Disclaimer: I don't own Batman…There I said it, please don't break me, Bane…
A/N: I just wanted to give a shout-out to you guys. Thank you Guest 123, Guest, Bat-teen 28, and MorbidWerewolf for writing your thoughtful reviews. You guys inspire me to keep writing. :) Thank you to Akuma Takeshi Jagerjack, L-Gardo-S, MorbidWerewolf, batchic, Batfangirl7773, Maaiikee, The Whispering Muse, and uhlikins for Following/Favoriting. Hope you all are having a happy beginning to the holiday season - no visits from Calendar Man! ;) Here is the next chapter! ~S.S.
Salve, Salvage, & Salvation
- - - - - Chapter Nine: "Sanctuary" - - - - -
"Where is she?" Zsasz asked himself aloud. She hadn't been home after her escape from him at the botanic gardens. He had waited there for hours, staking out her place, waiting for his little lamb to walk to the metal gate and let herself in, then go up to her second story apartment, undo the two locks, and enter into her seeming sanctuary. Her little display of strength did not dissuade him. He could see right through her, and he knew she was still terrified.
When she didn't show, he wondered if she had broken her promise and gone to the police station. He walked subtly as close to a police car as he could without being spotted and tried to listen remotely to their radios. He wasn't able to hear his own name over their system, so he guessed that his secret was safe. She was still afraid for her boytoy, or would it be her ex-boytoy now?
Had she gone to Matthew's house? Had she gone to the boy who rejected her? He went there to check. No brown-haired little intern zombie. Though the "man" of the house did seem to be getting very acquainted with that redhead, Zsasz noticed distastefully. How typical. It seemed he had moved faster with this one – he and Danielle had never managed to be intimate, had they? He chuckled. This one wouldn't last either. This foolish girl was even more gullible than Danielle. She was merely a distraction. He knew. He had seen many playboys in his time – much richer than this Matthew, of course, given the company Zsasz used to keep – but the traits were very much the same, that smooth way of talking… that arrogance.
Zsasz chuckled a little, before remembering who he was really looking for. Oh, it would be amusing to kill this boy and his little toy pig. But if he did, then she would tell the police, and that would ruin his little game.
But that pig, down there with that slut redhead… They both deserved to receive his gift. He wanted to make them hurt. Their emptiness was nauseating. But he knew that it was not yet time for them to die. They had an unintentional purpose to fulfill in driving Danielle closer to the edge, where in the end she must only accept his gift.
"Where is she?!" he mused again, with growing frustration. Taking one last longing glance at the couple, he retreated and retraced his footsteps back to Danielle's home.
It was a good thing he never thought to check the hospitals.
-/-/-/-/-
"There, you're all bandaged up now," the nurse said kindly. "Here are some extra bandages and salve, and I will get your discharge forms shortly."
"Thank you," Danielle murmured as she sat up on the white bed in the Acute Care Wing of the Gotham County Hospital. To be honest, she hadn't set out to that spot in particular. Even after she had escaped Zsasz, she had just kept running on pure adrenaline. When she slowed down, she had recognized that she needed to go to a hospital to check out the knife wound. Gotham County had simply been closest at the time. Though she'd had the presence of mind to know not to go to Gotham General, the hospital where she worked. There were too many people there who knew her, not to mention that Zsasz had attacked her there before. Someone might put it together and tell the police, or Zsasz might even find her there.
Speaking of the police… "Are you sure that nothing happened to you, dear?" the nurse asked worriedly, her eyes straying to Danielle's now-bandaged neck and then back to her face. "You know, we have a number here for domestic abuse-"
"It was an accident," Danielle repeated her earlier story. She nodded to her trusty rake that was leaning against the wall near her bed. She mentally apologized to the kindly groundskeeper she had stolen it from. "I slipped while I was gardening and fell on my rake. Don't worry, I'm fine… I don't need to file a report." The nurse looked perplexed, and she knew her story was ridiculous – after all, why would she bring the "offending" rake with her? She hoped that having walked herself to the hospital, instead of arriving in an ambulance, would lend credence to her claim that she was fine.
If Zsasz saw the police talking to her, then he would kill Matthew. So she had to avoid the police at all costs.
She shivered. Would she pay with her life to protect someone who didn't care about her? She felt disgusted with herself… and so alone. No one could help her.
Unless…
"Wait!" she said suddenly, as the nurse started to leave. It was crazy… but maybe there was a way. "I'm wondering something… Does Batman ever come here?"
The nurse looked puzzled. "We see him every so often, bringing someone in here if they're injured. Not very often, he usually leaves them in the front of the hospital—"
Danielle hesitated. I have to try. "If you happen to see him… Could you please tell him that Danielle Lee is looking for him?"
The nurse nodded. "I will if I see him." Giving the patient another long, cautious look, the nurse left to get the discharge forms.
-0-
There was no way in hell she was going home tonight.
She hated him. She decided this during the very long walk back to her neighborhood. It wasn't hard to hate him, really. The asshole was trying to kill her for God's sake, and that alone was hate-worthy. But it was so much more than that, Danielle fumed. It was the disgusting sensation of eyes following her, even though she was sure she'd left him behind hours ago in the greenhouse. She wondered where he was now. She felt that she was safe for tonight, but she also knew that tomorrow, she would wake up with the same fears, go to work, and her horrors would begin all over again. Her security. While he hadn't murdered her – yet – he had certainly murdered that. She hated him for that, for taking away her sense of security and privacy.
How did he even know when she had gone to the greenhouse? Was it a lucky fluke when he saw her out or – and the thought gave her sick chills – had he been following her for longer? She guessed the latter. How else had he discovered where she lived or…or about what happened with Matthew? How did that sick freak know that Matthew had dumped her, or that they were even dating in the first place for that matter?
Her feet ached. How many miles away was this hospital from her neighborhood, anyway? She wished she could just sit down somewhere…
An image of a knife pressing against her neck, the sensation of his broad chest pressing against her back… she shuddered… Were the afterimages ever going to stop? She could swear she felt his breath softly on her ear, hear his mocking voice in the wind.
She took the long way around and avoided walking near her home, just in case he was staking it out. Her feet were screaming. The rake, light as it was, almost felt heavy. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and go to sleep.
There were no blankets at the abandoned building. It was going to be a cold night. But at least she would still be alive to wake up the next morning. She wondered how Batman did it – spent all night fighting crime. Did he sleep during the day, like a real bat? Well, unlike Batman, she had a day job.
-0-
Little Danielle hadn't come home.
He had stayed all night at her apartment. After all, who wanted to come home to an empty house? He would have given her quite a welcome if she had come home.
He sat in her house, in her living room, eating her food, looking through photos by the light of the streetlamp outside. The window had been repaired, of course. The photos didn't tell him much. They did tell him that she – the piggy – wasn't from around here. The pictures of her and her family looked like they were taken in the countryside. He ate a pear as he flipped leisurely through her albums – it seemed his piggy was health-conscious. The majority of her food was fruit. It would rot if she didn't come home in the next day or so. He didn't want it to go to waste. It would be, he thought with bitterness, just one more thing in her life that had gone to waste.
He listened to the song in her cassette again. The lyrics made him feel deliriously happy for some reason. Someone else out there understood the mundaneness and depravity of this world…although he imagined that this singer wasn't an artist quite like he was.
As fun as it all was, learning so much about the little zombie… in the end he was so angry he could (and possibly did) dent a few of her walls. She had never come home.
He almost found it amusing. He had scared her so badly. Smart girl. She knew he knew where she lived, so it made sense that she had not come home. But that didn't answer the question that frustrated him – where had she gone?
It should have been easy to find her. She worked in the same place. But he didn't see her out at lunch break the next day. Nor did he see her leave. Had she not come in at all? He had seen her running away from the greenhouse, he reassured himself. She didn't appear to be too badly injured when his blade slipped softly across her neck. Surely she hadn't bled out somewhere, denied him the glance into her eyes as her life ran out. Not so weak that she would become a prey for someone else, surely? No, more than likely, his little lamb was on the run.
He went back to her apartment that night. Nowhere! She was nowhere to be found!
He had been so hopeful that tomorrow would be different. It wasn't. No lunch break sightings, no after-work sightings either.
It had been two days – where was she? Her name was not in the newspapers.
It was time to find another kill. Oh, he would find her again. And he would scare her so badly that she would never think of disobeying him again…unless she had fled. Had she left the city?
He followed a teenager going home from summer school. He didn't take his time. He propped the victim up on his front porch, study books on his lifeless lap. School's out. His mother was in for a shock.
The incident made him think briefly about his own mother. What would she think? He had no way of knowing. Her death had served a higher purpose, he knew. He shouldn't be questioning that. Maybe he would join her someday in oblivion.
It was almost solstice. He wanted to go to the Sprang Bridge. For some reason, he was feeling nostalgic. It wasn't yet that time of summer, though the long nights made him feel reminiscent. He shuddered. Had he ever really been happy? He thought so, at one point. But he couldn't remember.
-/-/-/-/-
She was in the greenhouse. For some reason, even though she knew where the doors were, they glowed bright orange, and they burned her when she imagined touching them. The world was a misty blue color – except for the flower. The huge flower was an exquisite pink, its base filled with syrupy nectar. It filled the small room with an intoxicating smell, making the frosty white glass even frostier.
She was sinking, melting, becoming small enough to merge with the flower… a portal.
White snow on a mountain. The sky a clear, crisp blue, but with snow swirling everywhere. She could see the mountain looming ahead of her. But her body was soaked. Half her clothes were logged down with water and cold. How was she going to make it up the mountain?
She stumbled. At her feet was a wooden surface, an anchoring sticking out, half buried by snow. The cold metal stuck to her fingers as she pried it open.
A symbol inside, carved into the finest cherry wood.
A drop of blood landed in her hair. She knew, without looking, what it was. Quickly she closed the hidden door, not wanting any of the blood to splatter on the symbol.
A reddish glow. She looked up.
Blood was streaking through the sky. She gasped. What had happened to the pure white beauty, her winter wonderland? It was tainted, bloodied, stripped and ruined. She could see the ribbons of gore falling from the hellish red skies landing around her, in her hair, bleeding through the snow like rain. And flames. The sky was filled with fire. The mountain must have erupted. And she had nowhere to go to escape the blood-
Danielle's eyes snapped open. A dream. It was just a dream. It wasn't real. Compulsively she checked her hands. No blood. The wound on her neck itched. It was her third night in the hideout, and the lodgings were more comfortable now that she'd brought a blanket. She'd had more time to practice, so she was learning more about ukemi, or rolling art. It was very helpful, and overall she was feeling better both physically and mentally.
But her sleep last night...
What the hell did that dream even mean?!
"Screw it. I don't care what anyone thinks. Where's my baseball bat?"
-0-
This was becoming ridiculous. He couldn't find her, and it was distracting him! He never allowed himself to get distracted from his work.
Angrily he stalked over to the most crowded place in the city – Gotham Square – and simply looked at all the zombies. Some old, some young. Some female, some tough men with blank looks. All shuffling, walking in circles. Going nowhere. He wanted to free them all! He found himself humming a tune – the song that Danielle had played. He knew she was still out there.
He wanted to take his time. All of this running after the intern… He hadn't had a moment to enjoy his work in peace. Oh, chasing her was fun, finding her – even better. But he had not found her again this week. He was becoming discouraged. Had she managed to escape Gotham City after all? In spite of his anger, he knew there was nothing he could do about it if she had. It was best to move on.
He found a piggy on Friday night. One who had taken to drink, who had let alcohol become distraction. It was easy to lure the zombie to his hideout.
All weekend long, he listened to the prisoner's screams. There was so much to learn about the mortal coil, and every victim taught him more about the mindless drones he was trying to save and more about the nature of life…and death. It was like opening an orange, peeling back the skin, opening up each zombie section by section. They were spilling not only blood and guts, but secrets too. This piggy told him, in between screams, of a life of hard work and nothing to show for it. Nights of exhaustion, of falling asleep in front of the television, bottle of alcohol in hand, and then waking up the next day to do it all again. The weekends were similar – nights at the bars, then more time watching television both in the bars and at home. Every day was all the same…until what? Before him, what had this zombie been waiting for? Within the alcohol, what was this zombie running from?
When he finally granted the zombie his mercy, he stared into eyes that bled out and faded into oblivion, behind the curtain of this world and into freedom. Witnessing it was to him the ultimate rush. He made a mark for the zombie on his left calf.
He posed the zombie in his home with a bottle of whiskey in his hand.
He would never run out of people to save.
It was solstice, a few weeks before the anniversary of that hot night when he lost everything to the Penguin. But he couldn't wait. He needed to be there now.
He stood again on the Sprang Bridge and looked out over the water. Today the water was a deep sapphire, contrasting with the angel blue sky. He could feel the coldness wafting up from the waves and see the foam frothing along the edges that led toward the beaches in Gotham on either side of the bridge. It was beautiful. Even in this polluted city, it was impossible that everything should be ugly.
It was a sunny day today. His skin called out for the sun. He wanted the higher planes and the heavens to witness his scars.
Making sure no one was around to see, he slipped the thin long-sleeved shirt off his shoulders. The sun lit the tattoo on his back, of the hooded figure, the knives like angel wings. His scars gleamed in the sunlight. He hoped the higher plane that granted him his sacred mission was watching. He hoped his mother and father could see him. In a rare moment, he admitted to himself how much he missed them still.
-/-/-/-/-
She could hear the fire somewhere but remained unaware of where it was coming from. She was on the mountain, white-snowed, untainted. But this area didn't let her see the crystal blue sky. Instead, it was cold and grey. She was looking for something… or was it someone? She had this sense that she was searching either for a ruby or for someone wearing one.
She was so thirsty.
The land was filled with snow, and yet she did not lift the snow to her mouth. She had the odd sense that it would dehydrate her further.
She stumbled into a circle of stones. At the center was a patch of frozen water, as if sunken into the land. She knelt down. Here was where she needed to drink.
A face appeared in the frozen ice. It wasn't hers.
The face looked at her with coldness more frightening than the frozen land around her. The eyes burned in spite of it, and there were four slash marks on the face's forehead, like a void.
She made a fist and broke the ice…
She blinked. It felt like she hadn't slept at all. Like the dream had been taking her energy instead of replenishing it.
Why did she keep dreaming about this mountain? The mountains were miles away from her home where her family was, and she hadn't seen any since she moved to Gotham. Yet the mountain felt so familiar.
She rummaged in the dark until she found the lamp. Turning it on, she looked into the corner of the hideout to see a small pile of paint cans. Most of them were used up, but there were a few that still had some left. She had been itching to do this all week.
She found one that had white paint in it and got to work.
When she finished an hour later, there was a mountain on the eastern wall in her hideout's room. Maybe, in addition to training, she could pick up this new hobby. She felt like being creative. And like the dreams must mean something. It was something her grandmother used to tell her.
Well, if she couldn't sleep, then she might as well practice. She was getting the hang of ukemi, but she needed to work on her aim with the rake.
-0-
"C'mon, piggy… WHERE ARE YOU?!"
He woke up in the middle of the night with an angry scream. He could not move on. He sat up feeling angry and disgusted with himself at what he had been doing these past several days. Was he trying to distract himself? Trying to move on? No! He would not give up that mark! Danielle's face loomed in his mind. His skin was calling out for her mark. He would see her again! She would not escape from him. She could not deny him the mark.
He set to washing the blood off of himself – he had killed another woman last night. Tall, pretty, dark-haired, a streetwalker – classic, more than anyone, those in her profession were walking zombies. She had thought she was getting a john. Instead she earned her permanent retirement and salvation. Now she would never have to turn tricks – see their emptiness poured into her soul – ever again. Never have to make that despairing choice between money versus dignity ever again.
Danielle was still around, somewhere. He refused to think she had left Gotham City. Refused. Even if she had, how far could she go?
Her coworkers would know. Maybe it was time to pay her coworkers a visit. He was sure the talkative strawberry blonde zombie would know where she was.
-/-/-/-/-
"I'm worried about her," he could hear the two of them nattering away.
"I am too, Cindy. But I think she's just still messed up about Matthew."
Two of Danielle's coworkers were walking through the main lobby. He hid behind a newspaper. There were a few people wandering around, a few patients, doctors, and an old secretary sitting at a desk in the front of the lobby. No police. There was one security guard that he could see, and his attention was elsewhere, though Zsasz kept one eye on his movements. He was surprised at how easy it was to sit in here. Usually he limited his spying to outdoors. He liked the thrill of being inside the lair without actual plans to kill. It added a thrill to the game.
The girls seemed to be talking about Danielle. Now, where was she?
"This is the second time this week she's done this." Done what? "I told her if she keeps staying late like this, not to mention getting here early like she has been, she's going to burn herself out." So she's here?
"Maybe she just doesn't want to go home," said the bubbly zombie with seeming optimism. Zsasz nearly rolled his eyes at her obvious observation.
"Home is better than here! At least at home she can get some rest."
"She's avoiding thinking about Matthew. Maybe home reminds her of him."
"And being here doesn't?" Cindy ran her hands over her hair in frustration. "Lil, did you see that big bandage she had on her neck last week? What happened to her? Did she try to hurt herself? Do you think someone's hurting her?" He didn't like this one. She was too clever for her own good.
"No, I don't think so," Lily frowned. "She said she was careless with a knife while she was cutting vegetables. It was an accident. She just wasn't focusing." He recalled fondly the sight of her blood on his knife. Even if it had been accidental, it filled him with a small sense of satisfaction. The next time, it wouldn't be an accident, he thought with a dark smile.
"You're right, she has been spacing out a lot. I saw her standing there reading the emergency exits map for fifteen minutes yesterday."
"I'm telling you, girl. She's losing it over this guy."
Cindy sighed. "Not that I blame her, he's a real jerk to go out with Deirdre now, all up in her face."
"Maybe tomorrow let's see if she wants to go to lunch. Maybe we can cheer her up."
"Sounds good."
"Don't worry, Dani will be fine."
"I just don't like for her to be down there all by herself."
So she hadn't left the city. He almost laughed. Stupid girl. She should have. From her perspective, she should want to be fighting for her life, not leaving herself open to him.
So she was alone down there? Perfect. First he needed to know where "down there" was. If she still worked in records… He found the hospital map without problems and scrolled quickly. It wouldn't do for that secretary to come over here and ask him if he needed help. He didn't want to attract any attention.
He found the basement without trouble and headed in the direction of the records room. Maybe he could pay her a surprise visit, if she was really alone. He hid as he heard footsteps.
Hair in a ponytail, bandage on her neck, jeans, a damn baseball bat – there she was walking down the hall away from the records room. He gave a little chuckle. While he was looking everywhere for her, she had been hiding down here the whole time—
She stopped suddenly and tilted her head. He put a few fingers over his mouth. Seems his giggle wasn't so quiet. She had heard him. He ducked and hid.
She turned in a slow circle, looking for the source of the sound. She was sure she had heard something. Or was it her imagination? Time to get out of here. Maybe the stacks were making her crazy after all.
He couldn't believe his luck when he heard her footsteps resume. He followed her carefully. Saw her leave through a door down here in the basement. So that's how she did it! She had taken another exit. He hurried to the door. Opened it slowly in case she was waiting on the other side. She wasn't. Instead she was walking quickly toward the outside stairs and heading up to the street.
Clever piggy, he thought. He had made a grave error in assuming she was predictable. He saw clearly now that she wasn't. Leaving late from work. Taking a different exit. No, she had adapted to the situation beautifully.
If only she had been smart enough to leave the city. She might have kept her miserable life a while longer.
She seemed to walk differently down the dreary streets. It was slower, steadier than before. She had changed. She seemed more aware of her surroundings. He had to be more careful tracking her, lest she become aware of him following her. So he hung back further. She was going into the Bowery… But she didn't appear to be going home. This was getting interesting.
Up ahead, she turned a corner. He waited, careful not to follow too soon or too late. When he rounded the corner, he was met with quite a shock.
Danielle was gone again.
He stood for a moment with his mouth agape before scanning his surroundings. Where was she? He looked frantically around, but there was no sight of her. Astonishment quickly gave away to anger. It was inconceivable to him that she could have found yet another way to outsmart him. How had she escaped him again?! How?! Oh, this was not over. He would find that little piggy and make her pay! Along this block there was a strip club, a liquor store, and a pub. He started by checking the liquor store.
In the back alley of the pub, the door slowly opened. Danielle looked back and forth and listened carefully. Was it clear? She couldn't hear any footsteps or any creepy laugh. She wasn't fooled. When she heard the noise in the basement of the hospital – a noise that sounded suspiciously like a deranged giggle – she had chosen to be cautious. Since he caught her in the greenhouse, she had taken special care to become always mindful of her surroundings. As she walked down the street, she had managed to catch glimpses in the car windows of who might be following her. When she caught a glimpse of Zsasz, she nearly panicked. Her flight response had definitely kicked in and she wanted nothing more than to bolt. But she had forced herself to remain calm, and then she remembered. The night they had first met. How had she gotten away…
She smiled. Sometimes the same trick really does work twice. There was no Zsasz in the alleyway waiting for her. He was probably standing there, frustrated at having lost her again. She was lucky. Swiftly, she took off for the hideout.
-0-
After the events at Penguin's Iceberg Lounge, he was no longer one to put stock in luck. But nevertheless, it seemed his was running out, and it made him so angry. She had escaped…again. Had his chance slipped through his fingers? It was maddening! He had put in all of this effort to find her and liberate her, and she was ruining it! She should know better than to try to flee from her destiny. She should accept the salvation that came to seek her with open arms. He would find her. He would catch her and he would make her understand his gift.
Where could she be? It was Friday night and the weekend had begun. He needed to make the mark. He couldn't wait until Monday to seek her at her workplace again. He needed to think… where would the mark go? Where would the piggy go on a weekend she was free to roam, when she was not at her home?
The docks.
The idea came to him so suddenly. Of course. That was where he had seen her when he first returned to Gotham. He had seen her, but she hadn't seen him. He had left her that gift in the form of the hoodlum, holding a pen with his own signature on a wall. She should be terrified enough to not return there. Ahhh, but he was no longer dealing with an ordinary piggy. She should have been at home too afraid to do anything at all but wait for her salvation. But she was already resisting even that. He would check tomorrow and see if his hunch was true.
He was right. There she was, staring down into the water. She stood right up against the rail. He couldn't see her face. Was she sad? Miserable? He noticed she still had her baseball bat sitting by her right hand. Smart girl.
He walked right up to her until he was standing behind her. He was so close to her that if he reached out his arm he could touch her hair. Again, he was struck by the desire to see the scars on her neck and back, left over from the glass through which she had thrown herself, and the bigger scar he had made in her upper left arm. And the left side of her neck: he wanted to see the cut he had made most recently. The many scars that were on her body, that he had made both directly and indirectly, must be beautiful, and he would make many more.
She was chuckling quietly. Again, he heard her standing here…and laughing. She was so happy, so perfectly happy and oblivious to her surroundings.
He imagined it must be some misplaced happiness that she was still alive, that he hadn't caught her yet. He could do it right now. He could stab her through the back and let her bleed out and run away while everyone watched her fall. His hands itched to make that cut and feel the steel in his hands slice through warm flesh and muscle. But now was not the right time to deliver her salvation. He would wait. He would follow her. He would find out where she went that made her feel so safe from him. Where was her hiding place? He would find out. And when they got there, his knife would bathe in her blood. He smirked as he walked away from his prey, sat down with his disguise still in place, and waited for her to make her move.
When she finally began walking, it was late afternoon. He had gotten there at the perfect time an hour earlier, when the sun was still midway in the sky. He had to be careful tracking her, so he hung back even farther. She was taking a different route. Where was she going? She was leading him into the Bowery…but not her home?
He saw her disappear into an abandoned building. A moment later, on the second floor, a small light came on.
Bingo.
-/-/-/-/-
Danielle sighed as she entered her hideout, out of breath. What a nice, long walk. Maybe she would do a bit of training and then turn in early. Weekend or not, it wouldn't hurt to get her rest.
She had added to her painting on the wall. She had added small hills of snow around the giant white mountain, and in one she had placed the frozen water hole. It still bothered her, but it felt like it relieved her when she painted it. It calmed her, relaxed her to paint.
She felt so safe here.
"Here you are, little piggy. I would knock, but you don't have a door to keep me out!"
Danielle gasped. Zsasz stood in the shadows. She couldn't see his face right away, but she recognized his voice. He came more fully into the light, casually taking off his jacket and tossing it to the floor, revealing his chest and scars in the light of the lamp.
"You have given me so much entertainment! I thought you might have left Gotham City in an attempt to escape your fate." He laughed. "I cannot fully express the joy I feel to have found you in here of all places." He noticed her painting on the wall. "That mountain – I will paint it maroon with your blood!" She saw the knives shining in his hands.
Instinctively she had grabbed the broom handle. He noticed her posture was again…different. The way she had grabbed the rake in the greenhouse was no fluke, he began to understand. Danielle was learning how to handle weapons. That realization should have made him angry, that she would challenge him this way…but he found himself almost respecting her for fighting back. She was handling herself. He wondered how she would handle him.
C'mon, where's my anger hiding? I've got to KILL this murderer! He's going to kill ME!
Danielle's eyes darted behind him. Her baseball bat and rake were on a wall closer to Zsasz. She couldn't get them now without going through him. She never thought her hideout would be compromised this way, and now she was kicking herself. "Stay away from me, Zsasz! I'm not one of your victims!"
"'Zsasz'. You said my name. Does this mean you finally acknowledge my existence, Danielle?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Your attempts to ignore me, to 'move on' with your life, as if you were not chosen to receive the greatest gift of salvation… Did you think I would give up so easily?" He imagined cutting her wrists open. That would feel good.
"In case you weren't paying attention, you creep, I have a life!" she bristled.
"Such a mundane one," he said tauntingly, absently rubbing the scars on his shoulders. "And now you have lost your new meaning."
"What?"
"Matthew. Your piggy abandoned you and now you're all alone." She detested the mocking tone in his voice. Meanwhile he thought how he might pose her by her painting. Or perhaps at Matthew's house.
"Matthew does not define me! Who cares if I'm alone? I'm happy being alone!" A lie.
"Really? Then you won't mind if I kill that little piggy, empty his blood from his body, just as soon as I am through liberating you?"
"I don't want you to kill anyone." You can't reason with crazy, her inner voice told her. He was getting more and more excited. She could tell by his frantic tone, by the restless way he was circling the practice table where she put the glass bottles.
"Of course you don't. You and I see things differently."
She was not going to beg for her life. Suddenly the anger she had been looking for erupted in her pit, when she recalled the way she could no longer go anywhere in the city without looking over her shoulder. The way he had taken her freedom and security from her.
With incredible speed, he ran around her worktable, pinned her against the wall, and stabbed her through the arm. At last! he thought with ecstasy as he felt his blade pierce muscle. It was the lower right arm this time. She dropped the broomstick and screamed. He withdrew the blade and licked the blood from it. She head-butted him. He slashed at her and cut through her shirt, staining the material with blood. Trembling, she raised an elbow to protect her face and barreled through him.
He turned. "I need your mark!"
No holds barred. That's what kind of fight this had to be. He came at her again. She grabbed the nearest thing she could find – which happened to be an old paint can – and swung up with it. There was a dull clanging sound as it bounced off of Zsasz's skull.
"LEAVE ME ALONE YOU BASTARD!" she screamed as she reached on the floor for her broomstick. She didn't wait this time for Zsasz to attack. Her long stick clashed with his knife. He pulled the stick out of her hands and swiped at her face. A thin cut across her nose and forehead. Putting one hand to her face – her injured arm screamed as she did – she was quick to grab a bottle in her left hand. She swung for Zsasz and shattered it on the table in front of her.
He came around the worktable, swinging with his knives. She kicked the worktable and it jammed against Zsasz's hipbone. He stumbled. That's it, keep him off balance!
The pain in her arm was alternating between stinging and throbbing.
He zeroed in on her neck. He could see the veins throbbing as she fought desperately. So beautiful!
She swung at him with the broken bottle. He blocked her arm with his and pinned her hand down to the table. He grabbed her injured arm and gave it an extra hard squeeze, making her groan with pain. She was face to face with him, with his cold blue eyes. And the huge scars on his forehead. She felt the fear inside of her swell.
He smiled. "Do you have any last words?"
She lunged over the table, tackling him. "Don't get overconfident!"
They crashed to the ground. Immediately she sat up and punched him hard with her good hand. His head snapped back and she doubled over, gasping in pain over her fist. It seemed the practice dummy still wasn't enough. She sat up and kneed him in the ribs. He made an angry groan. She dove, rolling over the broken glass, to pick up her bat that was near the door.
She swung without looking. Zsasz had risen and he took the blow in the ribs a second time. She aimed the next one at his head. Hit him hard enough to open the skin above his temple. Blood trickled from the wound. He still climbed to his feet.
"You will bleed!" he hissed.
Danielle advanced. He was standing in her doorway now, knives drawn, with a look of dark anger on his face. He had just been toying with her before, she instinctively knew. Now he wanted to finish it.
All the anger swelled up. "Get OUT!" she yelled. As she swung at him, he dodged backward and misjudged his distance. He stumbled back through the open doorway and fell down the stairs with a cry. She jumped over his prone body, not bothering to stop and see if he were alive or not. She burst out into street and the blessed fresh air outside, and ran.
Nowhere was safe. Nowhere.
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Sorry, one more note: I changed the rating of the story to M. Sorry about that. The story's getting a lot darker and I wanted to reflect that in the rating.