"Balloons." Crane repeated, unbelieving.
Kay nodded softly from her kneeling position on the ground. As Crane looked down on her folded form Kay stared at the ground, worried that her eyes would give her lie away.
There was a long silence before he shook his head, "Kealy, Schuster. Bring her up to her room." He said, already turning away to his chemicals. The goons moved silently and lifted Kay.
The world spun as they pulled her up the stairs.
As soon as Kealy and Schuster had dropped her into her Kay stumbled over to the bare mattress and landed face down.
For several minutes she just lay there refusing to even twitch her toes. The feeling of pure exhaustion that you get after a large amount of adrenaline leaves your stomach drained every last drop of of Kay's willpower.
A small sigh shot past her lips as her muscles relaxed on the comfort of the stained mattress. After a while of refusing to move Kay's nose just got to itchy and she had to move to itch it. Holding her ribs, she sat up her protesting body up.
Gingerly she felt the bruise forming on her face. Crane certainly had not been gentle.
Not that she had ever expected him to be.
Her eternally abused ribs screamed their disapproval at her decision to stretch. Who knows how long it'll be now? Kay thought.
The next thought was that, if this pattern continued, the pattern of long periods of torture by boredom broken by quick, painful bursts of hallucinations, Kay would go stark-raving mad and have to be sent to the dreaded Arkham Asylum herself.
Memories of screams and madness snuck around Kay's mental blocks. The feeling of the asylum was too much like the feeling of the spiders.
In an attempt to banish the memories back to the dark cage in the corner of her mind Kay snapped her eyes open to be met by the whiteness of the wall. So… white. It ate all other colors and left nothing but white and gray.
Not even the dark could resist the black hole of the color white.
Shaking her head, Kay patched the feeling up to fatigue.
I need to get out of here. I'm gonna go berserk if this keeps up.
To keep the madness she could feel pounding on the gates of her mind from getting in, Kay decided to hone her singing ability. Several rounds of Hallelujah were sung, complete with every verse Kay could remember and a few she made up.
Panic! At The Disco, Les Miserables, and Breaking Benjamin could be heard in the upstairs hallway of Crane's makeshift home.
Every so often one of the goons would bang on her door and order her to "Shut the hell up!" Kay would go quiet for a moment and then start in with a new song. The twisted logic behind this was this: A- Singing was a good distraction from her current predicament. and B- She wanted to see how badly the singing would annoy the other people in the house.
One of those suicidal impulses of mine, I guess. Kay thought as she sang about how "the way you move aint fair ya know."
Every time the shaky little man opened to door to the basement Crane's concentration was broken.
His blue eyes narrowed, Crane turned slowly to glare coldly at the twitchy little man. Kealy seemed to shrink under Crane's malicious gaze.
"Wha-t. Is. It. Can't you see I'm working?" Crane shot at the little man, observing with pleasure the shudder of fear that shook his body.
"It's… it's the girl again Doctor. We can't get her to shut...up…." He trailed off under the pressure of Crane's gaze.
Carefully placing a beaker back onto the wooden table Crane turned fully around to face the twitchy man. "And just what could you possibly want me to do about that?"
Crane sent a full gale of icy winded words at Kealy.
"I…I don't know. Maybe, well, maybe use the toxin on her again?" Wrong answer.
Crane's eyes glazed over and he took one step forward before the slight man hurriedly changed his answer:"Or we could deal with her our selves. That might work too."
Crane stopped and an emotionless smile spread across his thin lips. "That sounds like a wonderful idea Kealy. Now, leave me alone to work." The panic and agitation that made Kealy shift in turn made Crane ecstatic. After watching the petite man dash up the stairs Crane smirked and turned back to his work.
He fully expected not to be bothered again. That's why he found it so strange when Kealy shuffled hesitantly down the stairs an hour later with the same complaint.
Kay had figured that her singing would cause something to happen, and something happened indeed.
Well, I musta really gotten on Kealy's nerves or something 'cause those aren't happy steps coming up from the basement.
Indeed, the great leader himself had slammed the basement door and was currently stomping his way up the stairs and towards Kay's room. Though her heart sped up, Kay kept her breathing and appearance normal.
When Crane slammed the door to her room open she was on her back with her legs extending up the wall. She paused her singing to say, "Ya know, if you break that you gotta buy me another one."
She arched her head back to get an upside-down view of his cold face. Ignoring his annoyed countenance Kay went back to singing.
"I used to be love drunk, but now I'm hung over. I'll love you forever, forever is over."
She flinched as his foot landed right next to her ear.
Gruffly, Crane pushed her legs over so she was forced to sit up. Placing his long hands on either side of her head he leaned close to her impassive face.
"Shu-t. Up." Without any emotion now Kay started to sing another song. Singing directly into Crane's face she intoned, "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee we sing."
Her head snapped back as Crane dragged her off the floor and out of her room. "Where we goin' Jonny? You know, this is getting to be a bit of a routine. Hows about you let me go and then things don't have to be so boring?"
Yes, I guess I do have a death wish. Kay decided silently.
Down to the basement, into the chair. "Ya know, I feel like we've done this before." Kay said, her eyes drifting around the concrete room.
Crane slammed his hands down on the two arms of the chair and spit frigidly at Kay, "No. We haven't. Not like this. "
"Hmmm? What's new? This is exactly what happened last time. You got a new toxin or something?"
Unafraid, Kay looked back into psycho man's electric eyes. Stonily, Crane lifted his lean frame and walked over to his worktable and reached for something.
His hand returned with a canister - Oh, that's new. Kay thought, irritated - and a scalpel.
Oh, that really is new. Kay thought, surprised and a bit worried. Placing them on his stool he turned back to the worktable.
Lifting his hands to his head he slipped the burlap over himself. The scratch against his skin felt good. He let himself slip backwards as Scarecrow came to the front.
When he turned around again, the stitched mouth of the mask leered at Kay and told her horrible things she didn't care to know.
"Sc-Scarecrow? Why are… What's going on? Why isn't Crane here? Doesn't he, ah, want to like, write shit down or something?"
Scarecrow's surprise visit had Kay breathing harder than she would have liked. A dark chuckle came from behind the mask.
"No. No, this isn't science today sweetheart. This is recreational! You see this?" He said, picking up the blade excitedly.
"This is one of my favorites. It cuts so cleanly, but if you twist it just the right way…." He left his threat suspended in midair. Picking up the canister, he walked towards Kay.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit. Kay's brain muttered to herself. Lifting her hand to her hair to brush it back, she realized that she wasn't strapped down. Scarecrow advanced methodically on Kay.
As she sprang up he lifted the toxin. Kay's backwards steps mirrored his own. Seeing no escape from the current situation, Kay lashed out. The coarse material of the mask scraped her hand, but her fist seemed to have no effect on him.
The scalpel whistled through the air and left a cut on her bare arm. Whimpering, Kay felt hard, ungiving concrete on her back. Laying her sweaty palms against it she slid down and tucked her head into her knees.
Not the best defense mechanism, but she didn't really feel like fighting against a crazy man with a knife.
Quietly, almost gently, Scarecrow knelt his tall frame before her. Softly he put a slender hand on her head. He smoothed down her brown curls before taking a handful and yanking her head out of it's hiding place.
Kay stuttered out, "Ya know, Scarecrow, you and Crane do that a lot. I mean, pull my head back like that." She swallowed dryly, her throat bobbing.
"Do we?" Scarecrow asked as he yanked her head to the side so her left jaw line was pointed up. Kay clenched her jaw and her eyes rolled in her head to look at him. Her breathing had become deliciously audible as he raised the scalpel, Scarecrow noted.
"Wha-what are you doing?" Kay breathed. Tilting his head slightly the masked man ran a slight finger down her jaw line before answering.
"Fear is a beautiful thing. It can really… change a person. I can't get enough of it. The way a frightened person is so very skittish, the way their eyes get so large, the way they, ah... breath."
Kay's breath hitched, and when she started breathing again it was slower and quieter. Scarecrow chuckled at her little attempt to hide her alarm at the appearance of the scalpel.
"So… what's gonna happen now? What are you going to do to me?" Her little voice attempting to be so brave and failing so miserably… it was almost cute.
But Scarecrow didn't think that things were cute. Affectionately he stroked two fingers down her stretched jaw line.
The only thing Kay could concentrate on was the glint of the scalpel just beyond her vision. Her trachea bounced as the knife came into view.
Despite the rational part of her brain screaming no, her breathing became faster again. The scalpel left her sight as it landed lightly on her jaw. "Please don't."She whimpered. "Please- owwww!"
She hissed as a bright pain ran down her jaw. "Do you remember," Scarecrow began, casually, as if they were friends having a simple chat, slowly tracing the path the scalper had taken with his fingers, "Why I love this blade so much?" He gave a small, mocking smile behind the mask, "And please answer, don't be rude. It can't hurt that badly."
Tears stinging the open wound Kay replied, "Because... because if you twist it the right way…." She left it hanging as he had.
"Yes, that's right. Good girl, remembering what I said. Well, I'm not going to do that to you right now. As long as you're a good girl and do as I tell you, you'll be fine. Okay?"
"Okay." Kay choked out.
Damn. So easily broken. Scarecrow had been hoping for more of a fight than this...
The scalpel continued its path to right before Kay's chin began. "Ya know," Scarecrow said thoughtfully, "I don't think this is going to scar as nicely as I had hoped it would."
Twisting the scalpel to the side, he yanked it back up her jaw line. Kay's eyes clenched and she screamed shrilly.
Blood bubbled over her skin and flowed down her neck to her to make her red shirt darker. She gripped her knees until her knuckles turn white. Scarecrow laughed as he pulled her head further back to inspect the flaps of skin he had created.
"Yup, that'll scar. What do ya think, Sweetheart? Scar material?" As he released her head, Kay rolled over onto all fours, still sobbing wildly.
Her blood rolled forward down her chin and landed on the ground.
There's… there's gonna be a scar on my face… forever? A giant, big-ass scar? Kay thought.
Scars… scars make people stand out. People recognize people with big scars… like the Joker… shit. Images of the people at school who had laughed at her anyways rolled through her brain. The need and the ability to disappear had been part of her everyday life, a necessity for avoiding ridicule. Now, with this scar….
"No." She gasped out. "No! No, I can't have a scar! I can't because they'll laugh! I can't have a scar! NO!" She practically screamed.
Seething, her tears of pain turned to tears of rage. Clumsily Kay got to her feet and stumbled away from a still laughing Scarecrow. Her screams seemed to delight him beyond measure, as he was not yet aware that they were screams of fury.
As she rested her head on a corner of the room, Scarecrow's laughter lessened, and he whispered,
"What?"
As usual, PLEASE REVIEW! So, great fight scene coming up next chapter, and I even gotten it written already. Be proud. ^_^ So so so sorry it took so long to get this chapter up! Much love to all --Archaic