Chapter Eighteen

What gave me this power to construct you?
Your guess is as good as mine
If you'd like me to return you to the stones from which I brought you
Well, you have to do your time
But for now, put down the gun—start having fun
Forget the sun turning and you will keep burning
As you melt into my mind
-The White Stripes, Cash Grab Complications on the Matter

I didn't lurk in J's room for long. Eventually, I had to emerge, and emerge I did, pausing in the hallway to take stock of my surroundings. I frowned a little when I saw that there were even more guys gathered in the loft room than I'd ever seen—what are they, multiplying?—but shrugged it off, figuring that the Joker was still newly escaped and in the process of rallying his troops. I didn't see the man in question anywhere, and I wasn't exactly at my ease, considering that I was the smallest person (not to mention the only female) in a room full of big guys, and strangers, at that.

Still, I told myself, you're not going to get anywhere if you cower in the corner the whole time. I put some steel into my spine and strode into their midst, heading to the kitchen area and going straight to the coffee pot.

It was full of cold coffee, and I restrained myself from rolling my eyes. Why turn the machine off and leave the coffee to grow cold? For that matter, why make coffee that you weren't planning to drink? I dumped the pot into the sink and threw away the cold grounds, starting over, willfully pretending that I didn't notice the fact that I was the subject of about ten stares now, and neatly, as I hunted down some filters, I liberated a pair of kitchen shears from a drawer and set them on the countertop between me and the wall, just in case.

I finished setting up the machine, powered it up, and then froze when I felt the air shift behind me, felt the presence and body heat of another person standing way too close—and something told me it wasn't the Joker. Instead of turning around, which I instinctively sensed would put me in an even more vulnerable position, I skipped two paces, closer to the wall, and then flipped around and put a hand out to command some distance.

The guy who'd crept up on me had turned as I moved, keeping his eyes on me. I looked him over, quickly, warily, bracing my free hand on the counter beside me. I didn't recognize him and thought he might be a newcomer—he was young and very tall, with long, lank hair and piercings studded through his eyebrows and septum. This approach was completely different from the timid, almost frightened aura I'd gotten from the men yesterday—something had changed. None of the others looked at all concerned by the way he was acting. There were no furtive glances; nobody was keeping an eye out for J. I gathered that he wasn't expected back for a while.

"May I help you?" I asked sharply.

"The Joker finished with you?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

His nose twitched in annoyance. "You deaf?"

I held back from snapping "You dumb?" in response—just barely—and instead looked him over again, this time unable to hide my disdain behind caution. "I think," I said, as calmly as possible considering the fact that I'd been cornered by a greasy behemoth, "you don't understand how this works."

"No," came his brilliant rejoinder, "I think you're the one who doesn't understand how this works."

I sighed. The temptation to tell him to go straight to hell was lessened by the facts that he outsized me, that the Joker was nowhere to be found, and that the accumulated men had no loyalty to me and no apparent reason to come to my aid (even if a few were frowning as they watched us). "Fine," I said, bringing up my other hand defensively as he impatiently shifted his weight and lessened the distance between us. Stall until you come up with something. "Why don't you tell me how you think it works and we can compare notes?"

He aimed a crooked, open-jawed grin at me, flashing the stud in his tongue, and I swear I tried to conceal the repulsion flashing over my face, even if I didn't strictly succeed. From the way his smile just grew, I imagined he was taking the revulsion for fear, which at least gave me a more precise idea of the sort of shithead I was dealing with.

Folding his arms over his chest, jerking his head back arrogantly (and inspiring the urge in me to wrap my fingers around his wannabe rocker goatee and just pull). "Everyone knows the Joker don't give a fuck about hostages; he only keeps them around for a day to be all alpha—but after that, it's fair game."

I stared at him, unsure whether I wanted to laugh or rage at just how thoroughly this kid had misread the situation. "Let me ask you something—how often does he take hostages out with him on jobs?"

"What?"

"Never mind," I said dismissively. He must not have been around for that. "Bottom line—I'm not a hostage, and I'm definitely not chattel."

He frowned. "Ch—chat—?"

"It means I'm here of my own free will, asshole, and I'm the only one who decides who gets to touch me."

The guy lifted a pierced brow. "Oh, yeah? I didn't hear the boss say anything like that." He looked over his shoulder. "How 'bout you guys?"

"Leave her alone, Stephen," said one of the others tiredly, a swarthy-skinned guy I recognized from the first day. He was undermined, however, by a few of the other guys, who were answering the question in the leering negative.

Stephen ignored him, stepping a little closer, and I resisted the urge to go for his groin, telling myself to wait, to let him swell up with imagined pride, that it would blind him in the end. "See?" he said. "No change in orders, nothing to put you off-limits."

"You're making a mistake," I warned him.

He pretended to consider that, nodding in false thoughtfulness. "You know, maybe you're telling the truth," he said, "but I think I'm willing to take the risk. Know why?" I didn't intend to dignify the question with a response, but it had apparently been rhetorical, because he continued without waiting: "Because it looks to me like you did the Joker of your own free will, and any girl who wants to sleep with that freak's gotta be a pretty big freak herself."

I found myself moving without having thought about it, without having made a real plan, and so I was as surprised as he was when I drove the scissors into his thigh, dangerously high up (and getting a pleasingly bloodcurdling scream for my trouble). I recovered faster, though, holding them there with one hand and grabbing that long goatee with the other, yanking on it. "Two things, real quick," I snarled, twisting the blades in his leg as he made a motion as if to lash out at me, diverting his attention to his injured leg long enough for me to say "You don't get to call him a freak, and he doesn't get to decide who I fuck."

"Bitch," he snarled, and drew back, backhanding me hard across the face, but even as my head snapped back, I leaned hard into the blades, drawing another sharp scream from him. I realized then, a little too late that everything around us had fallen unnaturally quiet, and only had time to realize what that must mean before I heard footsteps advancing on us. I didn't even have time to look up before a gloved hand covered mine, prying my fingers off of the scissors, and I fell back immediately, expecting some sort of physical reproof for having gotten into it with a henchman already.

The Joker, however, ignored me completely, instead jerking the blades out of the kid's leg and dragging him up to his feet. The boy was in obvious pain as the Joker rushed him backwards to the wall, but he made a credible effort to straighten up and look the boss in the eyes even as he was pinned by his throat. He was taller than the Joker by two or three inches at least, but he somehow looked smaller, childlike—a little boy playing at a big game.

"What's your name, huh?" questioned the Joker, his voice falsely soothing, high-pitched and curious. The innocuous question was lent considerably more steam by the bloody scissors, which the Joker held in his free hand, tapping them gently against the guy's face.

"Uh—Stephen," gasped the guy, his hands clenched on his bleeding leg.

"O-kay, Stephen," chirped J, his voice chock-full of false cheerfulness. "Here's the deal. That li'l girl—" And he turned his head here, directing his gaze towards me for just a second before returning his gaze to the wannabe-rocker—"she's, uh, she's mine. Now, I'm not sure where you got the idea that it'd be all right to put yer hands on her, but it's not. Not all right at all.

"Ya see, I'm a jealous guy. Extra-ordinarily so." He raised his eyebrows tauntingly. "You might even call it… freakish. So…" He looked momentarily at the scissors he held as if seeing them for the first time, parted the blades, clipped them back together, then swiftly, clamped one of the kid's eyebrow rings in-between them, using them as makeshift pliers. "Don't touch," he said, and tore out the piercing.

Stephen screamed and tried bending protectively double, but the Joker held him upright and said, "Don't look," as he tore out the second eyebrow ring. "You know what," he added, clenching the scissors over the ring in Stephen's septum, "Don't even think." One last prompt jerk and Stephen was now ringless, blood dripping into his eyes and down from his nose into his mouth as he choked and sobbed.

The Joker let him drop to the floor but followed him down, folding into a crouching position and leaning in close, pasting a sincere look on his face, nodding encouragingly, eyes almost watering with the effort of keeping up the façade. "Understand, Stevie?" The kid gasped and gurgled and managed to nod. The Joker nodded in response, and sat upright, surveying his handiwork. I could practically hear his internal debate, and you could see the second he realized something was missing.

He gave a brief, 'Ah, what the hell' sort of shrug, then dove on Stephen, clasping his jaw with a hand. He didn't have to force it open; Stephen screamed out of fear and surprise and the Joker took advantage of it, pressing into the cheeks to keep the jaw open and diving into his mouth with the scissors. I sat, legs crossed, on the floor across from the struggling pair, unable to look away, half-transfixed and half impressed when the tongue finally tore and the Joker emerged triumphantly with the barbell.

He dropped it on the floor with a clatter, wiped the scissors off on Stephen's pants, and then rose, calmly setting them on the counter. He turned to the henchmen, who were watching in horrified silence, and indicated the sad, choking heap behind him. "Get him out."

Every single one of them immediately moved to obey, but I didn't have time to marvel at this unity before he came at me. I jumped to my feet right away, but he still felt the need to wind his hand in my hair and tighten his fingers, jerking me down and dragging me towards the door.

"Ow—J, cut it out, I'll come on my own!" I protested, but he wasn't listening. I probably should have felt humiliated, being pulled out of the room by my hair, but I wasn't. I was a little too concerned with the fact that I'd apparently pissed him off to feel embarrassed.

He drew me out of the room into the hallway outside and then flung me against the wall. I hit my head as I collided, and was working to shake the wooziness away as the Joker closed the door behind him and came over to confront me.

He planted one hand on either side of my head. A little part of me registered that there was blood on his gloves from the murder, therefore I would later be washing blood out of my hair, but I was too anxious to concern myself with little details like that the moment. "Now, Harley," he crooned, disapproving. "Harley, Harley, Harley."

"What'd I do?" I asked softly, reaching forward and touching the edges of his coat. When he didn't jerk away, I wrapped my fingers around the edges and tugged just a little, but he didn't yield.

"Ya disappointed me," he informed me. "I thought I could leave you alone with the fellas. I thought you could take care of yourself." He pulled back, raising his eyebrows, his eyes darting up and to the left as he elaborated. "Instead, I hafta come back, save you from one… greasy-haired… little alpha dog wannabe."

I felt a dark sinking feeling at his words, but fought to defend myself despite that: "I thought I was doing just fine," I argued. "Or didn't you notice the pair of scissors embedded in his—"

He cut me off with a slap—not particularly sharp or stinging, just a call for silence. His hand came away and I felt moisture on the side of my face—Stephen's blood. "They were about to converge on ya. What would you have done then?"

I waited to make sure that he actually expected an answer. When he raised his eyebrows and tilted his head towards me, I saw that he did, and softly I replied, "I don't know."

This seemed to satisfy him. He pulled his hands back and allowed me to tug him closer, allowed me to press myself against him. He reached down and cupped my chin in his bloody gloves, turning my face up.

"Hmm," he hummed, tilting his face down, close to mine, and a cheeky grin made its way over his face. "You've gotta lot to learn, Harley," he said simply. "But don't you worry. I'm gonna teach ya."

"Teach me?" I asked, raising my eyebrows questioningly. That could be either good or bad, depending on a lot of different factors—and of course, the most important factor was whether the Joker wanted it to be good or bad.

"Uh-huh," he sang. "You're gonna learn to fight—uh, from the best of them, of course," he said, smirking as he rubbed a knuckle on his lapel. I laughed, and surprising myself (and possibly him, too) I threw my arms tightly around his neck.

"I know you're going to be an awful bastard about it," I murmured into his ear, laughing. "But I think I'm going to love it anyway."

He pulled away from me, giving me a knowing look. "Ohhh, we'll see about that."

I was right. He was an awful bastard. Sometimes I figured he just stepped out on that floor in order to have an opportunity to hurt me, to humiliate me. That didn't mean at all that I didn't love every second of it. Don't get me wrong—I got angry, I got hurt, I ended a lot of sessions by sitting in the corner with my arms around my knees, bleeding and sobbingly refusing to go on, and after he would leave me there, I always resolved twice over to do better the next day… only to get beaten down flat by him again.

There was an actual loft in the building, not just the loft-like apartment where we were staying. This loft became our arena, and more often than not we had an audience—his men were amused by the idea of him teaching someone, teaching a girl, and gathered around often to watch.

We started with knife-fighting, widely considered the most difficult form of combat—and after a day or two, I agreed with whoever I'd heard that from. One of the biggest benefits to having the Joker as a teacher was that he knew his way around a blade, which meant that the cuts were often shallow and in manageable places, though he did seem to take a sadistic delight in cutting me deeply when I least expected it.

I often wondered that he had enough time to teach me, but realized soon enough that he was thinking just as much when we were fighting as he would be any other time. His plots required a lot of thinking time, a lot of planning before he could enact them. Since he could think just as well in action as in repose, this left him with a lot of free time to burn.

I was at several marked disadvantages when we fought. First and foremost, I had absolutely no experience with knives beforehand, whereas he had a whole lot. It was like giving a baby a flamethrower—yeah, it's a lethal weapon, but without the talent to wield it, it probably ends up hurting more than helping.

Second, there was a whole different sort of energy that surrounded him when he fought. Even though his eyes and thoughts were distant, he was still at least halfway there. His face was tense, his body was focused, and his movements were tight and precise, more measured than they ever were otherwise. This wasn't to say that he was predictable—no, he was even more of a wild card fighting than he was in actual life, which was saying quite a lot. I could never quite stop gaping at him, and so my guard suffered. I was covered in bruises and little cuts by the end of the first week, as well as a few more serious wounds.

The day after the Stephen incident, I had gone almost timidly up to J to ask if I could get some of the guys to take me to my apartment to grab my stuff before the police realized I was missing and blocked it all off. He had waved me away irritably, granting his permission before returning to… whatever it was he'd been doing to that pamphlet on tips for avoiding a mugging.

So, we'd gone back and I'd collected everything. I checked my phone when I got it. Lots of missed calls. I scoffed and dropped it in the toilet. I highly doubted I'd need it anymore. I did collect my car, however—the van was great for mass movement, but it was a little conspicuous. Nothing shouted criminal activity quite like a windowless van.

When we'd returned, I realized that I was officially moving in. The idea had me completely psyched—this wasn't just a fluke after all, wasn't just a game. This was real and I was really doing this. I was terrified. I was thrilled. I knew that this was what I was meant to do.

We established a pattern. I woke up alone. I made coffee. J came back from wherever he'd been, usually in quite the sadistic mood, and drank half the pot. We practiced. He usually integrated some new aspect of fighting into the practice. I got bruised and cut up. He usually ended the session by giving me a particularly bad cut and bowing over with laughter as I retreated to lick my wounds. He gathered some men and went out again, sometimes taking me, more often leaving me at home to occupy myself. He came back. We practiced again. We went to bed. Sometimes we had sex, usually we didn't. To be honest, the twisted relationship we shared wasn't based on sex or anything physical, although the benefits were nice. It was all mental. For me, it was a realization that he had shown me the truth and that I wanted to be close to him above anyone else—for him, I think, at least initially, it was knowledge that he had made me what I was, and was still shaping me. It was the only relationship of its kind I'd ever had, and I was thriving.

Sometimes, of course, J would have to prove to me that I didn't know him any more now than I had the first day I met him.

I was in the midst of one of those solitary afternoons, which I usually spent reading or bullying a henchman into helping me practice for the next day's session—a new issue of the Gotham Times showed up every other day or so, and I read those cover-to-cover. In the first days following my flight there had been stories about my disappearance, including my photo, some quotes from Wilson, and theories that I had been murdered by the Joker. I found these funnier than I probably should have.

I also had books from home that I was reading and re-reading daily. On this day in particular, I was sitting on the bed, leaning back against the wall and reading Norse mythology. The door burst open suddenly, and I looked up to see the Joker.

He wore a pair of reading glasses low on his nose, a spatter of blood obscuring the left lens. A long, freshly-lit cigarette hung from between his lips, and his hair looked as though he'd just tugged his hands through the tangled mess. I looked at him and burst out laughing.

He gave me one quick, irritated look—what are you laughing at—before striding jerkily to the bathroom, flinging open the door, and grabbing my toothbrush from the counter. I shut my book and sat up sharply. "J? What the hell do you think you're doing with my toothbrush?"

He ignored me. Squirting a gob of toothpaste the size of a walnut on the brush, he pulled the cigarette from his mouth and shoved the toothbrush in. I laughed disbelievingly, a little worriedly, as I ran up to his side.

"Um… yeah, you can… keep that," I said faintly as I watched him scrub his mouth out thoroughly. Dental hygiene had never seemed to be a real issue with J; he'd always seemed quite happy to let his teeth do what they would. This was definitely unprecedented.

He paid no more attention to me than he would a fly on the wall—less, actually, since I'm fairly sure any pipsqueak of a fly who dared to buzz around him would get brutally murdered, or, at the very least, have its wings torn off. I nearly went into a paroxysm just observing his "process," as he would occasionally remove the toothbrush in order to take a drag on his cigarette, apparently not worried about the toothpaste foam that was soaking the filter, would exhale sharply, and then would resume his brushing.

Finally, he set the toothbrush down. Realizing that he was making no moves to bend down to the sink, I rapidly said, "J, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to—"

He swallowed the mouthful of toothpaste.

"…never mind," I said resignedly.

He cleaned the flecks of foam from his bottom lip and the corner of his mouth using his tongue, swallowed that as well, and then looked at me for the first time.

"Ahh," he said. And that was it. He turned away and left the bathroom. I couldn't help it; I laughed hysterically as I followed him. I could never predict anything with him. I was still wondering where the reading glasses had come from—but, considering the blood, I found it wiser to not ask.

I emerged into the room to find that he'd produced a knife from somewhere and was eyeing the blade thoughtfully, the cigarette dangling damply from his mouth, the reading glasses pushed up onto his head, effectively holding his rowdy hair out of his eyes. I eyed him warily.

"J? You want to practice again?" I ventured softly.

He looked sharply at me, a wolf suddenly conscious of its prey. After a second, he clearly answered, "No."

"No?" I asked, uncertain.

He shook his head and used the knife tip to indicate the bed. "Lie down, Harley."

I watched him warily, but he didn't like it when I questioned him. Gingerly, I crossed the room to the bed and lay down on my back. He gave an exasperated sigh. "On your stomach, silly," he said, looking down his nose at me.

I shot him a sardonic look, the unspoken words oh, my stomach, of course—how silly of me to assume otherwise heavy on the air. I obeyed, though, flipping over and stretching out on my stomach.

J came over to the bed, stooping down on the floor next to me, still holding the knife. He grabbed the back of my elbow and looked me dead in the eyes. "Harley," he hummed softly, "do you… trust me?"

"Yes and no," I answered immediately. He cocked his head, instantly curious at the enigmatic answer. I summoned a smile, though my heart rate was starting to pick up—the knife looked particularly wicked, after all, and I had no idea what he was about to do, though I was getting a few ideas. "Yes, I trust you, because… well, I kind of have to, J. You're… you're my creator, in a sense. You're bending me and shaping me into something powerful, something I've always wanted to be, something that doesn't have to be afraid and doesn't have to feel guilt or these other… societal restrictions, doesn't have to adhere to this stupid toothless code by which the weak feel compelled to live. In essence, you're my master. Of course I trust you.

"…on the other hand, I don't trust for a second that you give a damn about my physical wellbeing. You cut me up daily for your own amusement as well as for my instruction, and I don't trust for a second whatever you're about to do with that knife."

He ran his hand up my arm, curling his fingers around the loose sleeve of my t-shirt and tugging it up to my shoulder. "Smaart—" he drawled lazily, reaching out with the knife and tracing the bare skin of my arm lazily with the blade—"girl."

My adrenaline started pumping, my heart started racing, but I tamped down the fight-or-flight instinct, forcing myself to remain still. His eyes flicked back and forth between the blade and my face, back and forth, and his voice lowered. "But… you're gonna sit there. Ya know I'm about to cause you pain, but you're gonna stay still and let me do it." He tilted his head to the side slowly, inquisitively, and the knife stopped scraping against my skin. His voice heightened in pitch again as he asked, "Why is that, Harley?"

I stared at him, staying silent for as long as I could, delaying the moment. Finally, I said, voice sounding small even to my ears, "I don't know."

"Ohhh, I think you do." He bore down on the blade, pressing it into my arm but not breaking the skin.

I nodded into the sheets. "You're right. I do."

He licked his lips and looked at me, his eyes hooded. "And?"

"It's because I love you." It was the first time I'd ever said the words aloud, but we had both known it for a very long time now. It was only a matter of time before it was out in the open.

"Hmmm?" he crooned. Just those three words weren't enough from him. He wanted more from me. My breath escaped my lungs in a nervous gust.

"And I know I said I hated you before… but… it was a lie. Truth be told, I've loved you for a long time. I'm in love with you. And they'll say it's sick and twisted and wrong… but I know it's not. I know that you're the only one out there, the only one I could ever be happy with. That's enough to make me stay still throughout whatever it is you're about to do."

"Hmmm," he said again, softly, turning his head upright. "Let's… test that theory, shall we?"

He dug in. I closed my eyes at the sharp pain, turning all my focus towards not flinching, not moving away from the knife's point. He didn't like that. "Look at me," he rumbled ominously.

I obeyed, opening my eyes to gaze at his painted face. Satisfied, he returned his attention to his work.

I tried hard not to hear the soft sound of metal ripping through tight skin. He was going deep, deeper than he had in our practice sessions, this time cutting to scar. I focused on his face and blocked out the pain to the best of my ability, trying not to think about muscle damage, trying not to think about what the scars would look like. I could feel the blood welling up, trickling down my arm, dripping onto the bed—he didn't seem concerned, so I forced myself to stay calm and not worry.

He couldn't have worked for more than three minutes, but it felt like an hour. Finally, he drew back, satisfied with a job well done. He lifted the blade to his face, smelling my metallic blood, and his tongue darted out for a quick taste of it before he set the knife down. "There," he said lowly, emphatically. "A li'l something to remember me by… if I ever decide that my work is finished."

Now, that scared me. My hand shot out, and I was pleased to note that although the muscles protested, they didn't scream in pain—they couldn't be that badly damaged, then. I grabbed the top of his arm. "J," I said clearly.

"Hmm?" he asked tranquilly, looking courteously at me.

"Do not leave. If you leave me here, I'm gonna be super pissed. You know that, right?"

He bared his teeth, his grin feral. "Well, death, my darlin' Harley, waits for no man," he quoted.

"Bullshit. You can make it wait for you." I could feel the blood, gathering faster, draining from my arm. His gaze flickered down to the injuries, and the sight of the ripped, untended flesh did something for him. He got to his feet, only to climb onto the bed, stretching his long body out on top of mine.

"Well," he drawled. "I'll… see what I can do."

Later, when I cleaned up the mess of my arm and observed the clotted wounds, I would find that he had carved three diamonds onto my shoulder—a mutilation of the flesh, similar to his. I was touched by the gift.