Chapter Three: Favors Sold and Favors Owed
Part Two: The Wolf and the Doe
Holly took a cab back into the inner city after spending some more time with Tony. As dusk fell, he kept pressuring her to leave because Gotham was still unsafe at night. Even if that Bat signal was among the clouds. He'd given her the address of where the car was residing. A parking lot with permanently paid space to keep it in so long as the lot existed. Something about Tony being cabbie friends with the fellow who now owned the building and that they used to leave their cars in that place all the time because it was close to the taxi shelter.
Holly toyed with the keys in one hand. Tony's armored car, she'd wondered what he'd done with it all this time, she'd not expected it to just be sitting inside some parking building. Even if it had been unattended for days, weeks, a month or two… it would be unlikely anyone hijacked it. Tony would have been called.
Once in the elevator, she stuffed the keys back into her jacket pocket and took out her phone. Checking the weather on the ride up. There was a fifty-three percent chance of rain with a muggy eighty humidity – she was surprised it was not raining already. It should be downpouring according to the weather app sometime between the next hour and into tomorrow.
Ding.
The chime alerted her that she had arrived on the correct level and she saw the doors move out of the top of her vision. She exited and looked up to ensure she knew where she was going. Her heart felt like it stopped.
The building seemed a little more occupied than she had assumed it was. A dozen and then some men – a couple she recognized as a part of the Russian Mafia, a strange party clown fellow, and Jonathan. Had she just walked in on a clown-themed drug deal? Why were there many Batmen wearing hockey pads? Most importantly why did a part of the building look like a battle zone on this level? Her body slowly started working again, backing up into the elevator before her hand just swatted blindly at the buttons. Her head turned and she pressed the one to close the doors, hoping to make it go faster.
Well. Fuck.
That had been far too much to process at once, all she knew was she needed to leave. Should she call the police? Yeah right. Holly shoved her phone into her pocket and then moved her jacket out of the way. She had a small pistol on her in a holster. The damn thing had only been fired a handful of times and it was not like she could even aim it correctly without it being pressed to the thing she wanted to hit. It was just there for appearances. Her hand hovered over it until the elevator dinged again and the doors began to open. She did not grab the gun; she could not bring herself to hold it in earnest.
With her blindly pressing random buttons the elevator opened on the floor just below the one she found them all on. It was going to close and go to the ground floor skipping a whole level next. Her hand was placed on the elevator door to keep it open and she scanned for anyone with the mirrors she could see into. Hearing the rumble of a vehicle she turned her head and watched a van drive down the center ramp towards the exit followed by an SUV. Taking her hand away the doors slowly started to close as she heard the slam of the stairwell door next to her open.
She caught the frosty hues of Jonathan just as the elevator closed fully.
Her hand went to the close door button, a finger firmly holding it. She stared wide-eyed at the metallic doors as if they were about to betray her and open. Holly had paled. Her heart felt like it was trying to beat out of her chest. It hurt her injury causing pain to course through her and fogging her head with nothing but wanting to try and stop it. Labored breath did not aid her any. In the next moment, a rush of adrenaline took away enough of that pain to think. She could not stall in this elevator forever. He was looking for her. Not a thug with a gun she could spook with a firearm, not a weirdo clown, not one of the Russians she could pay off or seek protection from. Did that mean they had left though? She only saw two vehicles leave.
Even though she held the door close button, the elevator moved to the ground floor and opened to fluorescent parking garage lights. They no longer seemed like a beacon to the wise, they felt far more like a cheap B-movie horror setting. She pressed the close button on the pad again followed by the one that would bring her back up to where Tony's car should have been. The plan was to get into Tony's – now her - car and drive off.
As the doors opened with a ding Holly cautiously started to step out, the others were gone. During her time spent in the elevator, the Russians had left too. The silence felt dangerous, yet each click of a heel from her steps made her nearly jump. He had to hear them echoing too in this silence. Holly had grown up from the young woman who thought not looking frightened would help her; it certainly would not ward off men like Crane either way. Keys in hand she clicked the fob to unlock the car. Lights silently blinked twice at the other end of the lot.
Swallowing the rising panic she willed herself to suddenly sprint.
BANG!
A short scream ripped from her throat and she stumbled over herself, even so, she did not fall. Her head turned over her shoulder and she saw not Jonathan but Scarecrow – the dangerously wanted psychopath in burlap pointing a gun at her. Where had he even aimed the first shot? That pain from breathing hard was beginning to outweigh her adrenaline high. Holly scrambled behind the nearest concrete pillar, clutching one hand to her side.
Steeling herself she peeked from the pillar. He wasn't there? Holly could not process this, and it felt like her stomach violently lurched. Oh god, he wasn't there. She felt like she might vomit from the rising panic she'd tried to stuff down. Her eyes frantically searched for him. He was just there! Her mind screamed at her. She turned the other way half expecting to be face to face with a gun. The man was playing fucking hide and seek trying to scare her. And it was working.
Holly's eyes flickered to the car, it was just a few more yards. Slowly she inched from the pillar, her head going this way and that way, eyes searching. She was going to get shot at this rate. Her pace picked up, and the second her trembling hands encountered the car door handle she pulled hard on it. Flinging the door open.
"Boo." It was whispered practically in her ear.
This time a scream that turned into a squeak of terrible pain from her ribs came out. Her hand clutched her side as she was spun around by a strong hand upon her shoulder. She was shoved against the passenger door right behind the driver's open door. Holly was unsure where the firearm he had, had gone to but it was not in his hands. Rather with both hands free, he moved his palms down her sides suddenly. Shoving her hand that was clutching her ribs out of the way. He took her pistol tossing it from them both. The sound of the metal clattering and then sliding resounded.
"Just in case you had ideas," his voice was low and it was more as if he was speaking to himself than her. There was a pause from him in which she said nothing and her hand flinched trying to return to her side, "Stitch in the side, Kingsley?" How arrogant that sounded to her.
He pressed on her side. Her head tilted up and her eyes squeezed shut as a cry of pain came out, "…F-fractured ribs." His hand stopped applying pressure and tenderly moved away.
He was silent for a long moment. At that time her head had come back down, eyes opening to the grey concrete floor. Her vision had blurred some by prickling tears, she wanted to stop breathing it hurt too much. The pounding of her heart just elevated the pain in her chest. A sound that should have been relieving to the everyday Joe came to both their ears, firetruck sirens. The police may have been in the pockets of the mafia, but the other responders would come to a building that had been partly exploded by the Bat-tank.
Holly watched as his form leaned over from the corner of her blurry vision and something jingled when he came back upright. Her keys. She'd dropped her keys in fright.
A Sporting Predator
Crane slapped her hand away from her side, making sure she was not concealing anything under it. His hands found what they were searching for. Her gun. Easily he pulled it from the holster, made sure the safety was on and then tossed it away.
"Just in case you had any ideas," Crane felt strange as he spoke to himself, the darker more malicious side of himself called Scarecrow. It was still an adjustment he was going through – feeling like he was not always in control. He did not actually wish to harm Holly. He wanted to make her scream again. He wanted to dissect her state of frozen fear. He wanted to know what frightened her. He wanted her to break from fright. He could hardly tell which ones were his thoughts.
Crane's eyes lingered over her. He watched her hand flinch, her breathing was more irregular than he thought it should have been, clearly she was pained, "Stitch in the side, Kingsley?" Maybe the woman should have gone jogging more – she'd been slow and easy to catch especially in those heels. He pressed his hand on her side feeling around making sure he was right and Scarecrow had not grazed her with that first shot.
Her cry was one not of fear, it was simply pain. Not the kind of scream he always enjoyed, and he heard the truth come from her lips, "...F-fractured ribs." She sounded like she might pass out.
Ruined. He felt his little hunt was ruined. She was previously injured – she would not fear him as she should. She was scared right now because of the pain, of being hurt further. Tch. He moved his hand away and as he kept examining her from head to toe something caught his eye on the ground. Jonathan stared for a moment; he could hear the sirens of the fire brigade finally coming to check on the building. He leaned down to pick up the keys off the ground. The woman had likely dropped them when he'd spun her around.
