Kate looked down at a watch that I had not noticed before. "Oh! Would you look at the time! It's almost midnight! Well, I'm going to take this opportunity to go to sleep! You kids have fun." She left the room and the door closed behind her.
Jonathan came over to me and cupped my face in his hands. "We will find her, I promise. For now you're just going to have to trust me. Do not try to find her on your own, and do not try to escape. They will kill you and I... I can't loose you." I understood the gravity of the situation, but finding my daughter was far too important.
"Put your arm around my neck," Jonathan said. "Why?" I asked, balling my hands into fists. "So I can at least out you somewhere softer so you can sleep. Unless you plan on sleeping on that operating table." I made no objection so he put his arms around me and lifted me up. My heart started pounding and I realized just how much I missed him. Even knowing what I knew now couldn't change how I felt about him. Not really. No matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn't hate him. I just couldn't imagine him as the serial killer that I saw on TV.
He took me into a smaller room that had a twin size bed that was just a mattress and no pillow. He put me down and turned on a crude lamp. "It's not the best in the world but it is something at least." he said. "I have to go finish my research, I'll be back in a few hours." He left the room. I didn't particularly feel like doing anything (as if there was anything to do) so I went to sleep.
I woke up to find Jonathan sleeping on the bed with his arms around me. How he managed to do that without waking me up was a mystery. I tensed up and he must have sensed it because he started to stir. "Is it morning?" I asked softly. He let go of me and sat on the end of the bed. I didn't bother to look at him.
"Yes." he said. He got up and grabbed his mask off of a hatstand that I had not seen earlier. "I'll be right back." I sat up as he left, resting against the wall. My ankle was still bandaged up but blood was seeping through. It was also swelling to twice it's size and turning a blue-ish color.
Jonathan came back into the room with a wheelchair. "Come on," he said, holding his arms out to me. "I can't leave you here alone where Joker or his men can get to you." He lifted me up and put me in the chair. "Where are we going?" I asked. "To see if Thanatos has seen Shilo."
The warehouse must have been bigger than I thought because there were long corridors and many doors. Or maybe they lied? Of course I could be getting an infection and everything seems bigger than it really is. We came to a door that opened to a small room. The room had nothing in it save for a staircase. "I need you to hang on to the chair." Jonathan said quietly. I turned in the chair as much as I could and hung on to the back of it. I looked up at him as he slowly lifted me down. I could see his deep blue eyes boring into my soul. Analyzing me and my condition.
When we got to the bottom I could hear some of Joker's men whispering as we went through. "Who's that in the chair?" They said. "Oh man, it's Scarecrow! That guy gives me the creeps!" Others said. All of them chatting as if Jonathan couldn't hear them.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness I could see a whole dug-out system of tunnels. Was this how Joker's men seemed to be anywhere at any time and get away cleanly? If I ever get out... No. When I get out, I will go straight to the police about this. If there's one thing I could do for this wretched city, then that would be it.
Dirt and rubble was flung up by the wheels turning in the tunnel. We went along the tunnel and it almost seemed like we were on a red carpet because Joker's men lined the walls. After a few minutes Jonathan stopped at a seemingly random door. He opened the door and pushed me inside. The smell hit me like a wave and almost made me puke. It was a sickening smell of cooking meat, but something was off about it. Cooking meat wasn't supposed to smell like it was rotting. There was, however, and underlying smell of dead bodies. A smell that I was familiar with given my job as a nurse.
Over in a corner there was a shape bent over a pot on a stove. A light flicked on, and the shape straightened. "Ah, that's better." the shape said. "I think I can see what I'm doing, now." The shape came into view and I could see that it was a woman. "I need to know something," Jonathan said. The shape returned to the pot and pulled a spoon out to taste whatever was in the pot. "Hmmm," she said. "needs more salt." She put in salt and grabbed a ladle. "Thanatos," he said, growing impatient. Thanatos poured what looked like soup into a bowl and brought it over to a table. "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, what do you need?" she sang in a tune from the 1940s swing song.
"Have you seen a little girl around here. She's about seven with dark hair and-" Thanatos put up a hand to stop him. "Do you honestly think," she said stirring the soup. "that I go around looking for little girls that may have gotten lost on a field trip?"
I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I opened it anyway. "Please," I said. "Isn't there anything you may have seen?" You'd think that if she saw no little girl then I should be relieved. But nothing the woman said did anything to quell my worries.
"Did you see her or not?" I could hear the leather from the chair crinkling under his now clenched hands. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't." Thanatos said. "The question is: Is she here or not?"
"That's what we're trying to find out." Jonathan was close to yelling. "Think about it," Thanatos said. "if there really was a little girl here, especially yours I'm assuming, would Joker really just let her wander around or lock her up somewhere?"
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that Joker would want to keep her around. Somewhere he would see her every moment. And probably somewhere Harley could obsess over her as well." Thanatos brought a spoonful to her face but stopped short as it hit her mask. She held it there for a moment, the white dots that symbolized her eyes staring forward and eerie. Without anything having moved the soup disappeared and the spoon was left shiny with no hint of liquid. "How...?" I started to say.
"So we have to find Joker." Jonathan interjected. "And doesn't Joker want you to make something for him?" Thanatos asked. "Yes," he replied. "he wants me to make a Fear-Laughing hybrid chemical to put into the water supply." Thanatos put the spoon down. "And did you make this chemical?"
"No."
Thanatos reached over towards my chair and grabbed my hand. I could feel her skin even through the thick catsuit she was wearing. It felt old and scaly – like what one would imagine the Graeae Sisters' skin would feel like.
"Well then," she said seemingly looking at me. "You're going to have to make that Chemical then, aren't you?"
Sorry this took me so long... Finals and all that. If you don't know who the graeae sisters are then the link is an image.