Thank you to the best, most fantastic and frabjous reviewers on the planet.
There was no more room for retreat. The table was to her back, and any attempt to break to the right or left would lead to a merry three second chase that could only end with the Scarecrow knocking her to the ground and killing her. If she was going to die--and she was nearly positive she was--then she would die facing her murderer. She hadn't managed to put on much of a brave face thus far, but she could at least go out with some dignity.
Danielle felt her heart accelerate wildly, as though it was in violent denial about its impending cessation. Her palms were slick with sweat and she wanted to blot them on her jeans. Fear that any sudden movement, even drying her hands, might lead the Scarecrow to strike kept her still. When death was so clear on the horizon, every second was precious. Time mattered as it never had before.
"How much did your little phone call give away?"
That voice was as cold as Siberian winter and as venomous as a box jellyfish. It seemed to have the power to steal the words of whomever it was directed at, rendering that unlucky soul mute. Danielle couldn't form the sentences she wanted to and her inability to give answers gave the Scarecrow a reason to grow angrier.
With strength Danielle still found surprising despite the past displays, the Scarecrow seized her shoulders. His fingers dug into her like claws. Ignoring the pain that flared in his badly bitten hand, Scarecrow shook Danielle. Her head snapped back and forth and what little the Tylenol had managed to accomplish was nullified.
"Now, I'm going to assume you called 911, because that's what any sensible person would do. How much did you tell the operator?"
What should she do? Should she lie, tell him the police knew more than enough to bust him? If the Scarecrow thought his hideout was going to be swarmed with every officer in Gotham in the next five minutes, how would he react? Would he just kill his victims, burn the place down, and make a swift exit? Maybe he'd burn the place down without killing them first. Or, most likely, he'd catch her in a lie and make her bleed.
"Not much," Danielle finally admitted.
"Specifics. Give me the actual conversation."
"I told her I was being held by the Scarecrow in an apartment building. That's it. Your crazy friend tackled me before I could say anything else."
The Scarecrow was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Really, the only way she could have given a vaguer description of her prison would be to simply call it somewhere. The Narrows was full of poorly built and maintained drab apartment buildings that looked like refugees from the poverty of Soviet Russia. The police—if they even bothered to come looking on such a useless tip—would waste vast amounts of time waking very cranky, often-armed people up in the middle of the night. Barring the cops stumbling across them by sheer dumb luck—as though the GCPD ever relied on anything else, the bumbling blue idiots—Scarecrow was sure they were safe.
He'd dodged a bullet, though the round had come close enough to singe his hairs. Scarecrow had felt a fleeting moment of panic when Schiff presented the cell phone. If the schizophrenic had been just a little slower, all of Scarecrow's fun might have been ruined. For causing so much trouble, the woman had to pay.
Rather, her maddening, loud-mouthed friend had to pay by proxy. In all the ruckus, Joe had been forgotten. Now he was remembered.
Scarecrow released his vice-like grip on Danielle's shoulders. Doubtlessly, he'd held her tight enough to leave bruises. She winced and looked up at him with uncertainty.
"Go back to your seat. If your foot so much as twitches without my permission, I'm going to nail you in place," the Scarecrow warned.
Scurrying like a frightened woodland creature, Danielle hurried to her seat. She sat as still and straight as possible, considering the pain and stiffness in her lower back. Pressing up against the edge of the table was not exactly therapeutic for an already aching back.
"There is one small matter we still need to take care of: your blatant escape attempt. I can't ignore the fact that you came within a hair's breadth of forcing me back onto the street. The repercussions will be severe, as I'm sure you can imagine."
Danielle swallowed compulsively. Considering she had expected to be brutally murdered, yes, she had been anticipating some awful consequences. Since the Scarecrow wasn't revoking her right to life, not at the moment, she could only imagine what sick and agonizing punishment he'd devise for her misbehavior.
"I could do any number of excruciatingly nasty things to you. Exploiting your hematophobia would be a real treat, though one I've been able to indulge in before. I'm positive your reaction to a few cuts here and there would be deeply satisfying."
If just being tossed a bloody shirt had been enough to make her faint like a damsel in the days before strong female role models, then Danielle shuddered to think what seeing her own blood would do to her. Why did she have to wear her phobias like a giant neon sign? Why couldn't she have been stronger, like Joe? He had been the one actually bleeding and he'd taken it much better.
"I certainly could paint the room crimson, but I have some good news for you. I won't. I won't lay one finger on you."
That was too good to be true. Danielle had always been too smart to fall for Internet scams, and she was too smart to believe the Scarecrow wouldn't hurt her. Besides, there were more loopholes in his statement than in the average law passed by Congress. He didn't have to touch her with his hands to cause her pain. He could stand at the other end of the room and chuck scalpels at her.
"There's a catch. There's got to be one," Danielle said.
"Of course there is. If you don't suffer the consequences, someone else has to take your place. I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to drag Thomas back in here to; so I believe that leaves only one person."
"Joe," Danielle whispered in horror.
"I am going to lay bare his darkest, deepest fears and you will get to watch the complete and utter destruction of a man. It will literally be a once in a lifetime opportunity for both of you. Try to stay conscious," the Scarecrow said.
Danielle's eyes followed the Scarecrow as he left her and moved to stand directly in front of the bound cabbie. She was afraid of what she would see. Joe was her pillar, her support, her protector. Though she'd only known him for a few hours, he had grown from an anonymous cab driver to the most heroic person she'd ever met. For seemingly no reason, he'd thrown his body in front of the proverbial bullet. Seeing him quivering, as helpless as she was, would break her heart.
The Scarecrow performed a quick visual diagnosis to gage just how deep the fear toxin had dragged Joe. The results were promising. The cabbie's eyes were tightly closed and sweat beaded his forehead and cheeks; Scarecrow wondered how badly the salt stung the twin gashes that marked Joe's face and barely withheld his sadistic laughter. Joe's lips moved silently but nearly constantly. It was impossible to ascertain what he was mouthing: a desperate mantra, a plea, a prayer? His breathing had also become more erratic, though not the great, sobbing gasps Scarecrow could wring from people. All in good time, he supposed.
"If you were a dog, you'd be put down for biting like that. I don't think you deserve anything as painless as euthanasia, though. You won't get the peace of oblivion until I am finished with you and I have hardly begun to work," the Scarecrow said.
At the sound of the Scarecrow's voice, directed solely at him, the tempo of Joe's heart sped up a little. That wasn't good. If mere words could trigger a response, what would the actual torture do to him?
"How do you like the stronger dose? What long-dead memories did it reanimate? What are you seeing inside your head?" the Scarecrow asked.
Joe was silent and his lips were now still. He might have been able to produce a coherent answer if he'd wanted to, but the chances were iffy. His mind was hardly his own and monsters roamed freely across the landscape of his neurons.
"So you still have control of verbal response? I suppose that means you won't be screaming just yet. Not without a little motivation, at least."
Scarecrow was only too eager to provide that motivation. Though Crane wasn't exactly going to be canonized anytime soon, Scarecrow came up with plots and schemes that made even the doctor uncomfortable. Some of those schemes were impractical to implement—where would one find a hive of giant Japanese hornets in Gotham?—but all of them were grotesque and horrifying. If Joe could have looked into the Scarecrow's mind and seen what the psychopath had planned for him, he might have screamed.
Because Joe lacked telepathy, he could only wait for the Scarecrow to get down to business. He didn't have to wait long. The Scarecrow knew that sometimes it was best to let the victim stew in his own fear for a while. Other situations called for swift action. Nearly having his thumb chewed off fit snuggly in the latter category.
The first order of business was to avenge the biting incident. The woman might have nearly ruined his plans, but the cabbie had spilled his blood. Scarecrow took that personally.
Since the days of Hammurabi, taking an eye for an eye was seen as an acceptable way to mete out justice. Most Americans preferred a trial by jury judicial system, but Scarecrow, who had more firsthand experience with lawyers and judges and police than he would have liked, had a soft spot for the older codes. He thrived on the idea of revenge: revenge against the people who had made Crane's childhood an endless nightmare, revenge on the snooping assistant DA, revenge on the Batman. And now revenge against Joe.
Obviously, the Scarecrow wasn't going to exact revenge by biting Joe. He had far sharper instruments than teeth at his disposal. His trusty scalpel was just the tool for the job.
The Scarecrow retrieved the sleek silver blade from the table. Though a scalpel didn't carry quite the ominous effect of the carving knives preferred by one of Crane's former patients, it fit perfectly in the doctor's hand. His hands were quick and nimble, and the scalpel—a delicate and precise tool—accentuated these features.
"Do you know how many teeth a human adult has?" the Scarecrow asked.
If Joe did know, he wasn't sharing with the rest of the class. Scarecrow decided silence implied ignorance and continued.
"32 teeth. Thanks to you, I have a physical reminder. It would only be fair to return the favor."
With the speed of a striking serpent, the Scarecrow's hand darted out and snagged Joe's wrist. Judging by the violent way the cabbie jerked away, it did appear as though he'd felt venomous fangs pierce him. The Scarecrow maintained his grip and Joe struggled harder.
The inhuman hand was back and it was incalculably worse. The fingers firmly wrapped around his wrist were worse than skittering spider legs or rat paws. They were worse than the endless parade of feet millipedes and centipedes sported. They were worse than any animal or human appendage Joe had ever seen in his entire life.
"I would recommend remaining still for this procedure. It involves sharp implements," the Scarecrow said.
Joe's breath caught in his throat. Left entirely to his own devices, with nobody threatening him and no unnatural hands touching him, he'd been in a constant state of fear and tension. Words alone goaded his heart to speed up. What would pain do to him?
"That's better. I really would hate to miss and accidentally cut something vital." That was a blatant lie. Scarecrow would have thoroughly enjoyed nicking a vein and watching the results.
The cabbie's hand was trembling in his unforgiving grip. Grinning at the prospect of adding to Joe's misery, Scarecrow set to pay back the bite.
The scalpel slipped easily into the meat of Joe's hand. Blood welled up around the stainless steel and pain radiated like heat from the cut. Joe's hand instinctively curled into a fist as a man under assault will instinctively make himself smaller and protect his vulnerable guts by assuming the fetal position.
Like a sewing machine needle, the scalpel rhythmically exited and stabbed into the cabbie. By the fourth jab, blood had begun to drip from Joe's hand, staining his pants. By the eighth, Joe's pants had become so dappled with red they looked tie-dyed. At the halfway point, the sixteenth jab, Joe was resisting the urge to beg for clemency. By the twenty-fourth, he was quickly losing the battle to maintain his dignity and his silence.
"Scream if you'd like. I encourage it. Though pain and fear produce entirely different sounds, I enjoy both," Scarecrow said.
Joe would help Kim Jong Il take over the world before he'd make the Scarecrow happy. He grit his teeth and endured best he could. Like all things, both good and bad, the torture eventually had to end.
Finally, the blade left his skin and did not return. He'd been bitten by the scalpel 32 times exactly. His hand shook uncontrollably and blood dripped steadily from it like rain off a leaf. Though none of the cuts had been particularly deep or even agonizing on their own, the cumulative effect made Joe feel like his entire hand was on fire.
There was a part of Scarecrow, ever so small but still present, that admired Joe. The cabbie was one stubborn, sardonic, ill-tempered bastard, but he had cojones. A lesser man would have been crying like a lost child if his hand had been stabbed nearly three dozen times.
The part that wanted to see Joe reduced to a howling, pleading mess was far more dominant, however. This was the part of Scarecrow that placed the scalpel, blade slick and wet with blood, on the table and then went back to inflict more torment.
"Most impressive. Though I hate to give you any praise at all, I am continually surprised by your endurance. You are one resilient specimen. I have no doubt you'll come to regret it later when you're too stubborn to pass out or die decently, but know that I find you fascinating."
Having spoken all the nice words he was physically capable of, the Scarecrow moved on to the second round of punishment. The bite had been squared away. The woman's escape attempt had not. The retribution for that act would be much more severe.
I know the next chapter will take at least a week because I'm going to Boston for three days and school is shaping up to be a bitch for the days I'm home.
A box jellyfish sting can kill a human in three minutes.
Kim Jong Il is the leader of North Korea, in case anyone isn't familiar.
