Chapter 11 : Saving Selina

Gotham Warehouse District

Selina Kyle groaned as she opened her brown eyes to the smell of dried blood and decay. Her throat was burning and there was a tight pull to her waist.

"Where... am I?" She spoke groggy as the drug that she was dosed with was wearing off. All she remembered was answering her apartment's door and seeing a pale white face standing there with rag in his hand. She coughed as the smell of chloroform lingered on her suit.

"Hello there kitty," An eerie voice blared from the shadows.

Selina's defenses went up. "Who's there?" She growled with anger. "Show yourself!"

"You are a fiery little cat aren't you. I like fire in a woman."

Selina's lips curved as a figure dressed in a purple overcoat stepped into the dim light with a Glasgow grin.

"Joker!" She hissed recognizing him from her previous encounter on the overpass. Apprehension and rage filled her as she knew what this monster was capable of. She'd read and seen enough of it over the years since he first came to Gotham.

"I'm glad that you remember me so well. After I was so close to making you roadkill."

She felt her stomach spin as he gave her a once-over with a sickly smile.

"What do you want clown?" She was daring him with no cocky attitude. Her brown eyes glared at the Joker as he stepped forward looking at her slender body. "So you brought me here to just to get a good look?"

"Demanding tone." He licked his scars. "No wonder the Batman likes you."

"Answer me clown? Why did you bring me here?" She persisted.

"I like to play the game of cat and mouse." He removed a switchblade from one of his pockets and waved it around. "And also the game of life and death. It's just fun game. The winner takes it all while the losers..." He looked deep into her eyes. "Lose."

Selina rolled her eyes. "You think this is a threat." She smirked. "That's more like a joke, that is not funny to laugh at." She was playing with his emotions. She knew she was playing with fire, but all she could do now was stall him until she could figure a way out of this.

"You don't know anything about jokes." He teased. "I know how to make every punchline different." He moved closer and placed the cold steel on her cheek. Selina smacked her head into his skull making him fall backwards. "There's that fire again. I love that in a woman."

"There's more of that coming..." Selina snarled. "If you dare to touch me again."

The Joker laughed as he arose and lunged at her. He dug the blade into her shoulder and pressed hard. Selina was shocked with the amount of pain she was feeling and had released a loud gasp. Her heart was thudding rapidly against her chest and her breathing felt stiff as if her lungs being held in a vice grip. The Joker giggled sadistically.

"I find that knives are a much better tool to use on a woman."

She winced as she felt her blood flow freely down her skin beneath her suit.

"Tell me does it hurt?"

Selina growled. "You bastard! I'm going-"

The Joker places his gloved hand over her mouth. "It's going to be such a fun and exciting night."

Selina jerked her head around trying to break free from his hold.

"Let's start his party with a bang." He moved his pistol and fired the gun to the ceiling.

Wayne Manor

Bruce Wayne sits at the computer desk looking at the video screens that displayed images of the playing card he collected in the alley at the back of Selina's apartment. He scanned the card for prints and looked at the words in red ink.

He zoomed it and saw a row of small words on the edge. "Gotham Warehouses District." He growls and then turns to Alfred. "I know where he's keeping her."

Alfred nodded. "You do that you are walking into a trap."

Bruce steps away from the desk and walks down to the platform as a glass encased cabinet rises out of the water.

"I'm not going to fail her. Alfred. She risked her own life to save me from the toxin. I can't lose her not when..." He drifted, looking at the empty cowl in the case.

"Not when what?" Alfred implied.

Bruce shrugged. "Not when there is so much to lose."

Alfred looked at his master. "Then go and save her." He smiled.

Bruce nodded to his butler's encouraging response and lifted the cowl off the holder then began to strip off his black dress shirt. His hand touched the armored shoulder of the suit.

A few minutes later...

Batman slid his body on the seat of the Batpod and started the throttle. "Send Gordon a text message with the coordinates I gave to you." He growled as the engine roared and sped off the platform, through the waterfall and down the narrow road with his eyes burning.

Selina Kyle was gasping heavily as the breath from her lungs was growing faint. The Joker used a playing card with sharp edges and sliced her leather stealth suit violently. Selina winced as she felt the sting.

He looked into her dark eyes. "Are you having fun yet?"

She recoiled from the pain that struck her chest as he dug the switchblade deeper into her collar bone. He reveled in the strangled cries his new pet was eliciting. She was trying to contain herself, fight against the screams she wanted to unleash but withheld out of defiance.

Joker didn't mind. He appreciated the fight in her, it made his efforts and her ultimate break down all the sweeter. He traces her lips and her cheeks slowly with his gloved finger. Selina jerked her face away.

"For the final part of your new makeup kitten," The Joker removed a pair of trimming shears from his purple overcoat's pocket and placed the cold steel on her neck. "How about a smile ?"

Selina was choking on her own blood. Tears were flowing down her cheeks as her dark eyes watched the Joker's gloved hand grab her neck and placed the steel blade on her lips. He was beginning to carve.

"No!" She slurred as blood dripped from her swollen lips. Her body flinched as pieces of her leather suit fell to the ground like dead leaves on a cold winter night.

The Joker was smiling like a master at his work. He sliced through the strands and waved the pieces of suit across her face, tickling her nose .

"You son of a..." Selina winced. Her hand was forming into a squeezing fist ready to give him a blow to the jaw but she was too faint to even lift her arm. Blood was seeping out of her shoulder running down the torn black leather of her suit. Flashes of red is all that she glimpsed at as the smell of dried blood entered her nostrils.

Selina could feel the sharp blades touching her cheeks. She felt helpless. Selina Kyle was never a helpless woman. She was a strong sexy daring woman of challenge not this shaken up form.

"We're almost done." The Joker proclaimed with a sour tone.

She was trembling. He snickered at her demeanor.

"Come on kitten, smile. You still look beautiful in my eyes." The Joker mocked.

Selina spat blood next to his shoe.

He looked down and clicked his tongue. "Tsk tsk. No that's not very nice. I'm going to have to teach you some manners." He cracked his neck and licked his scarred bloody smile. His chest rubbed onto hers as she tried to kick him.

Blood was draining from her face. Turning her complexion into ghost white. The Joker licked his tongue onto her lips to taste the blood. She growled in revulsion like an angry cat.

"So sweet." He laughed and then drove the shears into the right side of her ribs. Digging deep into the flesh and bone. A loud gasp escaped her before it turned into a strangled cry. Tears unwillingly spilled but she refrained from sobbing. She wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

Selina was breathing heavy as his cold words spoke in her ears. "Now all you need is a dress." He snapped his fingers and a goon appeared from the shadows of the roof holding a torn wedding dress.

The Joker started to unzip her suit. "I love playing dress up."

Selina's brown eyes widened as she felt his cold touch run down her chest to her abs.

"Bats is going to be so proud of you kitten. You manage to survived this long."

She looked at him with a tired look however a glow of defiance still reigned in her eyes despite the pain she was going through.

"I got... nine lives..." Selina gasped as the Joker starting stripping her as if she was a toy doll used for dress up. Inside she felt ashamed as her bare skin gleamed from the glow of the industrial lights ahead.

Her arms were lifted as the white laced dress was pulled over her body. Nearly her entire side was coated in blood from the wound he inflicted on her ribs. She looked down at her torn black leather suit that was full of blood stains, next to the chopped pieces of leather.

The Joker stepped back and looked at his creation of twisted art and smiled, showing yellow stained teeth. "I must say I do great work." His dark soulless eyes looked at her pale lips. "That's not right. You always have crimson stained on those lips. We're just going to have to fix that."

He placed his hand on her shoulder and wiped the blood off. Then he dabbed the blood on her lips. "Much better. Now you look like a true bride. A bride fit for a dead man." He chuckled sadistically.

Selina lowered her head.

"Cheer up sweetheart. I do believe that your groom to be is coming to the church on time."

"Bruce..." Selina said in a whispering tone.

The Joker took out his pistol and swung it into the air. He turned and looked at his goons wearing clown masks. "Who's going to be the best man?" He gazed at one of them that was shaking. "I think you are fit for that position." He fired his pistol and watched the bullet entered the goons head.

Selina's body jolts at the sound of the gun. Blood splatters onto the masks of the other goons who stand still in fear as their comrade falls with a thud on the floor.

The mass murdering clown turned his head and looks at Selina, rubbing his lips together as he pulled his body closer. He runs his hand through Selina's drenched hair. He snapped his fingers and one of the goons stepped forward with a gas can.

Selina could smell the gasoline as he poured it over her shaken wounded body. She flinched under the contact and released an agonizing cry as it made contact with her exposed wounds. The smell itself was nauseating.

"I hope you have your vows ready," Joker taunted.

Selina watched him disappear in the shadows. The lights above flicked off.

She felt cold and weak as she trembled in the darkness, wet and fearful. Instead of worrying about her own skin she was more afraid of what the Joker was planning to do with Bruce.

She was being kept alive to purposely draw him in. Knowing Bruce, Selina had no doubt he would come after her. She chided herself for being so careless and so ignorant in her capture. She suspected who the clown was working with and she should've been prepared for retribution. She should've kept her guard up. Now she was being subjected to a humiliating, never mind painful, ordeal and she felt even if she managed to survive, she'd hate herself forever if Bruce got killed because of it.

She could smell the dead corpse in front of her and grimaced at the wet clothing clinging to her cold body.

"Looks like this wedding might be turn into a funeral." She thought morbidly.

Batman encountered traffic once he got past Central Gotham and into the area of rusted warehouses with broken glass windows and manufacturing lofts that formed a half mile border between the city and the train yards.

It wasn't a region that people would go to; only for jobs and at this hour everyone had gone home for the night. Batman braked the Batpod at the entrance way of the fence in area of the Old Gotham Steel factory. Before the engine had died he was running towards the warehouse's bolted door.

With rage he kicked in the door to a steel storage facility and saw that he was in some kind of shipping depot for steel beams. Cardboard boxes were stacked next to piles of unwanted pieces of steel and there were a couple of forklifts parked against a cement wall.

There was a glimmer of light coming from a flight of stairs that ran downwards. Obviously the basement. Batman ran down the stairs, his heart was pounding as he went through another door.

Batman had expected to see Selina unharmed as a hostage as he kicked down the door but instead he saw something that filled him with dread and apprehension. Selina's high tech goggles were on the floor covered with splatters of blood on the lens. He bent down and picked it up.

"No," he said under his breath. "Selina..."

Batman's eyes went wide as the horrid sound of laughter entered his ear drums. He turned around and behind him with his cold shark like eyes was the mass murdering clown known only as the Joker.

"Where is she?" Batman growled. as the clown stepped from the shadows wearing his dark purple overcoat that was stained with the blood of his victims. Joker gave no response as he held his head low. His face was masked with long green hair.

Batman moved closer. "Where is she?!" He was shaking with anger as he lunged at the clown and pushed the body to the ground. White paint smeared his armor. "What?" He growled looking down at the lifeless eyes of a dead cop.

"Hehahahahaha hee hee hee hee!"

Batman's eyes went wide as the horrid sound of laughter entered his ear drums. He turned around and behind him with his cold shark like eyes was the mass murdering clown known only as the Joker.

"Joker," Batman rasped. He didn't want to believe this nightmare. "I thought you were in Arkham?"

The Joker laughed. "I was released on good behavior."

Batman growled as the clown stepped from the shadows wearing his dark purple undercoat that was stained with the blood of his victims. The Joker gave a bow like a magician.

"Where is she?!" Batman snarled making his gloved hand into a fist.

"Oh your little cat? Don't worry she's dying to see you." He laughed. "In fact if you follow me I'll let you see her. But you have to promise to be good."

Batman growled angrily. "I don't have time for this."

"Sure you do. Because if you don't play by my rules I'll waste every single one of her nine lives."

Batman froze. He had no choice. Selina was counting on him to save her from this horrific nightmare.

"Bring me to her."

The Joker rubbed his purple gloved hands together. "Oh this is going to be so much fun isn't? But first remove your belt. I don't want any little surprises during the unveiling."

Batman clenched his jaw and unclipped the belt. He threw it on the cement floor.

"Much better. Now put one foot in front of the other and follow me to see your lover."

Anger surged inside Bruce's body, but he forced his feet to move forward. Never before did he feel so weak and uneasy but he looked at the back of the clown's head, giving himself the idea that when he had the chance he would lunge at the mass murdering lunatic and thrash him into a point of no return, to the point where the clown would be on his knees pleading for his life and then Batman would make his move and end it.

Batman shook his head. "No. I will not become a monster like him. He kills because that is what he enjoys." He thought to himself.

He made a vow a long time ago on the graves of his beloved parents that he would never take a life. He didn't want blood on his hands though all he saw was blood dripping from the bodies of victims he failed to save as it dripped down the pavement and into the drains of the city, becoming a part of the foundations and designs that formed this once great city.

He had to clear his mind and devote his heart into saving the woman he loved and wanted to be with when Gotham no longer needed the Batman and neither would he.

The Joker opened a metal door and turned around. "Ready to see your favorite cat?"

Batman was silent and only glared at his enemy in front of him.

The Joker opened the door of a dark room that smell of dust and decaying flesh. It burned Batman's eyes as he peered into the darkness.

"It's time for the spotlight." The Joker flicked on the lights and clapped.

Selina Kyle was bound to a steel pole with blood dripping down her face, hair was drenched with gasoline and the white dress she wore was drenched in blood. Standing behind her was Vedette Countess grinning at Batman with her cold green eyes. Batman gritted his teeth.

"How do you like your kitten now?" The Joker hissed.

Batman walked closer and kept his eyes on Selina who had duck tape over her mouth. He looked at Countess.

"Let her go," he growled. "I'm the one you want."

Vedette laughed and looked at his stomach. "Not with those looks handsome."

Batman bowed his head, repressing his anger to lash out against his enemies and save Selina. They would kill her without any hesitation if he made a single move against them he knew.

"Do you love her?" Vedette asked squeezing Selina's cheeks in a grip around her face. "Do you love her more than that cute little assistant DA that you lost so many years ago?"

Batman nodded. "Yes." He felt a lost of breath as he spoke. "Now let her go."

The Joker stood in front of Selina, his back was to her. He smiled at Batman with amusement.

"Alright I'm through playing with your kitty. Although I would still like to know if cats really do have nine lives." He flicked opened a switchblade. "Let's find out."

He turned around and placed the cold steel on Selina's face, in the reflection of the blade was Batman.

"Get your hands off of her," the Dark Knight snarled.

The Countess looked at Joker with placating grin. "Yes. Let the Batman have his cat. She's served her purpose to us."

The Joker removed the knife away from Selina's face. "Well I guess I don't need this cat anymore. No I've found a new animal to play with. A sick little black bat." He looked at Selina who was regaining her awareness. "Watch and learn kitty cat, I'm going to show you how to clip a bat."

Selina's eyes went wide with apprehension.

Batman looked at Selina with his soulful hazel eyes and whispered. "I'm sorry."

Selina nodded. The Joker circled Batman as Countess watched.

"Kneel." The Joker snarled. "Or I'll put a chestier grin on the cat's face."

Batman knelt down.

"That's a good little rodent. Now on all fours."

Batman went down on all fours. The clown walked around him and then stabbed him in the side with the knife. Batman's body jolted in pain.

"Now let's listen to you squeal like a little bat that you are." Joker laughed.

Countess was loving moment of this. Selina had tears running down her cheeks. Batman lowered his head giving a defeated look. The Joker pursed his lips in mock-uncertainty.

"I can't hear you."

He jabbed the knife again into Batman's side and twisted the blade. Batman wailed in pain as the clown and Vedette just laughed. She snapped her fingers. "I think we're done with him for now. Besides you don't want to miss the fireworks."

The Joker padded Batman's cowl. "Well Bats its been a fun." He backed away and looked at Selina with a sick smile. "Don't forget about me Miss Kyle."

Batman was trembling with anger as he held his wounded side. Vedette walked over to him and bent down. She lifted his head up and pressed her lips onto his with Selina watching.

"A kiss of death."

She pulled her lips away as the Joker grabbed her hand.

"Let's go my sweet."

Batman watched both twisted lovers leave the basement from the stairwell. He wiped Vedette's offending touch off with his lips with the back of his gloved hand. He slowly arose off the floor gripping his wound on his left side. He walked over to Selina and placed his gloved hand on her blood stained cheek. "Selina..." He slurred.

Selina shifted her eyes to him. "Handsome... what took you?" She lightly joked.

Batman resisted the urge to kiss her in relief. He used his sharped edge gauntlets and sliced through the chains. "Can you stand?" He asked sounding like the soft tone of Bruce Wayne.

Selina shook her head.

He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up. She held onto his shoulders as the ticking sound entered both of their ears. Batman cursed under his breath. "It's never easy with that clown."

Batman wrapped his cape around Selina and raced up the steps. He hurls through the door as the explosion blasts. Glass shatters everywhere as he dives from the platform and lands on the pavement as a fireball almost consumes them both.

He looked down at Selina who was fading. "Hold on," he whispered.

A pickup swerved in front of him. Gordon opened the driver's door and raced to the injured Dark Knight and Selina.

"What happened to her?" Gordon asked.

"Joker," Batman growled. "I need to get her to Gotham General."

Gordon turned his head and looked at the pickup. "I'll do it."

Batman was ready to object. "No..she's..."

"You saved my family once. I think I should return the favor." Gordon offered.

Batman nodded and moved to the back door of the pickup. He carefully placed Selina down on the seat and looked at her.

"Don't worry," Gordon assured. "I will make sure she arrives safe."

Gordon closed the door and raced to the other side of the truck. He hopped into the driver's seat and drove off. Batman stood there motionless and then finally he fell to his knees as the flames reached higher to the power lines. Sparks flew all around as he pounded his fists into the pavement .

"Why!" He yelled.

Gotham General Hospital

Dawn's early light reflected off the white painted walls of the hospital as Selina laid in the bed heavily bandaged, hooked up to various machines. Her heart rate was steady and the cuts on her limbs were clean and covered with cotton.

Batman was standing at the foot of the bed looking down at her with teary eyes. His body was shaking as he surveyed her inflictions that the Joker caused with the blades he housed in his overcoat.

He moved closer and ran his gloved hand through her strands of her dark hair. She looked like death. Her skin was pale and cold, her eyes carried dark circles beneath them and her now short hair a mess from a violent humiliation that resulted in puncture wounds to the shoulder and ribcage.

The fact that she was alive right now was due to her multiple lives. Even still the Dark Knight shuddered to think of what might've happened to her if he'd not found her in time. What great lengths Joker and Vedette might've taken to grab his attention towards her whereabouts aside from her apartment explosion.

Outside looking through the door Commissioner Jim Gordon stood watching his trusted friend break down with sorrow.

Batman leaned his head and kissed Selina on the forehead. "I'm so sorry..." A tear dripped onto her pale face. "I should of..."

The beeping sound of the monitor made him looked at her EKG that was showing the rate of her heart. He know that she was fighting for her life. She had lost a excessive amount of blood and her body temperature was decreasing making her flesh feel like ice.

Batman whispered in her hear the words that he had been wanting to say since the first time they shared a kiss on the ballroom dancer floor. He bent his knees and placed his gloved hand into hers.

"Selina... I don't know if you can hear me..." He was choking up. "I love you." He lifted her hand and pressed his lips to it. "I love you so much Selina Kyle." He whispered somberly.

He arose and stood above her never once turning his gaze away from her face.

Gordon bowed his head mournfully, feeling empathy for his friend. He could only imagine how he would feel if Barbara were in Selina's position and he in Batman's. He blinked away tears threatening to spill as he looked at Batman crouched down on the window frame. Batman gave one last glance at Selina and then jumped out.

"I'm sorry my friend," Gordon thought.

Twenty minutes later...

Batman was standing on the charred remains of Selina's apartment in 'Old Town. His head was pointing down as his eyes looked at all the ash covered items that once belonged to her apartment. He bends to the ground on one knee.

The pain in his side burns but not as a painful as his broken heart. His black gloved hand spreads against the debris as he finds a cat shaped pendent under pieces of wood.

He lifts it up and grasps it tightly.

"Selina..." He whispered remorsefully.

Wayne Manor

Alfred Pennyworth moved through the upper lever, east wing of Wayne Manor silently. He did not know what to say to his distraught master as he entered the east wing drawing room and saw an unmasked Bruce Wayne slumped in a chair staring blankly out the window as the sun rays shone across his face. Tears were rolling down his sharp edge cheeks.

"I prepared a little breakfast." Alfred spoke gently as he heard his the 38 year old silently sniffle. He set down the tray and looked at the cat shaped pendant in Bruce's gloved hand. "Very well. It will be on the table waiting for you."

Bruce lowered his head covering his face with his gloved hands. "Alfred..." He wept showing that his heart was shattered as images of Selina's wounded body entered his mind. A memory that would haunt his nightmares for a long time.

Alfred turned. "Yes, Master Wayne."

Bruce turned his head and looked at his butler with a desperate look in his dark hazel eyes. "I should have been there with her. I could have protected her, brought her here where she would have been safe." He closed his eyes briefly. "I failed her Alfred. Just like I failed Rachel."

Alfred spoke no words as he placed his hand on Bruce's shoulder.

"She's fighting for her life. It's all because of me." Bruce said, thinking how she had risked her life to save his own life from Vedette's toxin. "I love her Alfred."

"I know." Alfred nodded. "She loves you."

Bruce looked out the window at the sun rising through the evergreens from the garden.

"I was going to ask her to marry me? When things got better." Bruce shifted his eyes and looked at graphite cowl on the floor. "Things in this city will never get better. There will always be crime, corruption and death. I will always be Batman. She and I will never be free from the horrors of Gotham's underworld."

Alfred picked up the cowl. The real face of a hero and placed it on his master's lap.

"One day you will be free, Master Wayne. When Gotham no longer needs the Batman. When the Batman has given everything he can to save the lives of the people that believe in him. You will have a reward it maybe small."

"The only reward I had ever have is a far better rest."

Alfred looked at his master's wound on the side. Blood was seeping out.

"We all seek a better life, Master Wayne." He attended to the wound. "Then we come to realize that there is only just life."

Bruce's lips formed into a frown. "I just want to be alone Alfred."

Alfred respected his master's wish.

"She will come back."

Bruce closed his eyes as Alfred left the room.

"Don't lose that hope," Alfred urged him.

Golden Arrow Penthouse

Vedette Countess, dressed in a sleek black evening dress, was enjoying a glass of red wine in the dining room with the Joker who was shirtless showing his defined chest. He wore no makeup and his hair was slicked back as he lifted a glass of wine and took a few sips.

No words were spoken between them. Only tension of lust forming in their veins as he gazed at the woman across from him with hungry eyes. He was craving to touch her flesh and press his lips against hers.

"Selina Kyle proved to be weak just like I told you." Vedette took a sip. "Now she is fighting for her nine lives. Just like Brucie was two days ago. My how the tables can turn."

"Yes. So what are you going to do with the billionaire pretty now my sweet? Blow his Lambo up while he's driving to hospital?"

"No. His punishment will be very soul twisting." She smiled. "Imagine having your soul trapped in a body that is weak, demeaning and pitiful to the eyes."

"What kind of body would that be?"

"Something that he would never expect my dear. For now we will let the billionaire be confined into his mansion and let the guilt slowly eat away at his soul while we have our fun filling up the graveyards."

They laughed evilly, reveling in the pain and suffering they've inflicted on their enemies they city they protected.

Wayne Manor

Bruce sat in the darkness alone with his own thoughts to haunt him. In his hand was a tub of ice cream that he got from the freeze down stairs. He began to scoop the sweet cream dessert out with a spoon. He didn't worry nor care about Gotham.

His lips touched the frozen strawberry cream and he began to devour it until there was nothing left. He was depressed about what had happened to the woman he loved. Seeing all those knife wounds and smelling the gasoline poured onto to her made his soul rip in two.

All he could now was wait for Alfred to enter the room and tell him that she didn't make it. That she died a slow painful death where her heart gave out on her. He looked at the darkened sky. "There are no rewards in my life."

Alfred entered the drawing room. "Master Wayne," his blue eyes peered in the darkness until he saw a form sitting near the window.

"What is it Alfred?" Bruce asked with solemn tone.

"The hospital called. Miss Kyle is doing fine."

Bruce felt some relief enter his body but it was not enough to make him return to the night as Batman. He wouldn't be able to focus out there with his mind in turmoil and worrying about Selina. He needed to have more time.

"That's good," he spoke in the darkness.

"I hope you are going to see Miss Kyle tomorrow?"

There was no reply as he just kept his gaze at the window in gloomy thought.