Jurni stared into the mirror, didn't see her reflection. The drugs ran through her veins, a bad batch. She knew it from the moment she injected. She'd made a mistake. Her mind should have raced, gone forward, gone mad with worry. She should panic, shouldn't she? She should feel something. But no. No reaction, just an awareness.
Her mother had done the best she could. She'd worked two jobs. She left Jurni with her grandmother. They were all just people, trying to make it in a city corrupt and unforgiving of its outcasts. They were outcasts. Jurni was a bastard, didn't know the first thing about her father. Sometimes, she questioned even being her mother's child. Everyone seemed so different from her, like they were reading from a manual she'd never received. A book on how to live. How to behave. How to be. Normal.
She'd run away about four months ago. Her grandmother had caught her with the narcotics she'd been selling. There'd been a lecture, a good smack across the face. Nothing she didn't deserve. Jurni was always trying to ruin the good things. She didn't know why. She knew the difference between "right" and "wrong", but she longed to provoke, to pick at scabs, to push things to the breaking point.
Seeing the waste, the bare disappointment, on her mother's face was too much. She left with a dufflebag of clothes and no money. She had to remove herself from her Saint Mother. There were no answers in the misery of the woman who'd given her everything. She couldn't bring herself to torture her mother anymore.
Something wormed its way into her conscience, however.
Something her Saint Mother had said during that last fight. It chilled her only now as the innocuous anger seeped away and left her reflective. The heat of the argument had made her unreceptive, but now…
"You won't even tell me who he is, or who he was! I might have brothers or sisters or whatever out there, somewhere to go but here! Why won't you tell me who he was!"
"I can't. I can't," was all Saint Mother would say, tears welled up in her widening eyes, memories echoed in their depths.
"For me? For me you won't! I don't get you. I can't live like this, not knowing…"
She shook her head, overcome finally with the emotions, "I didn't know who he was. It wasn't my choice. He left and then he came back. He came back after you were born. He took your brother and he left us."
"You're lying!" she screamed, unable to process the confession, "I don't want to hear it."
She'd been so stupid. She'd left. But now, she felt shame. Her mother never lied. She just didn't ever tell her the truth. She evaded questions, postponed explanations. This story of a… rape, was it? A brother stolen?
Whatever the truth was, she couldn't go back. She'd just make her mother cry more. She'd tear down their home. Until she found her place, herself, she could never go back. Like a wrecking ball. It was the best for them all.
She quit the drugs for the first couple of months. Of course, her friends kept on pushing. And she had enjoyed them. Why not? She started selling again, making lots of money. She got a place with a roommate, another seller. Things started to get a regular routine. Then, the Joker showed up.
The whole face of the industry changed. The top dogs began getting shot all to hell, power shifted. Soon enough, Jurni found herself recruited into a new drug chain with new bosses. She was just a runner, but a good one with a nose for trouble. She'd never had a deal go bad. And she wasn't desperate for money at this point, so she never got into a pickle or had motive to change suppliers.
Then, the stories started. Stories about how buyers were getting' bad batches. The prices shot up when people started OD'ing. It wouldn't be long 'til the source was found, but for now… business was hard and dangerous.
A lot of them whispered about the Joker guy having a hand in it. He seemed bent on creating chaos for no discernible reason. A real mad man. Hearing on the news about the Joker's violent business exploits and listening to the rumors of sadomasochistic dungeon parties in his honor, Jurni knew she never wanted to meet the man.
But, for now, staring into her haggard reflection, the threat of the Joker was a distant thought. One of a few, floaty ideas that bumped inside her head. She was less and less aware of her surroundings until all she saw was a face that looked like hers, blank, staring back. Everything blurred. The pounding stopped, finally. The door swung open, knocking her off her feet. She fell back in slow motion, her spine crashing against the edge of the bathtub, the rings on the shower curtain popping off one by one as she gripped the curtain and fell with a thump to the cold laminate floor.
As soon as she was able to shake away the spiderwebs from her vision, she blinked over and over until she could make out the figure of a man standing over her, facing the toilet and taking out his pecker. He had stringy hair and a messed up face. He pissed at the toilet, missing half of the time. The sound of the piss hitting the waterbowl was abnormally loud in her ears. And then she felt her heartbeat, thready, failing.
What a way to die. Watching a man take a piss not a foot from her. He was standing between her legs, to be exact. Like she wasn't there.
He finished with a satisfied grunt and sigh, looking over at her with dark eyes. Madness.
It was him. She cocked her head to the side to get a better look. He did the same, following her movement like a curious dog.
"Hello," he greeted her in an amused voice. He didn't smile, but his mouth was curved up. Scars.
She didn't say anything back. She couldn't. She just kept thinking that this was a strange way to go.
"You look… sick," he peeled and gave a laugh. He crouched down, close to her. Her ears rang and buzzed, as if she could hear the incandescent lights burn.
He was out of focus and his words echoed unnaturally. She unhinged her jaw and replied with a hoarse, scream-worn voice, "You, too."
She died then. She thought. It was pretty peaceful. She had to admit. Like going to sleep.
She woke up.
To a massive headache and a wonderful high feeling. Drugs.
She looked around her. She was in a lounge or something, a commercial conference room. There was a Hispanic guy there, too, typing on a laptop and talking on the phone.
He looked at her. She noticed then that she was sitting upright, wearing a black dress she'd never seen before.
"Good, you're back to the land of the living. Here," he slid her the brown paper package, "This is the merch. And you will ask for Darren McAvoy. He's the buyer. They have tight security."
She was slow to understand. She only understood his words after a minute or so passed and she was holding the package. Wasn't she supposed to be in that apartment, dead or something?
"Through that door," he nodded to the double doors made of some fake mahogany, "You've got about twenty minutes left."
She stood up, numb but feeling fine otherwise. Maybe sore, like she'd done too many crunches. She felt her stomach. It was tender. Looking around as she walked out, she caught sight of a mask. A white, clown face next to the man's laptop, discarded.
She left without knowing why. Outside, a party was going on. A foyer at a hotel or something. It was mostly white people dressed in black. She didn't fully understand everything, yet. She knew she felt an urgency to get away. And she felt fear now, building. Something was wrong. She looked down at the package.
A hand stopped her from going any further into the large room. She glanced into the face of a large, burly bodyguard type. He took the package from her, waved a wand. It beeped once, a green light showed and he let her through into the throng. What was the guy's name that she was supposed to ask for? She felt nauseous, worried for some reason. She gave up trying to make sense of it and made a beeline for what could be the ladies restroom. It was, for the handicapped. She didn't care. She locked the door behind her, muffling the voices.
She tossed the box onto the sink counter and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked awful. Skinny. Like a drug addict. Her long, brown hair was dull and her eyes were empty. She didn't recognize the reflection. With her hand on her stomach, she began to feel worse. The Joker had something to do with this. That had been him in the bathroom. How insane a coincidence had that been? The menace that she'd seen there.
With a sinking feeling, she pressed harder on her abdomen. There. Her breath caught in her teeth. And her heart clenched.
She lifted her dress. No underwear. Higher. There. Bloody. New stitches. Ugly and wide across her stomach. And something lodged under her skin. She freaked out. Clawed at the device. She'd heard of this only once before. A bomb.
Tears, unbidden, and a scream, swallowed. She dug at the stitches. The pain was dulled by whatever they'd shot her up with. Frantic, she searched with watery eyes. And found the trash bin. Without hesitation or second thought to what she was about to do. She smashed the mirror and grabbed the biggest piece. And cut.
She extracted the box and wires with a scream. Until there was pounding on the door. There, covered in her blood, it blinked at her. She ran to the toilet and dropped it in, flushing it. She didn't feel pain, only pressure relieved. She saw the blood running everywhere. The small box disappeared into the pipes, wires trailing after.
The door gave way. Sirens sounded in the distance. Several men in suits flooded into the restroom. She could no longer stand. She felt the wet of the blood on her face as she collapsed into the scarlet puddles. She knew she was about to lose consciousness. Maybe this time, it'd be the real deal. Maybe this time, she'd die. Somehow, that brought her peace.
"It got lodged in a u-bend halfway down."
"That explains why the casualties were so low," Gordon noted absently.
They were on the way to the hospital. The story had come through about the victim, the wounds she bore. The package on the counter. It was the Joker. But why Darren McAvoy? And who was the girl? Was it a message or just another sick prank? Probably both, if Commissioner Gordon knew the Joker's MO as well as he thought.
Weirdly enough, she was going to survive. They'd put some serious drugs into her. That had actually saved her. Why the drugs, though? Were they really necessary to do the job? Too many puzzle pieces just yet to start trying to figure things out.
She came-to days later, feeling hollow and used up. Sober. Sore. The memories were a jumble, too fractured to make sense. She didn't remember anything. Not OD'ing, not the Joker, not the bomb or the hotel.
Much to Gordon's ever-patient chagrin.
His prodding brought flashes, images, but nothing she could clamp onto. It left her exhausted and frustrated. She hadn't liked the visit. He didn't come after the first, the two detectives assigned to the case returned. Maybe she'd remembered something. But, she hadn't.
Just the nightmares were left. Incoherent, terrifying. Leaving her in a freezing sweat and tired all the time.
It was past midnight. Before dawn. He came.
"Wake up, wake up," harsh whispers. He pulled out the needles, jumped up on the bed and grabbed her face between his hands.
She blinked her eyes open, blurry, then focused onto a painted face. Crooked grin, scars welted up across his cheeks, and black eyes sparkling.
Stringy hair hanging down like a green, greasy frame.
And it started coming back to her. It must've showed in her expression.
"Ah, I see you remember. But why," he shook her head until her brain rattled a little, "why, oh, why didn't you tell the cops?"
She wanted it to be a nightmare. His breath was spicy, like a pepper and cinnamon, blowing across her face. He licked his lips and gave a quiet laugh, looked around like he was afraid of being caught. Then he got serious, "It's not like you have loyalty. You cut it out of you! Yourself. I'm impressed."
The memories flooded in, clearer than ever, making sense, too much sense. The shock began to subside, giving way to fury.
"Oooh, but it's hard to impress me."
The weight of him straddling her pressed into her wounds. She felt them at a distance, through her anger. No one used her like he had. She restrained herself, waiting for the moment.
He slid his hands from her face to her neck, where he squeezed for a short time. She didn't react. Didn't reach up. He ran his hands further down, his eyes growing a little wider, his breath a little faster, "It takes a disturbed individual to hurt themselves like that."
Again, the tongue flicking out to his lips. She ground her teeth together as he traced her breasts through the hospital gown. Squeezed the warm, soft flesh there.
His eyes left hers, drifting down, "I want to see it, but that's not what I'm here for…"
Now. She grabbed a chunk of his hair and yanked his head forward and down onto the side rail. The sound was like a busted watermelon. The adrenaline pumped through her and she hip-tossed him, tearing stitches, she knew. She got halfway from his grasp when she felt the knife at her throat. She had the nurse's button pressed firmly in her fist. Her breath came shallow.
He was laughing. The skin had broken on his forehead. Little damage.
The knife gave her pause, but she was at a turning point. Something in her snapped. She didn't care. She brought the morphine drip stand down on him. She wriggled away. His blade cut her pretty bad, but she was out of his grasp, slow, wounded and weak from bed rest. She was in no shape to fight. He knew it, too. Still he smiled. No nurses came to the rescue.
"You just seem a glutton for pain. Tell me, are you seeing anyone… special?"
He was now standing over her and she was struggling to stand, too. The front of her paper-thin gown was streaked with red from her throat and from her dressings. He grabbed for it, missed as she stumbled away, out of the room, falling back onto her bare ass. The hospital was empty, silent. The nurse's desk was occupied only by two guys in clown masks, waiting. For him.
And the cop that'd been set to watch her. Dead just outside the door. The Joker silhouetted the doorframe, toying with the blade in his hand.
"I'm done playing with you here. Shall we go somewhere… less public? More... intimate?" he annunciated every syllable. She understood this as a bad sign. Irritation? Excitement? She fought her way from her ass to her knees. She was going to stand. She was going to…
He simply walked forward, grabbed her hair and pulled her off her knees. She screamed in anger as he dragged her towards the elevator. The doors were already open.
She spread her legs until she braced against the entrance, stopping their progress into the elevator. Stubborn. Angry.
He sighed and nodded to one of his masked henchmen. The blow came from the back of a pistol to the back of her head. She was out.
The Joker let her fall to the floor, let his guys handle the weight. He straightened his vest and shirt, examined his bloody knife. He never made plans. He'd come here thinking it was going to be a little fun, a kill, too. Now, he didn't want to kill her. Just have fun. For now. The doors shut and they started their descent.