Chapter Five
Downstairs, Taylor fixed herself a small breakfast since Austin had already eaten, and then helped him pack his things and make sure he had everything for his camping trip. He was going with two of his close friends from back home in Delaware, and they'd be gone for an extended weekend, camping in the mountains in West Virginia, leaving Taylor with the house all to herself. She hated being home alone when he was away, but she wasn't about to stop him from having a good time and enjoying himself with his friends. He deserved to get away for a while, to relax, and to not worry about her and her problems for once. He worked so hard, and she knew he was stressed. The boys hadn't been camping since their junior year of college, and she knew a get-together trip was long overdue.
It was almost five when Ryan's Jeep pulled in front of the opened garage, and still dark. Austin went out to greet him while Taylor retrieved his sleeping bag from the dryer and rolled it up to put with the rest of his things. When she stepped outside, Ryan was securing the canoe strapped on top of the Jeep.
"Hey, you!" he greeted warmly when she stepped off the porch. His large, boyish grin was just the same as she remembered it from college. "How've you been?"
"I've been hanging in there," she smiled. "It's really good to see you again." She hugged him and then stepped back to do a once over. He had hardly changed a bit. She'd known him almost for as long as she'd known Austin. He and Austin had been childhood friends growing up, only to attend the same university as adults and graduate at the same time. It'd been almost a year since she'd last seen Ryan though, specifically last July when he'd hosted a Fourth of July cookout at his home in Delaware.
"It's good to see you too. God, it's been years." He stepped closer and then ducked his head to meet her eyes. His voice lowered then, but the playfulness in his eyes never left. "You look thin," he said, "he's been feeding you, right?"
Taylor screeched when Austin came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, having not been expecting him. "You asshole," he said to Ryan. "Of course I have been," he grinned, planting a kiss on her neck. "She's my girl."
Ryan held up his hands in mock defense. "Hey, I'm just checking."
"Austin tells me you're expecting a little boy soon," she smiled.
Ryan couldn't help but grin at the mention of his son, his eyes taking on a whole new excitement. "Very soon. I couldn't be happier."
"Well, we're just as happy for you," she assured, placing a hand on Austin's arm that was still wrapped around her waist. "How does it feel to be an almost-father?"
Before Ryan could respond, Austin interrupted, let go, and began backing away. "Oookay, that's my cue to leave."
Ryan scoffed at his retreating from. "Really, man?"
Taylor rolled her eyes. "Kids still make him uncomfortable. He just doesn't know what to do with them. You should've seen him at the hospital a few months ago when a little boy came up to tell him that he looked like 'a black Clark Kent'."
Ryan laughed. "Austin's always been that way. Guess that's what you get when you're an only child."
Taylor folded her arms and leaned against the side of the jeep. "So when's Alice due again?"
"Two months."
"Nervous?"
"Scared as hell," he laughed. "But excited." He ran a hand through his hair. "I've been reading how-to baby books like nobody's business." He feigned a look of sheepishness then and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Oh and, don't say anything to Austin, but I think we're going to name the baby after him."
"No way!" Taylor beamed. "That's very sweet of you both."
"Well, what can I say, the guy's my best friend. It was Alice's idea though." He paused, and then gestured to the canoe. "Well, I gotta get this thing all strapped down, otherwise the cars behind us might be in for an unpleasant surprise. But hey, it really is good to see you again, Taylor." Ryan smiled, shaking his head. "You're lucky, you know. Austin talks about you all the time; he's head over heels for you."
Taylor smiled, warmth washing over her in waves. It was always nice to hear that from someone else, that Austin talked about her a lot. "I know."
As Ryan went back to securing the canoe to the Jeep, Taylor helped carry some of the bags out to the front porch. The only thing left was the cooler. Austin entered from the hallway just as she came back inside. He had his duffel back in one hand and his baseball cap in his other.
"All packed?" she asked.
"I had a little trouble, but I managed."
"Only because I set out your clothes for you the night before," she grinned as she went to the fridge.
Austin smiled. "Yes, you did," he said, "and you know I'd be absolutely hopeless without you."
"Maybe a little."
"Only a lot." The duffel bag slipped from his grip with ease and he closed the fridge before she could retrieve what she needed.
"Hey, I'm trying to pack your cooler here," she pouted, only half attempting to push him away when he wrapped his arms around her.
"I'm going to miss you so much," he whispered into the crook of her neck, trying to drink in her perfume, the faint scent of vanilla shampoo in her hair, the softness of her skin. "We haven't really been apart this long since that time you locked yourself in your dorm during finals. Remember?"
"Of course." She grinned at the memory. She had been so stressed with finals to the point of nearly throwing up, so she'd locked herself in her room for two weeks to study—and to panic—and refused to speak to Austin no matter how many times he called or slipped letters and pressed flower petals beneath her door.
"Do you remember how crazy you drove me? I just wanted to see you. I was so angry that I couldn't kiss you, couldn't hold your hand, couldn't hear your voice... "
"I was so nervous!" she cried in indignation. She held him closer. "I thought I was going to fail everything."
Austin pressed his lips to her forehead. "But you didn't."
She sighed, pressing her cheek against his chest and closing her eyes, enjoying the heady warmth of him. He rubbed circles into her back and for a while they stood there, embraced in each other's arms.
Ryan came in a few moments later, carting a giant blue cooler that he was wheeling towards the fridge. "Excuse me, coming through..."
"You have another one of those?" she asked. The cooler she had just packed seemed more than large enough. She laughed as he awkwardly tried to squeeze by them, and Austin reluctantly let Taylor go so they could create space for his friend to get through.
"You know you're a real dick sometimes, Ryan."
Ryan looked to Taylor and made a face. "Is he always so whiny?" he asked, earning a sharp jab in his side from Austin.
Taylor made the two of them coffee before they left while Ryan and Austin finished loading the coolers with ice.
When they finished, she helped them load everything in the Jeep, running through a mental checklist of things they might have forgotten to pack. Once everything was loaded and they were ready to pull out of the driveway, Taylor stood by the passenger door as Austin leaned towards her, one arm resting on top of the door.
"Baby, you sure you don't want to come?" He looked at her with a small smile, and she could tell he was worried about leaving her home alone for the long weekend.
Taylor shook her head, and leaned forward to kiss him. "Tell me the plan one more time, just to clarify?"
"We're driving to straight to Matt's house, and then by ten we should be on the road again towards West Virginia."
Taylor nodded. "Don't get eaten by any bears, okay?" She eyed both of them, and Ryan grinned cheekily.
"We'll try not to rile them up too much."
She smiled as he started the car. "Have a good time."
"Call me if anything happens, okay?" Austin leaned out the window to give her one last kiss, and she could see the anxiety in his eyes as he withdrew his hands from her face and pulled away. "Ryan will have his phone on him too," he assured her. "And you already have Matt's number."
Taylor smiled through watery eyes, already missing him. "I'll be fine. I love you." She smiled and waved goodbye as the Jeep backed out of the driveway. She watched Austin's face in the side-view mirror as they drove away. She didn't retreat back into the house until the Jeep had disappeared from sight.
She had only minutes to get ready for work, and in the end, didn't have time to prepare herself a lunch before she was rushing out the door. At the hospital, she clocked in and found the nightshift nurse she would be receiving report from—Maricel—and sat down to talk about her patients. Her eye kept drifting over the top of the counter to scan the area for Jason, but didn't realize until later, when she checked the schedule, that he'd once again switched shifts with someone so he could work at night. She wondered why he'd requested to switch so he could work nights for a second time, but didn't have time to dwell on the matter.
Her shift was steady, but not too hectic, and she was surprised by just how quickly the day passed. However, she couldn't help but feel like Dr. Bishop was watching her. She thought at first she was being paranoid, that she was only feeling this way because of the black SUV from last night, and how anxious it'd made her, but later, when she looked up and caught his eye from across the room, and he didn't look away, she knew he was watching her. It made the hairs on her arms stand on end. There was no way he could've known that the cipher—or whatever it was—was in her possession.
And to make matters, Bishop was angry; while normally so cool and collected, his expression always a mask of the utmost control, today he was near belligerent, and he'd already shouted at three different nurses, and one patient. Everyone was doing their best to stay out of his way, even other doctors.
She tried, in vain, to convince herself it wasn't because of the cipher. But she had a sinking suspicion that that was exactly what this was about. It left her stomach in angry knots.
She'd been so sure that that little slip of paper had meant nothing, that it was nothing but a doodle, something he'd simply neglected to throw in the trash. But suddenly it felt much bigger than that? What if he'd realized the second it'd gone missing, and now he was determined to get it back? Had she just put her entire career on the line for this?
God, what had they gotten themselves into? Jason shouldn't have taken it, she knew that now. She had to give it back to him.
When seven rolled around, she was eager to get home as soon as possible. Dr. Bishop had left only fifteen minutes prior—where she didn't know—but even without him there burning holes into her flesh with his eyes, she was desperate to get home and escape the confines of the hospital, whose walls felt like they were slowly closing in on her and threatened to suffocate her. She exited the hospital feeling tight as a steel wire, all pent-up nerves and frenetic energy, just waiting for that spark to ignite that would set off the forest fire.
She didn't like all of this waiting, this inactivity. It was burning her up not doing anything about what they'd found. She was going to call Jason when she got home. They had to take some kind of action, formulate a game plan, something.
In the parking garage, she took the elevator to the third floor where she'd parked, too tired to use the stairs. The doors opened to the reveal the dimly-lit garage, prompting Taylor to hold her bag just a little bit tighter as she always tended to do.
She was rounding one of the large stone pillars when she heard a familiar voice talking quietly in a low, angry tone.
Bishop.
She held back and pressed herself against the pillar so she wouldn't be seen, straining her ears.
"You tell the good doctor that his toxin isn't working. I've tried everything and now I'm running out of excuses. Andromeda is poised to take the fall for it, just as we discussed. Janus will be paying out of their ears for the lawsuits they're going to be slammed with, and the stock market is going to plummet just like you want it to. But after that I'm out of options, do you understand me? People are getting suspicious. This whole thing could end before it even begins, and I'd take the fall for it. That's not what we agreed to. Now, unless we are able to come to some sort of understanding, I'd be more than happy to make sure that Dr. Crane's privileges and certain amenities in Arkham are… suddenly very hard to come by, if you catch my drift. You be sure to relay all of that to him. And tell him he's got less than a week."
Taylor had to brace herself against the pillar to keep from collapsing right there. Dr. Crane. He was working for the Scarecrow. They'd been wrong about Remcon the whole time; that wasn't what was causing people to die, it was the fear toxin—or some defunct version of it. Andromeda was just a cover-up.
Her mind was reeling with this new information. She felt breathless and dizzy and terrified all at once. This was so much bigger than she or Jason ever could have imagined. And they were right in the middle of it.
She waited until she heard the engine start; he must have been sitting in his car with the window down. She stood stock still as she waited for him to back out of his parking spot. She realized suddenly that there was no way he was going to drive past her without seeing her.
She hurriedly moved out from behind the pillar and acted as if she had just come from the elevator, not even glancing in his direction as she calmly located her car and unlocked the door. His car had stilled, though, she could see out of the corner of her eye, and she knew he was watching her. She tried not to shake as she got in and closed the door, her heart pounding. Her hand shook as she inserted the key into the ignition.
Finally, he drove away.
She felt dazed as she drove home, barely even aware of what she was doing, of the other cars on the road, of her surroundings. Traffic lights. Stop signs. Pedestrians. It was all a blur. All she knew was that she had to tell Jason. She had to talk to him. She reached for her cell phone in her scrub pocket and found his number in her contacts list.
Her hands shook as she brought to the phone to her ear. "Come on Jase, pick up, pick up, pick up…."
It had started to rain now, forcing her to turn on her windshield wipers as the rubber squeaked against the windshield. The phone went to his voicemail. She took a deep breath as she waited for the beep.
"Jason, you're not going to believe what I just heard. We were wrong about Remcon. It's not causing any of the side effects. Jonathan Crane—the Scarecrow—is injecting the fear toxin in patients in the hospital and he's using Bishop to do it. Andromeda is taking the fall for everything. I just heard Bishop say it himself, and something—something about the stock market and Janus Cosmetics. But he said the toxin isn't working. I think Crane is going to send a revised formula or something. Fuck, I don't know what to do, Jase, please, please call me back."
After she hung up, she called him again, and again, and two more times after that. Each time she got his voicemail, something plain, succinct, a "leave your name and number and I'll call you back as soon as I can" kind of deal. She wondered if he had a landline, or if he was even home.
What the hell is going on here?
She'd only been a baby when the fear toxin had first spread through the Narrows, not even old enough to walk, but the aftermath of such an event could not be erased from those who had been afflicted. A part of the city had been broken that day, brought to its knees in a symphony of terror. Gotham's own horror story, the type that would pervade many hushed whispers for years to come. Yes, she'd been familiarized with the Scarecrow from an early age, but she also knew that the doctor had been locked up in Arkham for years. How then, had Dr. Bishop gotten in contact with him? And why? Why would Bishop put his entire career on the line for this? What could he possibly have to gain from it? Notoriety? Fame?
She parked the car in the garage and dumped her bag just inside the door, immediately went to pacing the bit of floor that split the tiles in the kitchen from the living room carpet, not knowing what to do, feeling like her heart was seconds away from bursting free of her chest and flopping wildly around on the carpet like a fish out of water. She wished desperately he'd call back. Every minute not taken in action felt like a waste. Bishop working for Scarecrow meant that something big hung on the edge of the horizon, something that would affect the whole city, and not just the small interior of the hospital, as she had once believed.
If he wasn't going to answer, then she would have to go to him. He'd given her his address shortly after they'd first met, when he'd invited her and Austin to join him for dinner one evening that in the end hadn't worked out due to an emergency at Austin's work. She'd saved his address to her phone, though, which she put on speaker and laid atop the dresser as she dialed his number once again and waited. She changed out of her scrubs as she did, throwing on the items nearest her, a pair of jean shorts and a white t-shirt. Her sneakers next, which she laced with trembling fingers.
Voicemail again. She ended the call and dialed him again. She'd lost track of how many times she'd called him. It didn't matter. She had to keep trying.
She remember the cipher, then, right on the third empty ring, tucked away in the pocket of the scrubs she'd worn only days ago. She retrieved them from the hamper and located the correct pocket, reaching inside, unfolding the paper and staring once again at those strange symbols, as if somehow they would suddenly mean something to her, that she'd have some sort of breakthrough and everything would make sense. Maybe what she was missing was the key to unlock the symbols and—
Suddenly, darkness enveloped her, the overhead light going black. The only source of her light the white brightness from her cell phone. For one heart stopping moment, she was frozen in terror.
She realized then, after finding her breath—which escaped in a trembling shudder, her lungs collapsing, and filling out, and collapsing again, like blowing into a brown paper bag—that the power had gone out. The sound of the rain outside suddenly seemed amplified. It slapped heavily against the windows and roof, unforgiving, cruel. Nothing in Gotham was nice, not even the rain.
Voicemail again. That was Jason's friendly, carefree voice for the millionth time, instructing her to leave a message—and then it was gone, and she watched the screen begin to fade as the phone shut off. Dead battery.
"Fuck," she cursed.
Now it was pitch black. She found herself wishing that dumb streetlamp was working, the way it had shone in her window for months, so pervasive, somehow always finding ways to slide between the cracks in the curtains despite her best efforts to block it out.
She tucked the cipher into her back pocket and grabbed her phone, slowly felt her way down the stairs. She rummaged in the dark through the junk drawer in the kitchen for the spare charger they kept there, but it wasn't there.
She carefully navigated to the garage next. If she could turn on the generator herself, and find a charger, she'd be able to get the address for Jason's house and drive straight there.
The thought occurred to her that maybe he wasn't home, that he was out with friends, that maybe his phone was dead. But she had to try.
The garage door creaked as it opened, and she was accosted by a blast of hot, muggy air. The rain was even louder here, pelting the metal garage door relentlessly, while lightning flashed through the square windows at the top—silent—briefly illuminating the shiny hood of the parked car.
I should have brought a flashlight, she thought, momentarily forgetting that Austin had taken the only two they had on his camping trip. She briefly wondered if it was raining as hard there as it was here.
Blindly, she felt around for the buttons on the generator, her hands skimming the top and sides until at last she found the switch she needed. She flipped it and held her breath, looking into the living room through the opened garage door to see if the lights had come back on.
They hadn't.
"You have got to be kidding me," she muttered. She could taste the rising panic as it crept up her throat, threatened to claw its way out.
Somehow it seemed even darker than it was before, and she couldn't help but let fear take hold; she'd hated the dark for as long as she could remember. It'd always brought along so many uncertainties, especially if you were in unfamiliar territory. It was a bit like walking up the steps in an unfamiliar house in the dark, thinking that there was one more step to climb than there actually was. That sickening feeling that entered your gut when your foot came swiftly back down and, for a moment, met nothing but air. For Taylor, the darkness felt just like that.
In the kitchen, she made sure to avoid the sharp corners of the counter as she opened one of the drawers by the stove and felt around for a box of matches. She took them to the living room and, after fumbling with the matches, managed to light the candle that she kept on the shelf next to the TV. She set it on the glass coffee table and turned to look outside. The rain was driving and relentless, filling her eardrums to the point where she could hear little else.
She noticed something then, out of the corner of her eye when she had been about to turn away, a light, from across the street. She moved closer to the window and narrowed her eyes. It was the neighbor's porch light, on the other side of the cul-de-sac. She could just barely see it through the thick foliage of trees, but it was there, the yellow, blurry light shining through sheets of rain.
Was I the only one on the street to lose power?
Suddenly, the candle behind her shuddered violently, and she turned her head to watch the shadows on the wall next to her distorting themselves into strange shapes and silhouettes.
Then, without warning, the candle quivered one last time, dousing itself.
Lightning flashed outside, follow by the low, prolonged growl of thunder. She hardly dared breathe.
Something—or someone—was there in the room with her. She could feel it.
Hot breath suddenly wafted near her ear, making her jolt in surprise, as if she had just been struck by electricity.
"Surprise."
Her scream, loud and terrified, echoed through the house. She heard the man laugh, and when she turned to run, to get away, her body collided into something solid and hard, and the terrifying realization struck her that there were at least two men now, not just one.
"I think she's afraid of the dark," the one behind her said. The man in front of her, however, grabbed her forearms with a vice and pulled her to him, her hands trapped between her chest and his. She felt his fingers and nails digging into her arms like claws and she cried out, panic racing through her every vein.
"Who are you?" she heard herself cry in a voice that was not her own. "Let me go!"
The man holding her was huge, she realized, with her chest pressed against his hulking build, she could feel him, feel the muscles in his chest pulsing in his excitement, and she thought she could make out his forearms in the dark, the size of barrels.
Neither of them answered her, but she heard the sound of a gun being cocked, resonating in her ears. She shouted, bringing her knee up and catching the man in front of her right between the legs. He grunted and doubled over, catching himself on the coffee table, and Taylor didn't let the moment go to waste.
She ran.
With the other man still behind her and blocking the front door, she took off towards the hallway instead, racing up the carpeted stairs, tripping over her own legs because of how hard they shook. Gasping, she scrambled in the dark to push herself up and finish the flight of stairs.
Behind her, she heard one of the men laughing—it was the other man with the gun—and her veins turned to ice when she heard his footsteps coming down the hall to reach her.
In the bedroom, she slammed the door shut and turned the lock with trembling hands, breathing hard as she put distance between her and the door in case they tried to shoot it. Her mind raced for ideas of what to do. She could hardly hear herself think above the pounding of her heart that thudded in her ear drums, and her stomach nothing but a hollow put, her intestines twisted in tight knots
With no weapon to defend herself with, her cell phone dead—and downstairs, out of reach—and the door not going to hold for long, she had never felt such terror in her life. She swallowed thickly and pushed a lock of hair out of her face, her eyes darting around the pitch-black room. She needed to hide—fast.
When the heavy footsteps started up the stairs, she had no more time to think, and she darted behind the dressing screen on the far side of the room, across from the window. She attempted to slow her breathing and the panic that was coursing through her veins, but her heart was still thudding uncontrollably in her chest and refused to stop. Once they were clear of the door, she'd run to it and make her way downstairs and to the front door. She could figure out the rest from there. She just had to get out of the house.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She crouched down and pulled her knees to her chest when she could no longer stand, letting out a shuddering breath as she listened for sounds outside the door.
It was silent for all of five seconds before the door burst open with a bang that nearly made her heart leap out of her throat. The door sounded as if it had come unhinged.
"You wanna play hide and seek?" It was the man with the gun. "Well then ready or not," she could hear him grinning, "here I come."
Holding her breath was the hardest part, because all she wanted to do was scream and cry out and release her bottled panic, but she didn't dare, her body as rigid as a board.
The two minutes that passed then were perhaps the longest of her life. She strained her ear to listen for him, but she could hear nothing, nothing but the rain and her own frantic heartbeat, which she feared would give her away.
She realized he was waiting for her.
Unable to hold her breath any longer, she dropped her head in between her knees and let out a quiet, slow breath, unable to hold it in any longer. The rain continued to pelt the windows and the roof, though it was softer now, and the trees outside the window creaked as they were tousled by the wind; still, she did not hear the man moving.
Flashes of lightning lit up the room at intervals, and she could only image that his eyes were darting across the room at every available chance as he searched for her form.
Slowly, she lifted her head from her knees and held her breath once more, listening.
She considered running for the door, but what if he shot her? There was no way to outrun a bullet. It was better not to try. She resolved to remain in her spot, hidden by the shadows, and for once feeling grateful for the darkness. Today, it was her ally, even though she knew it couldn't last much longer. Eventually he was going to run out of places to look, if that was what he was doing. She still didn't know where he was, couldn't hear him.
A sheet of lightning tore across the sky, flashing brilliantly, startling her, and was followed by a sharp crackle of thunder that reverberated throughout the room.
Taylor let out a slow and shaky breath, trying to keep as quiet as possible and finding it increasingly difficult to hold her breath for even a moment longer.
Where is he?!
Suddenly, a hand encircled her upper arm. She screamed.
"Found you," he said, yanking her to her feet.
With more strength than she thought she possessed, she spun sideways, twisting out of his grip, and kicked him in the groin, knocking the man to the ground. It was the second time she had done that, and was clearly working in her favor. She felt a brief moment of victory when he fell to the carpet on his back, but it was short lived when he cursed and heard him reach for his gun. She raced past him, crashing down the stairs. She wondered where the bigger man was, the one whose arms were as big as barrels, but all she could think about now was getting to the front door.
To her despair, she never made it.
She was halfway down the stairs when a hard shove from behind sent her sprawling towards the hardwood floor. She landed on her back with a strangled gasp, the wind knocked out of her.
Her mouth opened, and for several terrifying seconds, she couldn't breathe, like some fish out of water. She rolled onto her side and curled in on herself, wheezing for breath that wouldn't come.
Seconds later, her hands were being wrenched above her head.
"Where do you think you're going?" The man who had pushed her down the stairs laughed. "We're not done with you yet."
She was too busy fighting for breath to put up any resistance as he dragged her body along the hardwood floor towards the kitchen, like she was a child's rag doll.
Eventually her breath returned, and with it a sense of clarity. He roughly let go of her, where she fell back against the kitchen floor, breathing hard, gasping for air. "Stupid fucking cunt. Should've just kept your nose out of other people's business." He kicked her, hard, in the ribs, knocking her onto her side. She gasped in pain and curled in on herself instinctively.
"What do you want from me?" she cried. "Why are you here?"
Suddenly, the lights came on, momentarily blinding her in their intensity. She shielded her eyes with her hand. The refrigerator next to her gurgled as it kicked on, and the house seemed to hum as it came back to life.
She looked up then, and with the overhead light shining harsh and bright overhead, she could finally see the two men clearly for the first time.
The younger one, the one with the gun, was tall, muscular, and had dishwasher blond hair, shaved in a military cut close to his head. His face was thin yet defined, punctuated by sharp cheekbones and cold, angry eyes. He had a gun holster around his waist, and wore black gloves and combat boots that laced up to mid calve. She was horrified to discover there was a Swastika symbol branded on his cheek, about the size of a quarter.
Her eyes turned towards the bigger man next, who'd just entered to stand next to his friend. He was taller, larger, and from the size of his arms, much stronger. She guessed that was why he only had a knife strapped to one of his large thighs, and no gun. He probably didn't need it. There was a long scar that slanted across his face, starting at his hairline and running diagonally across the space between his eyes, all the way down to his jaw. It looked deep, painful. He had a black mustache and beard, cropped close, and wore a permanent, angry scowl he fixed on her and her alone.
"What do you want with me?" she asked again, all the fear and desperation in her voice plain to hear. "Is it because of Bishop? Is it because of what I know?"
"You sure catch on quick, don't you?" the Nazi smirked, though it was devoid of any mirth. She watched as his eyes trailed to the fridge, where there was a photo of her and Austin on their wedding day. Austin was holding his new bride in his arms, looking like the luckiest man in the world with Taylor's arms wrapped around his neck, and she had her head thrown back in laughter from something he'd just said. She remembered how happy she'd felt in that moment, how safe—worlds away from how she felt now.
"Where's the big man, hm?" he pondered, turning his attention back towards her. He gave her a cold onceover. "I bet he's out fucking some other bitch right this minute."
Taylor managed to prop herself onto her elbows, breathing hard. "Maybe some whore like your girlfriend?" she spat, the words hardly registering in her mind before they came tumbling out.
Nazi didn't like that. He snarled as he reached forward, grabbing her by her shirt and hauling her off the floor, like she weighed nothing, like it was the easiest thing in the world for him. He lifted her up and slammed her against the nearest wall, where the back of her skull cracked against it, making red stars burst in front of her eyes.
"You have quite the mouth on you, uh? Maybe I should wash that out for you."
Taylor was too weak to lift her head, but she peered up at him from beneath her brows, saw he was looking towards the kitchen sink. She knew there was a bottle of bleach sitting there, just next to the windowsill. Her heart jumped into her throat in a way it hadn't yet before.
He wouldn't….
The deep, sudden rumble from the giant made her blood turn to ice. "Shoot her," he said. It was the first time he'd spoken, the words seeming to come from some deep cavern in that big chest. He was there right beside her now, tearing her away from the Nazi, wrapping an arm around her middle and forcing her back against his chest. With his other hand he grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked her head back—making her cry out and pain—and giving his friend an open shot. "I want to see the blood gush from the holes in her throat."
The Nazi smirked and feigned an apologetic look at Taylor, as if he were sorry for the graphic words from his friend.
"He's a little… bloodthirsty." She watched him reach for his gun, watched him take a step back, spreading his legs, finding a good stance. He aimed it carefully at her face, looking at her through one eye, the other squeezed shut as he picked his mark. Right between the eyes. Heard him slide back the rack. She opened her mouth to speak, but her head was throbbing where the back of her skull had hit the wall, and her tongue felt like lead, weighed down by all her fear. No sound would emerge. She didn't dare move, didn't dare give him a reason to blow his brains out. "You've made a big mistake."
"And you—you're about to make a bigger one," she blurted, finding her voice at last.
A moment. A pause. The Nazi smirked. "You think so, do you?"
No, she didn't think so, but what else did she have to go on? All she could do was imagine the sight of her blood splattered against the wall, all the ways it might splatter, the stains it'd leave on the carpet, the way the bullet would feel as it penetrated her skull. She wondered if she'd feel pain, or if death would kind to her, instantaneous, if her brain would even have time to register what had occurred. She forced herself to shove the images away. Swallowed down whatever metallic taste had pooled in her mouth. "If you kill me—you'll lose something that you want, something that only I have."
The two men exchanged glances. They both looked at her. The gun was lowered. Taylor's breath came out in a loaded exhale, a small modicum of relief washing over her, however short-lived it turned out to be.
"What the fuck are you going on about? Nazi asked.
"I have the paper Dr. Bishop is looking for. The cipher," she said.
She was running only on basic instinct alone. She didn't know if it was a cipher—it could have been something else entirely—or if they had no clue what she was even talking about. Maybe they really were here just to kill her… but she had to bargain if she could. Whatever that paper was that was currently tucked safely within her back pocket, it might be the only thing keeping her alive.
She could tell from the look on the Nazi's face that she was right, that she'd struck some kind of nerve. She saw the way his eyes flickered, and felt the giant's grip on her hair loosen.
"Where is it?" the gunman demanded.
Slowly, with a trembling hand, she pointed to her head. "Here."
It was a lie, of course, but a necessary one to ensure her survival.
In the silence that followed, she squirmed uncomfortably, searching his face, waiting with bated breath for his reply.
"You fucking bitch," he said at last. "Your poker face is not as good as you think. What did you do with it?" he snarled.
"I destroyed it," she said, even as her voice shook. "When I saw it I didn't know what it was and I was scared so I—I burned it."
He studied her, his piercing eyes searing her flesh, and gave a sharp nod of his head to the giant holding her, who let go of her with a shove and moved into the adjacent living room, tearing it to shreds. Her heart was thudding like a drum as she listened to him pulling open the drawers of the coffee table, overturn the cushions, the couch, ransack the cabinets that housed the TV, looking for something he would never find.
She was forced to tear her eyes away when the gunman stepped in front of her, leaned in close, shoving the barrel of his gun against column of her throat, beneath her chin, a constant reminder that she could be blown to pieces at any second, back to thinking about the trajectory of her blood splatters once again, what Austin think when he saw her lifeless body on the floor. She choked on a sob, squeezing her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry, not to give in to fear.
"I have half a mind to just kill you right here," he whispered, and she knew he wasn't bluffing, could only imagine the myriad of people he'd killed in his short life. She would be nothing more than another notch on his bloody bedpost.
She couldn't bring herself to speak, her whole body trembling all over. She wanted nothing more than to pass out and slip into the sweet oblivion of nothingness, to wake up and have all of this be a horrible dream.
"You better find that fucking paper," he bellowed over his shoulder. "I think she's lying." He turned back towards her, lowering his voice. "In fact I know you're lying. I can see it in your eyes."
She swallowed, felt the cold barrel of the gun shift against her throat when she did. "How long have you been following me?" she whispered.
The Nazi smiled, teeth gleaming. "Longer than you'd like to know."
"And Austin?" her voice cracked. "Have you been following him, too?" She had to know. What if he was in danger?
"Just you."
She closed her eyes. She should have felt relieved, but how did she know that he wasn't lying? That after they were done with her, they'd find and kill him too, just to tie up any loose ends?
"Ace," the giant interrupted. "I think she's telling the truth."
Ace looked at her, his eyes carefully mapping every flicker of emotion passing over her face. "Not for a second," he snarled. "I'm in charge here. Keep fucking searching!." He turned back towards her, shoving the barrel hard against her throat, his finger on the trigger this time. "Tell me where you've hidden it."
Taylor did sob then, squeezing her eyes shut as tears spilled out like and overflowing fountain. The reality of the situation was finally too much to bear, crushing her with its weight. She would die here, at the hands of these men.
"LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU," he roared. This time, the gun was removed, and he was grabbing her by the throat with both hands, throttling her. He lowered his voice, bringing his mouth to her ear as she gasped for air. "You tell me right now or you'll wish you were dead, you hear me? You'll beg for a bullet."
With the minimal movement she could afford, she shook her head. She had to hold out. That paper was the only thing keeping her alive. If they found it, she'd be dead before she had the chance to blink. They had no reason to spare her life otherwise—why should they?
"Are you listening to me?" he shouted. Her feet were no longer touching the floor. "TELL ME!"
He was choking her, fuzzed out black spots flashing in her peripheral, her eyes wide, pulse surging wildly, those hands around her throat, bruising, crushing. She felt her hands scrabbling for his, trying to peel his fingers from her throat, but her extremities were going numb, her struggle beginning to lessen. Her face red, then purple, the color of broken, bruised skin, the city sky after a storm. Her lungs shuddering inside her like the wings of some great, giant bird.
He flung her to the floor then, bringing her down with him in one violent motion. Her back crashed hard against the tile, and she cried out at the same time she gasped for oxygen, breathless with pain, dizzy with panic.
I don't want to die. I don't want to die.
"Are you going to tell me where it is now?" she heard him panting above her, fueld by all his anger, all his exertion, felt his hands on her arms, felt him crawl over her, straddle her waist, holding her down, pinning her to the floor. "Maybe somewhere in a safe, hm?"
"I don't have a safe," she gasped, still fighting for air. "I don't. You can check."
"Then where is it?" He shoved her head against the tile floor, hard, making her see stars. "I'm not here to play twenty questions with you. FUCKING TELL ME."
"I told you I don't have it!" she sobbed. "It's gone."
His face twisted into a scowl, and suddenly his fist was coming down hard on her face, an excruciating pain unparalleled to anything she'd ever felt.
Her consciousness seemed to drift away after that, like it hung suspended in the air somewhere up above her, tantalizingly out of reach. She felt her head loll to the side, out of her control, and then felt light all the sudden, weightless, when the pressure of the hands on her arm and the thighs clenched around her waist were gone. The sound of footsteps then, even as she faded in and out, in and out, in… and out.
"I checked everywhere. It's not here." Louder footsteps now. "And what the fuck have you done." Her death had been meant to look like an accident, now it looked like she had been beaten to a pulp. "You idiot."
Ace pressed his lips together, jaw tight, and looked down. He hadn't meant to do such a number on her, to knock her out cold. His stomach coiled in disgust. Jesus Christ, he had really fucked up this time. Maybe she really had destroyed the document.
"Fuck." He stood, wiped the spittle from his mouth with the back of his arm, breathing hard.
"What the fuck are we gonna do now?"
Ace looked down at Taylor's limp frame as she drifted in and out of consciousness, eyelids struggling until they weren't. He shucked his gloves off with his teeth. "Get the chloroform."
Red orange and hot yellow sparks climbed high into the night sky, tangling in the darkness. The campfire crackled and embers glowed. Austin, resting on the ground a few feet away from the warmth of the fire with his back propped against a log, watched it intently. A tin plate of barely-touched food lay next to him.
Ryan and Matt's plates were empty, and the two of them had already gone back for seconds. They both sat now on the other side of the fire, each in their own fold-out chairs, enjoying the silence as they ate.
"You not hungry, man?" Ryan asked, looking across the fire to where his friend was.
Austin shrugged his shoulders, letting out a sigh that was barely audible above the symphony of crickets and frogs. "Not really."
"Well, you better eat up if you want to tackle that trail tomorrow. It'll be brutal."
Austin glanced down at his plate with faraway eyes. It was a while before he spoke. "Gonna see if I can find some reception in this damn place," he muttered. He hadn't meant to sound so irritated, but his friends either chose to ignore it or simply didn't notice. He got up with a grunt, dirt and small rocks shifting beneath his boots as he went to find a grassy spot near the trees, away from the light of the fire, where Matt and Ryan's voices would be nothing more than a distant murmur.
Matt paused and rested his fork against his plate. "Hey man," he called after Austin, "look, if you aren't going to finish that…" he gestured with his fork towards Austin's plate.
"Help yourself," Austin called over his shoulder, only half listening. He found a stump nestled in the grass near the tree line and sat on it, pulling his cell phone out of his back pocket. He squinted his eyes at the brightness from the screen and then dialed the number to Taylor's cell, listening to the dial tone with impatience.
He couldn't remember if she worked today, but he just needed to hear her voice. She hadn't called all day, and he was starting to feel worried. Maybe it was pathetic, the way he was acting, but they'd never been apart like this, not when they were both so far away from one another, and it was something he wasn't used to. He needed to protect her, but how could he, when he was hundreds of miles away? And who would hold her and tell her everything was alright when she woke up in the middle of the night from her nightmares?
He tried reminding himself he'd only be gone for a couple of days.
It didn't really help.
When she didn't answer, he dialed the house phone instead, receiving nothing but his own voice on the answering machine. He left a message for her.
"Hey baby, it's me. I guess you're at work, but I just wanted to say that I miss you… God, I do miss you." He let himself laugh a bit, running a hand down the side of his face where he felt the onset of stubble coming in. "We're having a great time out here. Weather's perfect. After we set up camp we hiked to this waterfall nearby… you would have loved it. I want to take you here sometime," he added as an afterthought, leaning forward to rest his elbow on his knee. "Just you and me, get away from Gotham for a bit." He swallowed. "Anyways, I know you're busy. Just call me as soon as you get the chance, okay? I love you."
He hung up and lifted his head toward the sky, studying the intricate map of glittering stars that were scattered above him. Taylor would be fine without him; in fact, she had probably gone to bed early after a long day at work. Or maybe she was spending the evening at her dad's place. He resolved to enjoy his weekend away and stop worrying. She would be fine. She would be perfectly fine.
It started slowly at first, the measured, yet gathering sensation of pain. It seemed to blossom and spread the more cognizant she became—flames licking trees in a forest fire—until it was bursting behind her eyelids in an electric surge, and Taylor woke with a gasp.
Her head was pounding, tender and sore, a million times worse than any headache or hangover could ever hope to achieve. Her mouth opened in shock—to cry out, to shout—yet no sound would come, her breath trapped somewhere within the column of her throat. Black dots chased the line of her vision as her lashes struggled to open fully. For a moment, everything was distorted, shapes blurred beyond recognition, her eyes unable to focus on any one single object.
A sob clawed its way past her throat at last and she choked on it, tears gathering behind her eyes.
Where am I?
She reached up with a trembling hand, tenderly fingering her neck, bruised and swollen. It hurt too much to even swallow. Her cheek—throbbing from the punch that'd knocked her out—lay pressed against smooth, cool leather.
She realized she was lying in the back seat of a car.
She jolted upright then, dizzy, half-blind, her head stuffed with cotton, even then she could barely hold herself up. She searched her surroundings with frantic eyes, willing for her vision to clear so she could get a grasp on where she was. The car was parked and empty save for her, that much she knew. The keys were not in the ignition.
Outside, it was raining hard, slapping against the roof and windows of the car in a heavy, autonomous drone. The sky was gunmetal gray; it was early morning.
How long was I asleep?
When she heard the sound of voices outside the car, her breath seized in her throat and she looked around with a new surge of adrenaline, her eyes moving a mile a second. She couldn't see anything past the blur of rain and the fogged windows. The car was freezing, though, which meant the air conditioning had to of been on only moments ago. Where was the driver? And where was she?
She swallowed down the whimper that had built in her throat and turned in her seat—her head spinning—trying to locate some kind of landmark or building that would give her a clue as to where she was. However, in every direction she looked, she could see only a blur of green. Trees.
Where are there trees in Gotham like this?
Even the parks weren't this thick with foliage, there wasn't woods in Gotham, not in the city.
Taylor felt her heart quicken as panic overwhelmed her every rational thought. Just breathe, she told herself. Breathe. Breathe, you'll be okay.
But everything wasn't going to be okay, especially when a distorted, frowning mask painted in colors of red, black, and blue appeared in the window as a blur through the heavy rain. She screamed, scrambling to the other side of the car.
Suddenly, the door behind her opened. Strong arms wrapped themselves around her rib cage, eliciting a gasp of surprise as she was torn from the car.
She scraped her bare legs on the gravel drive as she was dragged out. Rain fell hard and cold against her skin, plastering her hair to her face.
She cried out above the onslaught of rain, even as the man behind her ripped her arms behind her back and trapped them there.
"Let me go!" she screamed.
Not knowing was the worst part, not knowing where she was, where they were taking her, what they planned to do. Not knowing who "they" even were. Men who worked for Bishop? For Scarecrow?
Three more men appeared in front of her. Taylor looked up at them through the onslaught of rain and her eyes widened in fear.
They were wearing clown masks. All of them.
She gasped, trying to propel herself backwards, trying to rip her hands free from the grip that held them behind her, but the man was strong, and would not budge no matter how hard she tried.
"Please, please, don't do this," she cried, not knowing what else she could say to make them listen.
God, what were they going to do to her? Were they going to threaten her? Torture her until she cracked and gave them what they wanted?
She should of let those two men kill her like they'd wanted, a quick, easy death. Bullet to the head.
You'll wish you were dead, you hear me? You'll beg for a bullet. It was startling how right he had been.
She had to escape. When one of the men moved forward to pull her along, she kicked him in the groin as hard as she could. He cursed and went down on his knees. Taylor jabbed her elbow into the clown holding her from behind, her elbow meeting his gut, and was able to rip herself free.
She bolted.
She had no idea where she was, or where she was going, but she knew if she could just get out of sight she might be okay. There were hundreds of places to hide in the woods.
The only thing stopping her was the massive, black iron gate that loomed up ahead.
She heard the footsteps behind her, the shouts, boots crunching against the gravel drive, but she didn't stop running.
It didn't take long to reach the gate, but up close it much larger than she could have realized; it had to be over twelve feet tall. When she pushed against it to open it, her hands slipping against the cold, metal bars—she felt her heart stop point blank when the gate didn't even budge. Locked.
No!
She swallowed and tasted panic. She felt rather than heard herself scream, the way her throat felt as if it were tearing itself open, bled raw, her scream somehow sounding faraway, distant.
She wrapped her palms around the slick, wet bars and grunted as she hoisted herself up onto the first horizontal bar, about three feet off the ground. A lightning bolt struck in the distance at that same moment, and thunder roared afterwards. Gooseflesh prickled over her skin, and she climbed faster, higher, her legs trembling with a mixture of fear and jumped-up adrenaline.
She was pulling herself up to the next bar when hands were suddenly clawing at her shirt, her legs, trying to pull her back. She cried out and gripped the bars tighter, but it was difficult to find a solid grip when they were so slippery, and she was already beginning to lose her footing. Her wrists ached and every muscle in her arm was pulled taught as she held on for her life, her heart pounding against her chest.
NO, NO, NO. She had to escape, she had to get away.
She screamed when she felt fingernail's digging into the flesh of her back in their attempt to pull her down, and it was enough to make her lose her footing.
And then it was over.
She felt a different pair of arms wrapping around her legs, and that was all it took for her hands to slip and for the two of them to come crashing to the ground below.
She hit the ground on her side, and the pain she felt afterwards was numbing. She cradled her arm to her chest and for a moment simply lay there, unable to move. She felt the cool rain plastering her hair to her face, pelting her all over. The man beside her shifted in the gravel and brushed the rocks off his pants as he stood. He was silent as his hand clamped down on the back of her neck, roughly pulling her to her feet.
She wanted to fight him, wanted to give the gate another go, or perhaps run until she found where it ended—but when she tried to twist away from his grip, pain shot up her left forearm. She gasped as he pulled her closer, and her legs were so weak that she nearly collapsed against him, and he ended up supporting most of her weight. She cradled her left arm against her middle, hoping it hadn't been broken in the fall.
"Where are you taking me?" she cried, shouting to be heard above the rain.
The man gripped her upper arm, and when she glanced up at him, she could tell he was grimacing behind his mask.
"You're a lucky girl," he told her, his voice muffled from the mask. "You're going to meet the boss."
Any reply Taylor would have voiced died in her throat when she looked up and noticed, for the first, the building that loomed ahead of her.
It was old, to be sure, but boasting of an exterior that had once been stunning. Even now it was striking, even despite the years of rain and erosion that had washed much of its previous splendor away.
It looked like it had once been a small inn or hotel—or perhaps maybe just a mansion belonging to a rich family—but plain to see that the place hadn't been in use for years. Windows were either broken or boarded over, and the brick on the outside was faded in some places, crumbling in others. The clown dragged her closer, and Taylor noticed the stray bullet shells that littered the ground around the door, heard them shink across the gravel as they were kicked aside.
Between the scuffle at the gate and the walk towards the mansion, the rain had lessened to a drizzle. With a breathless wave of panic, she realized suddenly how quiet it was. She hadn't noticed it before—too caught up in the adrenaline and the shouting and the rain—but now the silence was unnerving. She could hear no cars, no shouting, no police sirens or ambulances. Even at her home in the suburbs—which was just outside the outskirts of the inner city—she could still hear the sounds of the city.
She knew then she was very, very far from home.
The grip around her upper arm tightened and she felt the barrel of a gun pressed against her back, at the junction between her shoulder blades. She flinched away from it only to have it follow her movements as they came to a stop directly outside the doors.
"Does he know we're here?" One of the men asked from behind her.
"Not yet," another one answered.
Taylor hung her head so her chin nearly touched her chest, not having the energy to look up. She listened carefully to the voices conversing around her, trying to obtain as much information as possible. She cradled her injured arm against her abdomen while the man beside her kept a firm grip on her other arm; he was the only thing keeping her from collapsing.
"Fuck, you told him we were bringing her, didn't you?"
"I told the guys. Didn't they tell him?"
"Fucking hell. He's going to be pissed."
"Well, I sure as hell ain't going to break the news to him."
"Where the fuck is Ace? He's the one who should tell boss."
"Who knows. You can never find the stupid fucker when you need 'im."
Taylor heard the door open and lifted her head to see another masked man in a clown mask stepping out. When he saw her, he seemed to pause for a moment.
"What the fuck have you done?" he sounded almost breathless when he said it. Taylor frowned.
"It was fuckin' Ace!" one of the clowns said.
The new masked stared at her. She could feel his eyes on her from behind his mask, burning holes into her. She squirmed under his gaze.
"I'll tell him," he said resolutely, turning away from Taylor at last. He didn't wait for anyone to interject as he went towards the door and pulled it open.
"What about the girl?" the man holding Taylor said, thrusting her forward as if she were merely a doll. "What the fuck are we supposed to do with her?"
The clown who stood in the threshold of the door stared at her for a moment, contemplating, and Taylor felt an odd sense of dread wash through her, wishing she could see behind his mask, wondering what his expression would reveal.
"Put her upstairs," he said.
Then he went inside.
When he was gone, the gun in her back suddenly shoved her forward with such force that she had to catch herself on the door with her uninjured arm.
"Feel that? You run off again and I'll shoot you."
It took a moment for Taylor to gather her voice, and when she did her vocal cords quivered pathetically. "I'm no good to you dead," she said over her shoulder.
The clown cocked his head from behind her and took a step closer, grabbing her injured arm, wrenching it behind her back. She cried out.
"I didn't say I would kill you. I said I would shoot you."
Suddenly there was bag over her head, her vision going dark.
That was when full-on panic set in. Her whole body kicked into overdrive, every muscle pulling painfully taut.
"Please, please don't," she begged. No one listened. She was manhandled inside where the stifling heat and stench of rotting wood and damp carpet nearly suffocated her.
She was dragged towards a set of stairs, her panic kicking up a notch, a match, striking against her insides, lighting fire to fear. She was hyperventilating before she could stop herself, shaking so hard she could no longer stand. She felt her legs give out beneath her, but the man gripping her hauled her up, forced her back to her feet.
"Come on, get up!" he barked. "Don't want to be late," he said. "You're the main fucking event."
It was so like him to stand up and be the hero.
He shook his head as he climbed the stairs to the top floor. Un-fucking-believable. He might as well have picked out his coffin, volunteering himself like that… not that he'd be given such amenities if the Joker killed him. The bodies dumped in the creek and buried in the backyard told him that much.
Owen removed his clown mask and ran a hand through his sweat-slicked hair. He hated wearing that damn thing. It made your face sweat, it was hard to breathe in, and on top of that, he couldn't see a fucking thing.
The climb towards the top floor was unusually silent—usually that meant that boss was in a bad mood; everyone knew to keep quiet if that was the case. You didn't mess with the boss when he was angry, not unless you were feeling suicidal.
Someone had to tell him the news though. Someone had to tell him that, instead of getting the document he'd wanted, they'd brought back a girl.
Yeah, boss was going to be pissed.
At the top of the stairs, he stopped. Boss had been occupying a room on the top floor, and it was unspoken rule that it was off limits. The exact purpose of the room was up for debate—nobody really had gotten a good look at it since boss had set up shop in it—but if the stench emanating from beneath the door was any indicator, there was something rotting in there.
Or rather, someone.
As he approached, he began to hear a loud, rhythmic thumping, like something was repeatedly hitting the floor.
Owen swallowed and peeled back his shirt from where it stuck to his chest. It was soaked from the rain, but he was already hot as hell and sweat was beading down his neck. At the end of the hall, the sun was shining through the large window there, having finally navigated itself out of the maze of heavy rainclouds.
He cleared his throat before knocking.
The thumping stopped.
Then it was silent.
He swallowed and waited for a few moments, the hairs on his arm standing on end. Sweat trickled, sliding between his shoulder blades.
Footsteps approached the door.
Owen's heart felt like a hammer against his ribcage. He shouldn't have been this afraid of another man; no one should be this afraid of another man.
He saw the doorknob turn tantalizingly slow. He stilled himself as the door opened a crack, revealing little of the figure inside. The room was dark, the only source of light a swinging lightbulb that hung from the ceiling.
"What."
He was not in a good mood.
Owen cleared his throat. "Boss?" Man up, you stupid fucker. "There's been—"
"Come in," boss suddenly said, opening the door wide as the stench of rotting flesh hit his nostrils like a blast of air.
As the door opened fully, the source of the rancid smell suddenly became apparent.
It was a dead body.
More specifically, it was Rodney.
Stupid kid had it coming, was the only proper thought Owen could process. Kid had a big mouth and an even bigger ego, and it had only been a matter of time before the Joker gutted him. Literally.
He was lying in the center of the room on his back, spread-eagled across the floor with his wrists tied above his head and his legs tied and spread in a similar fashion. If the state of his body was any indication, he'd been dead for some time now.
Even so, Owen swore he could still hear his screams ricocheting off the walls.
Surrounding the body was a dark pool of dried blood, accompanied by the remains of his intestines, which hung out of his abdomen like link sausages. Owen took a step back instinctively, felt the back of his boot nudge something that rolled slightly. He craned his neck behind him and saw it was Rodney's liver.
The rest of his organs lay strewn about the floor—carefully excised—in a similar fashion.
It was the most grotesque and hypnotizing thing he'd ever seen. For a moment, he couldn't look away.
"Beauty, isn't it?" The Joker's thick, nasal drawl pierced through the stink, and Owen was ashamed to admit that the hairs on his arms stood on end when the Joker's breath ghosted across the shell of his ear. He was so close, standing directly behind him, towering over him despite the fact that Owen himself was quite tall. The Joker leaned even closer, he felt that purple jacket brushing against his back. Owen swore that gasoline ran through the man's veins instead of blood, suddenly it was all he could taste.
"There's something aboooout…" the Joker moved to his other ear, "blood that really gets me going. Makes me feel artisti-c. The body is a canvas and all that, don't ya think?"
"Yeah," Owen agreed, swallowing hard.
"Yeaaah," the Joker mimicked, sounding thoughtful. He walked around Owen to stand next to the body—Owen exhaling a small breath in relief—and looked down at the body in thought, cocking his head.
Suddenly, he was a blur of motion. Owen caught site of the bloodied ax only a second before it flashed through the air, gleaming. The sickening crunch it made as it sliced through Rodney's skull was deafening. Owen didn't even have time to step back before blood was flying, splattering his clothes, his face.
He looked down at himself, at the blood that speckled his bare arms, splashed across his clothes, felt a drop of blood slide seductively down his cheek, following the line of his jaw and neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt.
The Joker giggled, twirling the ax in his gloved hands like it was a baton. "Mmm." The ax came to rest on the floor next to his feet with a thud, and he used it to support his weight as he crossed his legs at the ankles. His gaze took its time wandering up Owen's frame until he finally met his eyes. "You were saying?"
Owen swallowed again. Best to get straight to the point.
"Something happened to the document you wanted." It sounded more like a question when he said it, as if he were toeing the water before deciding to fully submerge. "It was destroyed."
"But?"
"But we brought you the nurse—"
"You brought him here?"
"Yeah. Ace's idea," he added. He didn't mind throwing that fucker under the bus one bit. He rubbed the back of his neck. "And actually…" he hesitated, "…it's a 'she'."
The Joker's brows rose in surprise, but he made no comment. Instead, he worked his mouth in that way he tended to do when he was angry or thinking, and slung the bloodied ax over his shoulder. Owen watched the blood that'd gathered on the tip of the blade—drip, drip, drip—as it slid to the floor.
"We-ll then," he said, "let's be sure to give our guest a warm welcome."