With nothing in the coat pockets but the gun, a single kiwi and her keys, it wasn't long before she had to search for food. She had avoided it for a full day, refusing to leave her brother's side for more than a couple minutes and refusing to eat the kiwi herself. She had gotten them for Danny. The hunger became unbearable after not having eaten for almost two days and soon enough, she was forced to go out to search for food.
She carefully sped out of the Dollar General and merged into the crowd of people walking across the street, careful to make sure she didn't trip or bump into anyone. She had learned on the third day that people here weren't very kind to anyone who inconvenienced them.
When she separated from the crowd she made sure to change her posture to something more confident. She looked grimy enough that she probably wouldn't get mugged, but kidnapping was a far greater threat. She was a young girl walking alone in an unsafe area, it was more important to stop herself from looking like an easy target than it was to stop herself from looking too overconfident.
She crossed another street. Kept looking forward, kept her face blank, and kept her posture straight. She wasn't sure if this all was necessary, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
She had run into some trouble on the fourth day. A man with a gun tried to talk her into joining him in his truck, but she just kicked him in the shin and ran, ducking to the ground when she heard shots go off. She would rather not experience that again.
She finally reached a spot where there weren't any people around. She let out a breath and relaxed. She had been in Gotham for a week and she still wasn't quite used to it. It was loud. There were police sirens wailing more often than not and she could always hear yelling. It was somehow always too dark during the day and too bright at night, making it hard to tell when the sun had gone down. And it was far too easy to steal here. It was almost like people didn't care, but that was probably to be expected. With how much happened here, it made sense that people wouldn't notice a few missing granola bars.
She crossed the street. There were a couple people here, but not many. She had learned early on that small crowds didn't hold any of the safety that large crowds did. She quickly walked past them, careful not to make eye contact or to trip on anything.
The apartment complex she was staying in wasn't far from here. She just had to make it there, then she wouldn't have to leave until tomorrow. She heard a faint boom, then screaming. The screaming grew louder, she ran.
She didn't care if there were people around her, she didn't care if she tripped over anything, she just needed to get away from that. She reached the apartment and jumped through the open window, quickly stabilizing herself afterwards to avoid falling onto the broken glass across the floor. She quickly clambered up the stairs and practically flung herself through the door to the room they were using before slamming it shut and leaning against it. She slid down to the floor to catch her breath. That had scared her more than usual. She wasn't normally this skittish.
She walked over to her brother. He was lying on a small tv blanket she had somehow managed to steal from a convenience store. He was asleep, he had been sleeping much more than usual since he got hurt. It was probably his body trying to focus all of its energy into healing his wound.
He normally would have been completely healed by now, but somehow instead of getting better, it was getting worse. The wound was oozing green tinted pus, the skin had started to flake off and turn greyish, and it reeked like he was rotting.
She had changed the bandages yesterday with wrappings she had stolen from a Walgreens around a mile away. When she removed the previous ones, a thick layer of skin had peeled off with them, leaving behind a grey green sludge underneath. She had covered a cloth with disinfectant and tried to clean it, but whenever she dabbed it to the wound, little pieces of dissolving flesh would break away and get caught in the cloth fibres, leaving the glowing green ectoplasm to ooze through in their absence.
She had wanted to look away from it. It was too much. But whenever she did, her gaze gravitated to his face. Eyes wide and glazed over, mouth gaping like a dead fish. Just like back in the lab.
He hadn't transformed back to human yet and she didn't know if she should be grateful or worried. She was sure that if he had been in human form he would definitely be dead by now, but she wondered if the lack of a transformation meant that he had already died completely and she just hadn't noticed it. But he still breathed, so she shut out that thought.
The screams coming from outside were getting louder, more desperate. She looked out the window. There were a few people outside that she could see, some were running, some were huddled up against trash bins. One was lying in the middle of the street, twitching and spasming, gasping as if the air was being sucked from his lungs. Everything seemed to be covered with a thin haze of green, and when she looked further out, inbetween the buildings facing the apartment, the green looked denser. She double checked to make sure that all the windows were closed, but when she got to the kitchenette, she found that the window there didn't close completely. She thought she could see green gas seeping through the crack, but when she blinked it was gone.
She grabbed a shirt from the ground, one that she had stolen a couple days ago, and quickly stuffed it in the crack. It didn't fill it in completely, but it was better than nothing. She let out a breath, then looked out the window. She was surprised to see so many people, usually this street was empty. Another boom, this one much farther away. She could see a fire blazing a few blocks down and the screams were just getting louder. She could smell burning, but that shouldn't be possible. That fire was much too far away for her to be able to smell it, especially with all the windows closed.
"Jazz?" She turned around. Danny was awake. He was still sprawled out on the floor, but his eyes were open, staring up, wide and crazed like a hare caught in a hunter's trap. She walked over to him slowly, careful not to startle him, and knelt down next to him.
"What is it? What do you need?" She asked, keeping her voice quiet and calm. He just kept staring up towards the ceiling, frozen under the gaze of something she couldn't see. His breathing got heavier, faster. "Is something wrong Danny?" She tried not to sound panicked.
He jerked his arms and legs, tugging against invisible bindings, and started to whimper. His breath was hitching and he was shaking. "Danny, what's wrong? Are you hurting, is there anything I can do to make it better?" He suddenly pulled his arms towards himself, wrapping them around his chest protectively, before flinging them out to his sides and against the ground, scrambling to sit up, to escape. He was moving far too quickly, hurting himself. If he didn't stop moving he'd rip his stitches. So she did the first thing that came to mind. She held him down.
"No, please, please stop, please, you can't!" He was full on sobbing now, choking on his breaths through the tears, scratching at her, trying to pry her hands away. Her skin caught underneath his fingernails, ripped from her flesh. It hurt so much, she wanted so much to let go, but she couldn't risk him hurting himself. She couldn't risk losing him. She had to stop him, he was going to tear his injuries back open and she wouldn't have any way to fix him. He would bleed out and die and it would all be her fault because she didn't stop him.
He was screaming, but she couldn't understand what he was saying, the sobs made it indecipherable. She needed to stop him, he needed to calm down. He needed to go back to sleep. She looked around for something to help her, anything. Her eyes landed on the small, thick plank of wood on the ground. It wasn't far from her, she just needed to grab it. He needed to stop struggling, he was going to hurt himself, there wasn't another way. She reached for it with her foot, dragging it closer to her. In one swift movement she removed one of her hands, grabbed the plank and hit him on the side of the head.
He stopped.
She had knocked him out. She had just hurt him.
She got up, stumbled over to the kitchen sink, and threw up.