Life and Death: Chapter 21

I heard you fell into a rabbit hole
Covered yourself up in snow
Baby, tell me where'd you go for days and days?
Down In a Rabbit Hole - Bright Eyes

The cell was only temporary; she had heard the guards talk. They spoke when they thought she was asleep, and she seemed to be most of the time. Jaylie had not said a word since they brought her in and barely moved. She was playing dead, exploring the art of it, how deep she could go into a state of barely breathing. Waiting, listening. She'd float on top of the surface of it all, leave this place out of sheer will, and maybe something would change.

Maybe they would come for her, maybe she had to get out on her own, but she was patient. They had prepared her for this, they had not left her clueless, even if they had left her for good. Lucy got frantic at that very thought, moving around in her head constantly, but Jaylie held her back. She couldn't get stuck thinking about them.

The guards caught her attention again; their low voices broke through the dullness.

"She must have been hidden all her life... do you think she can ever have a normal life?"

"She's a violent offender, she won't get out easily."

"But she's so young…"

"Old enough to commit crimes," the other one muttered.

Did you hear that, Lucy mused in her head. They think we're just a dumb child.

Jaylie crouched up with her arms around her legs, resting her forehead against her knees.

Don't be scared, the other part of her mumbled. Mom and Dad will come for us.

"I want out. I want my brother." It sounded strange, and she was speaking so quietly the guards wouldn't catch it.

I'm here, Lucy tried, sounding strangely soothing for once. Those guards would kill each other if they got the chance, they're no better than us. As far as Batsy's concerned, we're just a child in need of protection.

She ignored her again, and Lucy pushed. What difference would it make if we were innocent and unknowing? We'd be six feet under. Mom and Dad want you to survive on your own. Without Frosty or Aunt Ivy or them covering you every time. Mommy had to prove herself, now it's up to you.

Let's charm the Bat when he shows up, that'll be fun.

Jaylie lay down next to the overturned mattress, ignoring the itching of the wounds in her bandaged palms and allowed the same quiet numbness to flow through her. The last days had been fuzzy, too many faces and guards, and she didn't care, all she wanted to know was where they were, if they were safe. There had been doctors with white coats and notepads, but she just stared at them until they left. She didn't remember much of the nurses after she tried to bite them.

The guards brought her food three times a day, simple, disgusting prison food like the ones she had seen in movies, and she only ate the pudding that she got with dinner. Her cell was dark at night and harshly lit at daytime. She slept in the corner furthest away from the opening, with the mattress in front of her like a shield. There was a glass wall dividing her cell from the guards and a camera in the ceiling. They had given her simple, bleached clothes and the guards never left.

She had waited for the Bat to show up, but he didn't come.

She wondered if this was the same place where they kept Mom all those years ago, in her bedtime stories. It didn't look the same, there was no sight of daylight here, and it had disappointed Lucy. She thought she would feel closer to Harley if she could relive the same thing.

It had been Lucy's idea to play dead at first, like a fun game she quickly grew bored with, but Jaylie had continued. She knew how to be still and silent, how to make herself invisible and small and innocent and pretend, and it had saved her life before.

.

It must be our birthday soon, Lucy pointed out. It sucks to be in here.

Jaylie was sitting next to her untouched plate with food, idly playing with the mushed carrots, when the camera in the ceiling suddenly blinked red. From a speaker somewhere in the room came a voice, loud and demanding.

"My name is Amanda Waller."

She looked up.

"I'm here to help you, if you are willing to help me, Lucy. How does that sound?"

She's lying, Lucy spat.

"I need you to answer a few questions. Can you do that?"

After a few moments of not getting any response, the voice continued, sounding slightly strained: "The Joker and Harley Quinn have been apprehended. I am the only one who can offer you a way out, Lucy. A chance to do right. I need you to tell me something. In return, your stay here will be much more comfortable."

The silence grew.

"There are only benefits for you to accept my offer, and consequences if you don't. Let the guards know when you are ready to talk to me," the voice continued. "I will be waiting. You don't want me to ask your friend instead."

Jaylie stood up and inspected the camera for a moment. Then she picked up her plate and hurled it at the lens, and mushy food splashed all over.

The guards barged in and immobilized her, and then dragged her to another cell. It was colder and smaller, with rougher walls and floors and a stained mattress. The door was solid steel with a small window in it and she could no longer see or hear the guards, so it was harder to keep track of time.

Sometimes a day could be three hours, or days floated into each other, turned into thick slime. The lack of stimulation for her hands was gnawing at her, deeper and deeper. She leaned against the concrete wall with her knees up to her chest, listening to the sound of silence. A few rushed steps, a door closing, and then nothing for a day. She had never been surrounded by this kind of silence before, the kind that presses on your ears. Even Lucy had gone quiet, and she wondered if she could still make any noise into the atmosphere.

The thoughts of the outside world got hazier, and she traced the inside of her wrist, closed her eyes and drifted.

Eventually, there was a voice, and she realized it came from outside her own cell. The voice that reached her was completely different to Amanda Waller's. It was low and raspy, but she couldn't figure out if it belonged to an old man or woman. It must have come from the air vent, and she pressed her head closer to the wall to listen.

"So, mom and dad left you here? Poor thing…" The voice chuckled. "They grew bored of their little… experiment and dumped you here. That Waller, she's just playing games with your mind, she always does."

The voice floated in, wrapping around her like a veil.

It sounded as if it was clicking its tongue. "Must been rough on ya. I've been here for twenty years; there's no getting out once you're in the system. Your mother was the one who recommended I'd stay in maximum security ward for the rest of my life, with all the incurable loonies."

The grey concrete across from her was a landscape, small cracks turning into rivers and mountains, a flood running down and drowning the world. She was bored out of her mind, aching to pick something apart, so she listened to still the buzzing in her mind.

"I guess no one told you," the voice mused. "Harleen Quinzel. She loved the good ol' ECT. Always prescribed it when she could. She got a taste of her own medicine at last; I saw it with my own eyes… yes, I was there when that man broke her mind. She didn't believe in helping. We can't be saved, little girl. We're just here until we die." It sounded as if it chuckled. "But don't worry; I'll take good care of you. Oh yes… I will take care of you."

The voice grew darker, before breaking out in a shrill barking. "They've taken in kids here before. The Bat wanted to save them… but he got busy. So busy… I think he forgot."

Jaylie moved closer to the air vent, lying flat against the floor. "So this is Arkham?" she breathed.

"It is. Some of it is still like it was, fifteen years ago. Well, usually it's the other way around with the crazy ones. Parents on the inside, kids on the outside. They never meet, only in the in-between."

She peeked outside, and saw no guard nearby, then pressed her head to the vent again.

"Did I scare you?" the voice in the other cell mumbled softly. "You'll never leave this place. Aw, don't be scared of me…"

Lucy laughed in her head. The silence dragged on, and she let it. The other must have been impatient. "What's your body count, Princess? Your parents' victims could fill this whole building from floor to ceiling. How many of those kills were for you?"

She touched the inside of her left wrist again.

The other's voice had a teasing edge to it, as cold as steel. "Maybe, it was all just for them. To amuse themselves."

"Honey, let me do this for you!" Harley pleaded. "You got the tattoo you wanted. Let Mommy give you something too… if you ever get lost from us in Walmart."

The Joker cackled at her expression when Harley eagerly presented the tattoo gun. "It's a Birthday gift!"

Jaylie frowned. "We blew Walmart up last week."

"Don't be such a joy killer," the Joker chided her. "They're building a new one."

Encouraged by their gazes, she held out her arm, trying not to make a face. Harley prepared the needle with a wide smile. "It's gonna be real pretty!"

Jaylie ran her finger across her skin, seeing the childish, yet graceful letters in Harley's handwriting. One small word surrounded by a heart. Like a child marking her favorite doll, it was done with the utmost care. Suddenly, the longing for Harley was overwhelming, almost making her choke on her breath, an aching physical need to be close to the both of them. It didn't matter what happened, she needed them. They were hers like she was theirs, and they must be waiting for her.

Jaylie scooted away from the vent to the opposite end of the cell, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. The word Baby glowed in black ink on her wrist.

"It was all for me."

.

.

There was a person outside of the cell today. A living being of flesh and blood. Jaylie sat in the corner, watching it. She had been brought back to her old cell at last, and now the camera was behind solid glass. Nothing else had changed, as if the time spent in the other place had only been a dream.

The visitor stood in front of the glass, hesitant. Her brown hair was tied in a tight bun on her head and she wore formal clothing - she wasn't a doctor.

"Hello, Lucy," she said quietly. "Do you remember me?"

She played dead.

June smiled hesitantly as she crouched down. "You got lost once," she said. "Me and my husband Rick found you. I'm June Moone."

June watched the girl as close as the shatter-proof glass wall would allow, and for one, terrifying moment, she saw herself. Feral, confused, and lost. The young girl had blonde hair that was messy and frizzy, and the same grey eyes she remembered. But her skin was paler, her face hollow-looking, with deep shadows underneath her eyes and bruises on her face. She still looked as innocent and childish as she had when June found her duct-tape marked form outside a dumpster in the Narrows so many years ago.

To everyone else and Amanda Waller, she was a monster, but she was also a child.

"I won't hurt you," she promised. "I didn't call anyone back then, and I won't do it now. I just want to talk to you. I will send out the guards if you'd like."

She waited, watching the girl watching her.

"I can answer your questions too, if you have some," she said, trying to conceal the growing insecurity. Maybe Rick had been right. June was not a psychologist, nor a doctor – she was an archeologist who had messed with something way beyond her understanding. But she had also been an inhuman, thousand-year-old witch for a long amount of time.

The girl still didn't say anything.

"Like you, I didn't choose this. I ended up in something I had no control over. I don't want you to suffer like I did." That wasn't a lie.

The girl slowly crawled over towards the glass, until she was sitting right in front of it, and June could see every small feature of her face. She was so similar to Harley Quinn that she could almost be mistaken for her. Almost. June felt herself being scrutinized in the same way by the girl, her eyes staring at hers without ever shying away.

"Send the guards away," Lucy said quietly.

Surprised by her words, June hurriedly turned and nodded to the guards, telling them to leave. When they did, she sighed, trying to keep herself composed. There was a camera still watching them, and she tried to ignore it.

"Thank you," she said earnestly.

"Why are you here?" The girl seemed suspicious, yet something must have caught her interest.

"I want to help you."

"Why?"

"Because – I met you before. I know you didn't have a choice. Neither did I. I was Enchantress, many years ago."

"I know." The girl's eyes followed her every move. "You were defeated by the Squad."

So she knew, Harley Quinn must have told her.

"Am I in Arkham?" the girl asked.

June hesitated, glancing at the camera, but figured it wouldn't do any harm in telling her – the girl had no contact with the outside world anyway and she needed to win her trust. She was surprised by the words she had got out of her so far; Amanda had said that no one had managed to get her to talk.

"Yes."

"How long have I been here?"

"Three weeks," she answered after thinking.

"Where are my parents?"

"I don't know." It was an honest answer.

The girl pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. June remembered her sitting in the couch in her apartment just like that, much smaller, watching a brutal horror movie as if it was soothing her.

"Can you tell me something, so I can help you?" June asked. "Tell me about yourself, anything."

The girl rocked back and forth. "I hate carrots."

June was taken aback for a moment, then continued: "When I was Enchantress, I had no control over myself. I did… horrific things, and I saw the consequences of it later. But I was treated as a human and it saved me, even when I was possessed by her."

The girl wasn't apathetic even if it seemed like that at the first glance – June saw interest glimmer in her eyes whenever she spoke of Enchantress, like most people who heard the story.

"Did you feel like it wasn't really you? Like your real self was somewhere else?"

The girl suddenly laughed, an eerie sound. It was so unlike from the scared girl June had brought home and she could no longer hide her doubt. "Did your parents force you to do anything? Did they ever scare you?"

Lucy mumbled something, as if she was briefly talking to herself, before she stared at June.

"You mentioned another name to me, back then." June leaned closer, feeling her heart beat faster. "You said the name Jay... something. Who's that?"

The girl's eyes narrowed. Her face was suddenly closed, devoid of emotion.

June quickly backtracked: "You don't have to tell me. But when you do things... do you feel like you lose control? Do you ever feel like… it's not you?"

The girl bared her teeth, suddenly standing up. Her entire body was tense as she backed away to the opposite wall.

"I'm sorry," June said, but in the same moment the migraine hit her again, like a lightning bolt from clear sky, and she pressed her hand to her forehead. The headaches came now and then, violent and sudden. There was always the same voice, the same face, black hair, struggling to regain a piece of her, hovering in her mind –

The words were forced from her mouth in a muted whisper, the familiar words.

"Enchan-"

"Dr. Moone!" Amanda's voice came from the speaker, abrupt and intense. Two guards burst into the room, standing on each side of her.

"I'm sorry – I'm –" June struggled to speak. Not now, not now, she chanted desperately through the haze. She let herself be led out of the room, as the migraine dug deeper into her. It came back now and then, and it had done ever since her heart had been torn out of her body.

She got a last glimpse of the girl, who was watching her with interest glimmering in her eyes.

.

Jaylie watched as the lighting in the ceiling flickered, went out for a moment and then came back. She sat down in the corner. In her sudden movement before, she had overturned the plastic glass of water that was served with her dinner and it had created a puddle on the floor. It reached her bare feet and she felt the sensation of water against her skin.

She stood by the side of the pool, gazing down at the surface. Her concentration was momentarily broken by the pool guard that was tied up in the corner, his voice muffled through the gag. The water was calm and deep and she wondered if she could reach all the way to the bottom. It smelled funny, and she scrunched up her nose and took a step back.

"I don't like it."

"You either get in, or I'll make you," the Joker drawled.

"It's cold." She frowned, looking at the goosebumps forming on her skin. It was too tan compared to theirs and she wanted to look like them, but they would not take her to ACE until she did this.

"Harls, I ain't got all day."

Harley was lying on a floating ring in the middle of the pool, blowing a bubble with her gum. "Can't ya help her, Mistah J? I'm kinda stuck here."

Jaylie quickly backed out of his reach and he waved his hand in a warning. "In you go. Chop chop."

She sat down on the edge and let her legs enter the water shuddering, much to his amusement. Harley managed to detach herself from the floating ring and moved over. She grabbed the Joker's ankle and pulled him down into the water with one sudden movement, giggling. He reemerged like a sea beast and splashed Harley relentlessly until she was drenched, ignoring her laughing protests.

Already soaked, Jaylie sourly clung to the edge of the pool. Harley turned and reached out for her.

"Come on, sweetie. Just move your arms."

She saw their faces and decided not to let them down. This was one step closer to becoming like them.

She let go of the edge and sank right down. She opened her eyes and saw nothing but bright blue, fascinated by how distorted their voices became before her lungs filled with water. She kicked clumsily but only sank deeper, enchanted with the crystallized surface above.

Something pulled her up and she coughed violently as the Joker held her upright above the surface. She wrapped her arms and legs around his torso and clung to him in a death grip as she struggled to regain her breath. His entire chest rocked from his chuckles. Harley came closer and Jaylie moved over to her instead and resumed her grip.

Harley laughed and hugged her drenched body. "Ya gotta learn how to keep yourself afloat! I'm gonna show ya how!"

The memory faded and the lighting was too bright, making her eyes sting. Jaylie lay down on the floor, reached out and touched the puddle with her fingertips.

.

When June returned to Arkham, another two weeks had passed. Waller had wanted to make sure there was no chance of her slipping again, that the migraines would be under control. After all the doctor's visits, June had pushed to be allowed to come back - she was not Enchantress, after all, and it had been ruled out as PTSD many years before. Amanda Waller didn't believe that, but Rick whole-heartedly did. June didn't know, aside from the nightmares and the headaches.

She was sitting outside the glass wall again, facing the girl who would not look at her, not speak, not move. She seemed to have gotten worse since the last time, or she was simply punishing June for asking too much. She looked scrawnier, almost skinny.

"Lucy?" she said softly. It was only the two of them, no guards. "Please talk to me. I'm here to help you."

No reply.

"Are you missing your parents?"

She felt a sting of anger towards Waller, for her cruelty.

"How old are you?"

Something changed. The girl slowly got up from the floor and walked over to June, sitting right on the other side of the glass. Her eyes were wide and face solemn, making her look much younger. June supposed she was in her early teens, but there was no telling.

"What date is it?"

"September 23rd."

She didn't show any visible reaction, but her eyes teared up and she pressed herself closer to June through the glass.

"Please," she whispered. "I never meant to hurt anyone. I'll be good, I'll promise."

Shocked, June looked at her and once again felt the guilt for letting the girl slip away all those years ago.

"I believe you," June said, and the girl smiled.

"Can't you come inside and keep me company?" she asked. "I'm so lonely, Juney."

June decided there and then. Maybe, if she could do something right and make up for that horrible mistake that had caused it all, the wrecking of an entire city and thousands of lives lost all due to Enchantress and June's mistake, she would be able to sleep again.

She stood up and smiled back.

.

.

.

Harley touched the bars, feeling the currents course through her fingertips. Sometimes she had to think really hard, backtrack her movements, to find out where she was. The world was hazy and she was bored. She had been in a fight with one of the white-coats, she remembered with glee, seeing the new marks on her skin.

But something was different. The devil was back, looking down at her.

"Quinn." The voice was demanding, sharp, popping a hole in the balloon in her head.

Harley lifted her head hazily. "Huh?"

"I have your daughter in my keep," Amanda Waller said, looking unblinkingly back at her from the other side. "I have some questions, and you are going to answer them."

She blinked once, then twice.

"If you give me the information I need, we can make arrangements. If not, I will keep her sedated and moved to a psychiatric hospital. There are facilities in Europe specializing in children like her. She will leave the United States and be taken into a closed ward for the rest of her life, and you will stay here for the rest of yours. If you assist me, maybe I can assist her. Answer my questions."

Harley crawled over to the bars of the cage, baring her teeth. Amanda Waller didn't move.

"Who is Lucy? Are there any more children?"

Harley looked around in confusion. "You took her away! You stole her like you stole the others!"

"Is that girl the only child?" Amanda slammed her hands down on the glass. "Answer me!"

Harley giggled. "No, I have many."

"How many?"

"She's my only living baby."

"Where is the place where she grew up? Tell me the location of the Joker's headquarters."

Harley started giggling and the other woman leaned closer.

"It depends on you, whether your kid ends up in a padded cell for good."

"I don't know," Harley whined, and the mental images were everywhere, there was Lucy, and Jay, and her son, and all the others, and a large rabbit, and there was a tearing somewhere, and Harleen was talking constantly, and the noise just became too loud.

"The girl can be moved tomorrow. I have full authority to make sure she never gets out again. She'll disappear without a trace."

Harley crawled back to the end of her cage, looking at her with wide, almost childish eyes. Waller motioned for the guards to enter the room with syringes prepared, and Harley made no resistance at all when they overpowered her.

Amanda Waller turned to leave. "I'll come back later... miss Quinzel."

The woman in the cage blinked.

TBC.

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