Chapter 29
Sorry for the long wait guys! I'm just been busy recently. Enjoy the chapter! :3
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There was the sound of shouting and muttering in the area surrounding Layla. Her eyes opened to a squint. She saw flashes of white and unfamiliar faces. Everything was disoriented and vague. The back of her head ached and throbbed angrily. Her stomach gave a lurch, and suddenly she was bathing in her own vomit.
"Crane... where's... Cra... Scarecrow...?"
There was a cushion against the back of Layla's head. She lifted up her neck, but someone pushed her back down.
Something stung a vein in her wrist - the prick of a needle, perhaps? - and it was dark once again.
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"Miss Baker, do you know where you are?"
Layla looked around. She had expected herself to wake up attached to a chair, subject to Crane's cruel experiments. He probably had something special for her in mind. He'd probably use his strongest batch of toxin to destroy the monster he had mentored.
But this place was most certainly not Crane's anti-asylum.
"A hospital," said Layla. Her voice sounded off to her, laced with anxiety and insecurity. "Am I in a mental hospital...?"
A middle-aged man with dark hair and kind brown eyes, dressed quite professionally, offered her a smile. "No, this is a regular hospital, but I am a psychiatrist. My name is Doctor Wilson."
"It's nice to meet you," said Layla cautiously. She was sitting in a hospital bed, draped in a mint green gown. There was a plastic band attached to her wrist that was labeled with her name, the number 2475869 and the words Gotham General. "How did I get here?"
Wilson examined her for a moment, the kind smile on his face unwavering. Although she had just met him, his expression gave Layla a sense of ease. "What's the last thing you remember, Miss Baker?"
"Layla, just call me Layla."
"All right, Layla. What's the last thing you remember?"
Layla thought back, gouging through her memory. Although it was a bit fuzzy, she could recall what had happened. "Doctor Crane. He was chasing me. He attacked me and hit my head against the side of a boiler and then-"
"And then the police were called. Someone outside the warehouse heard the commotion and contacted them."
"What happened to Crane?"
Wilson frowned. "He got away, but the police are pursuing him."
Layla felt as though something were suddenly gripping her intestines in a vise, twisting them in knots. "He's not finished with me, Doctor."
"What do you mean?"
"He's not finished with me."
"Do you mean to say... you're afraid he's going to come after you?"
"He will come after me."
Doctor Wilson's frown remained on his face. Layla was right, of course. But nevertheless, he offered words of comfort. "You're under the protection of the police now, Layla. And you're in this hospital. Crane isn't exactly just going to walk in."
"You don't know him like I do," said Layla darkly. "He'll find a way."
There was an awful minute of silence following Layla's bitter reply, before Doctor Wilson cleared his throat and remarked, "I've put you on 150 milligrams of Seroquel."
Layla raised an eyebrow. "An anti-psychotic?"
"To combat any possible side effects of Crane's toxin... You were under its influence for quite a while, before he finally gave you the antidote."
"Crane gave me the antidote?"
"If he hadn't, I doubt we'd be having this conversation right now," said Wilson seriously.
Layla was confused. Crane had been given the opportunity to literally frighten her to death, and he'd saved her. Was it because he simply wanted more time to screw around with her mind? Or did it mean something else entirely...?
"Now, Layla, someone else besides myself wants to meet with you. Are you familiar with Jim Gordon?"
"Lieutenant Gordon? Yeah, Bruce has mentioned him a few times..." Layla paused, pondering Bruce's whereabouts. Shouldn't he have been the first to visit her? "Where is Bruce, anyway?"
"Unfortunately, Mr. Wayne is away on business at the moment, but he assured us that he would come to see you as soon as possible," said a voice from the door. Jim Gordon's voice. Layla glanced over Doctor Wilson's shoulder, and noticed him entering the room.
"Hello," said Layla with unintentional rudeness. That same vise-like feeling from earlier was now in the pit of her stomach again, squeezing her intestines dry. Gordon wanting to meet with her couldn't be for any good reason.
"Hello, Miss Baker, I need to speak with you," Gordon greeted. "Doctor Wilson, do you mind stepping out?"
"Of course. I'll get Layla's medication while you're talking," he stated before exiting the room. As soon as he was gone, Gordon took a seat on the edge of Layla's bed.
"How are you feeling, Miss Baker?"
"Better," replied Layla. She suddenly remembered the damage that Crane had inflicted upon her skull, and reached her fingertips up to brush against the wound. Instead of blood, there were stitches now.
"That was quite a nasty cut. Twenty stitches," Gordon commented.
Layla wasn't exactly in the mood for small talk. "What do you need to talk to me about, Lieutenant?" she questioned.
Gordon sighed. He obviously wasn't looking forward to whatever he was about to say. "You're a suspect in the search for Red Riding Hood, Miss Baker."
The tightness in Layla's stomach became more prominent. She looked at Gordon irritably. "I'm aware. My psychiatrist at Arkham informed me."
"Doctor Kozol," said Gordon with a nod. "Do you know that he's dead?" he added with an air of suspicion.
"I know, it was Doctor Crane who killed him," replied Layla, a bit too quickly.
"Miss Baker," said Gordon carefully, looking as though he didn't believe her, "if you do have anything to do with Red Riding Hood, a confession will certainly help you. If not, and it's discovered that you were associated with her in any way at all... well, you could be put on trial for murder."
Murder. The word alone caused a chill to go up Layla's spine. She had murdered three people, and aided in the killing of several others. "Murder?" she asked, a knot in her throat.
"Yes," said Gordon simply.
Layla's eyes suddenly filled with tears, blurring her vision. As hard as she tried, she could not hold them back; they spilled over onto her cheeks. "I didn't mean for it to get this bad," she whispered. Lie. Lie. Lie. That's all she was truly useful for - being a manipulative liar. She had intended from the start for it to get this bad, if not worse. It was fear alone that had caused her plans to fall apart halfway through.
Gordon looked Layla directly in the eyes. He had on a stern yet sympathetic expression. "Are you Red Riding Hood, Miss Baker?" he asked seriously.
"Yes," Layla admitted, "but... but, it was Crane. He made me. He made me kill those people." She paused to wipe her face. "He made this monster."
"He forced you to murder?"
"Yes," sobbed Layla, "he held me hostage, tortured me with his toxin. He told me he would kill me if I didn't."
"You put on quite a mask, Miss Baker..." said Gordon slowly.
"I-I'm not a bad person," Layla continued frantically. "You don't understand how afraid I was."
Gordon sighed again. He seemed to be at least taking what she was telling him into consideration - he seemed to have some sort of compassion. Layla almost felt bad that it was all for a lie that she was inventing. Almost.
"You'll need to tell your lawyer all of this when you're brought into court. If the judge is feeling sympathetic, it's likely you could be ordered a shorter sentence," Gordon explained, in an attempt to comfort Layla, who was trembling and crying on the bed.
"Are you sure?"
"Well, I can't make any promises," said Gordon cautiously.
"You don't know what he's like," said Layla, looking at Gordon with wide eyes. "He got inside my head."
"I understand," said Gordon simply, heading toward the door. "I'll speak to you tomorrow though, Miss Baker. Get some rest for now."
Layla wished Gordon a good night, and sighed in some sort of twisted relief when he was gone. If all of this court bullshit carried through before she had a chance to get herself out of it, at least there was the possibility that her sentence would be reduced. Or perhaps she would be sent back to Arkham, where she was confident in her abilities to manipulate the system.
After all, she was the only one who really knew the truth about this whole situation.
Well, her and Crane...
...
Shit.
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