III
As I turn towards the door, the Joker considerately cuts the television off. It gives me a second to feel a bit of a draft and identify its source in an open window—scratch that, a broken window which must then have been unlocked and opened. I'm surprised I didn't wake at the sound, but before I can dwell on it, the Joker gives me a shove towards the door. "Move," he says again.
I obey. The locks on the door take me a second, and he hisses impatiently behind me as I fumble at them—I almost demand to know why he's in such a big hurry all of a sudden, but think better of it.
The door finally swings open, and I start to move as ordered, but he catches a fistful of my hair from behind and pulls me back. I reach up instinctively, my fingers working at his, trying to loosen his grip, but he doesn't even seem to notice as he growls a quick word of instruction in my ear. "You keep two paces front, one to the left. Move fast. Head for the parking garage."
He thrusts me forward, releasing my hair, and I rub my sore scalp resentfully even as I scurry into the indicated position, moving as quickly as I can without breaking into a run. I had considered chopping all my hair off to avoid problems like this, several months ago, but as with the train, I was vaguely convinced that making any significant physical changes would lend power to the association.
Much good my superstitions do me now.
He's right on my heels, and I think he's following this closely on purpose, trying to make me rush so that I can't be accused of disobeying his instructions, just because it'll be funny to make me hurry. I fight the temptation to just break into a run, to try to escape the feeling that I've gained a very dangerous shadow. The staircase is a relief just because it necessitates us being on two different levels while we're on it, and as I take the steps automatically, I try not to think too hard about this new scheme of his. I can feel… fear, both foreign and familiar, that rush just below my skin, and I think I'm upset by its return, but there are more important things to consider just now.
The downstairs hallway is the last long stretch leading to the parking garage provided by my building. Predictably, this is where we run into trouble.
A door flies open about five feet in front of us, and a middle-aged woman steps out, head turned as she shouts into the apartment "—and try not to burn the fucking place down while I step outside!" I freeze up immediately, unwilling to continue along the path that will have me colliding directly with her in just a few paces, and I can feel him stepping up close behind me, his chest brushing against my shoulder.
The woman turns, sees us, and immediately locks up. Her eyes skip over me completely, understandably drawn by the tall, gaunt, purple-clad and bloodstained figure next to me, and her lips part and her eyes widen in fear as she realizes that no, that isn't a man in a tasteless costume, that's actually him, though wisely, she doesn't make a sound.
I nervously turn my head a fraction, looking at him out of the corner of my eye, trying to figure out what this will mean. He seems as taken-aback as either of us, though judging by the garishly exaggerated expression of surprise, he's putting on an act. He licks his lips quickly and glances from side to side and over his shoulder before hunching forward some, head coming level with mine. Almost experimentally, he says, "Uh. Boo."
The woman squalls and flips around, fumbling at the door, dragging it open and disappearing inside unbelievably quickly. I hear the locks click firmly in place a second after the door slams shut—believe me, lady, if he wants to get in, locks aren't going to keep him out—and I carefully turn my head again to look at the Joker.
He's staring at the closed door, probing the inside of his bottom lip thoughtfully with his tongue, but almost as soon as he feels my eyes on him, he turns his attention to me again. "Goodwill toward men," he says knowingly, tilting his head forward and all but pressing his painted forehead against mine. "Doesn't it just warm your heart?"
Before I can respond, he gives me a sharp push, and I decide it'll be best to just keep my mouth shut and move. As I move towards the door that will release us into the parking garage, I do think about running—but where? I'll just be running right where he wants me to go, anyway, and I have no doubt that he'll be able to herd me precisely in the direction of his choice. He still has the gun, after all.
I reach the heavy exit door and push it open, but the second I step outside into the cold garage I lock up. It is impossibly cold—granted, I'm barefooted and wearing just a tank top and gym pants (I hadn't thought to ask if I could get a coat, but I doubt he would have consented anyway), but even so, it feels as if the temperature has dropped twenty degrees since I left work. Either that, or I'm just now noticing how cold it really is. After all, the Joker's return seems to have had the effect of re-sensitizing me to some degree; why not with cold as well as fear?
For a split second, driven by nothing but the primal need to stay warm, I'm tempted (only tempted) to wheel around and crash into him, to wrap my arms around him beneath that heavy coat and leech from his heat—I know firsthand how hot he runs. Before I can abuse myself for the notion, though, his hand grips my upper arm with bruising force.
This time, he doesn't seem interested in shoving me along—it appears that I need some guidance from this point forward, so, gripping my shoulder tight, he comes up alongside me and begins the trek through the garage, setting a pace that has me practically running to keep up. I just pray that I won't trip and fall—with his grip on my arm, it'll almost certainly result in a dislocated shoulder if I do.
I manage to stay upright as it becomes apparent that we're headed towards one car in particular—an ancient Mercedes, boxy and dull, dark blue. He pulls me to a halt, and as I turn to regard him warily, he gropes in his coat pocket for a moment, emerging with a set of keys. He rattles them, looking at me.
"Okay, kiddo," he says cheerfully. "Here's the deal. You're gonna drive, and I'll be right behind you in the backseat, just in case you get tempted to, uh, get creative in traffic."
I stare at him. "I'm gonna—?"
"Well, come on," he says, a touch impatiently. "Even at, ah, four a.m. it's not a great idea for me to be flashing this face around for any pig that's halfway paying attention. No. You drive. I monitor. Got any problems with that?"
As a matter of fact, I have a whole host of problems with the arrangement, but he's starting to look antsy, probably as aware as I am that the woman we encountered certainly called the police and that we have a rapidly-closing window in which we must escape.
That is to say, he. He has a rapidly-closing window in which he must escape. I don't need to escape the police, I need to escape him.
He's gotten tired of waiting for a response. With a flick of the wrist, he wings the keys toward my face, and I barely have time to get my hands up and catch them before they hit me. Keys in hand, I lower my arms and glare at him, and he laughs through his nose as he crosses to the driver's side of the car, pulling the door open and gesturing to the steering wheel with a flourish.
I glower, but that's all I'm brave enough to do. I move to the car and climb in behind the wheel, and my feet are barely clear of the door before he slams it shut. In the split second of silence that follows, I consider locking the doors, starting the engine, and peeling out of here, taking flight to somewhere, anywhere but here—but even if he didn't have a gun and even if I had a place to go (last winter's adventure proved that police stations, at least, are out), I know it would be utterly futile. This is a man who has escaped from Arkham twice. He owns at least a part of the police force and is exceedingly resourceful—at least, he always seems to be able to track me down wherever I go.
Escaping him entails much more than just removing myself from his physical presence. I know this better than most. Just how to escape him completely I haven't yet figured out, but as soon as I do…
The back door opens and the car shakes and sinks as he drops into the back seat. This is an old car, old enough so that it has bench seats without consoles dividing them down the center, and correspondingly, the backrests are solid from one side of the car to the other—I'm thankful that there's at least a half-barrier between front and back, even if there's still plenty of room for him to reach into the front and do some damage. "Okay," he croons, high and soft as he settles himself, adjusting his greatcoat. "Let's make tracks." He thinks twice, leans forward, and pokes me in the shoulder. "Uh. That's just a figure of speech, Em. What you should actually do is drive like a grandma. Not my grandma, though." He laughs. "That would be counterproductive."
I silently reach forward to start the car, and after struggling against the cold for a moment, giving me a second's wild hope, the engine turns over. Ah, well, I think as I check behind me, it wouldn't have slowed him down, anyway; he'd have just stolen another one.
As I back out of the parking space, I absently pull my seatbelt over my shoulder, clicking it into place. I imagine I hear him scoff a bit, but I ignore it—if he wants to go flying through the windshield in the event of a collision, that's his business and none of mine. Not that I intend to get in a wreck (somehow, I doubt it'd slow him down much and probably will piss him off more than anything), but again, I don't want to risk any more bodily injury than is inevitable.
As I put the car in drive, I realize something. It's totally stupid, but still, I can't stop myself from blurting, "I don't have my license with me."
He shifts some, and I feel it when he leans an elbow on the shoulder of my seat. "Well," he says speculatively, "just one more reason for you to avoid getting pulled over."
I glance sideways at his face, hurriedly looking back through the windshield when I see that he's watching me attentively, and he chuckles. "What's that?" he asks. "You wanna know what other incentives I've got for you to behave?"
"No," I say flatly. "Dead cops and bullets in the back of my head are good enough."
He laughs shortly, and the weight of his arm lifts as he leans back into his own seat. I pull up to the mouth of the parking garage and come to a stop, glancing in the rearview mirror. The white face stands out against the dark clothes and shadows of the back seat, giving it the effect of looking eerily disembodied.
"Left or right?" I ask, though the question is mostly rhetorical—the sound of sirens is coming definitively from the left and getting louder.
The Joker, though, surprises me. "Hmm," he says, pretending to think, "…left."
I stare at him, feeling my pulse jump in my throat. "You can't be serious."
His only response is a significant look that makes me think better of pursuing the topic further. Silently, swallowing the fear that we'll get caught and that this will finally be the time they decide this has gone beyond coincidence, that if I'm not the Joker's active accomplice then maybe I'll be safest locked away in a prison anyway, I turn onto the main road.
We make it a few streets before the first flashing set of red and blue lights hits us, and the Joker fluidly drops down, sprawling casually on his back across the long seat, out of view of the windows. More lights follow the first set, and I'm practically rigid with tension as they draw closer—but they simply pass me by, so eager to land their prey and uninterested in pale little women driving in the opposite direction.
"Turn right here," the Joker instructs me from the back.
I'm not foolish enough to continue asking questions. I obey, and as we drift down the road at thirty miles per hour, the flashing lights gradually disappear from view.
Despite this, the Joker seems perfectly comfortable lying on his back, which has the decidedly uncomfortable effect of removing him from my immediate line of vision (that is, unless I want to twist and turn around to look, but something tells me that would be a bad idea). I try to ignore the fact that I can't see him, but it's difficult, especially when his disembodied voice floats up eerily from the backseat. "So, Em. What have you been up to lately?"
Ah, so this is the catching-up-with-you chat I was expecting. I don't think surliness will be well-received, and since I'm not brave enough to test the theory at the moment, what with him as good as invisible behind me and the chills creeping up the back of my neck, I respond as neutrally as possible. "Oh, you know. Work, home, work, home."
"That doesn't sound very interesting."
"Yeah, well. I think I've had enough of interesting for a lifetime."
He laughs lightly, briefly, but there's an edge to it that puts me on guard. "Oh, come on, now," he purrs. "You don't really believe that, do you?"
I hesitate for a second before deciding it'll just be safest to refrain from responding. Suddenly conscious once more of how cold it is—the low temperatures have sunk into my flesh and appear to be working their way towards my bones—I reach instead for the heat.
There's a sound from behind me, a movement so fast I don't even see it, and then arm is stretched over the backseat, his hand is gripping my wrist hard enough to bruise, and his voice is hissing in my ear. "Looking for something?"
I lift big eyes to the rearview mirror and I can see the edges of that white face, just visible behind my own. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I've forgotten how to move around him, how careful one really must be to avoid attracting more attention than necessary. Reaching unexpectedly and without announcement for anything is not a clever thing to do. I swallow hard, hoping that the fact that I'm driving will spare me another head injury, and I manage to say, "Just… trying to turn on the heat. It's—it's freezing."
"Hmm," he grinds out, sounding far from convinced, but his grip loosens a bit, fingers becoming rigid as he draws the tips along the skin of my arm all the way back to the elbow, testing, and it's all I can do to refrain from jerking violently away. I need the brownie points, so I hold still, despite the fact that his touch raises almost painful goosebumps in its wake and I want nothing more at the moment than for him to just pull back and stop touching me. After a second, he appears to reach a conclusion, and he takes hold of my wrist again (this time almost mockingly gently) and moves my hand back to the steering wheel. As soon as I'm back to the standard ten-and-two, his arm reaches forward further and cranks up the heat.
I release a quiet breath of relief as hot air begins churning from the vents, but I can't relax, not entirely, not with him still hovering just behind me. His voice doesn't help, either: as the cab heats up, he speaks one word with horribly deliberate sarcasm: "Better?"
"Much. Thank you," I say, fear making my tone clipped and confused.
He chuckles, and I imagine I can feel it stirring my hair, prompting a shudder that I hope he doesn't pick up on even as I resign myself to the fact that he probably will. As if reading my mind, he pulls back, but before I can even start to hope that he plans to withdraw completely from my personal space, he reaches up again to brush my hair back before resting his hand ever-so-casually on my shoulder. The wide space between forefinger and thumb fits neatly around my neck, his thumb pressed against the nape and fingers hanging down to rest loosely against my collarbone. By instinct, I immediately try to hunch away, shrug his hand off. He doesn't appear to notice.
"Turn left here," he advises me, tapping his index finger against my clavicle. I obey in silence, hoping he can feel the waves of single-minded resentment and ill will just rolling off me.
But no. It's remarkable how good he is at playing oblivious. Well, I think despondently as I right the car and drive steadily onward, at least he's warm. I don't think I could sit beneath his grip if his hands were ice cold.
His voice is in my ear before I can try to talk myself into relaxing. "You haven't asked what I've been up to, Em."
I have nothing to say to that, but pressure from his fingertips alerts me to the fact that he expects a response, so I force a bitter laugh. "Plotting, I figured. Sparring with Batman, recruiting henchmen, gathering funds—I don't know, what do you normally do when you're out of jail?"
"Ah, Arkham," he corrects, giving me a chiding little squeeze.
"Right," I mutter. I glance in the mirror, hoping to soothe my nerves by tying his voice to his face, to rid myself of that unnerving feeling that he's not a human but some sort of evil spirit clinging to my skull, but I still can't see any more than a glimpse of white paint here and there. He's effectively hidden behind me, only his arm visible hooked over the back of the long front seat. I can see the gap in his sleeve stretching from mid-forearm to neatly-buttoned cuff, can see the skin of his arm showing through, and it doesn't exactly help things. I swallow and look back at the road. He chuckles a little. I try not to take it personally. After all, who knows what's going through his mind or what he's laughing at?
"Anyway, you're, ah, spot on. Ya know, you show a pretty remarkable understanding of the criminal lifestyle." I stay silent. I have no idea if he's being sarcastic or not. I'm not sure which one would be worse. "If I recall correctly, I offered you a job last time we saw each other."
"Yeah, and if I remember it correctly, I turned it down."
"Oh, but are you sure you won't reconsider? We're always looking for… team players."
I'm almost certain he's taunting me, not that I would respond any differently if the offer was genuine. "If I say yes, will I still be a hostage?" I challenge him.
"You'll still be playing the role of hostage, that won't change," he assures me quickly. "Only now, you'd be getting paid for it."
I shake my head. As much as a part of me wants to play along in hopes of currying favor and finding a chance to escape, there's a smarter part of me that's fully aware that there is no favor to be had with this man. All I'll be doing if I accept his offer is ascending to some new and much more foreign level of this twisted game. I've done hostage before. I plan on sticking with it until I can graduate to free and clear. "Sorry, but I'm going to have to turn you down again."
"Awww," he croaks in my ear, making me quench another shudder as the hairs on the back of my neck rise. "Ah, well. More's the pity, I guess. Merge onto the freeway here, that's it."
I obey his instructions and feel my heart rate picking up accordingly—and if I can feel it, I know he can, what with his fingers nestled right against my pulse point. I can't help it, though. The freeway's taking us further away from the brighter side of the city, away from the side with more skyscrapers and fewer broken street lamps—not safe, never safe, but more familiar and better-policed. I don't have to ask where we're headed anymore. We're on a straight path to the Narrows.
By the time the Joker laughs through his nose, hmm-hmm-hmm, I've resigned myself to the fact that he'll feel my fear through his fingertips. "Oh, Em," he says, sounding far too cheerful for my liking. "Are you scared?"
"Yes," I answer honestly, aware that lies won't fly with him, and I can't seem to keep the slight touch of wonder out of my voice. After so many months living in a sort of pleasant haze, with no extreme emotions and, importantly, no fear, this is so strange. It's like cutting into a tree trunk, expecting to be met with more bark, only to have the tree start to ooze blood.
"Aww," he says again, this time with his perfect rendering of sympathy, and the pad of his thumb is stroking against the nape of my neck, a motion that would be soothing coming from a friend or a lover. Seeing as he's neither, it just strikes me as alien and uncomfortably forward.
Not that he's any stranger to forwardness. I get a sudden flash of that hazy car ride months ago, heading from police station to warehouse, where he arranged me so I was resting with my back against him, sleeping off the chloroform he'd administered as he draped his arm around my shoulders (it's hazy, I was drugged), and my jaw tightens grimly. I think if there's anything I can conclude from my dealings with this man, it's that he has no concept of personal space.
No, that's not right. I'm sure he understands the idea of personal space, it's just that it benefits him to flaunt and abuse it, to get up in people's faces and violate their boundaries to show them how tenuous and frail societal mores are. These rules won't save you.
Ugh, am I thinking like him again?
The touch that began as a sort of heavy, almost bruising stroke has faded almost absently to just a light brushing, and I think: you know what sort of touch this is, you're enjoying appropriating something that should be kind and tender for your own sick use, you bastard. If I had any space to do so, I'd jerk away and twist around to fend him off to the best of my ability, but… well, that's one of the shitty things about being stuck in a car with the Joker. There's nowhere to go.
"So," he says suddenly. "You're scared. But despite this, you're not resisting, and you're not, uh, you're not asking me why or where or when. You used to be so inquisitive, Em, but listen to you now. Not a peep. What do you think I should take out of this little personality change, huh?"
"Maybe that I learned my lesson," I say, as dryly as possible under the circumstances. "You know, you're not exactly the most straightforward guy when it comes to answering questions."
"Hah," he says softly, a smirk in his voice. "You sure it's not just cause you're happy to see me?"
"Oh, are we still harping on that 'best friend' bullshit?" I snap irritably.
It would appear I've taken my defiance just one step too far. In a split second, his formerly free hand is twisted in my hair, jerking my head back sharply so that I have to struggle just to see the road, and as the car swerves across two (fortunately empty) lanes, I spot his face out of the corner of my eye, head cocked forward into the front seat so he can get a good look at me while he lectures me.
"Careful, Em," he growls, and I can feel his breath gusting over the side of my throat. "You hurt my feelings, then who've you got left, really?"
"Okay, okay!" I grind out, trying to right the car and keep an eye on the road without losing a chunk of hair. "Let me go, I'm gonna wreck if you keep—"
Blue lights flashing behind us stop me mid-sentence.
Shit.
He lets go of my hair, twisting his head around to look out the back windshield at the police car in pursuit. He releases a quick, strangled sound of annoyance and then snaps his attention back to me, the hand at my shoulder suddenly clenched instead around my throat. "Look what you did."
The sudden pressure on my windpipe is painful, fills me with a sudden urge to cough, but without the wind for it all I can manage is a pitiful little gag. Fortunately, he doesn't seem interested in choking me to death here and now—while it might be satisfying, it would almost certainly result in a wreck, and he can't afford that right now. He simply indulges in that urge to strangle me for a few seconds before dropping his hand abruptly, and as I cough and gasp for air, he shifts behind me.
"Move over," he says impatiently, draping his arms over the center back of the front seat.
I stare at him in the mirror. "Mo—you mean pull over?"
"No," he says, drawing the word out and infusing it with more meaning than should be possible for just one syllable—of course not, idiot, if I meant pull over I'd say pull over, wouldn't I—"I said move over. Get in the passenger seat. It's my turn to drive."
"I—" I begin, but he's already reaching around my shoulders with his left arm, grabbing the steering wheel over my hand, and I draw back instinctively from the touch.
As much as I know I'm going to regret this, I pull my feet back from the pedals and slide across the front seat, safely depositing myself into the passenger seat and pulling my seatbelt on right away. The car is slowing down without me at the gas, and the police are drawing nearer, probably lulled into a false sense of security by the slowing vehicle. Boy, are they in for a surprise.
The Joker moves ridiculously quickly for a man of over six feet stuck in the sitting-room-only interior of the Benz. He wriggles over the backrest and plunks himself down behind the steering wheel almost before I can blink, and then I'm thrust back into my seat as he floors it. Giving me a sharp sideways glance, he barks a quick warning: "Do anything stupid, you get a bullet in the gut. Hurts like crazy. You understand?"
"I understand," I respond. Frankly, interfering with whatever he's planning is the last thing on my mind. Had I ever stopped to think about it, I might have realized that the sight of the Joker behind the wheel is one that inspires complete terror, and so really, at the moment, I'm more worried about dying in a horrible fiery car accident than about helping the cops catch us.
The lights behind us fall back some, but they quickly regain the lost ground as they recognize his intent to run. Slouching in my seat, I shoot a quick, panicked look sideways at him. "You think they know it's you?"
"Not yet," he muses, one hand on the wheel as he gropes in his coat with the other, eyes darting from the road to the rearview mirror as he grimaces—but even now, careening down the freeway in flight from the police with a kidnapped woman cringing in the passenger seat, I can't read any signs of panic in his rolling eyes or the quick, jerky movements. I have no idea how he's not afraid. Me, my fear is back and it's apparently making up for lost time. My heart hasn't pounded this hard since the warehouse.
The speakers on the cop car blare to life behind us, clearly audible even over the roar of the engine. "THIS IS THE POLICE. PULL OVER IMMEDIATELY."
"Good idea," the Joker hisses almost to himself, hand emerging from his coat with a gun—not my revolver; this one's sleeker, more sophisticated. I vaguely place it as a semi-automatic, one of those terrifying weapons that spits out a dozen bullets a second—I've seen him use one before. "I like mine better."
Another set of lights joins the first. That was fast. Considering the appearance of the gun, though, I'm guessing that our entourage is about to get much bigger.
He drops the gun in his lap and lunges sideways towards me. I bring my hands up reflexively, but he only unbuckles my seatbelt impatiently, then grabs one of my wrists and yanks it towards him, placing it on the wheel. "Slide over, champ," he orders. "Be generous with the gas, wouldja?"
He doesn't wait for me to agree before releasing the wheel entirely, and I find myself lurching across the seat to grab it so we don't crash. As I scramble for the gas pedal, uncomfortably aware that I'm in too-close proximity to him (again), practically crushed against his side so I can manage the car (which makes dodging his sharp fucking elbows as he moves difficult, let me tell you), he locks a magazine into place. I shoot him a quick, fearful look. "You're not really going to—"
"Yep," he confirms laconically, working the window down, and the blast of frigid air renders me momentarily speechless, delaying my panicked protests long enough for him to twist around and get his arm out of the window.
"Shit," is all I manage to say before the harsh crackle of the gun sets my ears ringing. I hunch away from him as far as I can while still maintaining tenuous control of the car, glancing at the mirror in time to see one of the police cars careening off sideways and hitting the guardrail.
The Joker whoops. "Got him," he announces triumphantly before sending another spray of bullets towards the remaining vehicle. These guys have wised up, though, and a second before the report of a return shot sounds, he ducks back into the car, hunching down behind the backrest and inspiring me to follow suit a split second before the bullets come whizzing through the back windshield.
"Shit," I cry out again, and he grabs my hand, jerking the wheel sideways.
"Weave," he instructs sharply. "You really don't wanna see what'll happen if they shoot out the tires." With that word of advice, he pops up and out again, and I do my best to obey without wrecking us as I try to keep my head down and bullet-free at the same time. This makes watching the rearview mirror a little bit difficult, so I miss whatever happens next, but the Joker laughs and abruptly returns to the driver's seat, tucking his gun away before grabbing for the steering wheel over my hands.
I jerk them out from under his and start to slide away, but that goal is thwarted and I'm flung back against him as he suddenly twists the wheel hard to the right, taking us across four lanes of traffic without so much as checking his blind spots and cutting across to the exit. I grab for whatever I can to keep myself from falling off the seat and end up with one hand locked around his knee and the other clamped over my mouth hard in order to suppress the scream boiling in my throat. I'm thrown across the seat, so I can't see shit, but judging from the high-pitched squealing, we're seconds away from a brutal accident.
When the sound isn't immediately followed by crunching metal and the smell of blood, I tentatively lift my head. We're zooming up the exit ramp, and behind us, I can see several cars still reeling from his vehicular acrobatics. Neither of the police cars is in sight, and their backup must be further down the road. I release a trembling breath as I look front again.I'm still alive, but that phrase about frying pans and fires has never been more relevant. Now, not only have I been kidnapped by the Joker, but I can't imagine we have more than a one or two minute window before more police show up in pursuit—and while one might imagine that the involvement of law enforcement would be a good thing, I know from experience that when cops get involved, everything just gets messier. More people get killed. Certain other people run the risk of being used as human shields. At the moment, I think I'd prefer the police to stay out of it.
I look cautiously up at the Joker in time to catch him glancing exaggeratedly from his lap to the road and back again. "Um," he says politely.
I glance down to see that I'm still holding onto his knee for dear life. I recoil, jerking away immediately, and to the sound of his mocking cackle, I shift across the seat, putting as much distance between myself and the madman as I can.
A/N - Heh. One of you summed the last chapter up so beautifully and succinctly that I can't help but quote it here- guest reviewer Bb simply said "Wow, she got fucked over immediately huh?" Yes, Bb (is that a Kill Bill reference or am I just going crazy?)- yes, she did. It's not fun to be on the Joker's radar, not at all.
That said, bless you all for your more-than-welcome responses. I know this update is a little more mid-week than early-week, but I figure I've got a fair excuse- we've had house guests for several days, a family with seven children, so whenever I did manage to sit down at my laptop, I'd get about a minute of peace before some viciously cute munchkin would be at my elbow asking if I'd be willing to play cars or read a book out loud (and I'm a sucker, so I always said 'yes'). Hopefully, the inclusion of a sort-of car chase scene in this chapter will encourage you to forgive me.
By the way- and I shouldn't be telling you this because it clearly highlights how much of a not-serious-definitely-still-mentally-twelve-years-old "writer" I am- I genuinely almost forgot to take out a note I made just for myself while I was writing the first draft. It was right after the Joker set Emma up to steer and drive while he was hanging out the driver's side window to shoot at the police, and all it said was "can you imagine what would happen if she touched his butt right now omg"- and yes, I am aware that I should not even have access to the internet and also that the Joker would kill me given half the chance. Thank God for last-possible-second proofreading, that's all I'm gonna say about that.
Next up: the Joker shows Emma a thing or two about police evasion and says a couple of things that render her speechless (or uncomfortable, or both). I'll update as soon as my school/homework schedule permits (don't worry, I won't leave you for long). In the meantime, have I mentioned how happy and inspired reviews make me? :)