VIII
This ride doesn't last as long as the one before it. When we stop moving, I feel a spike of worry, thinking for a panicked moment that the cop was just the first of several "errands" and knowing that I won't be able to stand by and watch something like that happen again, but he opens the back doors and I recognize the parking garage that we left a few hours ago. We must have been driving around before to burn some time.
He climbs out and I follow, more than a little apprehensive about getting close to him after my meltdown, but he doesn't touch me, circling around instead to speak to the henchmen, who are still in the van. Lacking instruction, I think fuck it and head to the stairwell, intending to return to the apartment, where at least there are no innocents to kill.
I'm halfway there when I hear the tires squeal, and I glance over my shoulder to see that the henchmen are leaving in the van and that the Joker is following me. It's not the most reassuring sight, and I fight the urge to break into a run, instead proceeding calmly to the doors and entering the stairwell, climbing up amidst the blackness, counting flights. After a moment, I hear the door open behind me, hear him following a few steps back, but I force myself to ignore it, to keep moving steadily up.
He keeps his distance until we get back to the second-story hallway. By the time I reach the apartment, he's caught up, catching the door before I can close it between us and slipping inside with me.
The kerosene lamp is still burning in the kitchen, spilling light out into the corridor, and I force myself to keep going, to avoid looking behind me, though my heart is racing and instinct tells me something's not right. I make it a few steps before he comes up beside me and his arm stretches out in front of me to block my way, hand planted firmly on the wall inches from my face. I take a deep breath, willing myself to stay cool, and then I turn to finally look at him.
He's peering at me with that faint expression of curiosity I've come to loathe, knowing that it's a herald of bad things to come. His shoulders are hunched, head lowered more or less to my eye level, and he reaches up with his spare hand, fingers lightly brushing the skin where my throat meets my jawline, not quite clutching but definitely signaling me—don't move. He watches me for a second, and I watch him back, then, he says, "Ya know, as much as I appreciated your little outburst back there… well, it was a little misguided."
"Misguided," I repeat, looking him in the eyes, knowing that he can feel my pulse throbbing against his fingertips but still desperate to appear calm, for whatever reason.
"Uh-huh," he says, removing his hand from the wall beside my head and lowering it to my throat, stroking the skin there with a gentleness that's completely at odds with everything he's done, everything he is. He tilts his head back, watching his fingers idly as they move, and I'm completely incapable of processing what's happening. For the first time since he showed up in my apartment last night—was it really only last night?—I feel the familiar sense of detachment, as if my body's been put on autopilot and I'm observing from a distance.
He rests his fingers in the soft little furrow in the center of my clavicle and lifts his eyes to mine. "I told you. Remember? At the warehouse. You think you're a good person, Em—fine. You hang on to that for as long as you can. But that's not the point of this game."
After a beat of silence, I say, "I thought there was no point."
"There's no answer," he replies, unperturbed. "The point is that you might not want to admit it, especially not with all your, uh, claims that you're a good person—" if his hands weren't otherwise occupied, I swear he'd use air quotes—"but you feed off of this. You get off on the attention, my attention. I've been watching you. You've got tells. The point, Emma, is that you like me."
His eyes drop to the hollow of my throat where his fingers rest idle, capable of crushing my windpipe at any second, and then flick back up to mine. "Don't you?"
I stare at him, unblinking. Now's your chance, I think. Now's your chance to tell him to go fuck himself, to knee him in the balls, to make it clear once and for all that you do not want anything to do with him, but I can't seem to summon the words. I can only stare, and after a second, his fingers tighten on my jaw, and with a half-swallowed laugh, he pulls my face towards him, leaning forward to meet me halfway.
As far as kisses go, it's… surprisingly chaste. I would have expected violence from him, bruising lips, cutting teeth and a thrashing, choking tongue, but the press of his mouth is light, almost playful, and the only tongue is a teasing touch at the corner of my mouth.
After a second or two of stunned non-responsiveness and his mouth moving against mine, I slam back into myself.
I reach up and plant my palm in the center of his chest and push—very lightly, almost just testing to see if he'll let me, but his mouth parts from mine and he takes a step back. I duck my head, eyes closed, and just stand for a moment. I fold my lips together into my mouth, sucking the burning taste of him off them and swallowing it back. Only then can I look up and meet his eyes, which are regarding me with black curiosity.
The words come without me planning them in advance—I never got the chance; I never foresaw this, at least not as it happened, not calm and quiet and almost completely without an underlying threat. In the face of it, I can only seem to tell the truth.
"So maybe you're right," I say, barely broaching a whisper. "Maybe I am attached—doesn't matter why or how; Sherlock fucking Holmes couldn't explain it and I definitely can't." I see the light of fiendish satisfaction in his eyes and I throw my final point out like a boxer's jab, aiming to hurt or at least confuse him however I can. "But don't you believe for a second that I think it's purely one-sided." The satisfaction on his face bleeds back into curiosity, and I lean forward just a touch, looking up at him seriously. "Believe it or not, Joker, you've got tells, too."
He laughs.
His hands slide off of me, and, still laughing, he turns away. I wait until he disappears around the corner into the kitchen, the sound of his amusement still trailing behind him, and then, quietly, I turn and go into the bedroom, closing the door behind me. I continue on to the bathroom to see about cleaning myself up.
As an effective bandage, the handkerchief doesn't quite cut it. It's already doused in blood, not dripping but fairly saturated, and though the bleeding seems to have slowed considerably, I don't want to take any chances. There could have been any amount of dirt or bacteria on that knife, and the last thing I want is an infected wound.
I've discovered a first aid kit beneath the sink. It's basic, but there's gauze, medical tape, and anti-bacterial ointment. I've made do with worse.
As I gingerly put my arm beneath the running water and start gently dabbing it with soap, it does occur to me that this would be considerably easier if I had someone to help me, especially once I get to the actual bandaging part, but I banish the thought. I am absolutely not going to ask for help. At this point, I doubt I'd ask him for help if I was bleeding out in a back alley somewhere.
The gentle wash has disturbed the clotting a little, but not much. I turn off the water, dab the cut with the corners of the handkerchief not drenched in my blood, and start gingerly touching up the wound with the ointment. I'm not prepared to think about what happened in the hall, not until I get some distance from it. Instead, I turn my thoughts to the previous portion of the night.
I have no idea why he killed the cop. I consider that it might have been a personal vendetta, but I dismiss the thought almost immediately. The cop's behavior didn't point to any prior awareness that he was a Joker target, which is something that he probably would have considered if he'd done anything that might possibly draw his ire. No, the killing seemed just as random and purposeless as any Joker murder.
Except, despite what the Joker seems to want me to believe, I don't believe for a second that his actions aren't carefully planned. checked, and double-checked a hundred times over before he actually makes his moves. All his I'm not a riddle talk, all his insistence that his actions are devoid of any logical agenda or explanation—it smacks of too much protest. He's something of a magician when it comes to the unexpected, and I'm uncomfortably familiar with his tendency towards sleight of hand.
So look where he doesn't want you to look.
I frown as I reach for the gauze and start unwinding it. Where he doesn't want me to look… well, he definitely hadn't been shy about coming after me in the van, verbally, at least, pulling me away from my panic attack and pushing me into heedless wrath. And then, after the van...
I look down at the cut on my arm and remember how senseless his act of cutting me had seemed at the time. I close my eyes and recall the sound of the blood hitting the floor, and I feel certain I've got it. Although, of course, I have no idea what it actually is.
For some reason, he wanted to leave my blood at the scene. A police officer's death will warrant considerable attention, especially a police officer killed at home while his infant child lay in the crib several feet away, but unless I missed something, the Joker left nothing to tie himself to the crime.
My blood, however, ties me there—but it won't be helpful. As far as I'm aware, the police don't have my DNA in their system, and since I never laid eyes on the officer in question before tonight, I doubt they'll come knocking at my door asking for samples, since I won't exactly make their shortlist of suspects. Even if they did, they wouldn't find me.
They won't, but I get chills down my back as it all clicks into place.
Of course. He's creating a mystery for his favorite playmate.
An unexplained murder with no serious suspects—Batman will suspect the Joker, if only because he's known to be roaming the city and doesn't need an apparent motive to kill. Additionally, if Batman is half the detective he's rumored to be, he'll pick up on the blood spatter, in the wrong place, from the wrong person. If I'm lucky—or unlucky, according to the Joker—a suspicion will strike him and he'll swing by my apartment to see if I'm there. If he finds that I'm not…
Okay, so there are an awful lot of ifs in that theory, but it makes so much sense this way. My blood was a calling card—or, more accurately, an invitation, a playground taunt. I've got her, now you've got to come and find her or else—ha, ha, ha.
That's if the Batman puts two and two together and realizes that he hasn't lurked outside of my apartment in a while to make sure all is well (and of course, I don't know that he's actually done this more than once; I'm just taking the Joker's word for it at this point). If he doesn't reach that realization… well, on the one hand the Joker has the prospect of a mind-game with his nemesis, and on the other, he gets the smug satisfaction of knowing that Batman was too dim to follow the trail. It's a win-win situation for him.
The puzzle isn't solved completely—how could it be? It's the Joker. A murder/kidnapping mystery definitely wasn't the 'gift' he was talking about earlier, and as far as I know, tonight had absolutely nothing to do with the Falcone family, so there's still a huge gaping hole in the story. Still, the murder and subsequent slicing-and-dicing makes a hell of a lot more sense to me now than it did before.
It's funny—he talks a lot about being some insurmountable mystery, but boil the players of the game down to him and Batman and his motives tend to be laid pretty bare. At least, I think, his primary motives.
I pull the gauze clumsily tight and awkwardly tear off several strips of tape, one at a time. By the time I'm finished, my bandage is secure—not tight enough, I feel, but it's definitely superior to the thin handkerchief, and I feel better knowing that the wound beneath has been cleaned and has had a liberal application of antibacterial salve.
Predictably, as soon as one problem is dealt with, another makes itself known.
My hunger always comes upon me suddenly, with gnawing pains and a faint feeling of nausea, and at this point, my stomach having been neglected for probably around twenty-four hours (I still can't believe it's only been a day; I feel like I've been trapped with him for weeks) it's particularly bad. I wince and delay the inevitable for as long as I can, neatly returning the medical supplies to the first aid kit, but I know I can't put it off for long. I'm not a big person, and what with the recent blood loss, hunger pains soon promise to morph into lasting lightheadedness, possibly blackouts. As loath as I am to cross his path so soon after that unsettling conversation, I'm realistic about the fact that putting it off will only make me weak. I need to stay as strong as I can. With a sigh, I replace the first aid kit and go to search for food.
He's in the kitchen, sitting at the table, but thankfully, he only gives me a side glance as I go to the counter and start opening cabinet doors. My search isn't productive. As decently-supplied as the bathroom is, the kitchen can't claim the same, and I find nothing but empty cabinet after empty cabinet.
He waits until I've searched them all before bothering to speak up. "Ah… looking for something?"
I close the last door with a frustrated bang and turn to look at him. "Do you ever eat?"
The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Sure I do."
"Well, when?" I ask, not doing a particularly good job of hiding my irritation.
In lieu of answering, he comments, "Boy, you're cranky."
"Yeah, I'm hungry," I grumble.
"I gathered."
I belatedly get control of myself. I am not going to enter into a bickering match with him. Instead, I sigh and slowly move towards the table, thinking maybe if I ignore the weirdness, we can just move past it. Like it never happened. He raises inquisitive eyes to me as I flop down into the seat opposite him, and I force myself to keep my voice level, non-provocative. "What are you working on?"
He's holding a little device, a panel open to reveal a mess of thin wires, and he's using a screwdriver to do… something with it. At the question, he glances back down at it. "Ah… couple of last-minute improvements."
I frown, red flags shooting up in my mind. "Last-minute?"
He gives me a quick, devious look, and, as if on cue, the noise starts—a faint banging, coming from downstairs. "Ahh," he says cheerfully, rising from the table, and I follow suit immediately.
"What's going on?" I ask, unable to quite keep the nerves from my voice.
He doesn't answer, of course. Quite calmly, as the banging downstairs grows louder, he strides out of the kitchen, and I follow warily, keeping a foot's distance. Out in the hallway, he pulls the front door open and sticks his head out. I can hear the noises more clearly now, can make out the faint sound of feet ascending the stairs—coming towards us. Panicked, I look at him, but he seems totally unperturbed. He's actually whistling as he reaches into his pocket and produces—
"Is that a grenade?" I blurt out.
"Shh," he cautions me, and then, as an aside almost to himself, he mutters, "Just gotta slow 'em down."
"Who's them?" I demand shrilly, and then swallow a shriek as he pulls the pin out. He winds back and hurls the grenade towards the stairwell, and that's all I see before I'm whirling around and fleeing down the hallway, determined to get as much distance between myself and that thing as I possibly can. I get a few feet before he catches up, a heavy arm falling over my shoulders, and he pulls me down a split second before the explosion rips through the outside corridor, impossibly loud.
I don't feel the blast itself—the grenade must have made it to the stairwell, so several walls shield us from the explosion, but splinters and chunks of plaster come pouring through the open door and hit my back. I push my head down as far as I can, dimly aware in the chaos that my face is pressed hard against his ragged cheek.
After a few seconds, the shrapnel slows, and then he's up, clutching my arm and dragging me to my feet. "Time to move," I hear him say, though it's dim through the high-pitched ringing in my ears, and he's pulling me along the hallway. The smoke and plaster dust is thick, and I'm coughing so hard that I can barely keep up, but he drags me along with ease, kicking one of the doors along the hallway open and forcing me inside.
The room is dark, but the streetlamps outside shine through the open window, and he heads straight towards it. I barely have time to register the fire escape outside the ledge before he's grabbing my waist and lifting, pushing me out without much concern for my head or feet, and I decide that I'd better focus on getting out of the window in one piece instead of trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
I spill clumsily out onto the rusty platform, and he follows immediately, barely giving me time to get out from underfoot before landing just behind me. The escape groans beneath our combined weight, and I don't really need the shove I receive from him to motivate me to get moving.
I half-tumble, half-climb my way down, fully aware that he's only inches behind me and that if I fall he might well just trample me. That fear keeps me moderately upright, though I suffer plenty of scrapes from the jutting edges. The escape ends in a five foot drop, and I hesitate reflexively before receiving a push that sends me airborne. For a split second, I'm positive that I'm going to break my neck, but I manage to get my feet beneath me and land awkwardly, feeling pain shoot up my shins, but nothing out of the ordinary for having dropped from a few feet.
He lands beside me with a thump, absorbing the shock through his legs and catching himself with his hands. We're in a back alleyway, and as a sudden, absurd thought strikes me, I start to laugh, backing against the brick wall of the building for support.
He gives me a sharp look, one I'm sure he's been on the receiving end of before, a look that says oh, for fuck's sake, you've completely lost it, and through my helpless giggles, I feel the need to explain: "I… I still haven't gotten anything to eat."
A look of faint exasperation crosses his face. He grabs me hard by the shoulder and pulls me away from the wall. "Uh, look, Em," he says, hustling me down the alleyway, "if anyone can appreciate seein' the funny side of a situation, believe me—it's me. But right now, I need you to focus, hmm? Come on."
"You're the boss," I say, swallowing back the laughter with difficulty, trying to concentrate instead on keeping my balance and keeping in pace with his impossibly long strides. He's hurrying, which means I have to practically run to keep up as he takes us through a dizzying maze, cutting across the street into another alley and then crossing over behind an old building, where he stops. I see a car parked there, faintly recognizing it as the one driven by two of his henchmen earlier in the night, and I turn to watch him, waiting for his next move in silence.
He fishes in his coat and pulls out the device he'd been working on earlier. He turns, facing roughly in the direction of the building we've just escaped, and he glances over his shoulder at me. "You wanna do the honors?"
I have a faint idea of where he's going with this, and it seems wisest to just shake my head mutely. He chuckles. "No, I thought not," he murmurs, turning away again. Without further ceremony, he pushes the button on the device with a click.
We're a few blocks away from the building by now, but still, the sound of the explosion is immense. I strain to see, but the buildings around us block my sight, and the only visible evidence of the blast comes in clouds of thick black smoke billowing up high, dark against the pink-gray night sky. He watches, his face turned up, drinking in the result of his games, and I'm faintly aware that I feel numb, a foreign sensation after all these hours packed with nothing but feeling.
The ringing in my ears seems to increase, and I don't notice the black creeping along the edges of my vision before it's too late. "Uh-oh," I manage to get out before the strength drains from my body, and I'm gone before I even hit the ground.
A/N - Short but... sweet?
The plot thickens! Now, I've got studying and cooking and work stuff to do, so I'm gonna make this short and bail out of here. More later!