Chapter Twenty-Eight
Time Lapse
.
.
.
Crystal woke in her own bed, the lavendar linen sheets soft and gentle against her skin. She blinked, surprised. How had she gotten to this point? She'd been leaning against the door to the apartment, keyless, unable to make it into the safe haven beckoning to her, and then... and then... and then what? What had happened? How had she gotten into the apartment, into her room? None of her sisters were strong enough to carry her.
It was him, the Good Child whispered, and the terror in her voice slammed into the blonde cabaret girl like a frigid tsunami.
For a moment, Crystal couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't think. She and the innocent, naive, frightened creature in the back of her psyche fused together, and she had to shove her fist into her mouth and sink her teeth into her own meat to keep from screaming. She wasn't supposed to be afraid, wasn't supposed to know what terror and fear meant. She sucked in air around her fist, the wind of it whistling through her teeth. She dragged in lungfuls of air, trying to smother the rising panic surging up inside her chest. She bit down harder, tasted blood, tried to drown her panic with the crimson sweetness of it. She tasted copperpanicfear and squeezed her eyes shut tightly against the hot terror swamping her heart. Immediately, as soon as her eyelids fluttered down and she no longer had to see what she was and where she was, the ice began creeping into her veins, and frost coated the inside of her mouth. She could taste the sharpness of frozen air in her nostrils, the stinging tang of it cutting her skin and it felt right, felt good. She was in control. She was ice cold, strong, frigid, unbreakable. She was ice.
She was ice.
Crystal Damundo opened her eyes and threw the covers off of her legs. She looked down, scanning herself, and saw that someone had put her in her favorite pair of pajamas - midnight violet silk tank top and black cropped yoga pants, stretchy and striped down the sides with pale lilac shimmer. Almost instantly, she felt better. Clothes made the woman, some people said. Her version of that old saying was that clothes made the killer.
The exhausted blonde was suddenly wide awake, and she was on her feet before she had time to register that she'd moved. Her heart thumped with effort, and she realized she'd been in bed longer than she had any right to expect. She touched her ribs, and beneath the thin silk of her camisole she felt the ridges of gauze bandages, the slickness of medical adhesive tape. She turned, scanning the room, to see if anyone remained in her bedroom. It was perhaps lucky that no one was there. Crystal felt oddly detached, as if things were happening around her but nothing could happen to her, as if she were invisible, intangible. She felt memories trying to push at her, but she blocked them out. They couldn't touch her, either, those memories. She was surrounded by a wall of glass.
She looked into her full length mirror, shivering as a blast of icy air touched her skin. The silvery glass showed her face, pale and washed out. Her cheeks were gaunt, her eyes sunken, midnight violet flames burning in corpse gray sockets. Her skin was just a touch more alive than the color of a dead body. Her bones, cheek bones and hip bones and wrist bones and collar bones, stuck out against the paper thinness of her flesh. Her lips were swollen and bruised, and for a moment something touched her mind -
a thousand savage kisses against her lips
she's screaming begging
red makeup smearing against her skin as she clutches at purple velvet
can't refuse can't deny need need need need
screaming a name as something slices through her pain like ice -
but she hastily shoved the flashback into the very deepest pits of her subconscious. She didn't want to think about what had happened after she'd returned from Salvatore Moroni's. Not right now. She didn't want to think about leather gloved hands and red smeared lips twisted by old knife scars and -
Stop it, stop it!
The Good Child cried, moaned, sobbed at her, thrusting tiny tenterhooks into her brain and dragging her back to the present. She wasn't going to think. Not right now. She needed to know what day it was, what time it was, what was going on. She had learned, from the Good Child, that the painted clown man with a God complex had, for some reason, carried her from the doorway into the apartment, into her room, and laid her on her bed. Had he done more?
Rose?
Crystal called to her sister hesitantly. She had the strangest feeling that Rose couldn't hear her. She didn't know why, but the warm, pale green glow that was Rose's mind was distant, far away, too far for Crystal to reach in her present state. It made the blonde feel strangely, achingly alone. She hugged herself, her hands biting into old bruises on her upper arms, but she refused to allow herself to wince. There were other recourses, she tried to reason with herself as panic threatened to rise up again. She had Danni, of course, and Sadie. Danni ought to be home, and Sadie... well, the Queen of Swords wasn't so far away that she couldn't reach the petite pixie with the sable silk hair with her ice-sharp mind.
Sadie? Danni? She waited for a moment, in silence. Domino? She tried Sadie's nickname, wondering if that would work better. Hello? Hello?!?!
Hmmm? The strange, sleepy stirring was all the blonde needed. She'd woken Danni up, true, but Danni was here. She was in the apartment, waiting for Crystal to wake up. Sadie was here, too. They were both here. Why Rose was not there, she had no idea, but she could tackle that problem later. At least the other two were there. Some of the tension in Crystal's body drained out of her at the thought of her sister and best friend. Things weren't as bad as... as bad as... as bad as they could always turn out to be. Things were okay. They were still okay. They would always be okay. Nothing would mess that up.
Crystal walked to the doorway of her room, opened the door with an ear-splitting creak from ill-oiled hinges, and stepped into the Great Room. Half-sitting, half-lying in the big, cushy arm chair across the room was Danni, who rubbed her eyes and blinked at her blearily for a moment before her eyes snapped open wide and she was on her feet, grinning, before Crystal had time to start thinking about trying to twitch her mouth into an answering smile. Danni had her arms around Crystal's neck before the blonde had time to say a hoarse, "Morning."
"Afternoon is more like it," Danni said, smiling. "You've been asleep for three days. Rose wanted to stay until you woke up, but we made her leave. Guess what?"
"Hmm?"
"Bruce asked Rose to go to Hong Kong with Mr. Fox, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Of course, Sadie made fun of her because of that one Thompson Nerd book, and Rose kept telling us that if her plane crashed, we knew we were supposed to go looking for her on a desert island, but she called us when she got there and I told her you were still asleep and... and I totally need to slow down, don't I?" Danni asked suddenly, and her smile turned sheepish. "I'm gonna give you a run down of the last three days, okay? Nothing major happened, but just so you're not lost, okay?"
"Okay," Crystal whispered, a sharp pain begininning its lancing path through the back of her skull.
She rubbed her temples and moved as if to sit on the couch, but her movements were arrested by the sight of the clown man stretched out on the couch, snoring softly. She blinked, and stared at him, suddenly hating him more than she'd ever hated anyone else in her life, even Moroni. She wanted to kill him. Her hands clenched into fists, knuckles popping in protest as the flesh around them mottled white and red. Her nails sliced into her palms, and she could feel sticky, warm wetness seeping between her fingers. She bit her swollen, painful bottom lip, and her teeth cut into the flesh like tissue paper, bringing blood. A vein in her forehead throbbed. She could see her pulse, a black throbbing shadow, in the corner of her right eye, as she fairly shook with rage. Her entire body shuddered with hate. Why? Why did she suddenly despise him, loath him, wish him deader than last month's carrion?
Because the moment she'd seen him lying on the couch - her couch, in her living room, in her apartment - she had felt safe, and an unexplainable tender, sweet feeling had surged up into her chest, warm and soft, and her mind had tried to automatically reach out to him like some needy psychic female in a paranormal romance novel. She bit her tongue, despising herself, and turned away to keep from making a mistake that might get her killed.
"Let's go in the other room," the blonde psychopath hissed between clenched teeth, and stalked off - albeit quietly - back into her bedroom. Danni came in right behind her and shut the door quietly, so as not to wake the sleeping criminal clown.
"Why is he still here?!" Crystal demanded, a whispered scream of fury and pain. Her eyes were suddenly burning wet, and something scalding dripped down her cheek. She flinched before she realized she was crying. Damn him. Damn him, damn him, damn him! She hated him! She hated him! If he died now, she'd scream and squeal for joy, jump up and down like a little girl, dance around like a crazy teenager, do the Monkey and the Electric Slide, laugh until she cried. She'd celebrate until she puked up her guts, she was so drunk from partying. That's what she would do if the Joker suddenly died of a heart attack right this very minute.
You're lying! The Good Child shrieked, and the blonde woman nearly jumped out of her skin.
Shut up, I'm not!
Liar! You're falling in love with him! You are! What is wrong with you? Are you sick or something?!
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME!!!!
Her violet eyes blazed as she pinned Dannielle with her stare. "So," she said, as if she were not at this very moment scant inches away from slitting her own wrists, just to drown out the Good Child. "What's been going on?"
Danni launched into an explanation of where Rose was, and how the Joker had gone with Danni back to the apartment because some sense of clairvoyancy had given the brunette sociopath an inkling that Crystal was in serious trouble. When the blue-eyed woman detailed how the clown man had lifted Crystal into his arms and carried her like a damsel in distress into the apartment and into her room, the blonde gave a convulsive jerk. Her heart was skipping beats in her chest, and she couldn't get enough air. Danni glanced at her, but decided it would only do more damage to bring attention to Crystal's current condition. Truth be told, she looked like hell. But the other woman wasn't going to say that. Asking Crystal if something was the matter was an almost sure way of getting eaten by psychic energy. So Danni went on about how the Joker had started to kick Crystal, and how Danni had attacked him, and somehow she'd ended up dazed on the floor, bleeding from a gash across her head.
"He... he beat me?" Crystal murmured, shocked. She didn't remember any of this. All she remembered were strong arms lifting her, and kisses, and silk wet with tears, and the feeling of being safe for the first time. "Why?"
"I wondered that, too, at first. I thought Rose must have been wrong, that we were all wrong, but then you... you started moving. I didn't think you would. I thought he'd kick you to death and then beat me or worse. I wasn't sure. I was pretty out of it from the head wound. I had a concussion, though I hadn't known that at the time. But you were moving. One minute you were on the floor, stock still, and the next you were like a tiger. You were up, on your feet, dodging, kicking, clawing. You got him pretty good."
The blonde woman blinked. Was that what he'd been trying to do? Goad her into fighting him? Torment her until she snapped and got to her feet, got into the fighting mood, and tried to kick his crazy clown ass? If that had been his goal, then it had worked. Did he really know her that well, that he could manipulate her that way? Danni continued to explain that after they'd basically kicked the crap out of each other for what seemed like a million years but had really been about half an hour, they'd been locked together, as if they were going to crush each other to death.
"Then he said, 'Let's dance.' And you kissed him."
Violet eyes wide, Crystal blinked and shuddered. She couldn't have said if it was from pleasure at the idea or revulsion. She had kissed the Joker? Willingly? What... how... why... what? What?! How? This was freaking impossible. She would never kiss that demented clown freak! No way! But... but Danielle had absolutely no reason to lie. None. She was Crystal's best friend. They'd known each other since early elementary school. Why would Danni lie now? About this, something so desperately important?
She realized Danni had been talking the whole time the blonde woman had been spazzing when the word "orgasm" punched through her preoccupation.
"What?"
"You had an orgasm."
Blink. Blink blink. Blink blink blink.
"What?"
"While you were guys were banging in the other room, you had a-"
"WHAT?!"
The golden haired vaudeville singer leapt to her feet, her knees protesting the suddenness with which they were forced to take her weight. She had been perhaps a hair's breadth away from settling down happily on the nice, cushy bed to get comfortable and enjoy listening to her best friend tell her about the time she had missed out on since being raped (again) by the sleezy Italian mob boss who called himself the Mafia head. But now... now! Now she was pacing rapidly across the floor, wearing holes in the lush, violet carpet, her hands clamped so tightly around her arms that her knuckles ached and her flesh felt like jelly beneath her fingertips. Her eyes stung, and she couldn't breathe. Her heart hurt, like a giant bee sting. Her mouth tingled and buzzed, and she tasted liquid pain.
Banged? Banged? BANGED!? As in, fucked? As in, slept with? As in, had sex with? Insert A into B here? Pornographic actions? The beast with two backs? The wild thing? IT?! As juvenile as it sounded, the only word she couldn't think of when it came to what Danni claimed had transpired was "sex." She couldn't possibly have had sex with Joker. It was just... no. There was absolutely no way. Why would he even do that? Why would she? She wouldn't, that's all. What was Danni talking about?
"Cryssie," Danni whispered, and the blonde woman found herself confronted by a pair of soft, blue eyes, gentle and full of compassion. Well, that was certainly a laugh. Danni was crazier than any of them. She couldn't feel what everyone else felt, only fake it. That's all she could do, was fake it. And Crystal wasn't suckered into it for a moment. Danni was just screwing with her mind. She didn't know why, but the brunette was no longer her ally, her friend, but her deadly enemy. The blue-eyed witch was going to die. "Cryssie, listen to me."
Listen to her, the Good Child demanded, and Crystal tasted the metalic tang of spinal steel, of freshly grown backbone. Listen to her. She's our friend. Our friend! She wouldn't hurt us.
Get bent and die, the blonde snarled. The Good Child moaned, and suddenly Crystal found herself on her knees on the ground, gasping for breath, sobbing silently, as a flood gate opened up and something intangible and razor sharp flooded her skull. She screamed in her mind, screamed until she thought her head would break, and the Good Child sobbed, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're not giving me a choice. I was trying to help! I was just trying to help!!
Flashes of sensation, hints of scent and sound and sight, and she was drowning in it as the full weight of memory plunged her into abyssal recolle-
Plunging in and out, ripping, filling, hating
Screaming as the world collapses, pinpoint of a single action
Knife of flesh stabbing
Wicked fire flooding her veins, melting all the ice she has ever hoarded in her body
blinding electric violet lightning flashing in her eyes
tsunami wave pounding against her bruises and pain as he cuts her
gasps and cries and he's inside her, in her, pushing into her
need it, need it, must, can't, have to, yes
screaming sweet red blood
so much blood in her mouth on her tongue
his name his name need it his name
Jack....
Jack. She shuddered, her entire body convulsing, and she fell in a heap to the floor, whimpering, as that name pulsed in her brain.
Jack. Jack. Jack. Jack.
"Crystal, can you hear me?" Danni whispered, touching her shoulder. "Crys?"
Jack....
.
.
.
.
.
So, two chapters in 1 day. You likey? I hope so. Things are gonna start picking up now. Next chapter involves the Gambol death scene. Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Reviews make my heart sing like a dying canary. =D So, reviews?
