap. Her eyes wandered down to it.
Camille Houghman, age twenty-six, was kidnapped by the Joker yesterday from her job at Gotham Union Bank. She had been called in to work when fellow co-worker Joyce Raymond reported ill. It was around ten-thirty in the morning when the Joker and his men came in firing guns. Ray Hanson, who was only a few feet from Houghman, reported that the Joker seemed to take an interest in her from the beginning…
Camille groaned and leaned her head against the wall. She did not know why she was even reading this. She had been there; it had happened to her. She glared down at the newspaper and, in a sudden rush of aggravation, threw it towards the middle of the room. It fell apart before it reached its destination, littering the floor with paper. The aggravation was mostly at herself. She had no idea how to find the fire that the Joker claimed she had.
Suddenly, her stomach rumbled. It just hit her how hungry she truly was. She had not been hungry yesterday because of the adrenaline, but this morning she was starved. As if on cue, the door opened and in stepped Hoshiko, carrying a small tray of food. He set it on the floor next to her. "I figured if the Joker still needed you, he needed you alive."
The sudden show of kindness, however small, removed the aggravation from her mind. She glanced down at the food and then up to him. This was by far the nicest thing that had happened to her since her arrival, even if he seemed reluctant to do it. "Thanks."
He muttered something to himself and left her alone. As soon as the door was shut, she pulled the tray closer and examined the food. A couple stale-looking pieces of bread with a slab of cheese in between and a plastic cup of tap water sat on the tray—not the most glamorous meal, but her stomach craved food. In the back of her mind, she wondered if it was poisoned, but none of the men would be dumb enough to poison her before their insane boss was finished with her.
She dug in. It was dry and stale, but it tasted wonderful to her. She ate it all, hardly leaving a single crumb. Right away she began to feel better and more alert. It was then she realized that she needed to find out if she could still walk. Carefully she rose to her feet and limped across the room. Her leg ached with every move, but it was a relief to discover that she could still use it. She had just hobbled back to the window when she heard footsteps in the hall and the door opened again. It was the Asian man again.
"It was good," Camille stated, hesitant to start a conversation, but thinking that this one was the nicest, if she could call any of them nice. "Thanks again." He gave her a funny look.
"Why would you thank me? You're the hostage. I'm just feeding you because the boss still needs you."
"I know," she answered, watching him pick up the tray and step back towards the door. "After what's happened to me, I'm glad to have something to be thankful for." He seemed unconvinced, but stepped out the door and motioned for her to come as well.
"Come on."
Camille quietly obeyed and limped out after him. He pointed her down the hall, towards the room where she had transferred money before. She silently entered alone and saw the Joker standing near the computer. He looked up from it when she walked through the door.
"Sit down."
She obeyed as quickly as she could and seated herself in front of the computer.
"Today, I want you to erase the files Arkham Asylum has on me," he stated from beside her. She quickly glanced up between him and then to the computer, wondering if he forgot about the money.
"It wouldn't do you any good. Everybody knows you're a criminal."
He grabbed the top of her head and twisted it around so she was looked up at him. "Is that some of the fire coming back?" She gulped, but did not look away. So this was the "fire". He liked it when she fought, when she did not just roll over.
"I've found it."
He laughed and let go of her head. "I knew you would eventually. Now get to work." She obeyed and went through the process of pulling up the site and finding passwords and usernames. While the hacking program was pulling up the information, the Joker decided to converse with her.
"How did someone like you learn to do this?"
Camille paused, unsure whether he was truly curious or just going to use it against her somehow later. "Um…" She hesitated and began typing something before pausing again. "When I was thirteen, my parents got our first computer and I got hooked on it. A year or so later I learned how to hack into police files so I could read reports on wanted criminals. After that, I started seeing where-all I could hack into. It felt great to be all-powerful, yet invisible at the same time. But then my parents finally caught me and banned me from the computer for months."
The Joker laughed to himself and stepped closer to watch over her shoulder. "No one ever thought it of you." She tried to peek back at him to see if he had the knife out again, but could not see. She continued working, hating that she could not see his hands.
"No, I guess not." Now she was in and located the files they had on the Joker. Quickly, she deleted them before she could be detected.
"That one too," the Joker pointed to another file a few lines down. She silently obeyed. "And that one." She hovered over to it and deleted it too. Then he laughed and almost shouted, "Delete them all!"
She opened her mouth to ask what the purpose in that was, but immediately shut it and went about deleting all the records in Arkham Asylum. Finally, when she had deleted the last file, the Joker broke out into almost hysterical laughter, causing her to flinch.
"Now delete the police files on me, dolly," he said from behind her after his laughing fit ended.
"I might not be able to get in," she replied nervously.
A shiny object flicked out into her vision on her right and she looked over. The knife. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Then you might not be as useful as I thought," he said into her left ear, causing a chill to run down her spine. Tearing her eyes from the knife, she pulled up Gotham's police site.
"I can do it."
"Attagirl!" He straightened and put the knife away. "It just takes a little persuasion with you sometimes."
He was making it sound like he had known her for a long time now, talking as if he really knew her. Maybe he did and she had not known. As she silently let the hacking program do its job, she tried to remind herself that he did not really know her. He was just trying to scare her, and it was working.
"How did your, ah, parents find out about your little talent?" He asked during the wait. Camille dropped her eyes to the keyboard and held her hands together.
"I was showing off for my friends and they dared me to hack into a hospital and change someone's file to say that they died. I didn't get finished before my mother came in and caught me." He snickered to himself.
"You're not as good a girl as you want people to think, hmm?"
She began entering a password and username into the site. In the back of her mind, she went over all the things she had done in her life that could be considered "skeletons in the closet".
"There's just some things people are better off not knowing about me."
That seemed to catch his interest. "Such as…?" She shook her head, pulled up the Joker's file, and began deleting.
"While I was learning how to hack into different sites, my parents began fighting. By the time they took the computer away from me, it was an almost constant thing. During that time, they would send me and my younger sister to live with my mom's parents—sometimes for weeks on end. I felt so helpless; like my life was in total chaos. At fifteen I turned to anorexia and began cutting myself. I think I was doing it in order to have some kind of control over my life. I figured I could at least control what went into my body and how much pain I felt, you know?"
There was a beeping noise from the computer and she remembered she was supposed to be working. Leaning back in the chair, she said, "You're files are gone."
"Good, now delete the others," he ordered, not seeming to find as much humor in this crime as the one before.
Camille noticed, but quietly obeyed and set about deleting all the police files. This she hated doing more than anything, but she knew if she refused to he might get rid of her right then. For a moment, she wondered why he was having her do it separately. Did he want to make sure his file was gone first, or did he just want to talk to her more?
"So what happened after that, dolly?" He asked, still sounding interested as he moved to lean against the desk to her right.
"After my parents got a divorce, my mom, my sister, and I moved into a rental home," she continued, not sure why he was curious or why she was even telling him all of this when she had not mentioned any of it to Jason. Maybe because he was familiar with pain, whereas Jason's life and family were almost perfect. "After a few months there, I found I couldn't control the eating disorder anymore, so my mom got help for me. I continued cutting for a while after that until everything calmed down. Once things did, I began hacking again. I focused mainly on hurting my parents for what they did to me. I wanted them to know how chaos felt and what it was like to have no control. I only did petty things for a while, but when I turned sixteen I felt like that wasn't enough. So I took most of the money from my dad's bank account and put it into one I made and changed his work status to 'unemployed'. He started drinking a lot more after that. Then one night he was in a car accident and almost died. I got so scared. He could have died because of me. That was when I stopped hacking for good."
"Until now," the Joker added. Camille could not help but smile at the irony.
"Yeah," she said and logged out of the site and sat back. "The files are gone."
"Good." No laugh. Nothing. He just hoisted her up by her arm and pushed her out the door.
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A/N: Alright, there you have it! Chapter two! I know we all know this, but let me repeat it since these things were mentioned in the story: cutting and eating disorders are serious things, so if you or someone you know does either, get some help. Talk to a trusted adult and don't think you're alone in whatever you're going through. Ok, so now that that's been said, thanks for reading! Reviews are always a nice way to show appreciation.