Warning(s): explicit language, violence
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Bile and stomach acid stings at Gia's throat, her shaking hand attempting to hold her hair back as she pukes all over the stained tile of Arkham's hallway, tears rolling down her eyes, her heart feeling as if it's going to explode as she continues to heave.
Once she's spilled her guts to the point that nothing else could come up, she gasps to catch her breath, shaking her head, mumbling, "no," repeatedly.
"Mrs. Todd?" The nurse who's waiting outside of the room to take Gia back to the lobby once she's done, asks.
"I need to leave." Gia tells her, scrambling back, bracing the wall to stand up.
"Ma'am, if you leave you won't be granted the clearance to work at Wayne Biotech. Not until you pass the evaluation."
"I'll take it another time, but I can't - "
" - Mrs. Todd, you need to complete your evaluation." The nurse says to her kindly, a concerned look on her face.
"I need to leave." Gia repeats.
"Is there a problem?" He steps out of the room the two of them were in and Gia's stumbling several feet backwards, putting a good bit of distance between the two of them.
"No, not at all, I'm just not feeling very good is all." Gia tries to keep an even tone and mediocre smile, more so a grimace, to avoid bringing alarm to the nurse.
"Oh, well, if you need to reschedule it's no problem." He replies. "I can walk you down." He offers next.
"No." Gia sharply cuts back. "I can manage."
"Oh, Mrs. Todd," he says, "I'm not needed here if you aren't finishing your evaluation today. The least I can do is make sure you make it to the lobby okay...in a place like this you never know who will get loose and run about the place like a maniac." He adds, smoothly. "Wouldn't want anyone getting their hands on you, now, would we?"
He dares her to continue to refuse, to make the nurse even consider something isn't quite right.
She doesn't want any possible unnecessary victims once his patience hits thin ice, so she relents, finally nodding, trying to catch her breath.
"Thank you." Gia says to the nurse, raising her brows. "I will be back when I feel better."
"Alright, I will be sure to forward a notice to Wayne Enterprises on your behalf." The nurse assures her. "You feel better soon."
Gia hesitantly looks to the elevator, her brown eyes drifting back to her company as he watches her intently, waiting for her to step.
The second she does, he does, too.
They get to the elevator at the same time and she grits her teeth, forcing herself to be quiet until they get inside and she quickly hits the "1" button, avoiding his stare as the doors shut.
He lets out an exhale, loosening his tie, rolling his neck, chuckling just ever slightly.
Steel uncomfortably caresses Gia's back as she waits for the doctor conducting her evaluation to arrive, heart hounding in her chest at some of the possible question that would be asked to her.
It's just grey walls in the room, big blocks that have been sound proofed for confidentiality, and quietness, keeping in noises, keeping out noises.
Gia's not stupid, she knows what rooms like this are actually used for.
If she could, she'd have this entire establishment abolished.
There's more than likely a plethora of demons roaming the halls, looking for more souls to prey on.
It sends a chill up her spine, and she leans forward just a little bit, hearing the door open.
In walks a tall, lean frame, familiar, sharp dress attire, rich black hair slicked back, cleanly shaven smooth skin that drape a sharp jaw line.
"So sorry I'm late, time completely - "
He stops abruptly, looking at her as she's sitting and waiting in a simple black dress.
Grey-blue eyes look at her and she's suddenly hurled back, seeing those eyes on the other side of a bar, seeing those eyes honing in on her lips in an old automotive shop, seeing those eyes look up from between her legs as she arches her back in ecstacy...and now here they are once more.
The doctor that's supposed to tell her boss that she's mentally well enough to work for Wayne Enterprises.
He remembers her just as vididly, getting a smile on his face.
"Oh..." he starts, walking to the table.
"...Yeah." she tries not to sound embarrassed. "I didn't realize you had become - "
" - I closed up the shop and went back to school." He explains. "I see you're still at Wayne Enterprises." He adds. "Well, trying to stay there, at least."
He sits across from her, his long legs needing a little room, his feet resting on either of hers that are tucked into heels, her ankles crossed.
She feels his ankle brush against hers on accident as he gets his feet placed comfortably, and she swallows the lump in her throat.
"I got sick and it took a toll on me. Mr. Wayne just wants to make sure I'm stable enough to work in my old position since I'm better, now." She explains.
"It's noted here it was cancer?" He asks and she nods. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"I'm cancer free, so, it doesn't matter anymore."
"Clearly it does or else Wayne wouldn't be so adamant about you getting security clearance." He replies harmlessly.
"Ouch." She mumbles.
"My apologies, Mrs. Todd. I didn't mean any harm. Just an observation." He says, raising his brows. "I'm going to ask you a handful of questions. I need you to answer them as honestly and as clearly as you can. Your responses and scoring are protected under HIPPA and can only be shared with your employer who filed for this assessment."
"Okay." She clears her throat, waiting for him to start.
"Have you ever experienced a terrible occurrence that has impacted you significantly? Such as being the victim of armed assault, witnessing a tragedy happen to someone else, surviving a sexual assault, or living through a natural disaster."
"Yes." She tells him.
"Can you explain?" He asks.
"Victim of armed assault, witnessing a tragedy, and surviving sexual assault." She clears her throat.
"And how have these things impacted you?"
Gia thinks about it for a moment. Obviously it all made her sad, but after a while she just got used to someone lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce. It was an inevitability. She eventually became calloused and numb to it.
"I've handled them as well as I can. None of them have affected my work or reliability in work." She tells him.
"How did they impact you?" He presses.
"I don't dwell on them. I can't go back and change any of it."
"So, you're indifferent." He states.
"No, no, I'm not indifferent, I'm not neutral." She argues, not wanting him to even tip toe to the sociopath spectrum. "It sucked when it happened, but I've gotten over it for the most part. It made me anxious and paranoid but I'm not like that anymore."
"So, you would say you feel that you've been affected by feelings of edginess, anxiety, or nerves?"
She exhales and rubs her lips together.
"I feel like this whole assessment is a set up to make people out to be insane." She comments.
"Just questions. How you answer is your assessment." He tells her.
She doesn't answer, staring at him for a second before sitting up, elbows going to the table.
"We had a lot of fun that night, didn't we?" She asks softly, innocently.
He can't help but to smile just a little bit before quickly stopping.
"They can't know about that. It would completely interfere with the legitimacy of your evaluation." He explains. "If you were to pass and they were to find out we hooked up way back when, they'd assume it was because I'm bias towards you given our history."
"So, you're going to fail me?"
"I'm going to score you fairly." He says.
"Mmm." She hums quietly for a second. "I don't think you're being honest." She adds, slightly paranoid that he'll completely screw her over to avoid any suspicions.
"You know what I think?" He asks.
"Do tell." She replies, her feet brushing against his calf as she crosses her ankles the opposite way.
"I think you are so paranoid because you know the ground is shrinking under your feet." He suggests and she raises her brows.
"Oh?"
"I think something has to be completely off with you or else your boss wouldn't suddenly demand you to undergo a mental evaluation after over ten years working for him."
She furrows her brows at his words, so harsh, yet so soft coming from him.
"What, exactly, do you think would be 'off' with me? Since you think you know so much."
His expressions changes, malice seeping from his pores, his tone changing drastically, as if a veil is lifted from his smooth voice - a voice Gia knows all too well - as he says, "Snakes strike when they're cornered and you know very well that you are cornered."
"I'll fucking kill you." She promises him once they get into the elevator.
"No, you won't." He mumbles, grinning to himself, losing the facade of "John" in everything but looks. "If that were the case you'd already have those pretty legs around me, forcing my system into cardiac arrest." He adds. "Not that it'd be the first time, although for two completely different motivations entirely."
He continues to attempt to get a rise out of her.
He can't simply come after her particularly, though. No, he's got to strike a different chord separate from herself solely.
"I still don't get it, though." He insists. "I don't get why you had every goddamn man in spandex jumping to your rescue. Coming to save you in the middle of nowhere in a building laced with explosives, getting between you and a train, soaring over a vat of chemicals to cut you loose, succumbing to smoke in a burning house just to make sure you were out...it was good, sure, but not worth risking my life over." A loud, obnoxious, shriek of laughter cuts in the elevator when she's lunging at him, but stops herself at the sound of the doors opening, quickly forcing herself away from him as the lobby is revealed.
She's leaving to the parkinglot as quickly as she can, hoping, praying, that he doesn't follow her.
But she knows better than that.
His hand tangles in her curled her, banging her head against the window of her driver's door, putting a webbed bust into the glass, a sharp noise from her throat signaling pain as her right temple throbs, blood spilling from split skin.
He opens the back door and shoves her in, climbing on top of her, hooking his shoe into the handle of the door and pulling it shut.
She tries to get a grip on her swimming head, her eyes seeing double, but between her wound and the obliterating heat in the car, she's gasping to catch her breath, sweating profusely.
"Oh, yeah, shoulda warned you about overheating in the summer and getting really sluggish in the winter, but, now you know." He says, grabbing her chin, roughly.
Up this close and personal, she can see the makeup he's got on, the hair dye in his hair...she was just too drunk and it was too night outside the last time she had an encounter with "John."
"You little bitch, God, you little bitch, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt but you did everything - including get married - but hold up your end of the deal!" He squeezes at her flesh as hard as he can, making her wince, blood dripping down the wide of her face to her hair. "I cured you and what do you do? You get hitched, and don't even invite me?! I know we've had our differences in the past, little Gordon, but c'mon, I bought you a round of drinks, I showed you a good time, I even kept your dirty little secret about you screwing Richard Grayson - and myself - not to mention, I haven't ever muttered a word to your dearly beloved about you helping me kill him, I got rid of your cancer for fucksake! I've been quite loyal to you, kid, and blowing me off like a hooker during happy hour is how you repay me?! Mocking me," he digs his fingers in harder, his hand shaking while Gia grumaces, trying to get out of his grip, trying to turn her head, only to piss him off and coax him to hit her in the head with his fist to get her to stop.
Her head feels as if it's going to explode with the blunt force of him beating her head, and she relents.
"Mocking me from the outside world while I rot away and wait patiently for you to do your part? Thinking you can get away with it?"
A rush of anger courses through him and he's hitting her head a few more times, letting her chin go, giving her hope as she tries to turn over underneath him and open the door to attempt to crawl out.
He slams the door shut, though, and locks it, knowing she's too out of it to try to sit up and pull the lock up by the window, "tsk"ing her.
"Now, now, Gia," he soothes, wiping the blood from her temple, her chest heaving as she tries to cool down. "I think you and I could really work well together if you could just give me a shot." He assures her. "I didn't want it to come down to this, kid, but you see...you leave me no choice. And as much as it truly pains me to put you in such a compromising position," the back of his hand brushes against her cheek, her nose now starting to bleed, "Tom Ryber is still in custody. Nobody's paid his bail. I know in my heart of hearts you have been enjoying torturing your brother and loved ones with the fact that they let your rapist walk free. However, Tom is a talker. And he will talk himself out of trouble by throwing many people under the bus. You, and myself, included."
"How?" Gia tries to ask, but is unable to completely.
"He knows how you got better. He knows I helped you. He doesn't realize, though, that you are no longer simply a mere mortal walking upon the earth as easy prey to be torn apart, no...matter of fact, I believe the words were, 'what I would give to do that to her again,' little does he know you aren't just defenseless little Gordon anymore, but a weapon. A weapon that can do irrepairable damage and so much more. So, my thing is...bail him out, lure him in, and let me send him back to dear old Jeremiah."
He's no longer locked away, restrained from her, if she agrees just to shut him up and doesn't follow through with it, they'll be right back to where they are now.
Him having the upper hand.
"I don't want anything to do with it." She tells him, gasping for air.
"I'm sure Jason won't want anything to do with you once he finds out what you did with his brother...and the man who killed him...don't even get me going on what he might do to you if he were to find out you helped me snap him like a twig." He says, poking his lip out.
"You haven't told him, yet, I don't see you giving up the satisfaction of having the one-up on him." She chokes out, trying to take deep breaths, her body only getting hotter and hotter, the sun beating down on the car.
"The only reason his wife is alive is because of me. I already have the best one-up on him. Him knowing everything else is just, uh..." he furrows his brows, looking for the word to use. "...Side dishes to the entree."
"I'll tell him." She doesn't relent.
"Oh, you'll tell him?"
"About Richard, about you, about me playing a part in his near-death. I'll tell him. And you won't have anything to hold over my head." Gia's chest tightens just a little, her heart beginning to suffer from the heat.
"'Won't have anything to hold over my head'." He mocks her voice before he grabs her throat with his hands, using his knee to prop himself up on the car seat, pulling her from under him before he bangs her head into the back passenger window on the door behind her, making her vision further blur.
She wants to fight back, knowing she could take him any other time, but he has the advantage.
"Fine." She gives up in a broken rasp, and he holds his hand to her as if wanting a handshake and she struggles to lift her hand but does so, and he grasps it in his for a second and shakes it harshly.
"Good deal, Kid." He reaches his arm past her and opens the door, making her fall out of the car, gasping for fresh air but still staggering with heat exhaustion on the scalding pavement. "You don't look so good." He stands over her. "I'll be sure to call someone to come pick you up."