Burn

by HoistTheColours

It was a pleasure to burn.

5. Blaze ll

Blaze - Part ll

Fire licks me, blazing and alive.

—Nika Turbina

Christmas Eve.

Taylor buys lights for her bedroom—a multicolored strand of red and blue and green and gold—that she drapes over the two windows the head of her bed is butted against. She turns off all the other lights and sits with her back to the headboard, lets the pinkish red glow bathe the sketchpad balanced on the flat of her thighs, which are drawn up to her chest. Her colored pencils are scattered on the sheets next to her. Christmas break has been nice so far. Mr. J hasn't been home much, which disappoints her, but she's kept busy without him. She's already finished all the homework that was due to be completed during break, and she spends most of her time puttering around the house or watching TV or drawing. She snoops through some of Mr. J's things when he isn't home, careful not to disrupt his workspace, but everything is so messy she doesn't think he'll notice anyway. She sifts through old newspapers, some with chunks of text or even entire pages ripped out. She wonders what he's done with them. And the map of Gotham he'd pinned to the wall behind the desk. She leans closer, wonders what all the pushpins mean, and why there's one directly on top of her school.

At some point, she digs out an old boom box from the closet in Mr. J's room, and if she positions the antenna just right she can pick up a crackly AM station, some orchestra playing Christmas music. It's old, cathedral-style music—very 'Hallowed be Thy Name'—and she leaves it on the kitchen counter and listens to it from her bedroom while she sketches.

It's a little lonely, being by herself on Christmas Eve, but she's used to being alone on Christmas, or just not celebrating it at all. Most of her foster families were too poor to make sure everyone got gifts, most families fostering five or six kids at a time, where the priority then became food and making sure everyone had a place to sleep. She spent one winter curled up in a sleeping bag on the concrete floor in the basement, tucked next to the boiler, with three or four other kids around her age. Huddling for warmth. She was relocated after two months to a new family, only to discover shortly after that the house had burnt down. She wonders if the fire had started in the basement, if the boiler had caught fire, if there were any kids down there. If anybody had died. She doesn't like to think about it.

She's been busy cleaning the house, too. Mr. J doesn't clean, after all, and someone has to. She finds leftover cleaning supplies from the previous occupant in a box beneath the kitchen sink. She wipes down the inside of the oven and the top of the stove, cleans out the interiors of the fridge, spritzes all the counters with multi-purpose cleaning spray. Mops the floors. She Windexes the mirror in the bathroom and cleans the toilet, and then on hands and knees vigorously scrubs the bathtub. It's a little less brown by the time she's done, and she's proud of her work, even if Mr. J won't notice.

She sighs when she's done, shrugging out of the yellow rubber gloves she had found. She wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her forearm, still crouched in front of the bathtub. When she goes to stand, she nearly jumps out of her skin, startled by the presence in front of her. She gasps and takes a step back, tripping over the lip of the bathtub and falling backwards into it, landing flat on her ass with her legs dangling over the side.

He laughs at her.

"Mr. J," she breathes. Her heart slams furiously against her ribcage. He's dressed in full attire. His greasepaint looks old, and it bleeds over his face, settling into all the crevices of his skin. "You scared me."

"Sorry, sweet pea." He's still smiling, his tongue prodding at the inside of his cheek, like he's amused at having scared the shit out of her. But his eyes are unusually dark, staring at her with an intensity that is unwarranted given the situation. He almost looks lost for a moment, like he's remembering something.

She chuckles a little, mostly to displace the strange tension. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough."

She goes to pull herself out of the bathtub, but he reaches forward instead, grabbing her with both hands, fisting the straps of her overalls and pulling her to her feet. She flushes when she's standing in front of him. His bare knuckles graze her t-shirt.

"I—I cleaned the house," she tells him, mostly just for something to say. Maybe a little bit for his approval, too.

"Did you?"

She nods, biting down on her lip. "It took me all day."

"Aren't you a good girl," he coos, and she flushes, pleased with herself, tinged with warmth from his praise. He still hasn't let go yet, and she watches the way his eyes flutter down, to her parted mouth.

She breathes out, a little nervous, and extracts herself from his hold, already missing the contact.

"I didn't think you'd be home so early," she says. She has to flatten herself against the wall to squeeze past him, and he makes no effort to give her more room. She thinks she catches a momentary flick of annoyance in the way his jaw goes taut, the way his mouth works for a second, but then he's following her out of the bathroom, and she is walking backwards, feeling anxious, for some reason, like she shouldn't put her back to him. "It's Christmas Eve," she says by way of explanation.

Mr. J hums.

"Batman didn't want to come out and play," he tells her. He seems annoyed by this, and a million questions about it lay suspended on her tongue, but then she turns, just slight, just enough for something bright to catch in her peripheral. She pauses, turning to look at the item in question, a small box on the counter, wrapped in candy cane wrapping paper.

"Is that—is that for me?" She turns to look at him, almost not wanting to, half afraid that if she looks away for even a second the box will be gone. Mr. J nods, once, and her mouth parts in awe. "I've never… no one's ever…." She trails off, her brows knitted together. He knows what she's trying to say.

She goes to the counter, picks up the item, a small, rectangular box. The wrapping paper job is shit, and she kind of smiles at that, because he must have done it himself.

"This is really for me?" she asks again, holding it to her chest, cradled tightly in her arms, like it might suddenly grow legs and run away.

He steps closer, and out of instinct she clutches the present tighter, as if he means to take it away from her. She catches his smirk.

"Open it."

He doesn't have to tell her twice.

She tears into the wrapping paper, already smiling. The red and white paper floats to the floor at her feet as she stares in disbelief at the item in front of her.

"Are you serious?!" she squeals.

It's a cellphone.

A freaking cellphone. She can't imagine how much this must of cost him. She's never owned an electronic in her whole life. She had a plastic Minnie Mouse watch, once, in fifth grade, something she'd found on the playground at school and had been too selfish to place in the lost and found bin, if that counts. But this, a cellphone. She thinks if she says it enough times, it might begin to feel real. She never could've dreamed he would give her something like this. Is it so they can talk when he's away? Does he miss her when he's gone? Does he want to check up on her when she's at school? Know how her day is going? She flushes at the idea of him wanting to know how she's doing when they're apart, at the thought of him thinking about her when they're not together, and it makes heat simmer somewhere low in her belly. This is good. This means he wants to be closer to her. That he misses her. That he wants more from her.

She takes it to the countertop so she can open it there, pulling apart the box to get to the contents inside. It's nice, whatever it is. Sleek and silver. Shiny. She doesn't know the model and she doesn't care. It's a real cellphone, a fancy one, like the ones everyone has at school.

She sees her reflection staring back at her in the black screen when she looks down, the overhead lights creating a white, blurry halo above her, and she can't help the sudden prickle of tears at her eyes. She tugs her lower lip into her mouth.

"Thank you," she murmurs. She doesn't know why she's crying. She wipes at her tears with the back of her forearm, embarrassed that she would cry in front of him about this. It's the first time she's ever been given a gift—a real gift, something just for her, wrapped in pretty paper. It's hers, with purposeful intent—not just something generic and unisex, like the Secret Santa gifts they used to pass around in elementary school. Pencils and stickers. Cookies. Brand new Play-Doh.

She sniffles and tries to smile, but it just makes her eyes water even more.

Mr. J takes a step closer, and the moment he's within reach, she closes the distance between them and buries herself in his embrace, wrapping her arms around his middle. She knows she must stink of chemicals and bleach from earlier, and she worries about being pushed away, but she needs this right now. She just needs to be held.

Mr. J doesn't hug her back, but fists the back of her t-shirt with one hand instead, almost as if he intends to pull her away.

It's enough that he doesn't.

She sniffles into his jacket, feeling embarrassed but also feeling so full she fears the seams holding her heart together might burst from the extra strain. She pulls away just enough to look up at him.

"Mr. J," she says suddenly, her forehead creased in concern, "I—I didn't get anything for you." Her heart clenches at this admission. She was afraid he wouldn't want to celebrate Christmas, or that he'd be away, or too busy. Now she has no money left. Normally she sets some aside for special occasions, but she'd spent all her savings on a new pair of shoes, her other pair having grown so worn she'd resorted to using duct tape to keep the soles from falling out. She realizes now how selfish she's been, not to buy him anything.

"Hm," he says. He looks at her for a long, hard moment. His eyes are penetrating. He lifts his free hand and thumbs at her chin, wiping away a stray tear. Then his eyes darken, and she feels his fingers curl possessively around her jaw. "I know what you can give me."

Taylor realizes suddenly that the hand at her back isn't to pull her away—it's to keep her from pulling away from him. She unconsciously wets her lips, hardly dares to breathe as she waits for him to speak. Her heartbeat throbs in her ears. He can't mean what she thinks he means… can he?

"What is it?" she whispers.

He leans down and forward, just slight, and Taylor's heart seizes somewhere along the column of her throat, and she can't breathe, and she feels so small, trapped in the cage of his hungry gaze. She desperately searches his eyes for meaning as he lifts her chin, but her brain feels as though it's skidded to a halt. She sucks in a shuddering breath, and he angles his head some, and his red mouth hovers right there—

It's everything she's ever wanted. And she's terrified.

Her eyes flit down to his waiting mouth, and she almost thinks of their other first kiss—the one where he pried open her mouth and stuck his fingers inside to hold it open, how violating it felt to have his tongue lapping over her teeth and the roof of her mouth like that, like a dog trying to get to the treat hidden inside a hard bone. But also, how good it felt to be devoured, how wet and warm his tongue was, how urgently he panted and licked into her open mouth, like he wanted to taste her from the inside out.

You really will let me do anything, won't you?

For a second, instinct screams for her to pull away, but the hand fisting the back of her t-shirt prevents her from moving, and her legs feel frozen in place anyway. She thinks her knees are locked.

She swallows to urge more moisture back into her mouth, and then she presses a hand against his chest to steady herself. She summons all of her courage—a whole, trembling army of it—to lean up, bridge the small gap between them. At the last second, she falters, pressing a soft kiss against the right side of his jaw, just below his scar. Her kiss is dainty. Unhurried. Her upper lip brushes the lower portion of his scar, where the skin is a little softer than all the rest.

She pulls away, slowly—and something inside him snaps. One hand around her throat, the other around her upper arm, and then he's pushing her backwards, her lower back meeting the edge of the countertop with bruising force as he shoves her against it, pinning her there with his weight. She gasps, but is too stunned to offer resistance, her brows knitted together in panic, or shock, she's not sure which.

His hand at her throat doesn't squeeze, it's just there, and she takes a careful, shuddering breath.

"Mr. J," she breathes. His eyes are blown—black, glassy—and he's breathing hard through his nose, and she watches the muscle along his jaw jump and twitch beneath his skin. She searches his gaze, but can't figure out how to read the expression there. She feels embarrassed. Afraid.

He didn't like that. He didn't want it. How could she have been so wrong? How could she have misinterpreted things so badly? Had she imagined him leaning towards her? Looking at her mouth? Had she constructed the whole thing out of traitorous fantasy?

He lowers his head then, and she stiffens when he buries his face in her neck. She feels the hard line of his nose bump along the side of her throat, where her pulse jumps. He chuffs like a bear against her, all heavy, hot breath, awakening a wave of goose bumps across her skin. It feels unhinged. Dangerous. This is terrain they haven't crossed before—not like this—and it's terrifying. She thinks she can almost feel the way his resolve is about to snap in two. His left hand curls a little tighter around her throat, just under her jaw, forcing her head up, so she has to blink up at the ceiling, dizzy from the hot lights. She makes a small, pained noise, but doesn't try to pull away.

God, he's so angry he can't even look at her.

Dread settles low in her underbelly, a suffocating weight that threatens to make her knees give out.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—" Her words come tumbling out of her mouth in one giant, tangled knot. She arches her head up further so she can talk, exposing even more of her neck to him in the process. "I won't do it again. Please don't hurt me."

Mr. J stills, and Taylor holds her breath as he slowly pulls away from her. His hand falls away from her throat, and he relinquishes his grip from her upper arm. The look he fixes her with is one that turns her blood cold. It's a look she is not unfamiliar with—it's the same way Nathan used to look at her on the rare occasion when she would challenge him, or after he was done using her, when he'd wiped his come off on her sheets or on her pajamas. Looking at her like she'd asked for it, like she'd wanted it, like he was revolted by how disgusting she was. Slut, he'd say, shoving her down when she'd try to lift up on her elbows and look at him behind her.

Shame cocoons itself around her, hot and vice-like—just like it did back then—until she can feel nothing else, until she just wants to sink into the floor, dissolve into a puddle right there in front of him, let the linoleum soak her up. She has to look away, unable to bear the weight of his repulsion.

He surprises her when her phone comes sliding across the countertop. It bumps into her arm as it skids to a stop.

She turns to look at him, several steps away now, but his back is to her. "Go play with your phone," he tells her. His voice sounds rough, full of gravel, but he won't turn to face her, like he can't even bear to look at her. It hits her like a gut punch. She's never seen him act like this before. She watches the way his shoulders heave when he breathes out, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, and goose bumps prickle over her arms all over again. This quiet anger frightens her. The unpredictability of it. A small part of her wants to reach out and touch him, tell him again how sorry she is, try to smooth out all the crevices where his anger currently resides, but her words end up tangled on top of her tongue, and she knows she won't be able to force them out.

She picks up her phone with trembling hands. Retreats to her bedroom.

In the doorway, she pauses to look over her shoulder and into kitchen where he still stands, immobile. When he cranes his neck to look at her, too, his shoulders hunched close to his ears, some sensation slithers down her spine that she cannot identify, something unnerving and hot. She closes the door behind her with a soft click and then sinks against it, sliding all the way down to the floor.

With her knees pulled up to her chest, phone forgotten, she reaches up and gently touches two fingers to her lips. She knows that later, in bed, she'll worry that she's ruined things between them. That he won't like her anymore, or he'll avoid her, or things will have been irrevocably altered. Silence will sprout between them like weeds, a whole thick wall of them that will blot out even the sun. She knows she'll agonize over it later, replay their interaction over and over again on loop, toss and turn and lose countless hours of sleep.

That will come later. But right now? Right now, all she can think about is the heat of his skin bleeding onto her fingertips—and how she wishes she had been brave enough to kiss his mouth instead.

---

At school, after Christmas break has ended much too soon, everyone's buzzing over the upcoming winter formal. Everyone seems even more excited about it than usual this year. It's masquerade-themed, something they've never done before. The hallways and lockers are dotted with flyers, and then there's the big, sagging banner that hangs in the main corridor, put together by the senior class. She doesn't know why, but she kind of wants to go. She's never been to a school dance before. She's never been asked, and there was also never any money—or time—as dances always seemed to fall near the date of some other major event. Whether it was changing schools, or being shuffled from one foster home to the next, school dances had always been an object in her periphery, never a primary focus.

Now, though… now she wants to see what all the fuss is about. In lab, she hears the girls behind her whispering about their dresses, pulling up pictures on their phones to show each other while Mr. Ericson struggles to light the Bunsen burner at the front of the class.

Taylor scrolls through her phone later that night in bed, searching through countless pages of homecoming and prom dresses. Everything is so expensive, and it's hard to find something under a hundred dollars; she's never even spent fifty dollars on one item, let alone a hundred. There's no way she could afford any of these, even if she would've had the foresight to save up her allowance for several months.

She huffs in annoyance and slides her phone under the pillow, turning onto her side and pulling her covers up to her chin. There's no way she's going, now, not unless she shows up in a pair of jeans.

---

On Saturday, she catches the bus into downtown. Mr. J is gone somewhere, so he won't mind. He's been avoiding her anyway, and the longer she sits in the house doing nothing, the longer she spends agonizing over her mistake, thinking about how she's irrevocably ruined things between them.

She has five dollars in her back pocket, but she figures if she can just look at a few dresses, maybe she can get the whole thing out of her system and not have to think about it anymore. School dances are dumb, anyway, and no one even asked her to go. No one ever asks her.

Two days before, she had watched a boy slip a note into a locker a few rows down from her, and she bit her lip and tried not to make it obvious that she was staring while his friends slapped him on the back and grinned their approval. A desperate part of her had wished that that could have been her, that she could've been the owner of that locker. She wishes she could've been the girl who got to open up that locker later on in the day, surprise coloring her features as the folded note came spilling out, maybe with two tickets to the dance tucked inside, along with a sweet, handwritten note.

Taylor gets off the bus and enters the mall through JC Penny's. She browses in there for a while, aimless, not impressed by their small collection of dresses, and then takes the escalator to the second floor. She wonders if Logan will be at the dance, and what kind of dress she might wear—if she'd even wear a dress—or if she has a date. She pictures Logan in something kind of obnoxious and bright. Something with lots of sparkles or sequins—and she'd have her combat boots on underneath.

She imagines the two of them going together, how they might pose for a picture together at the entrance, maybe under some sparkly archway with a paper moonlit backdrop, like they do in movies.

Maybe Logan will go with her group of girlfriends—Emily and Katie and Becca all crowding into the limousine that Emily's parents had rented for them. Taylor wonders what that would be like. Who needed boys when you had a close-knit group of girlfriends you could do everything with?

She window-shops for a while, not really sure where to go or what she's looking for. She wanders into Macy's after a while, and circles around the glass perfume and makeup cases twice before finally asking for help. An older woman in glasses and a floral blouse points her in the right direction. She ambles between clothing racks that dwarf her in height, winding around a maze of tulle and sequins and lace and fabrics that are smooth, almost slippery to the touch. All the dresses are floor-length and look way too tall for her, but maybe that's the point. Would she need to buy a pair of heels, too? She's never worn heels before. Maybe once, when she snuck into the closet of one of her foster moms and tried on a couple of pairs before she got home from work. It was innocent. She was too small for them, after all, but she wobbled around in front of the floor-length mirror that hung on the back of the closet door, trying not to teeter over and land flat on her butt. There was a good two inches between her heel and the back of the shoe. She cocked her head at her reflection, confused about the way her toes were all pinched together at the front. Was it supposed to hurt like that?

She winds further into maze. Her footsteps are almost non-existent on the stained, threadbare carpet, but then she sees it: the dress that makes her stop in her tracks. It's emerald green with a square neckline and spaghetti straps, silky and smooth to the touch. It's modest but beautiful—cinched at the waist—and when Taylor reaches for it to inspect the back, her eyes widen in surprise. It's a completely open back, with several straps that crisscross and finally tie in a thin bow at the lower back. She finds one she thinks will be her size and doesn't even look at the price tag as she pulls it off the metal rack. She doesn't know if she's supposed to ask for help, but there's no attendant in the dressing room, so she curls it over her forearm and slides into the very last dressing room, closing and locking the wooden door, which leaves her calves exposed at the bottom. It smells like old sweat and Pine-Sol, and she tries not to think too hard about the dark stains on the carpet.

She hurriedly strips out of her clothes—her bra, too—nudging them into the corner with her foot to make room for the dress. She is careful as she steps into it, shimmying it up past her thighs and hips, and then finally slipping the straps over her shoulders. She tucks her chin to her chest as she reaches behind her to tighten some of the straps and to retie the thin bow that rests on her lower back. Then she look up and finally studies herself in the mirror.

It's breathtaking. She never knew she could look so good in something, that a piece of clothing could hug her the way this dress does, accentuating curves she didn't even know that she had. She turns around and has to look over her shoulder to study the back. She's never showed this much skin before. She thinks—for the very first time—that she looks like a woman, and she has to blink at herself in the mirror several times to process the reflection staring back at her.

Overcome with the need to capture the moment—fearing she'll never look like this again—she fishes her cell phone out of her backpack and turns around, snapping a picture of the back of her dress. She takes one of the front, too, just for good measure. For posterity. She looks in the mirror again, thinking that her eyes have never looked as green as they do now. She does a little excited hop, feeling happy and light as she puts her phone away and shrugs out of the dress. She's just hooked her bra back on when she kneels to look at the price tag spilling out of the fabric, and her eyes bug at $299.99.

You've got to be kidding me, she thinks. Her shoulders sag of their own accord, her mood shattered instantly. She knew it was going to be expensive, but she didn't think it would be that expensive. There's no way she can ask Mr. J for that much money.

She pulls her clothes back on with a frown, tugs the dress back on the hanger. She reaches for her backpack, but is drawn to a pause. She thinks about how easy it would be to stuff the dress into the recesses of backpack. No one would know. People leave clothes in the dressing room all the time, so even if she didn't exit with it where the cameras could see it, that wouldn't be cause for concern, right?

She gets up, shuffles through the fabric of the dress, blindly searching for a security tag, one of those bulky clips that explode with ink if you try to pry them off, but there is none. That seems strange. Almost too easy.

She heaves a sigh as she takes the dress and puts it back on the rack where it belongs. There's no way she could pull of stealing, she'd be a nervous wreck the whole day, even after she returned home. Plus, she knows she'd carry her guilt around with her like a second skin, weighing her down until she crumpled under the new weight and eventually confessed.

In the food court, she sits at a table near the water fountain, the milk-white sky pouring in from the skylight. She doesn't really like winter. She feels like she hasn't seen the sun in months, and it only serves to sour her mood even more. She sulks as she munches on the chocolate chip cookie she'd got from Mrs. Fields. It's loaded with white, creamy icing and rainbow sprinkles. She licks the icing off her fingers when she's done. She'd wanted a lemonade, too, something sour and sweet to wash all the icing down, but she didn't have enough money.

At the bus stop, she only has to wait for a couple of minutes before it arrives. It'll be dark soon, and it looks like it's going to rain, too. When she scans her bus pass, however, it's promptly declined. Taylor scans it again and frowns. There are people lining up behind her. She has no money to buy another pass—she'd just spent the last of it on the cookie. She looks up at the driver in confusion. He shrugs.

"Sorry, kid," he says, not sounding sorry at all.

"I had two more rides left, this is wrong," she explains. People shoulder past her in the tight entrance, their own passes cheerily expressing a ding! as they slide through the scanner and are accepted.

The bus driver looks at her blankly, like she's trying to pull a free ride out of him, despite the obvious panic creasing her features. He shrugs, nothing I can do, and her face heats up in embarrassment when she looks into the back of the bus where everyone is already seated, staring at her. She bites her lip and shuffles off the bus, panicked and scared. She's too far from home to walk, it'd take hours. And it's getting dark.

She paces at the bus stop as she watches it pull away. There'll be another one in fifteen minutes, but she has no more money left, not even for a one-way ticket. She sits down on the bench and tries to swallow down her panic when she suddenly remembers her cell phone.

Relief floods through her as she pulls it out of her backpack. She types in her passcode and then stares at the home screen, thinks suddenly about how she's never contacted Mr. J this way before. Should she call? Text? Will he even answer? Will he be angry?

She settles on sending him a text message—much safer that way, just in case he's in the middle of something. She won't be interrupting.

6:47

r u there?

bus pass expired

i have no money

She bounces her knee impatiently as she waits for his response. Thankfully, she doesn't have to wait long.

6:49

Where are you?

She quickly types back. Relieved.

6:49

corner of 7 and Madison

i'm at the mall

Her phone buzzes with his reply.

6:51

Don't move.

She doesn't, at least not until he texts her back forty-five minutes later and tells her to walk three blocks down the street, cut left at the bar.

It's dark by then, and the rain's held off—at least it had, up until she makes it the first block and then the sky opens up and unleashes a torrent at all once. She runs the rest of the way, turns left at the bar and crosses the street, as instructed. She's in the back parking lot of some kind of packaging store. She notices a black car parked there with the headlights on, yellow and blurry through the onslaught of rain. She pushes the wet hair out of her face and wonders if that's him, only to get her answer when she hears the click of the doors unlocking. She runs to the passenger side, pulling open the door and sinking inside, shoving her backpack near her feet. The lights don't cut on when the door opens, but she doesn't need them to know that she's completely soaked. She closes the door and shivers. The car is cold, not at all warm like she had hoped. Her teeth clatter as she folds her arms to her chest, hugging herself.

"I'm sorry—" she blurts immediately. She turns to Mr. J.

Except, it's not Mr. J.

She jolts at the familiar face, dread washing over her hard and fast, like the sudden slap of an icy wave. She immediately spins around to open the door, only to have it lock before she can wrench it open. Her heart constricts somewhere in her throat.

"Hey, hey, calm down, it's alright," he says.

Ressling.

"I don't—don't wanna be in the car with you," she huffs. She's hyperventilating. She's still trying at the door, but it's too dark, and she can't see anything. Can't get it to unlock. Why won't it unlock? Is it childproof or something? How—

She jumps at his hand on her shoulder. "Hey—hey," he says again, this time more gently, and she sucks in a shuddering breath, willing herself to calm down, to stop shaking. "I'm not going to hurt you. The Joker—Mr. J—" he hedges, the name falling awkwardly off his tongue, as if he's saying it for the first time, "—he wants me to take you home. That's all I'm doing. I promise."

She flinches away from his hand, trying to put as much distance between the two of them as physically possible. She's still shivering. Hard. She can hear her teeth clicking together in the silence, no longer just from the cold. Rain slaps against the windshield, interrupted only by the mechanical hum of the wipers.

"Just take me home," she grits out, but it's without menace; she hates the terrified warble in her voice.

"Okay," he says. "Okay." He takes the car out of park and sets it into reverse, rests his hand against the back of her headrest as he backs them out of the parking lot.

She scoots herself to the edge of her seat as much as possible, flattening herself up against the door, like putting that marginal amount of distance between the two of them will help soothe her anxiety—anxiety that pulses inside her like an electric current. She digs her fingers into her thighs, rucking up her wet jeans, scratching her nails through the soaked fabric until she worries she'll wear a hole through them.

She doesn't like him. He lied to her. He led her to the wolves, knowing she was about to get eaten alive. He knew. He knew.

Just like Mr. J knew, her brain helpfully supplies.

But that doesn't matter now. That was what Mr. J had wanted, after all. It was part of the plan. Somehow that made it all okay.

And she can't be mad at Mr. J—she can't—and her misplaced anger has to go somewhere, otherwise it'll coil up inside her until it's all bloated and tight, until it can't fit inside her anymore, and it has nowhere else to go but to come bursting out, unable to be contained.

The ride is silent. The radio's off. Taylor manages to get her breathing under control and she fixes her gaze out the window, the passing blur of the city—darkened and rain-slicked streets, drooping telephone wires and blinking florescent signs in shop windows—but she keeps Ressling in her peripheral just in case. She doesn't know why. She doesn't think he'd try to hurt her, but she doesn't trust him. She'd learned that the hard way.

It's stopped raining by the time they arrive. He pulls the car to a stop along the curb. He lets it stall for a moment, but then he shuts it off. She wonders if Mr. J asked him not to pull into the driveway or something. She doesn't care. She just wants out.

The orange light from a nearby streetlamp slices into the car from one of the back windows. It illuminates a patch of his jaw. A five o'clock shadow. When he shifts to face her, the sherbet light whispers along the edges of a weird, swirling tattoo on his neck, like one of those black and white optical illusions that make it look like the whorls are moving when they're not. Like the ones they use for hypnosis. She doesn't remember that being there before.

She quickly looks away. He hasn't unlocked the door yet.

The car feels pregnant, clogged with silence. She waits, perched on the edge of her seat, forcing her hands to be still even though she wants nothing more than to dig her nails into her jeans and scratch, scratch, scratch.

"Look," he says, breaking through the silence at last, "not that it means much, but I'm sorry about—what happened."

She process his words, lets his apology teeter around in her head, where it bounces back and forth aimlessly, like it doesn't know where to go. She can do nothing with an apology.

She wets her lips. Doesn't look at him. "You're right—it doesn't mean much."

"I didn't know—"

"—that I was going to get gang raped until I passed out?"

She looks at him. He stares at her. A part of her can't believe she just said that—verbalized the horror of what she went through out loud—but she wants it to sting. She wants him to know exactly what monstrosities he was complicit in facilitating. Her jaw aches from how hard she's clenching it. Her nostrils flare, the sounds of her labored breathing filling up the silence.

"Listen," he says, shifting towards her. This time his brow is creased with concern that feels genuine—but she won't fall for it. "You have no idea what he's—"

"Let me out," she demands.

"Taylor…."

"Don't say my name. You don't know me." She only says it because she's afraid he does know her—perhaps even more intimately than she knows herself. He's the only one who knows about her relationship with Mr. J, and she worries suddenly about the transparency of her want. Her need. Is it pathetic? Is it terrible? Does he think she's a stupid little kid with a school-girl crush? Does he think she's disgusting for loving a monster? "Let me out."

Ressling sighs, but does what she asks. As soon as the lock clicks, she bursts out in a flurry, hefting her backpack up with her. The passenger door swings on its hinges. She doesn't bother to close it. She doesn't look back.

The house is dark when she gets inside. She locks the door behind her, and the click of the deadbolt is satisfying in the darkness. Grounding. She waits in the shadowed safety that the fridge provides until the yellow headlights flood through the curtains in the TV room and then disappear.

She sighs in relief when he's gone, and her whole body seems to uncoil after that. She hadn't realized how taut she'd been the whole car ride. She feels as though her knees might buckle.

In the bathroom, she peels off her wet clothes and then shivers underneath the spray of hot water. It takes a while to warm back up, and she gets out only when her skin is pink and hot to the touch. She slips clean underwear up her thighs, and tugs her favorite article of clothing over her head—an oversized grey hoodie she got from Goodwill that says 'MSU' on the front in green block lettering. She slips on a pair of socks and then pads into the kitchen.

It's late, but she's too wound up to sleep. She wonders what Mr. J was doing that he was too busy to come pick her up—he could've texted her to let her know he wasn't coming, or that he was sending someone in his place.

She wonders if he knows how much she hates Ressling, wonders why Ressling is the only person who works for Mr. J that she's ever seen. Surely there are others, right? She's never really thought about it until now, but there has to be more. Maybe Mr. J just trusts Ressling more than anyone else?

She flicks on the light beneath the stove, hoping that getting something to eat will quell her festering nausea.

Her eyes scan the interior of the fridge; there aren't a lot of options to choose from. She takes two eggs from the carton and sets them to boil in some water on the stove.

When they're finished and the eggs have cooled, she takes one and rolls it between the flat of her palm and the hard counter until it caves under her weight, the shell splintering into a web of tiny cracks. She holds her breath then for the moment of truth, worried that, when the shell crumbles beneath the soft pressure of the flat of her palm, a burst of runny yellow and white yolk will slide out.

She's always been a little scared to crack eggs. One time she watched her foster mother—Karen, maybe—open a cardboard carton of eggs and, with a hum of surprise, her eyebrows drawing up into her hairline, noted a gray tuft of feathers poking out from one of the eggs nestled in its little designated seat. Taylor watched her pick up the egg and raise it to the light streaming in from the kitchen window, turning it this way and that between her fingers—only to toss the egg into the trash beneath the sink a moment later.

Taylor lurched from the table as if pulled by a leash. Her emesis was yellow and pulpy. Violent. It burned its way up her throat, leaving a caustic trail, and then clung to the gold rings inside the toilet bowl. Her mouth tasted like orange juice and acid.

It horrified her to think of some tiny little creature caught in the passage of time, not yet alive, but not yet dead, either, just in-between. The unknowable halfway stage between life and death. Did consciousness exist in such a place? Was it like Heaven and Hell—were you stuck there forever?

She eats her boiled eggs at the counter after slicing them into thirds, chewing slowly, trying to make them last. It doesn't quite quench her hunger—or her nausea—but it makes it more tolerable so that when she slips under her covers, she doesn't feel quite as anxious and pent-up as before.

She lays in bed for a long time, soaked in the soft glow of her Christmas lights, studying the elongated shadows they cast along the ceiling. When she can't sleep, she slips her phone out from beneath her pillow and pulls up the pictures she had taken in the dressing room. She looks pretty—beautiful, even—the first time she's ever thought that, and she wonders suddenly how different her life might've been if she had been born into a normal family. A mom and dad who had actually wanted her. What would she be doing right now? How different would the world look through the eyes of someone who was loved and cared for? Would she have a date for the dance? Maybe her mom would have taken her shopping for a dress, maybe she would have said, "Pick out whatever you want, honey. You deserve it."

She falls asleep thinking about baby birds born without wings; nowhere to go, no way to fly, unwanted by everyone, even their mothers.

Born on accident.

She thinks she can relate.

---

She's jolted awake early the next morning. She's not sure if the sound of the gunshot was real or if she'd dreamt it. She tries settling back down to sleep, but no matter how hard she tries, it won't come. She sits up in bed. Rubs the sleep out of her eyes. It's still dark out.

Mr. J usually isn't home on Sundays—then again, lately he hasn't been home much at all—and something uncomfortable settles in her belly when she realizes how much she misses him. She wonders when he'll be home again, when she'll get to see him for longer than five minutes at a time. She tries not to think that he might be avoiding her, but she knows that he is. Maybe she should apologize again for kissing him. She's replayed the memory in her head hundreds of times now, and she still can't figure out where it all went wrong. I know what you can give me. Why hadn't he just said? What else could he have wanted? Had she imagined that he'd leaned in closer? Had she wanted it that badly that she had hallucinated the whole thing?

She throws off her covers and slips out of bed. Opens her door and pads out into the hallway.

Mr. J stops her dead in her tracks on the way to the bathroom. She has to do a double take when she sees him, lounging there on the couch, his shirt off, legs crossed at the ankles on top of the coffee table. Her heart does a little somersault in her chest and she blinks at him in surprise. She's never seen Mr. J with his shirt off. Even more shocking, as she pads closer, she realizes he's smoking. He's never smoked before—at least not in front of her. When did this start?

It's quiet. Cold. The TV's on, the news droning faintly in the background, but he's not watching.

Her brows furrow as she approaches, almost cautious, like she's stumbled upon something she isn't supposed to see. She rounds the couch and stares at him. His head rests on the back of the couch, cigarette held between his lips. Eyes closed. Smoke curls lazily into the air. Daylight is just starting to slither through the slats in the blinds, different shades of blue and grey, like an old bruise. The room slants with a cold, bluish pallor. She lets her eyes drift down, sliding over his large clavicles, his broad chest, the slightly concave plane of his belly, the wiry patch of hair that trails from his navel all the way down into his slacks. She swallows.

"If you take a picture it'll last longer," he says. He cracks open one eye to look at her, and she flushes.

Her laughter comes out short, in a nervous puff of air. Her cheeks burn hot. "I didn't know you smoked."

"I don't."

He sits up suddenly, plants his feet on the floor. The cigarette dangles between his index and middle finger. She swallows and tries not to stare at the ripple of muscle in his chest when he moves. His powerful shoulders. Skin littered with scar tissue. Day-old bruises. Cuts that never had time to heal. Did Batman do that to him? She's so busying ogling him she misses the way his eyes rake over her bare legs, where her hoodie ends mid-thigh.

Their eyes lock at the same time. She suddenly feels afraid that this will end before it even begins. He'll mumble something about having to go, and she'll be left alone in the house all day again.

"I missed you," she blurts, regretting the words almost as soon as they tumble out of her mouth. It sounds desperate. Too honest.

Mr. J's eyes glimmer. His mouth curls into a slow smile, one that bares his teeth. "Me too, princess." He takes a drag from his cigarette, and Taylor watches him do it, hypnotized. "Come here," he gestures, patting coffee table in front of him. "Sit."

Relief floods through her. If he missed her then he's not angry with her. Maybe he's just been really busy. That's all.

She pads closer, easing herself down onto the coffee table. She folds her hands in her lap, conscious of all her bare skin, and it's a moot point, trying to pull her hoodie farther down her thighs, so she doesn't. He scoots back into the couch, settling an arm across the back of it. Crosses his ankle on top of his knee.

He seems to study her for a moment, taking a slow drag before releasing it all in a long exhale of breath. There are dark circles under his eyes, purpled half-moons, and she wonders if he slept at all last night. What time he got home. He cocks his head at her.

"Something on your mind?" he asks innocently.

She tucks her hands between her thighs and then squeezes them together, trapping her hands there. Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she considers his question. Everything's on her mind. She wants to ask him if he's been avoiding her. If he's mad at her. Tell him about Ressling, and how much she doesn't like him. Ask him why he's been away so much, ask him where those bruises came from, and do they hurt? Tell him about her green dress and the dance, but what if he says no? Tell him about her strange dream from the other night, how scared she is of the future—their future—which suddenly feels more intangible and impossible than ever before. How much longer can things go on like this? There is an invisible string that exists between them, tethering the two of them together—constantly pulsing, vibrating with energy—and she feels it starting to fray.

She opens her mouth to speak—say something, she's not sure what—but he scoots forward suddenly to the edge of the couch, so her thighs are trapped inside his own. His eyes glitter with something dangerous. Something hot that should not be touched.

"Wanna try?"

Taylor blinks up at him, frowning, and then her gaze flits to where the cigarette dangles precariously from the corner of his mouth.

"I've never…" she trails off. He knows. She doesn't have to tell him.

His gaze is penetrating, too hot, even in the damp, cool blue light of dawn. A rogue sliver of sunlight cuts through a blanket of clouds, slices a path through the half-opened blinds where a warm stripe of yellow lays itself down to rest across the valley of her inner thighs.

She swallows. Nods.

His eyes are heavy—loaded—as he removes the cigarette from his mouth and passes it to her. She shivers a little, holds it like it might burn her, just the tip, pinning it between her pointer finger and thumb. It's a little wet when she fits it between her lips. She inhales, slowly, her mouth filling with sour, pungent smoke. Mr. J watches her the whole time. She coughs when she breathes out. Gross. It reminds her of the first time she tried beer at that one party she never should have gone to, Ressling finding her on the curb after the fact, drugged up and shivering. She frowns at the memory. Seems like Ressling is always coming to her rescue when she needs something—except for the one time he didn't. Does he follow her when she's not with Mr. J? Or is it just coincidence that he seems to be everywhere that she is?

The question coats her tongue in a sour film, but when she opens her mouth to speak, something catches her attention on the TV behind her, a female reporter breaking through the monotony of whatever was on before, and Taylor's drawn to a pause, turning her head some so she can hear better.

"—reports of what is currently thought to be a homicide in Southhampton, where remains of a twenty-seven year-old woman were found around four fifteen this morning. The victim—Ashley Cantor—was found in her Bellview apartment when—"

She does turn around all the way then, something familiar about that name sparking a frisson of fear in her. She sees a brief flash of blonde hair, a familiar smile, before the TV cuts off.

She looks up to where Mr. J stands next to the TV—he unplugged it. Pulled the cord out of the wall. The screen is fizzy and black where the picture used to be. She gapes at him.

"Why did you do that?" She knows her voice is laced with panic. "I—I think I know her."

"I don't think that you do." He drops the plug. He says it in a way that conveys finality. Their conversation is over. But she scrambles up anyway, and it feels like a standoff, the two of them both standing there, separated only by the coffee table.

She hates when he does this—negates her experiences, makes her question things about her own reality that she knows to be true. The way he plants seeds of doubt, seeds that will eventually sprout into a field of tangled weeds so thick she won't be able to tell up from down. She knows she's seen that woman before, she knows it, she just can't pinpoint exactly where, or when. Why doesn't he want her to see? What's the big deal?

"Does Ressling follow me?" she blurts. If they're going to get into a fight, she might as well get it all out. "Do you make him do that?"

Mr. J cocks his head at her sudden outburst, and it makes the hairs on her arms stand on end, the way his eyes narrow, like she better watch herself. It takes him a moment to respond, like he's purposely drawing out his reply to make her even more anxious.

"What, uh… what makes you ask a question like that?"

Some of her earlier bravado flounders. "He's just… everywhere." She doesn't like having to explain herself. She folds her arms high and tight across her chest, the excess fabric from her hoodie bunching up around her. "I don't like him."

Something dark flickers in his eyes. "Did he do something?"

If Ressling had been in the room with them, she thinks Mr. J would've strangled him with his bare hands by now.

"No!" she says hastily.

"Did he touch you?"

She thinks about his hand on her shoulder in the car. "…No."

She realizes suddenly that she has the power to sign Ressling's death warrant, if she wanted. All she has to do is say that he touched her, and Mr. J would—well, he'd do whatever he'd do to ensure that it didn't happen again.

It makes her shiver, this newfound discovery. She could ruin his whole life with just a few words. She wouldn't—at least, she doesn't think she would—but she could. It'd be easy.

That kind of power should be frightening—sickening, if she's honest—but she's lit up with a weird thrill from it instead. She likes knowing Mr. J would go to these lengths to defend her. To protect her. Goose bumps prickle over her legs. What else would he do for her?

She looks up when he steps away, striding past her, and she turns to watch him go, her eyes desperately soaking up the rarity of all his naked skin. The clench of muscle between his sharp shoulder blades. The dip of his lower back. She's overcome with the need to reach out, run her fingers down his spine.

She draws herself out of her reverie long enough to blurt out another question, something that effectively stops him in his tracks.

"What would you do about it," she says, "—I mean… I mean, if he did touch me? What would you do?"

She has to know. She has to know the extent of her influence. The lengths Mr. J would go to for her. Is she really as powerful as she thinks?

"I'd kill him," he says, the words slamming into her like a gut punch. He cranes his neck to look at her from over his shoulder. "But you already knew that."

---

Winter formal is in two days. It's all she can think about.

She lies in bed at night and Googles more photos—green dresses, like the one she tried on in Macy's—and looks for cheap alternatives, but it doesn't really matter either way. She has no money.

Which leaves only one solution.

She corners Mr. J in the kitchen the next morning before school. He seems distracted this morning. Maybe annoyed.

"Um… Mr. J?"

"What?" he snaps. He doesn't look at her. He's disemboweling some kind of walkie-talkie device on the countertop, hunched over it, colorful wires spilling out of the confines of its black casing, tiny little screws and a variety of different screwdrivers strewn across the counter. Rolls of black electrical tape, and other tools she couldn't name.

She shifts the weight of her backpack to her other shoulder. "It's just—there's this dance at school," she gets out in a rush of air, before she can overthink it, "and I really want to go. Everyone is going to be there. But I don't have a dress, and they're a lot of money, and I know you just got me the cell phone and I'm really grateful, and I don't want you to think that I'm—that I'm greedy, but I really, really want to go and I promise I'll never ask you for anything ever again—at least not for a really long time, okay?" She stops so take a breath, afraid that she's said too much.

It's a moment before he responds. She watches his fingers still over the frayed end of a red wire.

"Are you asking me for money… or permission?"

"Both?"

She watches him mull over her request. He finally looks over the counter at her. "Do I look like a bank to you?"

"No!" she shakes her head. "No," she says again, softer this time.

He rolls his eyes. "Money doesn't grow on trees, you know."

She nods, nervous now. "I'm know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." She fumbles with her backpack, hitching it over her other shoulder so it hangs off of both. She is already halfway out the door when his voice calls out to her.

"How much?"

Her breath catches in her chest. The dress is three-hundred, but she'll also need a new pair of shoes, and maybe some makeup. She'll also have to buy a mask, since it's a masquerade theme….

"Four hundred?" she ventures. It feels ridiculous to ask him for that much money. She knows it's a lot. It sounds absurd even to her own ears. She's never owned that much money in her life. He'll definitely say—

"Fine."

"Really?!" she squeals. She can hardly believe it. She bites her lip, does a little up-and-down bounce by the door before running to him and embracing him from behind, her mitten-covered hands sliding over his waist. She lays her head down on his back and sighs happily.

"Thank you, Mr. J! I promise I'll make it up to you." She squeezes him one more time for good measure, and then she is backing towards the doorway. She tosses her scarf over her shoulder. "I'll get us a pizza for tonight, okay? With the anchovies you like," she promises. "Bye!"

The door closes behind her, and the Joker waits a moment before putting down the detonator. Goes to the window. He watches her skip down the sidewalk until she disappears from sight. He grins.

---

Friday.

Taylor can barely sit still through any of her classes. She watches the clock obsessively, which only makes time crawl even slower, but she can't help it. She's actually going to her very first school dance. Tonight.

It snows sometime during fifth period, and she spends most of the class staring out the window, watching it fall. They have a substitute anyway, which means they're watching Ben-Hur on the dusty overhead projector. Someone behind her snores loudly, and a few of her classmates snicker. Time skulks slowly on. She bounces her knee under her desk and watches the snow pile up. Tonight can't come fast enough.

As soon as the final bell rings, she shoots up out of her seat and heads to her locker on the second floor. Everyone is shuffling downstairs after collecting their books from their own lockers, so she knows she'll have plenty of privacy in the girls' bathroom next to Mrs. Gonzalez's classroom.

She carefully unfolds her dress from her locker, still in its protective plastic coating, and takes out the shopping bag with her new shoes and the makeup she bought. It's probably too early to get ready, still several hours before the dance, but she'll burst if she doesn't do something, and she wants to make sure she has plenty of time to get ready.

Once she's sure everybody's gone and she won't be interrupted, she sets up her supplies at the last sink station and washes her hands. She wants to try the makeup first. She's never worn mascara, or blush, or eyeshadow, and she's a little nervous to try them on all at once, but the woman at the Macy's counter gave her a lot of helpful tips. She definitely wants to try the winged eyeliner thing.

She's pleased with herself by the time she finishes her makeup, takes a little step back to really look at herself in the mirror, thinking how much older she looks. It almost feels like there's a stranger staring back at her in the mirror, some other girl, but she kind of likes it. She focuses on her hair next, nothing too complicated, just a woven crown braid around her head. She lets the rest of her hair fall down her back, taking it out of the two pigtail braids she had put it in the night before after showering, so her hair would be extra wavy.

With nothing else to do, she sits on the edge of the sink and swings her legs, digs her phone out of her backpack and plays a game she downloaded a few days ago. It kills some time. She wonders what Mr. J is doing right now and thinks about sending him a text message, but is afraid to bother him if he's busy.

She puts her phone away after a while. It's dusk, now, the snow still coming down hard. People will start arriving soon. She wonders if the dance committee is downstairs decorating and getting everything ready. She props her forearms on the cold windowsill—goose bumps sprouting over her arms at the sensation—and stares for a long time, watching the snow settle down over the bleachers lining the football field, the bright yellow goalposts. There's no wind. It's quiet. Peaceful.

She loses track of time doing that. It's almost six thirty by the time she pulls herself away to finish getting ready. She takes off her clothes in the handicapped stall, stuffs them in her backpack. Carefully unfolds her dress and slips it on. The material is cold. Slinky. She slides on her heels next, which the sales associate at Macy's helped her pick out. She'd called them "kitten heels", said they'd be easier for Taylor to walk in. They're black, open-toed, lots of overlapping straps and a thin buckle at the ankle. She'll never wear them again, probably, and the dress is so long you can't really see them, but that was the point with stuff like this, wasn't it?

For the final touch, she slips on her eye mask. It's delicate, made of thin, black metal that curves and curls in an intricate pattern and then arches up at the outer corners, like cat eyes. The edges are dotted with tiny silver jewels. She'd found it at the pawn shop for like, two dollars. Lucky find. She secures it in place by tying the black ribbon in the back.

Finally, she steps back from the mirror, and her mouth parts at the girl staring back at her. She hardly recognizes herself. She can't help but blink at her reflection, feeling dazed. Awed. She thought she'd feel like a little kid playing dress-up. She didn't think she'd feel… beautiful. She turns so her back is to the mirror, biting her lip as she looks over her shoulder, admiring all the straps crisscrossed over her back.

In the hallway, there's a peal of girlish laughter, and she hurries to retrieve her backpack from the empty stall and pack up all her things.

It's easy enough to stuff her backpack in her locker. And then she's teetering down the steps, gripping the railing with sweaty, slick palms as she heads to gymnasium.

She tries not to let her nerves get the best of her. She's never felt so exposed before, never worn something that showed so much skin. But it's easy to get lost in all the noise, forget about herself and her crippling hyperawareness, for once. It's busy downstairs, the sound of voices growing louder as she approaches. Music thumps from inside the gym. She tries not to ogle everyone's dresses and masks—some of the masks have feathers and jewels, others cover their whole face. Some are quite scary looking, if she's honest, but she's giddy all the same. She feels like she's stepped into another time. Another landscape. The pulsing beat of music and the crowd of bodies, the overlapping chatter, beckons her closer. There's a line to get into the gym, and she stands behind a girl in a sparkly, raspberry-colored dress. It's floor-length and strapless, with a thigh-high split. Her eye mask is purple and equally as sparkly. Her date loops a long, skinny arm around her waist, casual, and she leans into his embrace, smiling up at him with a big, cheesy grin. He grins back and bends down to rub their noses together. Taylor bites her lip and looks away. It would've been nice to have a date. Someone to talk to. Maybe someone to hold her hand. To dance with.

She is about to fold her arms across her chest when she stops halfway, feels someone tap on her shoulder. She turns to face the group of girls who had lined up behind her a few minutes ago. The one who had touched her looks at her with her eyebrows raised. Taylor can't tell if she's impressed or annoyed.

"Girl, that dress is insane."

"Oh—thank you," she flushes. She thinks that's a good thing. Right?

"Where did you get it?"

"Macy's?" She doesn't know why she says it like a question. Her cheeks turn even redder.

The girl makes a face as if to say, "huh", but doesn't say anything else. She goes back to her girlfriends to pose for a group picture.

Taylor turns back around as the line starts moving again. The music gets louder the closer she gets, and after what feels like an eternity, she finally steps through the propped open double doors of the gym. Her jaw slackens as she takes in the room. A waterfall of golden lights cascades from the ceiling, lining the walls, and hundreds of icicle lights drip from the rafters, joined by dangling paper snowflakes. Shifting beams of white and blue spotlights glaze over the maple syrup hardwood. It's pretty—breathtaking, even. She's never seen anything like it.

Next to the door on her right, there's a makeshift winter forest, a white carpet lined with fake snow, and little white plastic trees with golden lights woven through the branches, all staged against a winter landscape, a snow-dipped forest at midnight, lit by a crescent moon.

Someone asks for her ticket, and she has to blink away her shock.

"Want your picture taken?" the guy asks, nodding to the little forest. She watches a couple walk down the white, snowy carpet and then stand in front of the backdrop, posing beneath a white arbor decked out in more golden lights. She'd feel dumb doing that without a date, posing all by herself. She vigorously shakes her head and slips further into the gym.

There's some pop song playing that she isn't familiar with. Nobody is dancing yet, but the gymnasium gradually fills up as more people crowd in. She wanders over to the plastic table shoved up against one of the far walls, gets herself a cup of sherbet punch and then stands off to the side, cup clutched in both hands as she studies the room, searching for a familiar face, maybe Logan or her friends.

She stares at everyone's dresses and masks. Some guy comes dressed in a suit and a Scream mask, and his friends are all bent over at the waist in laughter as one of the chaperones fusses at him and makes him take it off.

After a while, the lights start to grow dim, people beginning to congregate onto the dance floor, and the music grows louder. She looks around a little helplessly, knowing she's out of her element. She can't help but feel like she's surrounded by total strangers; the only person she's seen so far that she recognizes is Hannah Elvine from her third period chemistry.

She gets a second cup of punch and goes back to where she was standing, shifts her weight to the other foot and tries not to feel so defeated. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. She thought she'd enjoy all the decorations and getting dressed up and seeing everyone dance and have fun—but being alone in a crowded room only serves to remind her of just how alienated and lonely she really is. She doesn't know what she expected from all this. Did she really think getting dressed up would make her suddenly likable—desirable? That people would want to approach her, befriend her?

She throws away her cup and hopes she doesn't look as awkward and dejected as she feels. Maybe she should just leave?

She doesn't know when she senses it—the sudden, spine-prickling sensation that she's being watched—but the feeling crawls over her slowly, and then all at once, until it's all she can think about. Paranoia slithers down her spine, ice cold, and she shivers. Her gaze is panicked as it sweeps over the expanse of the gymnasium. She doesn't know who or what she's looking for, only that something's not right. Something doesn't feel right.

Her skin prickles despite the heat of the room. She bumps into someone's side and mumbles an apology as she stumbles backwards.

Suddenly she's on the dance floor, being jostled in the crowd of moving bodies. The song changes at that moment, switching to something electronic with a heavy, throbbing beat, something that makes the bass thunder inside her ears and lower belly. The spotlights are tinged yellow now, pulsing in time with the music. Everything glitters in the darkness, the room bathed in a blur of black and gold.

Her eyes dart desperately around the room. She feels both too hot and too cold, goose bumps lit up all over her arms. She's still being watched. She can feel it, the hungry weight of someone else's eyes tracking her every movement.

She cranes her neck both ways, looking over each shoulder, but it's hard to see in the velvety darkness, the warm crowd of pulsing bodies moving in time with the music around her, surrounding her on all sides. She meets someone's gaze for a fleeting moment, dark eyes hidden behind a glimmering peacock mask. Someone else brushes up against her, and she flinches away, stumbling backwards. Her back collides into something solid. She gasps, but doesn't have time to turn around before there are hands brazenly settling on her hips from behind, big and warm, grounding her. She feels lips at the shell of her ear.

"Where's your date, princess?"

It can't be—

She does pull away then, spinning around to face him. His mask startles her, all black and with curved horns protruding from the sides, like the horns of a bull. The mask covers almost the entirety of his face, even his scars. The only part of his face visible is his mouth and chin. She instinctively takes a step back, but a gloved hand reaches out and gently pulls her back.

"Where are you going?" he says. "You have somewhere more important to be?"

He's lit up for a split second in a pulse of white strobe light, like a flash of lightning. She gapes up at him.

"What are you doing here?" she breathes.

He pulls her closer, fitting her right up against him, and the proximity makes her flush. His warmth bleeds onto her, and she swallows as he slides his arms around her, where they rest on the bare skin of her lower back. His gloves feel different. Soft and silky, not like the leather he usually wears. She feels his fingers toying with the thin straps of her dress and she digs her fingers into the lapels of his jacket, where her arms are braced against his chest. She notices for the first time that he's dressed in an all-black suit. She lets her eyes trail lower, taking all of him in. His black shirt and vest. Black gloves. His suit has coattails. He looks handsome—terrifying—like the devil, or some midnight apparition, the kind that only slips out after the lights have been turned off and you've already pulled the covers up to your chin.

"Had to see my best girl all dressed up for her big dance," he says.

She shakes her head at him and shoots a glance towards the edges of the dance floor, where the chaperones are congregated near the table with the snacks, talking with each other, occasionally looking over to the dance floor to scan the crowd, watching for any inappropriate behavior.

"You—you shouldn't be here." She tugs on his jacket, like he could be persuaded to let her pull him towards the exit, but he doesn't budge.

"Shouldn't I?"

"Please, please, you have to go. Someone could see—"

She doesn't get a chance to finish before he is spinning her around, her back to his chest, his arms tightening around her waist. He rests his chin on the crook of her neck and shoulder. His humid breath wafts near her ear.

"What if I want to stay?"

She struggles to break free of his grip. "Mr. J, you can't, someone could see you." They go out in public together, but never like this, never where there are so many watchful eyes. Never in a crowd this large.

He nuzzles his nose into the side of her neck, where she feels the hard, plastic bump of his mask against her skin. Then he slides his mouth along the outer shell of her ear, effectively stilling her movements.

"It's just you and me," he murmurs.

She exhales slowly, but it's lost to the pulsing bassline. She looks down at where his arms are encircled around her waist, and she bites down on her lip. Just you and me. She feels lit up, suddenly, feverish. She marvels at how quickly her resolve starts to splinter, how easily he tears into those spiderweb of cracks with his fingers, pulling them even farther apart. Opening her up for him. She squirms a little, pushes back against him, feeling every part of him. Have they ever been this close?

"I really wanted you to come… I wanted you to see me."

She feels him smile against her neck as he releases her, spreads his hands out over the flare of her hips instead. "I do see you," he says, very low. His right hand moves to cup her throat, where he forces her to tilt her head up and back so it rests against his chest. She wonders if he can feel her swallow against the palm of his hand. He leans down, low, to whisper in hear ear. "I always see you."

Warmth blooms inside her at his words. She feels his eyes searching her face, burning hot. Hungry. She's never felt like this before. Maybe she's lulled into a state of hypnotism from the music, or the way the lights seem to pulse in time with her throbbing heartbeat. The way he is touching her. She feels like they're playing with fire. His fingertips scorch her everywhere they touch. She half expects him to leave burn marks in his wake.

She turns her head to the side so he can hear her better, feeling a little coy. Playful. "Do you like my dress?"

His warm breath puffs against her cheek. His thumb strokes up and down over her carotid. "Oh, it's very pretty. I just can't keep my hands off you."

She looks up at him from over her shoulder. Bites down on her lower lip."Then don't."

The song changes, something a little slower but just as loud. She feels the vibrations of the bass in her stomach. There's movement all around them, but nobody seems to pay them any attention. It's like they're the only two people in the room.

The seconds drag as she anxiously waits for his reply. He releases her neck, sliding his gloved hand over her clavicle, and then her shoulder. His fingers twine around her upper arm in a way that'll bruise. His other hand curls a little tighter over her hip.

"You should be careful what you wish for."

She looks up at him. She feels the blood rush of her heartbeat throbbing in her ears. "Maybe I don't want to be careful anymore."

"You don't know what you want," he says, this time a growl. Maybe a warning.

"Do you?" she asks.

His throat bobs. And something in his gaze changes, too, his eyes darkening, and she knows whatever spark existed prior to this has burst into a full-fledged flame now—a forest fire of devastating proportions—and there's no way to put it out. No way to take it back. There's already a scorched trail of earth left underfoot in the wake of its destruction.

Suddenly, something on his wrist beeps—a watch she's never seen him wear before. She hears it even over the music. Both their eyes lower to look at it as a blinking flash of white peeks out from beneath the sleeve of his suit. He grins.

"Looks like that's our cue."

Cue?

He pulls on her upper arm, tugging her through the crowd of moving bodies, towards the exit.

"Mr. J—" she starts.

"Don't talk."

He pulls her down a dark, deserted hallway, and then he's pushing open the double doors to an emergency exit. She doesn't have time to wonder why the alarm doesn't sound, can barely hear anything over the sound of her own heartbeat throbbing in her ears as she replays remnants of their earlier conversation. Did she accidentally push things too far again?

When the doors bang close behind them, he slams down a metal bar over them, and her skin prickles. That shouldn't be there.

"What are you doing?" she whispers.

He shoots her a look that makes her blood run cold. She swallows, backs away.

He wraps his hand around the meat of her upper arm again and yanks her along with him. In the parking lot, she struggles to keep up with his long strides.

He drags her through the slush and snow to the corner edge of the parking lot, where the tree line has started to encroach onto the edges of eroded asphalt. A white van is parked beneath the overhanging of trees, and Taylor feels herself slow some.

"Mr. J…" she says, warily, "what's going on?"

He lets go of her only long enough to rip open the back doors of the van.

"Get in."

She's too scared to question him. She crawls into the back, where the seats have been gutted. It's like crawling inside the cavern of a hollowed out ribcage where the organs and all the muscle and meat have been stripped out. The floor is cold and hard. Mr. J slams the doors, submerging her in darkness.

The driver's side door opens a moment later as he gets in. There's something familiar about this, she thinks, her in the back of a van on the floor and him in the driver's seat. She doesn't know why. Maybe it's a remnant from a half-remembered dream.

The engine stutters to life. He peels out of the parking lot so fast that it knocks her on her ass. She bangs her head on the metal wall on her way down, and then her elbows hit the floor, hard, singing with pain. She gasps as she hits the floor, and Mr. J glances over his shoulder. She thinks she might've torn her dress.

"Oops," he says, giggling.

She gapes at him, stunned speechless. She hates him when he's like this—sizzling under the surface, frenetic and ready to burst with pent-up energy, gleefully reckless, like everything's so damn funny.

Still, she's too scared to challenge him. His behavior is too unpredictable, too flighty. She thinks he's most likely to kill her when he gets like this—in a heartbeat, and accidentally. It's safer to keep her distance.

She doesn't know what has him so riled up, and when they get home he's still just as jittery. He finally removes his mask, and Taylor takes hers off, too. She had forgotten she was still wearing it. She watches him run a hand through his hair, ruffling it, and then turn his gaze on her. He looks drunk, his eyes only half-lidded, like he's high on something, only she doesn't know what.

She backs slowly from him. He's like an excitable dog—if she runs he'll give chase. Better to just keep still, not make any sudden movements.

"What's the matter, princess?" he asks, advancing on her.

She swallows, forces herself to stand her ground. She knows she shouldn't antagonize him when he's like this, but she's angry. And her head hurts from where she slammed it against the metal wall of the van.

"I wasn't ready to leave yet. Why did we have to go?"

"Party was getting boring, don't you think?"

"No, I don't think." He has her cornered in the dark hallway now. She stands with her back to her bedroom door. "And I left my cellphone in my locker so now I have to go back tomorrow and get it," she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest, full of righteous indignation.

He pouts for her, his mouth pulled into an exaggerated frown. "Mr. J is sorry, sweetheart." He's crowding her further back against the door, and she notices the smell of him for the first time, the stench of chemicals and sweat. Maybe smoke.

She looks up at him, and her cheeks flush with the way he's looking at her, like a man starved—hungry—like he's going to feast on her right here, throw her down and make a five-course meal out of her there on the carpet. She takes a shuddering breath, fumbles for the doorknob behind her without breaking eye contact.

"Well—" she shudders, afraid of where this will go if she doesn't stop it, "—good night, Mr. J." She finally finds the doorknob, twisting it, and turns her back to him. She's stopped halfway when he reaches out a hand and snags it in the crisscrossing straps at the back of her dress, yanking her back to him.

"Oh, and, to answer your ques-ti-on…" he draws the word out into three syllables, and then is leaning down, lips brushing her ear, "I do know what I want."

He holds her captive for a few beats longer, lets his words sink in as she struggles to keep her breathing under control. Her chest rises and falls in the darkness. His fingers skirt against the small of her back when he releases her, and she doesn't trust herself to speak. She doesn't look back as she steps into her bedroom, shuts the door behind her in a rush.

She pants, open-mouthed, as his words simmer inside her. She remains rooted to her spot by the door, incapable of moving, limbs turned to lead, and it's a long time before she hears him finally step away on the other side. She watches his shadow disappear from crack beneath the door.

Playing with fire, she thinks. You're playing with fire.

---

Mr. J isn't home the next morning. She sits up in bed, rubs the sleep out of her eyes. Her gaze lands on her green dress hanging over the door to her closet, the tear from where her heel had gotten caught when she fell clearly visible. Memories from last night flood her mind. Their exchange at the dance. After, with his fingers tangled up in the straps of her dress. What he'd said to her right before she'd managed to slip away. I do know what I want. They're building towards something hot. Something that'll scald. She knows that they are, the constant way they dance around this fire, circling and circling, getting closer with each pass, the heat of the flames almost unbearable, before they manage to yank themselves away at the last second. She doesn't know how much longer it can go on before someone gets burned.

In the kitchen, she checks the time, surprised that it's nearly noon. She must have been more tired than she thought. She retrieves a bowl of cereal and is dismayed to find there's no milk. She forgoes a spoon and munches on it dry, eating by the fistful.

She turns on the TV and sits Indian style on the couch, curling a blanket over her lap. The channel is set to the news, and she's too lazy to get back up and change it. She eats her cereal and only half pays attention, wonders instead where Mr. J is, what he might be doing. Sunlight streams in through the blinds, white and blinding. The snow glitters and winks beneath the sun, like it knows a secret that she doesn't.

"—at this time the death toll is confirmed to have reached over seven-hundred. Authorities are still working closely at the scene to assess the situation—"

Taylor sits up a little straighter, a cold wave of dread settling in her stomach, and somehow she already knows—she knows.

Her jaw slackens in horror as she hears the report, sees the news reporter standing outside her school. Noxious gas had flooded the gymnasium, pouring from the ceiling, misting down over the crowd like rain, and as a mass exodus towards the exits had begun, the crowd discovered that none of the doors would budge. Bodies had piled up against the doors as the fumes took over. Nobody was able to escape. Nobody from the outside had any idea. Not until it was too late.

She thinks back to Mr. J slamming that metal bar over the emergency exit. The timer on his watch. The map of Gotham in his room, the pushpin nailed directly over her school.

How could she have been so stupid?

She trembles as she flattens her palms against her face and sobs, open-mouthed, against her hands. She folds herself down into her lap, bowed over her thighs. Horrified. Afraid. The TV drones on in the background, but she doesn't hear any of it.

If she is playing with fire—just a little girl with matchsticks—then the Joker is a monster playing with gasoline.

And the terrible thing—the truly revolting, unforgivable truth—is that in spite of all of this, in spite of all he's done, she still wants him.

She wants him. And she wants to be burned.

---

Author's Notes: This chapter kicked my ass. I've really agonized over this one. Does it absolutely suck as much as I think it does? I have to be completely honest, I never would have brought an idea like this to fruition if I had not been prompted with it. However, because so many of you requested wanting to see the Joker at one of Taylor's school dances, I felt I had no choice but to oblige. I struggled through every step of this chapter—I only hope that it's not painfully obvious as you're reading it.

Prompts I was able to fill during this two-part run of Blaze: Taylor angry and slamming the door in the Joker's face, the prompt "snow", the Joker smoking with his shirt off (you're welcome, Katrina), and, obviously, the masquerade ball/school dance.

Only have a few prompts left to fill (you can find the full prompt list on my blog), so if you want to see this anthology series continued, please don't hesitate to leave some ideas/requests. This story has become a lot more linear and cohesive than I had originally planned, which I am enjoying. I hope it feels like with each passing chapter, we're ramping up to something big. Chapter six is when shit is really going to hit the fan in a big way. I've never written anything like it before, and I can't wait to share it.

Finally, to those who left review replies and haven't received a response yet, I'll be working on those soon. Thank you so much for your continued support. You guys are all amazing and really keep me going.