Chapter 6: The Cat in the Bag

So finally we have a face to face with Joker and Bagheera!

And to Sabrina, I can't ever reply to you because your a guest reviewer but you are amazing! It was your review that made me write this chapter :)

Shards of glass scrunched under the weight of Bagheera's feet as she pulled herself out of the yellow cab that she had hailed at the police station. No one had seen her disappear from the job. No one had called her for information on the Joker's case. The only message that had been sent to her phone after the hasty departure had been from an unknown number that had told her where to be taken.

The detective looked upwards at the dilapidated building that had once been used as an apartment complex for low income single parent families or low income college students, now it was being used as a criminal's lair, a druggie's heaven, and a place to dump murder victims and still living kidnapping victims. Windows had been long broken and boarded up, beautiful street art moved up the dirty old bricks like uncontrollable vines, and the stench of decay and urine filled the air around the abandoned building. She took a deep breath as her hand moved instinctively moved toward her hip where her gun slept snuggly inside her holster. Her eyes glanced over the high windows from the other buildings that looked down on her for sniper activity but was quickly relieved that no threat existed against her.

'If they get this gun, you're done for,' the voice of reason whispered to her in her mind as she remembered that she had left her secondary weapon beside her bed. She silently cursed at herself as she stopped in front of the door. Noises of the city moved around her, but she felt like the world had stopped as she stood in front of the stained white door that would introduce her to the Joker or his henchmen, she really had no idea what she was about to walk into. Her ears ignored the noises that the city made as she stood in silence.

Her cell phone erupted with the obnoxious ring that finally broke the thick air that seemed to consume her.

"I see you," the voice of the Joker announced gleefully into her ear. His voice was shrill and loud in her ear. Bagheera felt a soft smile tug at the corner of her pink lips as a cool breeze moved against her and twirled her pony tail about in the wind.

"What am I about to walk in on Joker," she asked, a bitter tone in her voice, "Am I walking blindly into a death trap?"

A loud cackle from the Joker caused her to pull the phone away from her ear. She listened closely to the noises from behind the stained door and she smiled as she could hear the faint sound of frantic laughter coming from somewhere deep within its walls.

"Of course not Baggy," she heard him say. She quickly placed the phone back to her ear.

"I don't want you shot," he informed her with a chuckle, he sucked at his lips before adding, "I have some," he took a deep breath and whispered with a touch of dark villainy in his voice, "big plans for you little panther!"

"If this is a trap," she started just as he began to cackle like a mad hatter once again, "I will shoot you again."

Bagheera clicked off the phone call and pocketed her cell phone and with quick reflexes she grabbed her weapon. She cracked the door open slightly with her free hand, took a deep breath, and then kicked it further with her foot and entered quickly.

"Gotham PD," she screamed and looked around the first floor. A man in a clown mask convulsed on the floor with a lake of blood pooling around him. She hurried towards the wounded man and kicked the shotgun that lay forgotten at his side away from him and knelt down beside him. She ripped off the clown mask to see a young man in his early twenties looking up at her. His skin was pale and clammy as his blood spurted out of the large slit across his neck.

"Save her," the boy whispered in gurgled speech as his convulsions began to slow as his life force drained out of his neck quickly.

Bagheera stood quickly and hurried up the stairs. Graffiti, old mattresses and blankets, and trash littered the sides of the old stairway. The sound of manic laughter and frightened screams pulled her forward. Her legs pounded against the rotting wood that made up the steep stairs. She ignored every level that she passed as she approached closer and closer to the horrible sounds that came from the Joker and the young girl. Her telephone started to ring over and over as she moved with quickness towards the sounds. She knew Gordon or Ramirez where calling to ask where she had slipped away to, but she had no time to tell them if she wanted to save the girl.

She stopped at the top floor. Closed doors lined each side of the littered hallway. Her heart beat like the pounding hooves of wild mustangs running in a stampede as she moved slowly with her gun ready to fire.

"Is that a curious pussy cat I hear out there," she heard the Joker ask from behind the middle door that she was approaching. The yellow paint was chipping from the old wood that it had been carved out of and red paint covered it with the words: Curiosity killed the kitty. The girl's scream was now muffled and she could hear his footsteps from behind the door.

"Don't move," she demanded as she opened the door quickly and pointed her gun in the direction of the girl. Her blues eyes quickly took in the littered room. The kidnapped girl was bruised and slightly bloodied with a gag in her mouth and her arms tied behind the back of the chair that she had been forced to sit into. The window to the fire escape had been left open and the Joker had escaped down it.

The girl cried as Bagheera walked quickly passed her towards the window. Bagheera looked down to watch as the cab that she had been driven in rushed away from the scene. She shook her head in anger at herself. She had lost the Joker for the second time in only a week.

The girl's muffled cried pulled Bagheera away from her momentary defeat. The detective hurried to the girl's side, dropped her weapon to the floor, and quickly untied her from the chair. She stood quickly away from the girl who was removing her own gag and picked up her pistol to place it back in its home on her hip. She started to check her phone but was stopped in her tracks.

"He planted a bomb," the girl said through frantic sobs.

Bagheera grabbed her hand and pulled the girl down the littered stairs. She dragged the girl down the stairs as if she were a stubborn mule to beat the bomb that she knew had been set to end her. Though her legs moved quickly, she looked carefully for any sign of the bomb.

"Where was it," Bagheera asked through deep breaths as they moved passed the third floor.

"First floor," she answered through labored breaths as she they moved around urine stained cushion from an old couch.

The two women hurried down the remaining stairs and hurried out of the abandoned apartment building. They rushed through the seemingly empty street of The Narrows. Bagheera's grip on the bruised and battered girl was tight as the turned around to look at the building from the middle of the street a few blocks away. Bagheera took a deep breath and she let the girl go as she reached for her cell phone to call Gordon.

"Detective," the girl whispered in a tired voice.

"What?"

Bagheera turned to the girl as a loud thump echoed around her. She looked to see the girl fall to the ground in her tattered dress from the Bruce Wayne's disastrous party. Her phone vibrated in her hand and she looked down to see that she had received a text message.

She opened it and shook her head in disbelief. The word "boom" looked back at her from the received text. She looked over to the still standing building and sighed in an attempt to slow her racing heart. She took deep breaths before she looked to her phone again and dialed Gordon's number.

"Lewis," Gordon answered with worry and agitation, "Where are you?"

"Lincoln Avenue," she answered with a deep breath as she kept her eyes on the building, "There was a bomb."

"Bagheera, are you-"

"I've got the girl Gordon."

...

Days had passed since Bagheera saved the Joker's kidnap victim. She had been taken to the hospital and had been patched up. The rape kit had come back negative like Bagheera knew it would have. There had been a threat against the mayor, but no leads had been made. She knew that the Joker would arrive, but she had no idea if he would actually go through with his plan. He seemed so changeable like he wanted her to believe that he was a psychopathic killer that really had no plan or control over what he was doing.

The recently deceased commissioner's funeral was going on around her as she made her way through the crowd. Her bright blue eyes were examining each person that she passed just as she did at Bruce Wayne's party for Harvey Dent. Her hair was in a high pony tail and she wore a freshly laundered white button up shirt with her boring black trousers and comfortable shoes. She wore her side arm in her holster and her other gun was hidden under her shirt.

"Where are you," she asked as the crowd watched with loud murmurs as the funeral parade made its way down the street. The somber music echoed loudly in the streets, the music and the noise from the crowd made it hard for Bagheera to focus in on suspicious conversations that may have been going on around her. Bagheera bumped into a man that was walking passed her with earphones stuck in his eats with his music at a high volume.

"Sorry," she whispered absently as she continued forward.

"You got anything," she heard Gordon's voice ask through the static of her radio that she held in her left hand.

"Not a sign," she answered as she spied Ramirez and Gordon walking down the street with many other decorated officers. Bagheera moved deeper into the crowd, she immersed herself into the crowd and felt free with her new found anonymity as the mayor and the other decorated officers made their way to the podium that had been set up for the funeral celebration.

"Commissioner Loeb," the mayor announced from his high perch, "dedicated his whole life to law enforcement and to the protection of his community. I remember when I first took office and I asked him if he-"

Bagheera's phone buzzed in her pocket and she quickly grabbed it. A text message looked back at her from her phone and she quickly opened it while expecting to see a text from the painted clown, but found a warning instead.

Decorated Cop Imposters.

She hurriedly placed her phone back into her pocket and made her way to the street. She struggled through the crowd that had squished together to get a better view of the mayor in anticipation of the Joker's threat. She could hear the news anchors announcing the anticipation to their viewers that could not be present at the actual event.

"Pardon me," she whispered, "Excuse me. Move out of the way. Thank you."

"Vigilance is the price of safety," the mayor said as he ended his speech about the commissioner and backed away slightly from his podium.

She made her way to the street and a round of shots fired into the air. She instinctively lowered her height as people scrambled around her in a panic. She didn't dare reach for her side arm as the citizens of Gotham ran around her like flies to a piece of food. She watched as a decorated officer dropped his gun and ran passed her with a look of uneasiness on his face.

Bagheera hurried after him. Her holster beat against her leg as she pursued the man that had rushed away from the scene. She could hear people screaming as she passed them by. She kept the man's bobbing head as she made her way back up to the curb to pursue him. She passed blindly by empty alleyways without looking to see if a monster was waiting to grab her and drag her into the darkness to do unspeakable horrors to her.

The running crowds consumed her and she lost the uniformed imposter. She stopped in front of an alley and ran her hand absently through her hair as she caught her breath from the burst of speed that she had exuded.

"Shit," she whispered to herself and started to grab at her a radio to call for Gordon, but a hard pull jerked her into the alleyway and out of view from any civilians. As soon as she was jerked, she reached for her side arm but found it empty.

A familiar laughter filled her head as she was thrown against the dirty brick walls of the alley. She could smell the gasoline and gun powder on him and she could see his make up less face. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt his strong arms shove her into the wall. Her wide blues eyes looked from the long scars to his dark eyes and she shook her head as she grabbed her hidden weapon.

"I'm not gonna insulttt you," the Joker announced as he held her against the wall, "by telling you not to-"

She pulled the pistol from its hiding place and readied herself to put the clown down.

"Oh a little brains, Baggy," he asked as he grabbed her wrist and slammed it hard into the brick wall behind her, "I like that."

She hissed in pain from his tight grasp. The shards of the brick pierced through her thin skin. She held the weapon in her hand until the pain forced her to drop it. As it fell, she forced her free hand up to fight her way out of his grasp, but he pinned both her arms above her head, causing her body to form against the fabric of the officer's uniform. Fear found itself inside of her as she realized the situation that she had been placed in.

"Okay," she whispered as she looked down to the gun and then back to his brown eyes, "You've got me," she swallowed the fear that bubbled inside of her, "Are you going to kill me now?"

The Joker laughed at her as he adjusted her wrists into one hand so he could dabble into his pocket for his switchblade knife. He watched her bright blue eyes widen in fear as he popped the blade out and traced her lips.

"Don't," she whispered as he looked to her lips and then to her blue eyes that were pleading with him. He could see the fear that was in her eyes.

He smiled bright and licked his own lips. He leaned closer to her and asked while popping his t's, "And why not Baggy?"

"Why the girl," she asked, "Why take her?"

He chuckled at her question and asked with his own question, "You gave me a scar."

"You shot me first," she snapped back quickly.

"I didn't kill you," he answered with a smile as he pushed closer towards her, invading every amount of personal space that had remained between the two, "when I so," his voice grew darker, lower, huskier, "when I so easily could have."

She searched his dark eyes as he removed the knife from her face and allowed it to rest at her throat where he let it scrape lightly against her skin.

"I could say the same thing," she answered as a brow lifted defiantly.

"And why didn't ya Bags," he asked, his voice regained a light, singsong tone to it, "You could have been famous by bringing down little ol' me!"

She smiled at his giddiness and added without emotion, "I made a mistake. You force me to pull on you, I'll put you down Joker."

The Joker laughed loudly at her as if she had just told the funniest joke that he had ever heard. She closed her eyes as his shrills laughs echoed around her. She began to jerk ever so slightly with the small hope that she would be able to break free from his tight grasp while he laughed uncontrollably.

"Hey, hey," the Joker said in concern as he immediately stopped his giggles and watched her moving with determination, "Where'd that smile go? Did I scare you? Is it the scars?"

"I," a sharp breath escaped her as she watched the Joker plunge his knife into her stomach.

A sudden sharp pain emerged from her belly. A gasp escaped her as the Joker pushed his switchblade deeper into her. He dropped her hands and watched with a devious glint in his eyes as he watched a veil of what looked to him to be fear with a hint of betrayal in her eyes. Dark blood stained her shirt and dripped down her pants. One hand went to the wound and she watched as blood stained her pale fingers. She looked back to the clown for an explanation for his violent act that he performed on her.

The pain slowly subsided as he removed the knife and wiped it on her shirt. He watched as her hands fell into his chest as she stumbled forward and fell into him. Her knees had gone weak and he allowed her to fall to the ground on her own without help from him. He watched with interest as she looked up at him, her hand grasped at his purple pants leg as she took deep breaths. Her fingers tightened around the fabric as tears escaped her just as black edges began to slowly start taking over her vision.

"Let's go home Baggy," he informed her loudly with a smile on his face as he watched her lose consciousness.

A white van with covered bullet holes pulled back towards them and he smiled as he pulled her unconscious body from the ground. The closeness of her limp body allowed him the freedom to take in her scent. The smell of strawberries and banana radiated from her body as he pushed her body onto the floor of the van.

He hopped with giddiness as he pulled himself into the van to take Bagheera Lewis home for a little interrogation and to send a message to Gotham City that no one was really safe and vigilance couldn't even save a police officer against him.

He had finally found his kitten that he thought he'd never find and he couldn't wait to get her into a bag.

So Bagheera has been stabbed in her abdomen and now she is in the hands of the Joker! Oh no! What is going to happen to her?!

Let me know what you think. I love reviews :D