Chapter 10 Out With The Old In With The New
The ride from Alice's burning apartment to Saul's hide out was short, it didn't take them long to navigate through the empty streets of Gotham. Alice of course kept her eyes watchful the whole time, making sure there were no blue and red flashing lights in the mirror. After about 20 minutes they pulled up to a large building covered in graffiti, top to bottom. Saul had mentioned they downsized but not downgraded, this place looked like the place where you would find some middle aged kid handing out mix tapes as appose to running a mob operation.
The group unloaded from the van and made their way up to the building, the three henchmen leading with Will's body, Saul behind them, and Alice almost hiding behind Saul. The door flung open immediately and the henchmen waltzed across the threshold into a large living room of sorts and placed the body roughly on the ground. This seemed to get the attention of the other three henchmen who were sitting around a green felt covered table passing cards and sipping on dark liquor; they all looked up at the commotion with confused looks. Alice, who was still out of sight, took this brief second to take in her new surroundings. It looked to be just an average beat down apartment with little furnishings, nothing fancy just the bare necessities. It had a living room which was attached to the small kitchen, and beyond that was a hallway with four doors. "Not too shabby." Alice thought to herself.
The men playing cards seemed to have their full attention on the dead body at their feet, their eyes darted all around hoping someone would explain, Saul took note and broke the silence.
"Alright boys listen and listen good, things are going to be different around here starting today." He gave his introductory line and moved to the side fully revealing the girl behind him. "You guys, including me, are now under the authority of this pretty little thing here", he gestured to Alice politely "and you are to treat her with the upmost respect, she is your boss now, you do what she says when she says it. Now before you go all haywire there is a reason she's in charge", Saul took a moment to read the expression on the men which was the average look of 'what the fuck', but he continued. "she is the daughter of the late Mr. Polanco, who we all worked for.", after hearing this the men sat up a bit straighter which made Alice want to giggle but she bit her lip and refrained.
"That being said if you do anything to piss her off you will end up like this fella here", Saul motioned to the dead body on the floor, the men's eyes followed. "After all she is her fathers daughter, so if you don't want to be killed I suggest you make her feel welcome and no funny business, I think you all know what I'm talking about, capish?" he waited for a reaction, nothing. In a mocking tone he continued "questions, comments, concerns?" the men gave each other nervous glances daring one another to speak, but the same man who spoke up to ask for coffee raised his hand and Saul gave him an approving nod,
"So what do we call her?" All the other men nodded with the question and Saul opened his mouth to answer but he was cut off abruptly by Alice who took a step forward,
She managed to muster up her most chilling voice that matched the showy introduction Saul gave her and spoke expressionless, "call me Diamond." The henchman who asked the question gave Alice a weary look, but she matched it with a burning gaze that said I mean business.
She didn't really put much thought into that answer, after all she sure as hell didn't want to be known by her real name and it only made sense to call herself Diamond after the calling card she left on Will.
She took the silence and stares as a que to continue talking, "Now things are going to change around here, I know for a fact that once my father died his operation fell apart leaving uh you guys here doing your own thing. Like I said that's going to change, no more small jobs, no more working with other mob families, none of that. We are going to be re established and people are going to know that were back in business, we are going to be playing with the big dogs now."
Alice had no idea where all this bravado pep talk was coming from, and frankly she didn't know a thing about 'playing with the big dogs' but if she made herself believe what she was saying so would the other guys, and she was right. They all gave approving nods to her speech, which kinda took her by surprise. She half expected them to put up a fight and fuss over a woman being in charge but they took the news and accepted it without complaint.
"Unfortunately we do not have time to gab and get to know each other, I'll get to know you guys as time goes on, but work starts tonight." Once again all the men including Saul nodded in agreement. "I need a few of you to take this body down to the MCU and leave it on the steps, nothing too hard okay? And this goes without saying but don't get caught."
Almost immediately after Alice finished talking the men seated around the table got up and started to move the body out of the house giving their new boss a slight smile and nod as they passed by. She was genuinely impressed, she turned to Saul,
"You trained your dogs well." She said with an approving smile,
"Well just doing my job, now lets get you settled in, you've had a long day."
Saul led Alice down the hallway to the last door on the left, he fished out a set of keys from his pocket, inserted one in the lock, and opened the door. The room was small, it held only a mattress, desk, and chair. The two stepped in and Alice looked around satisfied with what she had, she was expecting worse.
"So you got your bed, desk, and then" Saul moved to the two doors within the room, "closet, and your own bathroom." Alice nodded in approval.
"Ill tell the boys to get you some fresh sheets and blankets, in the mean time unpack. I'm right down the hall so holler if ya need me."
"Alright thanks Saul, really thank you." Before she could stop herself she gave Saul a warm embrace, for a second he didn't respond but then he reached an arm around and patted her on the back, the two pulled away smiling.
"Good night kid." And Saul walked out of the room.
Alice went to work immediately and she unpacked most of her things in a timely fashion. She put everything in its respectful place, clothes and weapons in the closet, toiletries in the bathroom and then she put the weapons she was carrying on her on top of the desk. Satisfied with her unpacking she plopped down onto the bare mattress.
This was her new home, this was her new life, from this point on this was her. She relished in the fact that things had all fallen into place so easily, from the moment she got kidnapped to now. At the time it may have seemed like a bad situation but looking back she was actually thankful for it. It made her realize that this inevitably was her fate, to end up a criminal, she just needed stop fighting it and the moment she plunged the knife into Will it all made sense. Her whole life had been building up to that moment, ever since she was little, the things shes been through shaped her into this 'new' person. It wasn't like she just had one encounter with the Joker and bam she was changed, no he was just the last piece of the psychotic puzzle that was being put together in her head.
Alice let herself fall back onto the tattered mattress and sprawled out; she closed her eyes and let her mind start putting together plans. She schemed for a while but before she knew it she was sound asleep.
After two weeks Alice had settled in nicely, the boys treated her with respect, and to prove their loyalty they stole her a laptop as a "welcome to the family" gift.
She was getting quite comfortable being in this position of power and it showed. She naturally had a hack for bossing people around and getting things done. She had made a name for herself and her men in the underworld of Gotham; they were slowly crawling up the ladder. In only fourteen days they managed to rob banks, kill other criminals, and kill some political figures as well, all to get some attention, making their threat known. She had trained her men to kill a certain way when dealing with murders directly, and that was to slit the victims' throat and carve a diamond into their forehead, after leaving Will on the MCU steps it would only be natural to leave her signature as often as she could.
However Alice hadn't left the hideout since she arrived there. Her priority was to lay low, she didn't want people knowing that it was little Alice Rose Polanco running the newest up and coming crime gang, not yet anyway. To the public, after two weeks, last seen being abducted by the Joker, they thought she was dead. So she spent her time planning jobs, building up her strength, brushing up on her fighting skills and weapon handling. In her mind she needed to be the best she could be before she made her debut as the leader of what people were calling The Diamond Gang.
On the flipside, her goals for the gang and herself were cloudy, she wasn't exactly sure what she was going for, but she did know that whether it be small domestic terrorist group or viscous mobsters, she was out for blood and she would make her presence known with a bang.
After two weeks of hard work Alice rewarded the boys with a night off, in turn she had a night off as well, but of course she couldn't risk being recognized as the Joker's missing hostage so she spent the night in and had the house all to herself. She plopped down on the large leather couch, Jack and coke in one hand, and TV remote in the other, she aimlessly flipped stations until she landed on the news, it droned on about the various Joker attacks and then it started mention this Batman. Hearing this Alice was intrigued, they describe him as some sort of vigilante, this boggled her because who would waste their time dressing up as a flying rat and saving people. The news gave a brief synopsis of the Bat's career saying how much order and chaos he caused. This of course wasn't new to Alice, Saul had filled her on the details of the past two years basically up to the point of the incarceration of the Joker and the disappearance of Batman, but she still watched the news like it was her first time hearing it. The broadcast then changed topics and was now warning citizens to be on the lookout for anymore Diamond gang killings, Alice let out a soft chuckle at this and that's when she felt it
When you are alone in a room you can just feel when someone else enters it, you don't have to see or hear, you just simply feel a gaze burning into your skull and your breathing starts to quicken and your heart sinks to the bottom of your chest but still maintains to beet rapidly, and thats when you realize you're not alone.
Alice felt the strange phenomenon creep up on her but she kept her gaze forward and her body still in hopes of not giving away her bluff. After a brief moment of self confliction she gently placed her glass on the floor while simultaneously grabbing the small gun she harbored in between the couch cushions for moments like these. She counted down from three then stood up abruptly turning around and aiming the pocket pistol, ready to shoot, but no one was there. She glanced all around the room franticly, she was sure someone else was here, and right now she thought she was better off safe than sorry. So with this in mind she made a dash to her room where she quickly found her way to the closet and fished for a more familiar and lethal weapon. Her hand clutched on to the large butt of a revolver and in one fluid movement she knocked the hammer back and turned around aiming the gun, again at an empty room.
But all of a sudden a shadow moved in the corner of her eye and before she could stop it a dark arm came around her face and clamped around her neck. She struggled for a moment, in pure instinct trying to pry the armored arm off, but she remembered she had a gun. She aimed the best she could at the assailant's foot and fired, luckily it hits it target. The assailant released Alice instantly and stumbled backward giving her enough time to turn around and see who he really was.
Upon recognizing the intruder her eyes widened but then narrowed in a split second. She had recovered quickly from the attack to her neck, but her counterpart was sill gripping his foot on the floor, grunting with every breath.
"Well well well, look what the cat dragged in, or should I say bat." Alice hissed in a snarky but still authoritative tone.
Batman's eyes darted upward, away from his injured foot and to the women who was standing before him. He knew he recognized something in that voice and upon seeing her face he was now frozen in shock. He blinked unable to believe that Alice of all people was standing in front of him, his high school sweet heart holding him at gunpoint with a deadly look in her eye. He shook the unbelief from his head and accepted the fact that it was truly her and not some figment of his imagination.
"And here I was thinking we'd never meet, but I've got to say I'm quite honored I've landed on your radar Batsy." She said vivaciously, the Bat just stared at her in response not really knowing whether to believe his eyes.
As she stalked toward him and loudly pulled the hammer on her revolver she realized that this was the perfect chance to show her fellow criminals and all of Gotham that she and the Diamond gang were a forced to be reckoned with. If she killed Batman single handily she would have Gotham in the palm of her hand. She smiled at the thought and closed the space between them.
He started to stir, and his panting grunts got louder as Alice grew closer but somehow he mustered up enough strength to stand up and he was now towering over her.
She looked up at him daring him to step a little closer, he took the silent warning and made no effort to move.
"You're better than this, I know you are." The Bat spoke in a deep gravelly tone, "I can help you, you're not one of them."
Alice scoffed at the comment, "you don't know a thing about who I am." She hissed viciously.
"I know enough to know that this is not who you are Alice."
Hearing her name from the Bat got her attention, she made no intention to show it though, she was still in peacock mode, "Oh please spare yourself the breath Bats, this is exactly who I am. You see people like me, people who have been through hell and back, we know who we are, and this", Alice took one last step forward causing her gun to be pressed up against Batman's chest "is me."
"Then why haven't you killed me yet." He retorted quickly.
This seemed to take her off guard, he posed a valid question; what the hell was she waiting for? She quickly pondered the thought and didn't understand why she couldn't pull the trigger. Maybe it was the small string of humanity tugging at her chest or maybe it was the fact that Batman, of all people, would have only been the second person shes killed. Whatever it was she brushed it to the side deciding not to question her motives at this point.
Instead she spat out the first thing that came to mind, "I don't want to kill you, where's the fun in that?" after a brief second she realized she just spoke the words the Joker said to her when she asked the same question. She silently cursed herself and pushed more pressure on the trigger begging her finger to squeeze a little more and put a bullet straight into his heart. But Batman just grunted at the remark and all of a sudden he lunged forward knocking Alice into the bathroom while removing the gun from his chest.
As much as it pained him to see her fall on the hard tile with an audible thud, he continued to slam the door shut. He ran across the room despite his shot foot and leapt out the window, spreading his wings and gliding through the thick city air. His timing was perfect because after only four seconds a string of bullets pierced through the bathroom door in a sporadic manor. After six rounds the gun clicked and Alice made a grunt of annoyance making a note to herself to use a gun with a magazine next time, but she didn't hear anything else. "Did I really get him?" she questioned out loud and turned the door knob slowly.
Even though it was useless she held the gun outside the door first before she fully pushed it open, she had expected to find Batman dead on the floor but she was only greeted by the cool breeze from the open window. She put two and two together and marched over to the window peering over to see if he had made it far, and not to her surprise he did.
With a huff she slammed the window shut and marched out of her room vowing to clean up the shredded wood later. As she returned to her seat on the couch clearly unaffected by the event she couldn't help but wonder why he had just disappeared and why he didn't apprehend her. Maybe it was the fact that she had a gun on him but he had easily over powered people with guns before so what stopped him this time.
Alice decided that it was probably not best to dwell on it and just be thankful she made it out of there without harm and with her freedom intact so she picked up her Jack and coke, finished it in one gulp then turned her attention to the TV which was now playing her favorite show, The Loony Tunes.
A/N: Okay so whatdya think? I just want to point out that the men Alice is now living with are the men that helped raised her. These men were her fathers men so shes completely comfortable in living with them. Second note, how did you like good ole Batsy making an appearance? He didn't take her or beat her up because like classic Batman his priorities aren't straight, his old love for her and the belief that shes a good person seemed to cloud the fact the he was in a criminals bedroom. Thirdly I really wanted to point out that Alice was 'crazy' from the start, she just extremely repressed it after her parents death, the Joker only aided in her decent into madness, he is not the complete reason. Now that I clarified that, because I feel like I didn't in my writing, (idk that might just be me) Thank you for reading and feel free to review the make me smile more than the Joker ;) xoxo