VII

I sit in a bathtub, fully clothed, warm water up to my shoulders, and I keep my eyes on the Joker.

His back is turned to me, and he's stooping in the corner, leaning over something. I stare at the soft blue fabric of the shirt stretched taut across the backs of his shoulders, and I try to be very still and very quiet.

"What you have to decide," he says, picking up the train of the conversation, "is how committed you are."

Maybe if I hold perfectly still, he'll forget I'm here, I think, but no such luck—after a silence of a few moments, there's a lash of movement and he's looking suddenly over his shoulder at me.

I flinch away from the creeping sense of dread his stare plants in me. Suddenly, it seems wiser to answer than to stay silent. "Who said anything about commitment?"

It's an attempt at a joke. He turns away, and I see his shoulders twitch, hear a soft huffing sound—laughter. His elbow juts out, trembles some, and then there's a wet squelch of a sound, and he glances back at me.

"You are, you know," he says, wrinkling his nose emphatically. "Committed. In heart, if nothing else."

"Heart," I whisper. "You're one to talk about that."

He shrugs, looking away again. "Just cause I don't have one doesn't mean I never did."

I looked down at my hands, clasped together beneath the surface and warped by the rippling water. "Doesn't seem like I have much of a choice."

His head twitches to the side in polite disagreement. "Oh, you always have a choice," he mumbles, and there's another one of those sickly ripping sounds, he grunts, and repeats, more singsong, "You aaaaaall-ways have a choice. You can stop—" another wet sound, quicker this time—"or… you can go."

He straightens up a bit, bouncing on the balls of his feet and turning towards me. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbows and the skin there is spattered with blood; he's wearing those rubbery purple gloves cut off at the wrist and he's holding something I can't see. "So what'll it be, Emma? You ready to stop?"

I stare at him for what feels like a long time, until finally he sniffs, rubbing his nose on the back of his bared forearm, leaving behind a smear of blood. "It's your choice," he prods impatiently.

"Yeah. Mine. That means I don't have to make it right now."

"Mm," he says, tilting his head and screwing up his face doubtfully.

I find it difficult to hold his gaze any longer and drop my eyes again, glancing across the surface of the water, down to the white base of the tub, where something catches my eye—a little red ribbon, floating up from the bottom.

The Joker speaks. "But it's not just one choice, is it? It's a series of them, one right after the other. Don't start reaching out for what you want now, and you'll slide downhill to the point where you'll be choosing between… mm, rock and a hard place. You lose either way."

I'm hardly hearing him. I don't want to, but my hand moves almost of its own volition, drifting lazily through the warm water, cutting through that red trail, following it to its source—something small and hard and sharp on the bottom of the tub. I palm it instinctively and feel my stomach drop as I recognize the sensation of it against my palm.

I hear the Joker move, and I turn my eyes to him, following his movement as he finally stands and turns fully towards me, looming impossibly tall, his shoulders braced against the ceiling. The object he was bent over sits limp in the corner, cast in shadow, and I can't make out anything except… is that hair?

"Pulling out the teeth of an adult takes a lot of effort," the Joker says conversationally, shuffling towards me, and I finally see what he's holding in his hand—a pair of pliers, bloodied along with his glove and his arm. "Even for a, uh… strapping guy like me. But the teeth of a child?"

My closed hand tightens instinctively; I feel a piercing pain in my palm. I glance at his other hand—closed tight, just like mine.

He's still drawing closer, but waits for me to look back at his face before giving me his familiar grin, closing his eyes in a display of bliss. "Like squeezing a blackhead," he confides in me. "Few seconds of tension, and then… pop."

He's getting closer, but I can't move. I'm frozen in place; the surface of the water doesn't as much as quiver. He's close enough to touch before he crouches down again, this time right next to me, drops the pliers, dips his hand into the tub and ever-so-gently takes my wrist. He doesn't have to pry my fingers open—they come loose as soon as he presses on them, and he pushes the contents of his other hand into my palm to join their fellow.

My head is turned away from him by now, but I can tell he's looking at me, leaning near—I can feel his breath on the side of my neck when he says, "I'm giving you a gift."

I don't answer. He closes my fingers over the slippery teeth, then tilts his forehead against my cheek.

We rest like this for a moment. Then, he lets go of my hand, moving to place his palm flat against my breastbone, and he pushes.

I slide under the calm, warm water without a fight.

I open my eyes.

I'm lying in my bed, and sickly gray light streams in through the window—morning, overcast. I must have slept hard, because I'm lying on my side exactly like I was when I fell asleep, facing the chair where the Joker had been.

The Joker's nowhere in sight. Instead, sitting in the chair he's vacated, is Victor Zsasz.

The sight of him wakes me right up, but I think I play it off pretty well. I don't jump, I don't gasp, I just blink, and then I say, "I thought I told you to stay downstairs."

He leans forward; the chair creaks beneath his weight. "Sorry," he says simply. "I got a bad memory."

I narrow my eyes at him. Something's off, and it's not just the unbalanced feeling I automatically get in response to his presence in my bedroom.

I pull myself upright, carefully, watching to make sure my movement doesn't prompt some display of aggression from him, but he just sits quietly, tracking me with his eyes. Once I'm sitting up, my back braced against the headboard and in a much better position to move quickly if he attacks, I look him in the eye and ask, "Where's the Joker?"

"Running errands," he says after a brief pause.

My eyes widen. "Are you serious?"

"Of course. I went yesterday, it's his turn today. It's only fair."

Ohhhhh, this is bad. This is bad, this is bad, this is bad. Best case scenario, Victor's lying and the Joker's somewhere in the house, but even if that's true—which I doubt—he obviously doesn't care about Victor getting too close to me, so it's not like I can expect help from his quarter. In truth, though, I believe Victor. I knew the Joker was going to throw me to the wolf from practically the moment they showed up. I just didn't know when.

My heart's pounding like crazy, pumping adrenaline through me, but I try not to show it. Alone in the house with a serial killer. Perfect. Around this time, I figure out what's weird about Victor (apart from pretty much everything). All that restless, impatient thuggishness he's displayed from day one is gone, vanished without a trace. In place of the agitated glint in his flat brown eyes is something more unsettling, something restful and empty. I realize all at once that I've been reading him wrong this entire time, and an icy finger of fear jabs at my spine.

"Get out of my room." The words spill out before I can consider rephrasing them, couching them in something less like an order, and I realize it doesn't matter anyway—I don't think he's the kind of guy to be swayed from his purpose by a bit of sweet-talking. Whatever that purpose might be.

He rises from the chair, and I instinctively pull my feet up, drawing as much of my body further away from him as I can. He notices, and a smile flickers across his face, eerily indulgent, and puts up his hands, like he's trying not to startle a skittish animal. "No problem," he says in gentle tones that make me scowl openly at him. "Only you should come downstairs. Y'know—when you're ready. There's something you should see."

And he leaves.

I wait for the sound of his footsteps to fade, and then I vault off the bed and cross the room, closing the door as quietly as I can and turning the lock. I back away from the door, treading as softly as I can and half-expecting to hear Victor coming back up the hall, to see the door rattle and splinter in its frame as he slams against it.

Nothing. He's not coming back—not right away, anyway. I realize my hands are shaking, and rub them irritably against my thighs, trying to scrape the nervousness off. Options, I think; what are my options?

An idea arrives almost immediately. The cops. I've avoided calling them thus far, I haven't been in a position where calling them would yield any desirable outcomes, but the game has changed. I never signed on for being stuck alone in a house with Victor Zsasz. Certainly, when it all shakes out, I'll have a lot of explaining to do, and it'll likely end with me getting slapped with an accessory charge and going to prison, but that beats trying to deal with this on my own.

As soon as I reach the decision, I fly back over to the bed, dropping to my belly and reaching underneath for the burner phone.

It's gone.

The charger is still there, plugged snugly into the outlet hidden by the bed frame, but the phone is not attached. "No, no," I hiss, slipping my hand into the slit in the box-spring and feeling around, hoping desperately that the charger has just come loose, that the phone is still in its hiding place, but to no avail. Someone took it.

I push myself upright, look around for the laptop the Joker had been using, but a quick scan of the room reveals nothing. He might have just stuck it in a drawer somewhere, but even if he did, I can't help but think that Victor found it and discarded it. If my secret burner phone is gone, that means he was thorough about isolating me.

I rest my elbow on the mattress, run my hand through my hair, and whisper, "Fuck."

As I'm running through my extremely short list of options, hoping to uncover something I'm not seeing, a sudden thought strikes me.

"There's something you should see," he'd said. That combined with the Joker's absence… what if there'd been a conflict while I was sleeping? What if Victor had gotten the jump on him? What if the thing he wants me to see is the Joker's lifeless body?

The thought horrifies me, and I'm angry that it does. I should not care this much. The Joker lives a life of his own choosing, an incredibly risky one, one that has him rubbing elbows with dangerous people. I know there are a million ways he could reasonably get killed before breakfast.

Just not at the hands of… that.

I don't believe it, not really. The Joker's always three steps ahead of everyone—even on a bad day, he's not going to be taken down by some twisted slab of muscle. Even so, once the thought hits, I can't shake it.

Goddamnit, I think, slipping both hands into my hair and tightening my fingers, I'm going to have to go down there.

I do not like that idea. I might have been playing fast and loose with my life when it comes to the Joker, but that's because he has clearly and repeatedly established that I have no say over that life when he's involved. That doesn't mean I want to end up the latest victim on Victor Zsasz's list.

So don't, I tell myself, tapping my fingertips thoughtfully against my lips. It's your house, your turf. Do what you have to do to stay off that list. After all, it's not as if I can stay up here. While it's tempting to leave the door locked and hide out in the bathroom, wait for something to change, I know that if enough time goes by and I don't make an appearance, Victor is going to come get me, and he's big enough that he's not going to let a locked door or two get in his way. Best to head down there on my own terms.

I brace my elbow against the mattress and rise—my legs aren't as shaky as I'd expect them to be. That's good. It means I might actually be able to manufacture some kind of miracle, despite the odds laid out against me.

Now that I've arrived at a decision, I'm not wasting any more time. I pat my pocket, ensuring that the knife the Joker let me keep is still in there, then get the handcuffs out of their box in my dresser, along with a black hoodie. I slip the hoodie on, placing the handcuffs in its front pocket. The knife in the bathroom cabinet is gone now, and I kick myself for not grabbing it up earlier—more blades would be more helpful.

Still. At least I've got the one.

I look around to see if there's anything I'm missing, but the room is empty, stripped of potential resources. I have nowhere to go but downstairs, down to face the monster in the house.

When I open the door, it's hesitantly, half-expecting Victor to be there waiting to pounce. He's not. The hall is empty, as is the staircase beyond.

It's not till I get downstairs, peeking carefully around the corner into the living room, that I find something.

There's a girl on my couch, and she's quite evidently dead.

I don't recognize her, and from my position in the doorway, I can't make out what killed her, but the pallor of her skin, the purple tinge to her mouth, the cloudy eyes are unmistakable. She's been posed to look like she's sitting naturally, shoulders against the back of the couch, elbow propped on the arm, muscles slack but upright nonetheless.

"I'm glad we have a bit of time to talk."

The voice comes from behind me; I jerk in surprise and whip around to see Victor, further down the hall, standing relaxed with his hands in his pockets.

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, I think, moving swiftly into the living room. I'd have thought I'd feel strange about drawing closer to a dead body, but it turns out if the alternative is letting Victor Zsasz loom behind me, then I'm more than willing to hang with a corpse in exchange for having room to run and a corner to put at my back. Additionally, I can't help it—I feel an automatic kinship with this girl, whoever she was, along with a sudden and rather unexpected sense of sadness and pity. Victor Zsasz obviously happened to her, he's currently happening to me, we have him in common.

I place myself carefully in the corner of the room nearest the doorway to the kitchen, and Victor follows me into the room, although aside from sparing me a glance, he doesn't acknowledge or approach me. Instead, he goes and sits near the girl—not directly next to her, but in the armchair nearby, and I'm grateful. It's bad enough seeing him sit so casually near his victim; if he'd positioned himself closer, or touched her, I might have flown at him with my knife out right then. He's done enough.

"Sorry sight, isn't she?" he asks conversationally.

From this angle, I can see her better. She can't be any older than me, and I'd venture younger—her skin has the telltale wear that can come from smoking or booze or drug use, her bottle-blonde hair brittle and dry from one too many box-bleachings in a way that makes her seem older than she likely is. She's only wearing a black halter top and sparkling miniskirt despite the fact that the mornings and evenings have gotten chilly, and the story tells itself: she must be one of Gotham City's working girls, probably underage, like so many of them, and probably just saw Victor as nothing more than an average john. Poor girl, I think; poor girl.

"I try to tend to the most advanced cases first," Victor continues, looking at me. "Like her. You see? How long you suppose she's been dead?"

I speak, trying with arguable success to keep my voice from shaking from the potent blend of fear and anger coursing through me right now. "Going off of context clues? Sixteen, eighteen hours, right?"

He leans forward, wrists resting on his knees, staring at me with an intent, faintly disappointed expression on his face. The emptiness I saw earlier is gone without a trace, replaced by unnerving focus. "No," he says, shaking his head slightly to underscore the denial. "Try years. Longer than anyone knows."

Oh, right. The Joker had mentioned this, Victor's pet delusion, though naturally he hadn't included any information that might actually help me now. I stare at Victor, brows furrowed to telegraph that I have no idea what he's talking about, and he obliges me gladly, eyes practically shining at the opening I'm giving him to share his thoughts.

"Just like everyone else," he adds, matter-of-fact. "You, me… all of us, Emma. Dead. We start to rot from the moment we kick free from our poor mothers. And still, we're all fightin' to survive—so hard, and for what?" He raises a hand and points to the dead girl. "For an existence like hers? Shiverin' her ass off under a bridge, letting any bum with twenty bucks stick it in her so she can run off and buy enough junk to make her forget the past twenty-four hours? And people still call what she's doing living? It blows my goddamn mind."

He does look genuinely bewildered, eyes wide as he shakes his head. I feel my expression mirroring his, though for a vastly different reason. I'd like to think that my bullshit tolerance is higher than the average person's—I hang out with the Joker, after all—but this is so far past mere bullshit that it makes my head spin.

It's that faint sense of vertigo, combined with the fact that I've never been good at holding my tongue under stress, that prompts me to speak, quickly, a little breathy with fear and disbelief: "Wait, wait, let me see if I understand you. It's not that you think the world ended—it's that you think, like… the entirety of humanity is dead, and you… what, it's your job to make them act like it?"

"Zombies will fight and struggle and eat each other," he says intently. "It's kinder to make them lie down, to accept their reality."

I'm already shaking my head. The words bubbling up aren't wise, exactly, but by now, I'm absolutely certain that the situation will escalate sooner or later, and I find I don't have a real preference as to exactly when, so I let them go: "What the hell is it with you Gotham guys?"

Victor angles his head to the side, looking faintly taken-aback (and more than faintly disappointed). I take his expression as a request for clarification, and oblige him gladly: "I honestly can't imagine that your consciences are somehow so delicate that you have to convince yourself that the fucked-up shit you're doing is somehow for the greater good—even worse, that you feel the need to explain your motivations to me, couch them in terms that are, what, supposed to trick me into thinking you're performing a public service?"

He's staring, and at some point his gaze got more than a little heated, but I'm on a roll now, couldn't stop myself even if I wanted to, not with the dead girl's eyes staring lifelessly forward, right there in front of me. I stand motionless in the corner, hands in my pockets, and keep dishing it out: "I mean, if it's not the Joker trying to tell me he's operating on the basis of some kind of—fucking—ideological purity, then it's you, acting like you commit your fucking sick murders for the sake of someone other than yourself. Grow up. You two of you do what you do because it gives you a thrill, makes you feel powerful, and you're not doing jack shit for anyone else—stop pretending you are. We fucking hate the two of you."

Victor's nostrils flare, the only sign—apart from the intensity of his gaze—that he's angry. Angry, but trying not to be, clearly, trying to be above it all, to be dead. Pronouncing his words carefully, he says, "I am not the same as him."

I laugh at him, a low and unkind sound. "Yeah, sure, whatever."

"I am not." He loses the battle for calm, though it doesn't show in the way it had yesterday, when he was pretending to be dumber and angrier and had taken out his irritation on the table. Instead, it's in the light of his eyes and the way he holds his jaw, tight, like he's fighting not to let loose an angry torrent of words, the way the volume of his voice has ever-so-slightly increased. "You don't understand."

I scoff at him. It's inadvisable to make him angrier, trapped alone in the house with him and at such a disadvantage. I do it anyway. "Yeah, no shit I don't understand. You're alone in this, Victor, that's how delusions work. I mean, how long have you had this idea, huh? Cause the Joker told me you were just on the regular side of homicidal before Gotham got doused in fear gas. You don't think it's telling that you got these ideas after breathing in a killer dose of unstable hallucinogen?"

"I was awakened," he says intently.

"Oh? I thought you were dead."

He surges to his feet, and reflexively, I press back into the corner. Oh, right, I think tiredly, psychology 101—easiest way to make someone suffering from delusions angry and irrational is to poke holes all through those delusions.

"You don't understand," he says again, and hitches his lip high to bare his teeth.

I stare at him, and finally, my anger has faded enough for me to realize that I'm going about this all wrong—that when the fight comes, it cannot be head-on, and poking and prodding at him and making my scorn evident is only putting me at a disadvantage. I let my tense shoulders slump a little, draw out that bone-tiredness I've started to feel and making sure it comes out in my voice (it's not hard), and with a sigh, I say, "I know. I'm sorry."

The apology knocks him off-balance. He doesn't know me like the Joker does, isn't familiar with my whiplash-inducing attempts to calm the situation by pretending to give the aggressor what he wants, and if he doesn't recognize it as a tactic in the first place, he can't see through it. He stares for a moment, then I see the anger start to fade, and after a minute it's tucked away again behind that thoughtful, placid mask.

Watching him remember he's "dead" gives me the creeps. I try to shake off the ugly feeling even as I realize, with a sudden pulse of urgency, that my time is running out. He's already had a chance to air his ideology out, to show off (and I hate that I have occasion to know that career murderers like to do that)—how much longer before he decides we've done enough in the way of foreplay?

Not long enough, I think; not long enough for the Joker to return, not long enough for me to fashion a plan that might actually work. My palm itches, but I resist the urge to reach for the knife in my pocket. It'd be idiocy to show my hand too early, especially when I'm pretty sure I'm not holding any good cards.

Guess I'm winging it, then.

Victor is standing on the side of the room closest to the front door, leaving the path to the kitchen open. I nod at him, trying to mirror his thoughtful expression, and then, moving slowly (and with an attempt at nonchalance) in an effort to telegraph I'm not running, I'm no danger, I walk out of the living room into the kitchen. He doesn't follow me, at least not while I can still see him, but I can feel his eyes on me the entire time.

The kitchen knives have been removed. I have no doubt that if I go rummaging through the drawers in search for something potentially helpful—a corkscrew, a meat tenderizer—the rattling will draw him to the room sooner than I want him drawn, so instead, spurred on by the sudden realization that my mouth and throat are both dry enough to choke me, I take a glass from the cabinet, fill it with water, and go to stand in front of the radiator while I drink it, looking through the window at the cornfields out back.

Past the miles of drying corn stalks, black clouds are piled up along the horizon—a storm coming, I think. Hopefully it'll get here soon, because right now, the sky is overcast with one ugly layer of cloud, dark and almost pink-tinged, normal in the city with all its colored lights and pollution, but here it means there's a wildfire burning somewhere, or something strange is about to happen with the weather. I can't help but wish I was facing front, so I'd have half a chance at hope, at hearing or sighting an approaching vehicle— the Joker, maybe, though a marshal or two could prove to be really helpful at this point.

I hear the sound of movement behind me, softer than I associate with Victor but it must be him, and I close my eyes for a moment. And that's the last second you can afford to waste wishing someone will come and save you.

"There's one thing I don't get," he says quietly, and I glance over my shoulder just to confirm that he's where I think he is, standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. He looks relaxed, calm, not an immediate threat to me, and if that changes, I'll hear it, so I turn my head again, looking again at the marginally more pleasant view out the window.

"Just one thing?" I ask, smiling wryly and letting him hear it in my voice. "You're better off than I am, then."

He ignores that. If nothing else, he's single-minded. "The Joker, he… he matches."

"Matches," I repeat, my flat tone making it evident that I'm not in the mood for guessing games.

"His outside. Matches his inside. He's nothing but a rotting corpse. Everyone can see it. He revolts… everyone." I smile unseen, because I can see where this is going, and true to my expectation, after a thoughtful pause, Victor adds, "Everyone but you."

I suppress the scornful laugh that threatens to burst out of me at that by taking another sip of water. After I deem myself under control again, I say, "You would be astonished how many times I've been quizzed about the exact nature of our relationship by different people. Police, lawyers, shrinks—henchmen, once or twice, if you can believe that. I never really have any idea what to tell them."

"The truth?" Victor suggests, sounding almost kind, and this time I don't catch the sarcastic snort in time to stop it. He sounds a little stiffer as he continues: "What happened to make a pretty little zombie like you take up with a… thing like him?"

I hate the sudden jealousy I feel gathering into a ball in my chest, especially since I know it's fucked-up—I get to call the Joker whatever the hell I like, but Victor starts mouthing off and I just want to turn and throw the glass in my hand at his stupid bald fucking head. He hasn't earned that right. He has no idea what he's talking about. He doesn't mean it like I do; he can't. This is not a helpful sentiment, though, so I push it aside without bothering to comment, at least for now, and I say, "Are you familiar with Stockholm syndrome, Victor?"

"It's not that." The immediate response has me half turning to look at him in surprise, and he gives me a sly little smile. "Spend enough time around shrinks…" he says, and lets the unfinished sentence hang there, explanation enough. I laugh, shake my head ruefully, and look back out the window. Sure wish you'd've applied some of that insider knowledge to your own diagnosis, buddy, I think but don't dare to say—I think it's safe to say I prefer chatty, show-offy Victor to angry, irrational Victor any day of the week.

He, of course, has more to say. "Stockholm syndrome—in addition to being… really rare—looks different than what's going on with you two."

"How's that?"

"The victim's devotion towards her captor is simple, single-minded. She defends him, she doesn't question him, supports him entirely—to an outsider looking in, it would appear that she adores him." His tone changes, sounding irritatingly knowing. "I don't get that from you."

"Is that because I tell him to fuck off when he needs to be told to fuck off?" I ask, straight-faced.

"It's because from the looks of it, the two of you might as well be standing on even ground. You're not looking up to him, you're looking him in the eye—"

"Figuratively speaking," I mutter, because who can forget the entire nine inches the Joker's got on me, but Victor doesn't even appear to hear me.

"—and what's more, he allows it. It's bizarre."

"Really?" I ask, turning towards him and crossing my arms. "Or is it just that he's a guy who enjoys a good game and doesn't want to play it with the character of defenseless victim every single time?" Victor cocks his head, interested, and I sigh, tilting my face towards the ceiling. I'd rather not get into this with him, of all people, but the more time we spend talking, the longer it takes for him to slash me to pieces, so in the end, it seems a small price to pay. "Look, how many times do you figure the Joker's taken a hostage? How many of those hostages do you reckon did much more than cry and ask him to let them go? Now, granted, I did plenty of both of those things the first time we met, but I also talked to him." I scrub my free hand over my face rapidly as I try not to get sucked in by my memories of that cold afternoon, an eternity ago. "Couldn't shut my big mouth. Go figure, right?"

Victor snorts in agreement. I guess all that muttering about me being a mouthy bitch wasn't all big-dumb-show.

"The hostage thing kept happening, and eventually all I could figure is that he liked having someone around who entertained him," I tell him, and even though that's only part of the truth, I figure it's as much as he deserves. "Now it's routine."

Victor squints and sucks his teeth, shaking his head, and his shoulders slope down a bit as he takes a step into the room. "Routine… I don't know. Isn't that exhausting?"

His new stance, the fact that he's coming closer, the question—all of it sets off warning bells. I turn slowly back to the radiator as I hear him step nearer. "What do you mean?" I ask lightly.

My knife is in my left pocket, on the other side of him. I switch my grip on the glass to my right hand, taking a sip to disguise the motion, and carefully, keeping my arm hidden by my side, reach down for it.

"You're… what, the Joker's clown? That's gotta be humiliating. Exhausting. Don't you want to rest?"

I stare adamantly ahead, trying to pretend like I can't hear him shuffling closer—but I can, we both know it, and I think he's enjoying it, because he's taking his time about it. I lift the glass again, noticing as I do that my hand is shaking. I pause, letting him get a good look, before I finish the rest of the water. Guy like him, so consumed with himself, will read it as fear.

It's not—at least, nowhere near entirely. It's just good, old-fashioned rage. The only one who's ever gotten away with toying with me, hunting me like this, has been the Joker, and he and I have our own understanding. The others, I killed like the pigs they were.

The knife is out of my pocket now, held out of his sight beside my thigh. Gently, I thumb the latch, disguising the click the blade makes as it locks in place by setting the glass down on the windowsill at the same time.

"Frankly," I say, bracing that hand on the windowsill, tapping my fingers there, anything to draw his attention from the other hand, "I think I'd rather be alive."

"Emma," he says, almost gently, drawing closer. "You never were."

His shuffle has quieted by the time he comes to a stop directly behind me, but I don't need to listen anymore, because I can feel that ugly, hulking presence at my back—it feels like watching the light from the crack under the door go dark. I feel something scrape lightly against my shoulder, stirring the curls that lie there.

I lift my arm at the elbow, just a little, and then I bring it down with force.

It hits him somewhere in the thigh, and the blade doesn't get far before I feel resistance—bone, I think as he lets out a cry that sounds more like an angry animal's, not good, not enough blood, but I'm already erupting into action, releasing the hilt, twisting around on the spot and jumping enough to grip the back of his head with both hands. He's preoccupied by the fresh wound, enough that his response is delayed—he brings the knife he was wielding up, cutting through my sleeve and hitting the underside of my forearm, but he doesn't jerk back enough at the same time, and I yank on him with everything I've got.

I might be easy enough for men as big as Victor or the Joker to haul around, but all my weight and force focused on one spot is a lot harder to fight against, especially when you're taken off-guard—it also doesn't help that men's center of gravity is set so ridiculously high, I'm sure—so Victor's head comes down like a rock, the space between his eyebrows connecting directly (and forcefully) with the edge of the radiator.

I land hard, too, my shoulder glancing off the radiator and forcing me to let go as the rest of me hits the floor, but unlike Victor, I haven't suffered a head injury, so I keep my wits about me (halfway, anyway—I have a metric fuckload of panic and adrenaline coursing through me, and neither of those is particularly good for rational thinking). His knees go to jelly and he falls to the floor with a soft groan that sounds like it's coming from someone a lot smaller and younger, and I roll to one knee, ignoring the predominant rippling ache signifying an ugly bruise to come on my shoulder and fumbling urgently at my pocket. Quickly, quickly.

I get the handcuffs, drop them, scoop them up again, and after more fumbling, attach one of the cuffs to the radiator. Victor hasn't stopped groaning and is starting to blink rapidly, like he's trying to gather his wits. I seize his hand and cinch the other cuff around his wrist, tight.

The knife he dropped is by my foot. I kick it, it skitters a few inches, I wedge my bare heel against it and kick harder and with more purpose, and this time it glides all the way across the floor until it hits the edge, hidden slightly by the outcropping of cabinets.

My hand lands on the handle of the knife still wedged in Victor's leg as his eyes come to focus on me. Our eyes meet for half a second, then, as he starts to lunge, I yank the knife out of his thigh and throw myself backwards simultaneously.

He lets out an awful howl, and the cuff on the one hand keeps him from bodily following me, but his other hand snags my ankle, and immediately tightens so much so quickly that I wonder if he's trying to break it.

I'm still gripping the knife, and I twist a little to swipe back with it, catching his hand—I don't think it's deep, but it's enough to surprise and alarm him into letting go with a muffled curse. I don't waste time. I scramble away so quick across the kitchen floor that when I try to stop at the line of cabinets, I bump into them with my freshly bruised shoulder, prompting more pain like rot to blossom out from the injured spot.

I keep on ignoring it. I flip around, bracing my back against the cabinets, urgently checking to confirm that yes, Victor is sitting and bleeding right where I left him, locked to the radiator, and for the time being, he isn't going anywhere.

From opposite sides of the kitchen, in the sudden silence, we stare at one another.


A/N - eat shit, Victor.

We're winding down- just a couple more chapters left, though as I mentioned elsewhere, the events of this story lead directly into the events of the fourth and final planned part of the series, so I guess.. keep that in mind.

next week: shit really hits the fan.