As you might've guessed, I'm back! France was awesome.

I truly apologize for how long this one took. Having said that, thank you all SO MUCH for your feedback and reviews!! I love them. And thanks for not giving up on me.

I hope you like this new chapter!! Even more Joker/Jess action in the next (and that is a promise)!

Review! Let me know what you think!

Jess all but ran along the corridors in the direction of her room, tears sliding freely down her cheeks, her face contorted into an expression of fierce anger and complete determination.

This was the last straw, and Jess was done being here, done having to deal with all of this. She wanted to feel alive and free again, have enough confidence to face the Joker's disregard of her and Billy's anger. She wanted to feel sexy and powerful.

What better way to do so than pretend she was someone else?

Her first stop was the costume closet, where she found a gorgeous pair of round-toed black pumps with three inch heels. Jess managed a smile as she took them. Screw being able to walk; her legs would look fantastic.

Her dress had reached the drier, luckily, and she stood there in the laundry room, stripping out of her jeans and shirt, not even bothering to go back to her room to change. If someone walked in he could just deal with it.

Some unhealthy part of her wanted someone to walk in, just so she could watch his eyes go wide as he examined her.

But no one did. Jess slid the dress on over her head and zipped it up in the back.

Once the tight cotton material melded with her skin, once she could feel the different seams where each of the patchwork patterns that made up the dress met, she took a deep breath.

The change wasn't complete but she could feel it coming. She was getting there.

Jess walked to her room, picked up her makeup and hat, and headed to the bathroom. Once there, she lined her eyes darkly in black and added a little swirl below her lash line. She reached for the lipstick, hesitating momentarily over color before she grabbed the deep red. She was going to get back at both of them by looking the part of the vixen tonight, and she did her full lips darkly.

Jess smiled at her reflection, feeling the Jesster even closer, within arms length. She reached out and grabbed hold of her upon stepping into the pumps and jamming the hat on her head.

Perhaps she'd been wrong about Jess and the Jesster being the same. She certainly felt new and different like this. That giddy feeling was back and she was confident that the Joker would not be able to ignore her for long tonight. And being back in the Joker's arms, right in front of Billy, would be the greatest reward imaginable.

She struck a pose in front of the mirror, pleased by the way the pumps made her legs look in the short dress, and flicked her hair under the hat into looking sort of edgy.

Then, last but not least, Jess went to the sink and, with the Swiss Army Knife from the med-kit, cut in half one of the little white pills she'd stolen from the green room just before leaving it. She ingested only one of the halves, wanting the feeling of happiness and comfort but still wanting to be able to think.

Then the Jesster left the bathroom.

"Hey, come on."

Almost immediately upon entering the rec room, Jess was hailed by Jackson, who grabbed her arm and started to pull her towards the exit again, all the while looking at her appreciatively.

The Twenty, with the exception of Billy, liked it when she dressed up, she'd come to notice.

They hurried to the semi, still parked outside but, by this time, all loaded. Jess was starting to feel the buzzing, pleasant effects of the white pill (the other half of which she'd wrapped in toilet paper and stashed under her pillow for later use) and smiled widely as she jumped into the back of the truck with six other men. Her shoulder was but a distant memory now and she sighed in content, leaning into Blake as he put her arm around her, pleased he was one of the men in the truck with her.

"All of us are in on this one," Blake was whispering.

Jess let his words flow through her, understanding them passively, her mood high, forgetting all negativities as the back doors of the truck were slammed close. The Joker wasn't back here with them and she wasn't sure whether she was relieved or disappointed.

"The boss isn't letting any of us sit it out. Hell, even White is riding with Boris and Arnold in the garbage truck." Blake's eyes flickered as though haunted. "He doesn't look too good. White, I mean. He keeps talking about how the boss reached in and took away some of the voices. It's creepin' me out."

Jess giggled vaguely, not really caring about the Arkham patient or his voices.

"Where's Billy?" she found herself asking. Blake's lips tightened only briefly.

"He's off doing something or other. Something with five other guys and a fire engine. I think they're distracting the convoy's course somehow. Then there's the two, plus White, in the garbage truck, and the last four are doing something about the police helicopters that are sure to be there. Billy's group'll rendezvous with them after they're done with the fire truck."

Jess raised her eyebrows and nodded, impressed.

"How the hell do you know all this, Blake?" she asked. Blake graced her with a wolfish grin.

"I make it my business to know, sweetheart."

The truck started to move, jolting everyone in it as it pulled out of the lot and wound its way down the city streets. Jess closed her eyes and smiled widely, enjoying the gentle sway of the vehicle and the deep rumble of the engine. She sighed and rested her head against the cool metal at her back. This was all so wonderful. She couldn't wait for the real adventure to begin.

"Hey, listen…" Blake said, calling Jess back into the land of the conscious. "In case we get split up or something tonight…"

Blake pulled a piece of folded white paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. Jess frowned, opened it, and inspected it, realizing after a few moments that the intersecting lines and symbols formed a roughly drawn map. In one corner, along Market Street, stood the theater, home base. Blake had sketched the path through the maze of the streets of Gotham all the way to County jail across town. Jess nodded, smiling and tucking the paper down her shirt for safe keeping. What Blake was trying to tell her was that there was a very good chance they would get separated tonight and to run for home if things got too hairy. She'd need the map. She knew next to nothing about the layout of the roads in the city.

This simple gesture uncovered in Jess a sudden fear of what might happen to them all tonight. The other men sat in the back of the semi with grim faces, and suddenly Jess was aware of the air of urgency and seriousness tonight had assumed. She giggled slightly, nervously, determined to have a good time in any case, at least until things got too scary. This was a turning point, she felt.

After tonight, things would be different.

The truck took a sharp left turn, then drove smoothly straight for a while before, quite abruptly, coming to a shuddering halt. One of the men jumped up and ran for the dividing window between the cab--where the driver and the Joker sat--and the bed of the semi--where the rest of them were. He peered through, trying to get a glimpse of the street beyond the front windshield, and shared a few hushed words with one of the men in the cab. Then, he turned back to the rest of them.

"We've been stopped at a roadblock," he stage-whispered. "The police are trying to let the convoy through."

No sooner had the last word flown from his mouth than a deafening blast shook the air and made Jess jump. A shotgun had just gone off.

And now the truck was flying.

Jess held onto Blake as the vehicle zigged and zagged, back and forth down the blocked avenues. She could just see up over the ledge of the large dividing window between truck and cab, but could distinguish nothing but silhouettes beyond. The Joker was laughing hysterically in the front seat, that much she heard.

The sound was almost a comfort. It meant everything was going well for them. Slowly, the men around her started to sigh and relax a bit, jumping to the duty of unpacking a few crates of explosives and weapons. Jess crawled across the violently moving floor of the truck and helped them do so.

She had just finished lifting a silver handgun out of its case when she heard the hideous sounds of clanging, screeching metal from somewhere only a few yards away. Dim voices could be heard, yelling unintelligible things into walkie-talkies and the semi accelerated, the sounds coming closer as it headed straight for them.

Jess clung to the gun with both hands, bringing it to her chest for safety without realizing what she was doing as she heard another heavy screech, like two large, armored cars crashing into each other.

Blake was laughing, up at the window to the cab, watching the scene. He yelled back:

"The garbage truck's doing a number on the SWAT van. Boris is on the point of reckless!" He laughed again and looked forward. Suddenly, his face took on a look of anxiety. "We're coming on 'em fast!" he yelled. "Everyone down!"

Jess had just enough time to duck herself over the gun before the collision. In a cacophony of squealing metal and a jerk that nearly gave her whiplash, the semi barreled fearlessly into one of the cars in the convoy, sending it skidding to the side, probably hard enough to hit it off the road. Sure enough, Jess heard the critical sound of a very large, heavy piece of metal plummeting into the water under the bridge they were crossing.

Well, one truck down…

Jess's attention was distracted when she heard someone clamber clumsily through the divider from the cab and she looked up to find the Joker there, dressed to the nines in his long purple jacket, his green hair lank and greasy, busy ordering a man named Maxwell to hand him some ammo. He was swaying from side to side, trying to keep his balance in the still swerving truck, and took a few steps forward, looking at the piles of gun crates as though trying to find his next weapon of choice.

As it usually happened, sooner or later those incredibly dark eyes swept over Jessica.

As soon as she made eye contact, Jess smiled widely at him and stood up, pretending not to find it difficult to even move about on the heels she wore, much less in a sharply veering semi truck. The Joker's eyes flicked away from her like he was nervous--jittery probably being a more accurate term--his expression serious, but then settled back on her face momentarily. His tongue slid out and wet his dry lips as he glanced down, quickly noting her body, to settle on the gun she was holding out to him. His mouth dropped open slightly and the corners turned up as he smiled, working his jaw, trying to decide what to say.

The only sound that escaped him, however, was a quiet "ahh…" and a mildly delighted giggle.

Jess was incredibly relieved; so relieved, in fact, that she failed to wonder why exactly he wasn't ignoring her anymore.

The Joker wasn't telling, of course. He simply reached out for the heavy weapon she held and hoisted it easily away from her. Then he turned his back, without so much as a thank you, and motioned for Keith and Seth to slide open the truck's cargo door. A few of the men quickly slid their clown masks over their heads.

For the first time Jess was aware just how fast these vehicles were going, and how skillfully the driver maneuvered them in and out of the columns in the tunnels of Lower Fifth. She stumbled a few steps back away from the cargo door, through which the wind was whipping violently and out of which the Joker hung fearlessly, the silver gun in his hand. She watched in admiration as he brought it up, hesitated momentarily, his eyes dark and intense, then leveled, aimed and fired quick rounds at the police convoy, paying special attention to the armored car they were parallel to.

The armored car locked up its brakes but, in a sort of beautiful choreography, the garbage truck behind it, driven by Boris, pushed it forward to stay alongside the semi.

The handgun she had given the Joker was apparently a semi-automatic and it rapid fired, bullets spraying the side of the armored truck at random.

After a moment, he was out of bullets and held out his hand for another gun. Jackson, standing to his left, immediately placed a shotgun in his palm and the Joker fired off an explosive bullet, straight into the side of the armored car. It did little more than dent it, however, and Jess watched his broad back as he knelt down, aimed and took another shot, still not piercing the thick hide of the vehicle.

Jess had a sudden idea, and she stumbled back towards the weapons piles, grabbing the cords she hadn't noticed until just then that were dangling from the ceiling for balance. They'd need something a lot bigger than a shotgun if they wanted to get through the layers of steel that made up the armored car's heavy coat.

In a flash, she was holding the bazooka, taking no time to wonder at the brutality of what she was proposing, nor any to comprehend that she was aiding the Joker who was carrying out an enormous crime. She lugged the heavy launcher back to the cargo doors and handed it to Jackson, who smiled at her widely before taking it with both hands and giving it to the boss.

The Joker glanced in amusement at Jess--and God did it feel good to have him actually look at her, notice her, even if it was only momentary and even if his expression immediately slid to one of ennui when she looked too happy about it--and gratefully took the bazooka.

With a competence that made Jessica want to jump on him and stick her tongue in his mouth, the Joker almost mechanically hoisted the bazooka over his shoulder and, his mouth creased and tight in focus, took aim through the viewer.

God, he was so hot.

Jess covered her ears at the explosive noise as the bazooka went off, decimating one of the police cruisers in front of the armored car in a ball of fire.

When her ears stopped ringing, she could hear the men hooting and hollering and laughing as the Joker reloaded another missile.

This time, Jess was prepared and backed away, ducking against the noise as the launcher fired again, destroying another police cruiser.

The Joker put aside the bazooka and Jess deemed it safe to stumble closer to the cargo doors, cursing these beautiful high heeled shoes for being so damn difficult to walk in.

It was all worth it, however, when she looked to see the Joker surreptitiously examining her legs, his eyes sliding up and down before he flicked them away and pretended to have been absorbed in studying the road outside. He leaned forward, looking out the door, and Jess watched his face change to an expression of detached fascination.

It wasn't hard to guess what had him so interested.

The noise outside suggested yet another vehicle approaching, this one smooth and high tech and fast.

Jess looked around the corner of the cargo door and got her first glimpse of the Batmobile.

It was approaching fast, its huge black frame flying over the concrete. It bypassed both the armored car and the semi, heading straight for the garbage truck.

Jess gasped as it ran headfirst into Boris's vehicle, pushing it back as it slid beneath it, annihilating its front bumper and most of the equipment underneath. After a few moments, the garbage truck sat in a crumpled heap and the Tumbler whipped around to continue its chase. Jess hoped Boris and Arnold were okay. The Joker, who had been watching all this, sat back with raised eyebrows.

"Hmm…" he mumbled, and picked up the bazooka again.

Jess was seized with a burst of giggles as the phrase "if at first you can't succeed, try, try again" echoed in her head. The air of normality with which the Joker loaded such an absurd weapon made her want to fall into hysterics. The Joker brought it up to his shoulder, still kneeling, and aimed.

Suddenly, everyone in the semi was thrown off balance as it careened into a car in its path. It destroyed the smaller vehicle without a backwards glance but it took a moment to resume footing as the semi swerved to avoid doing that again.

The Joker clicked his teeth irritably but put the bazooka back on his shoulder, taking his time to aim at the armored car, the only thing left of the convoy, in which Dent, presumably, was riding.

The Joker steadied and fired. Jess was thrown off balance again by the noise and the way the semi rocked, and she landed only feet away from the open cargo door, sliding around on the ground with the loosed weapons cases. She watched the missile from the bazooka launch across the tunnel towards the armored car and, in the last moment, get diverted from its true path by none other than the pursuing Batmobile, which had somehow catapulted itself into the air to intercept the missile.

The Joker hooted with laughter as the back end of it erupted into flame and it crash landed, slamming right through a concrete divider only to lay upside down on the other side. Jess had just a moment to be amused by this before the semi drove straight into an explosive cloud of fire and she was knocked off her feet by another collision.

When she regained consciousness a couple of seconds later, her head was swimming and she was only vaguely aware of the men around her, groaning at the force of that last blast. The semi had come to a halt and they were losing the armored car, which had made its escape ahead.

Buzzing with adrenaline in a surprisingly pleasant way, Jess stood up shakily and watched the Joker do the same, using the side of the doorway as a tool to facilitate this. He looked simply delighted, despite the fact they were losing ground on what remained of convoy and there was no sign that the driver was going to start doing his job again.

Jess smiled slowly at him as she tried to catch her breath, feeling something wet and warm trickling down her forehead. She reached up to feel a small, stinging cut there, and wiped the blood away.

The Joker approached her in two steps, also breathing heavily, his eyes exhilarated and his makeup runny.

He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her roughly towards him so that Jess only had half a second to think that she'd never been more attracted to anyone in her entire life before his mouth was on hers, fumbling and hot and demanding, violently kissing her with incredible enthusiasm borne of the energy coursing through his body. She knew how he felt. She was so wound up she was shaking, the rush of the last few minutes slamming into her and making her head spin.

Or was it his tongue that was making her head spin?

She'd never loved any taste as much as she loved the taste of him, especially like this. The kiss they were sharing now was one of the most intense and animated of her life. He pet her hair with shaky hands and held her body so close to his that she could feel his warmth through to her bones. He was hard and angular and exactlt the man he was supposed to be, the only man she could imagine wanting.

He bent her back slightly, shifting more of her weight into his hands and she wound her arms around his neck, silently begging him never again to ignore her like he had today while she bit his lips and licked the corners of his mouth, where the scars met his lips. The Joker's breath was going ragged and his mouth opened against hers to draw in huge shuddering breaths and let them out with little giggles before kissing her again.

When he broke away, both were breathless and the men around them looked sufficiently disturbed.

Still holding onto her, the Joker took a deep breath, looked around and suddenly dropped out of the cargo door, dragging Jess along with him. He walked up to the passenger's side door of the cab and jumped up. Jess followed, figuring she had been invited up front, and watched as the Joker sidled up to the recently deceased driver. Jess cringed at the corpse as the Joker giggled and made sing-song noises.

"Harvey, Harvey, Harvey Dent…" he muttered, and Jess couldn't help but laugh. He was sort of cute. "Oh, excuse me," the Joker said to the driver, popping open the door and starting to push the body out. "I wanna drive."

That was too much. Jess burst into laughter and slammed the passenger door as the Joker started up the semi and, glancing at her with that bemused expression he got whenever he thought she should be reacting differently than she did, drove off in the direction of the armored car.

They caught up to it in a startlingly quick time, though Jess supposed that didn't really surprise her. The car had to slowly wind its way around other vehicles along the bridge but the Joker, singing a horrific "la-la-la," simply slammed the semi into them, often swerving simply to do so. Most of the cars were empty, Jess saw. People weren't stupid. Why would you stick around in a tunnel while the sounds of explosions echoed behind you? Almost all the people with cars in this lane had quickly jumped out after coming upon yet another roadblock, and retreated behind the safety of walls or barriers to wait out the coming storm.

The armored car took an abrupt right hand turn and the Joker traced its movements swiftly, banging the rear into a support beam of the bridge. Jess erupted into laughter again, finding it came easier now that they were at a relatively mild phase of pursuit and aware that the half-pill she had taken before was still at work. The Joker glanced her way and bounced slightly before turning back to the road.

"I like this job," he declared. "I like it."

Jess smiled and sank back into her seat. Yes, she was beginning to see why.

After a few moments, Jess frowned and looked behind her to a suspiciously empty roadway.

"Hey, J," she said, looking to the Joker who was still fully concentrated on driving, his jaw a little clenched but his eyes enthusiastic. "What do you think happened to the Batman?" The Joker inhaled sharply as though the thought hadn't occurred to him yet, and stole a glance in his rearview mirror.

"I don't know, Jesster…" he said, his gloved hand stretching over to rest on her thigh. "Let's wait and see."

He squeezed her leg softly and brought his hand back to the wheel. Jess took a deep breath. She was getting way too eager to have him touch her and every time he did this burst of heat swept through her. She needed to settle down a bit.

He probably knew exactly the kind of affect he had on her, after all. She couldn't let him get all smug about that.

They were on the open city avenues now, speeding after the armored car, and when they took another turn Jess saw, high in the air, the lights of a police helicopter. She turned to the Joker, panicked, and noted that he, too, had caught sight of them. His face grew intense and determined, with a hint of excitement, but he did nothing for a moment, just kept driving.

"J, those are helicopters…"

"I know that, Jesster."

"So what do we do?"

The Joker turned slowly to look at her, his eyes saying "Don't worry. Have I ever led you wrong before?" while his mouth said, "You have never learned patience." Then he looked back to the road.

He let a few seconds slowly tick by while Jess's nails dug steadily deeper into the seat's upholstery. If they got within targeting distance of those copters, they would probably be blown into smithereens.

Finally, the Joker reached down and grabbed a walkie-talkie he had attached to his belt, bringing it to his mouth.

"Okay," he said into it, "rack 'em up. Rack 'em up, rack 'em up, rack 'em up."

The meaning of this eluded Jess but she stayed silent. The Joker was intense and focused and she didn't want to bring him out of that in case he missed something that could wind up killing them.

The helicopter swooped low, closer and closer, and Jess shot a panicked look at the Joker, cool as a cucumber, smiling slightly. The copter's spotlight was fixed almost directly on the semi, and it flew down, about to give the cops inside a chance to fire at will upon them…

Suddenly its landing gear was caught up on something invisible, and it spun around, flipping backwards in the air, its control lost. As it hurdled to earth, the tail crashed into a building, breaking rows of windows where it collided. Jess was so relieved that her mouth was hanging open as she watched the copter dive bomb the pavement, face planting right into the armored car, which drove through it shakily.

It skidded to the halt a yard away from where the semi was gaining speed down the thoroughfare and the Joker laughed hysterically at the spectacle, pleased his plan had worked. Jess looked up at the buildings as they raced by, catching a brief glimpse of some masked men scrambling down fire escapes, holding large guns.

Grappling guns, she figured upon seeing the two wires stretched between the buildings, upon which the helicopter had been caught.

"See, Jesster?" the Joker said between giggles. "Nothing to worry about." He burst into more laughter.

Suddenly, from ahead of them in an alleyway, shot a burst of fire and debris. Speeding smoothly through it, skidding to a controlled stop just down the street of the semi, was a dark figure with a cape, riding a strange, tumbling motorcycle. Jess gasped, but the Joker gave it a name.

"Now there's a Batman…" he said, his voice carrying an almost impressed tone.

The Batbike started suddenly, and the Caped Crusader began zooming towards them, head on.

"Ooh, you wanna play! Come on!" the Joker giggled.

Jess couldn't help but laugh, too. What did the Batman think he was going to do? It was like throwing a pebble at a giant.

"Come on…" the Joker whispered again.

The Batbike raced forward until the last possible moment, when suddenly it changed course and swerved under and around the semi. Jess frowned and looked back. Well, that had been pointless.

"He missed!" the Joker exclaimed, laughing.

Jess almost started to agree with him, until she saw the lamp posts along the street being ripped out of the ground as the truck passed them. There was something attached to the semi, nearly invisible… some kind of cable…

Jess's thoughts about the pebble and the giant rushed suddenly through her head, and she felt a burst of dread as she remembered the story of David and Goliath. At that moment, there was a horrible shuddering click and the truck lurched backwards suddenly, the momentum of the cab being forced to a halt by whatever the Batman had attached to it, but the back of the semi still rushing forward, lifting up and over the cab.

Jess could scarcely begin to believe this was happening as the semi flipped the long way, as easily as a toy truck. She screamed and grabbed onto back of the seat, the clamor of noise and grinding of metal becoming a deafening squeal until the truck slammed onto its head and everything went black.

She was pulled from the wreckage by Blake.

She woke up to the sound of a machine gun being fired and the Batman's bike revving up as she was sliding out the upside down passenger door. Blake righted her quickly and pulled her clear of the truck. She leaned into him as they stumbled to cover by a building. He was breathing heavily and his face was contorted into pain as he worked his right shoulder, which had obviously been jammed by the crash. After a moment, he looked down Jess and managed a grin.

"That," he said, "was a rush. Was it good for you, princess?"

Jess took a breath, mind racing back over what had happened. Then, with no hesitation, she nodded enthusiastically.

Another burst of machine gun rounds stole their attention back to the scene before them, even as they ducked into the shadows and relative cover of an alley.

The Joker, tall and thin and incredibly… Jess searched for a word… bad, was firing a machine gun in front of him, goading on the Batman, who was riding his bike at full tilt from the opposite end of the street. The Joker paced forward, mumbling words Jess couldn't hear, unmoved by the fact that he was being borne down upon by a rapidly moving motorcycle.

Jess, however, was having a heart attack watching the scene. She bit her lip and bounced up and down anxiously, clawing her nails into Blake's arm.

The Joker shot at the Batman again, mouthing words, and the Batman accelerated. Still talking, the Joker stopped, right in the middle of the street, his stance daring the Batman to hit him. Jess wished he wouldn't be so brave. She understood the point he was making but what if the Batman did break his rule and kill him?

Where would she be then?

In her anxiety, Jess had started to cry, moaning "no, no" over and over, struggling to get away from Blake now, to somehow save the Joker.

Blake kept her back, whispering at her to shut it or she'd get them caught, please be quiet, Jess, because there's nothing she could do for him and he didn't want her taken to jail, they had to run, they had to be quiet, come on, Jess, please don't cry.

The Batbike ruthlessly drove straight towards the Joker, and in the last few seconds before a collision was imminent, Jess could hear what the Joker was saying.

"Come on, hit me!" he screamed as the bike rushed down upon him. "Hit me!"

With a tug, Jess broke away from Blake and took a step towards the Joker as the bike raced for him.

At the last second, the Batman swerved, his belief in honor outweighing his hate for the Joker. Jess sighed in relief as she was pulled back into the shadows by Blake. The bike skidded and the Joker turned to watch it. It was painfully evident that he was disappointed and he smacked his lips as the bike slammed into the stopped armored car and the Batman fell off, unconscious.

The Joker's men converged around the Batman's body slowly, those who weren't knocked out in the semi or hiding out like Blake and Jess. Jess wasn't exactly sure why she felt it was prudent to hide, but she was listening to her gut on this one and her gut told her it wasn't safe to be anywhere near the Joker right now.

And so, they watched from a few yards away as one of the clowns--his red hair and familiar mask gave him away as Billy--leaned down and tried to pry away the Batman's mask. Even out cold, however, the Caped Crusader had a few more tricks up his sleeve. Jess gasped in dismay when a tazing shock leaped away from the mask as soon as Billy's fingers connected, and he was knocked back to the ground.

The Joker found Billy's pain only too amusing. He ran the last few steps towards the Batman and jumped over his body, laughing as he kicked Billy a few times and spit on him for good measure. A strange mix of a protective urge and the desire to laugh boiled through Jess as she listened to the Joker's crazed gibbering. It wasn't difficult to see how much the boss disliked Billy.

"Shit…" Blake whispered.

"What?"

"Let's go, Jess."

Blake's face was suddenly stern and Jess looked away from him just in time to see what he was talking about. The Joker had knelt down beside the Batman and, unbeknownst to him, a SWAT team member was sneaking up behind.

In a second, the SWAT member had a gun to his neck and the Joker groaned in frustration.

"Could you please just give me a minute?" he asked.

The answer was no, apparently, and in a second the cop had him on his back on the pavement. Jess moaned lowly, trying to take a step after him but being, once again, thwarted by Blake.

"Jess, let's go!" His hand was tight around her arm now and he spared no strength pulling her down the alley.

Jess chanced a backwards glance just as the street went out of view. The Joker, it seemed, had forfeited and cops were surrounding the rest of the wreckage, arresting every Lucky Twenty member they could find. Jess let Blake pull her away as tears started to slide down her cheeks.

Why did her nights always seem to end in tears?