Disclaimer: Nothing's mine.
A/N: Sorry it took so long, I've had the chapter finished for a while but was too worried it would suck, which is illogical. It'll suck just as much if I put it up next year. Sorry, again. And if you find anything wrong or unclear, just review. I know my writing's not quite perfect. Enjoy!
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He was propped up against the cot, which was unstable enough to be leaning against the wall itself. Tied up and gagged, Louis couldn't really move. So, he decided to hope that his crazy niece decided to call the cops and miraculously get that God damned madman in a cell, before said future mental patient (they had to catch him eventually, right? Right...) came into the suspiciously stained room and cut him into unrecognizable strips of meat.
"Good morning, Louis Jackson." Louis heard the voice before he realized he wasn't alone in the room. He glanced away from the rope binding his legs together. A few feet above him with a different perspective than all the quickly snapped, pixellated cell phone pictures and morbidly skewed portraits (by deranged artists that were reported dead soon afterwards) was the man that would end him and many others.
A brief pause before Louis realized he was supposed to respond. "Joker," he grumbled from behind the rag. The Joker's grin stretched up and he knelt down. His nose brushed Louis's. Louis flinched back as the Joker cackled.
"Welll, I can see you and your niece have, uh, very little in common." The Joker tilted his head to the side and walked his index and middle finger up Louis' chin and brought them together around the rag. "But maybe you're just, just a little shy?" he asked, slowly inching the dirty rag out of his captive's mouth. "Sam, uh, she wasn't." His left hand started tapping out a beat on his knee.
Louis spit to the side, smart enough to realize at this point, death could only get more painful. "I know you're trying to piss me off," he muttered, knowing even as he said it, the Joker's plan was working.
The tapping became more erratic. "Yeah, yeah. Doesn't help, does it? You still know that I'm going to find her after we finish up, maybe scar her up a little. Maybe emotionally, maybe mentally. Definitely, uh, definitely physically," he said, opening his mouth in a grin and showing off his stained teeth. "I can tell you're people smart. It must, uh, run on your side of the family."
Louis rested his eyes for a few seconds. This would be a long death.
--
Sam sprawled on her bed, half of her comforter on her torso and covering her head, the other half creeping down the bed. Her legs twitched and she muttered as she slept.
The door to her room flew open, banging against the wall and knocking down a yellowed photo of a three-year-old girl and her mother. "Sam!" her mother screeched, slipping across the hardwood floor in her office heels. She banged her knees against the wood and the mattress as her elbows landed on Sam's hair under the comforter. She leaned back and ripped the comforter completely off and shook her daughter's shoulders back and forth, choking back tears and sobs. "Samantha Jackson!"
Sam jolted upwards, her eyes flinching at the light. "Yeah?" she grumbled and wiped at her eyes.
"Your uncle! He's," Sam's mother took a breath and grasped her daughter's hands. She wrung the hands in her own before looking away. "Disappeared."
Sam scrambled off the bed, away from her mother and towards her closet. She inched it open and peeked around before grabbing a t-shirt from a hanger. "But I just saw him last night," she muttered to herself.
"You went in after visiting hours?" her mother asked, sniffling. She swatted at her eyes with her left hand and dropped it back to her lap. "That's the only way, I was there when they ended."
"Yeah, Mom. I had to ask him something." Samantha pulled her t-shirt on over her tank-top and hopped over a pair of shoes to her dresser. "Is... Do they know who it was?"
"No... No. He didn't have any enemies that I know of," she whispered, perching on Sam's bed. "The police said they'd be here in a few minutes."
Sam nodded and grabbed a pair of jeans from the top drawer. "Okay, I'll be out soon." Her mom nodded back and tottered back out of her room, shutting the door behind her.
---
Louis was only partially tied anymore, the ropes round his leg had loosened and the ropes binding his arms behind his back had been ripped by one of the clown's many knives. It didn't matter, he'd screamed too much, squirmed too much, fought too much. He laid on his back on the concrete floor, staring up at the mostly burnt out strip of lights above him, too exhausted to think. His hospital gown was slashed and bloodied. The Joker rested against the wall, tossing a scalpel and catching it, tossing and catching.
"What, just what," the Joker wondered aloud, casually leaning forward to look at Louis' face, "do those lovely stars on her legs mean?" The scalpel glimmered in the dim light as it flew up and back into his hand.
Louis groaned and blinked. He readjusted his eyes and focused on the ruined grease paint. "Hell if I know. Wouldn't tell me."
The Joker flashed Louis a grin. He wrapped his fingers securely around the scalpel's handle. "I'm not quite sure if I, uh, believe that, Louie."
Louis took a breath as deep as he could and slid his hands against the concrete floor for purchase. He slowly brought himself beside the Joker and collapsed on the wall. "She said they... were for things she lost. That's all." He brought his left hand up to a gash on his stomach and clutched the skin and bits of fabric.
"That won't help," the Joker commented evenly, throwing the scalpel in the air again. "I, uh, I could just end it real fast. Or stop."
"Yeah, you could," Louis groaned, glaring up at the man and jamming his chin into his chest. "But that would take... empathy or sympathy." Were those the right words?
"Or may-be I just want more information," the Joker sang, flinging the scalpel at the wall opposite the two. He bent down a few inches and stared right in Louis's eyes. "Loook, I'm a man of my woord. Yes?" He stuck his right hand down a pocket on the left side of his jacket pocket. He flourished a new knife, a broad one. He tapped Louis on the nose with the blade. "I need to know how things go in your niece's life. You need to live." He raised an eyebrow. "There's always, alwaaays compromise." The right side of his smile curved up even further.
Louis stared at the Joker blankly for a few minutes before blanching. He glanced away and tightened his grip on his stomach. "You're even worse than I thought," Louis muttered. "Giving a man a choice between dying horribly and living a dirty life."
The Joker cackled, threw his head back and had a good laugh. Louis glanced at the butcher knife dangling from his fingers, but shook his head and looked towards the door.
"Would you promise not to kill her or me, or anyone else in the family?" Louis whispered, bringing his other hand to clench the wound, too.
"Yep. Allll part of the agreeeement. And if you uh, pass. out. before you make a decision, I'll just have to asssuume you disagree with some part of it."
Samantha would have to forgive him.
"Okay. I'll... watch her for you."
The Joker raised an eyebrow and bent down a little further over the man. "I know I don't have to tell you how much explaaaining you'll have to do." Louis glanced away from the man's eyes just in time to see the flash of the knife handle flying at his head. Then he saw nothing.
---
Sam and her mother each clutched at a hand of Louis's. One on either side, they both stared off into different spaces without moving.
He'd showed up outside the automatic doors overnight, the hospital nurses said. Someone'd hacked into the surveillance of the hospital and torn apart the reels that caught them. The police milled outside of the room, at least eight of them. Two per person were to stay with each person where ever they went. The other two were to stay around and take her uncle's statement when he woke up.
The nurses were 90% sure he would wake up. Which was comforting, when her father had been there, they'd all been quiet. None would meet their eyes then. But now the nurses talked freely, chattering about their sons and husbands and Halloween outfits and candy.
She and her mom stared blankly at them. Sometimes they nodded. Sometimes they mumbled back, "No thanks." Sometimes they glared.
But her uncle, he kept sleeping.