Your Frown Is My Umbrella

The sound of the gunshot rang through the air like the roar of a demonic lion about to devour its enemy.

Reign jumped and gawked out the tinted window with a look of pure terror plastered upon her pale face. A large red stain crept across Rick’s back before he fell to the dirty ground in a lifeless heap. At the sight of his dead and bleeding body, Reign felt a very curious series of emotions grip her heart like a vice. Grief, relief, and gut wrenching fear were all her shaken mind could decipher.

The shouting stopped, and she could hear a strange clanking sound coming from outside the van. To her it sounded like big metal footsteps. Her heart boomed viciously in her chest and she found herself burying her face in the rough burlap sacks. The fabric felt like steel wool against her delicate skin.

Her breaths began to come out in short uneven gasps, and it took all of her self-control not to cry. If she cried, they (whoever they were) would find her and make sure she ended up just like Rick.

She didn’t want to end up like Rick.

When the metal stomping noise quieted, she bit her tongue and waited for a second bullet to come roaring through the side of the van and into her head. She could hear men talking, coming closer, and at first the only words she caught were ‘plan’, ‘steal’, and ‘wreck’. By the time she could hear their statements clearly, she didn’t want to.

“Boss?” a gruff voice asked from outside the van. “Want me to get the bastard’s body?”

Reign scrunched her face and choked back a sob. This was bad. This was very bad.

“Uh, no,” another man (Boss, she assumed) responded shortly. “He’s not worth it.”

She cringed at the sound of his voice. She had never heard anything like it before, but it still struck a cord of familiarity in her shaken mind. It sounded nerdy and high-pitched, effeminate almost. His voice sounded just about as silky smooth and desirable as a bed of nails laced with poison.

“Well, should we –”

“I said no!” Boss snapped.

Another loud gunshot burst through the air, acting as the exclamation mark for his statement. Glass shattered, forcing Reign to shudder violently and clap both hands over her ears. Even still, the sound resonated against the walls of her skull with as much enthusiasm as a child’s rubber bouncy ball.

She waited for the pain to come screaming through her chest, and for death to swallow her whole without even chewing.

But no pain came. They hadn’t shot at her; just the window.

There were several moments of deafening silence before a man with a British accent spoke up.

“Boss, the door wasn’t lock–”

“Get in the van,” Boss interrupted.

Reign heard the front doors open. Shards of glass sprinkled onto the ground as the men sat down, and she felt the van shift beneath her. Just as those doors slammed shut, the side door swung open. She winced as though it had been a slap to the face.

She shoved her face deeper into the burlap sacks and took a deep, shuddering breath. The scent of rubber and smoke grew more potent, assaulting her nostrils and making her throat burn. What were in those bags, anyway?

She whimpered inwardly when she heard the van stutter to life.

What was she supposed to do? Just stay quiet and hope she could sneak away when they stopped again? She knew that if she tried to get away now, these people (slightly unorthodox mobsters, she assumed) would gun her down before she could even touch the ground. Or worse…

A miserable squeak tickled her throat and she clenched her mouth shut. She had to stay quiet. Her miserable, pointless life depended on it.

The van lurched backwards, slowly at first, but then the driver seemed to change his strategy. Suddenly the entire vehicle was flying backwards down the alley with so much momentum that Reign’s head was forced to collide with the back of the seat.

She bit back a terrified shriek when the entire van bucked upwards in a single, lopsided motion as the back-right wheel hit a rather large speed bump; Rick.

“Ho ha ha! Look at him go!” Boss shouted over the engine and laughed.

Reign didn’t even note his sudden glee at the sight of a somersaulting corpse.

No, she noted his laughter. That wheezy, cackling laughter that could drive you crazy if you let it.

This was not just a pack of everyday mobsters like the ones in the movies. Where were the Italian accents? Where were the classy cars and colognes? This van was hardly a Mercedes Benz, and the closest thing to cologne she could smell was the foul stench of gasoline that seemed to be clouding the air like a putrid invisible fog.

No, these weren’t mobsters. These men were something far worse. She could tell from the way the men had no complaints concerning the reckless manner in which their Boss was driving. Their boss was a certain someone who made the Italian mob look like a pack of middle-aged men playing dress up. But it couldn’t be him. He was locked up, right?

“Hahahaha! Hang on to your hats, boys!”

Before Reign had a chance to prepare herself, the entire vehicle was hurled to the right as they rounded the sharp turn. Her tiny body tumbled against the back doors in an ungraceful heap. Thanks to the roaring engine and maniacal laughter, her tumbling went unnoticed. Besides, the men were probably too busy hanging on for dear life to notice little old Reign stowing away in the back.

The side of the van scraped against the corner of a brick wall as it turned, resulting in a hideous screeching sound that made her toes curl.

“That’s gonna’ leave a mark. Oh ha ha!”

She gathered her limbs and toppled forward into a crouching position. She was finding it very difficult to get a good grip with her mittens on. Just as she clawed her fingers into the sacks, the van was thrown from ‘reverse’ into ‘drive’ and her balance was once again thrown off kilter. She gasped as her back collided with the rear doors, and for a second she was worried they would open up and leave her to tumble out into the alley.

Feeling like a rat trapped in a cage that was being shaken, she regained her footing and bit back the tears that were welling behind her eyes. Her throat burned with the sobs she refused to release, but she merely gripped the burlap sacks with a newfound desperation.

The driver continued laughing. Any doubt she had been holding on to turned to ash as she fully accepted just who was leading this pack of crazy Rick-killing criminals.

The man she had seen on nearly every news report aired on television.

The one who was supposed to be locked in a padded cell of Arkham.

The one with the blood red smile etched onto his face for all eternity.

The man whom she thought could not possibly be capable of terrorizing an entire city.

“Oh God,” she whimpered as the tears began to flow freely. “Oh no.”

He was supposed to be locked up!

Her fingers clawed worriedly at the fabric beneath her, and she no longer felt like a rat in a cage. With her back arched and eyes wide, she felt more like a small black cat clutching madly to a witch’s broomstick.

The van veered down the street (through the air) as the one and only Joker belted out his trademark laughter (like a witch).

She scowled resentfully at the back of the grungy seat and resisted the urge to cover her ears and block him out. If they took another sharp turn and she was unprepared, there was no telling how her frightened body would react.

As they swerved this way and that, she didn’t even bother to try and find the positives of her current situation. Besides, there weren’t any. She hadn’t meant to run away from Damian, but Rick had driven her to it. And now that she had escaped those two men, she had run right into the hands (or, van) of the only man on the planet who could make her boyfriend’s beatings look like spa treatments.

As usual, it was a lose-lose situation. She had escaped a bad situation only to end up in a worse one. Her entire life was lose-lose, so why should she have expected this time to be any different?

They hit another large bump, and Reign couldn’t help but be amazed at the fact that The Joker could possibly kill her with his driving without even knowing she existed. That thought occurred to her when a series of loud gunshots began assaulting her poor eardrums. The Joker was shooting, laughing, and driving all at the same time! A car horn wailed just outside the van, and Reign felt her fear reach intoxicating levels. There was the familiar sound of rubber tires screaming against asphalt, and that was swiftly followed by a deafening crash as a number of vehicles collided with one another.

The shooting ceased, but sadly the same couldn’t be said for The Joker’s laughter.

Reign’s small body shook violently and she had to bite down on her mitten to keep from screaming.

‘Rain, rain, go away,’ she sang in her head desperately. ‘Go away, go away, GO AWAY!’

Police sirens wailed through the air, and Reign’s entire body folded in on itself in terror. She curled up in the fetal position, rocking on her side with the motion of the van.

The sirens faded away moments later, and after what seemed like an eternity, the van finally came to a screeching halt.

Her face struck the back of the seat again, and this time she bit back a loud groan of discomfort. She folded her arms across her chest and held her breath, staring fixedly at the back seat and being careful not to make so much as a peep. She knew they were going to find her, but that didn’t mean she wanted to speed up the process.

‘Run!’ part of her mind screamed. ‘Open up that door and run for your life!’

‘No!’ the other part screamed. ‘They’ll kill you!’

She closed her eyes and silently mouthed her lullaby.

The engine died.

“Get the load,” Joker demanded, and she heard his door open.

The men (there were two others, she decided) immediately obliged by opening their doors and climbing out.

When Reign heard each door shut, she had an idea. What if she could scamper up to the front and hide? If they were unloading the back, they would be too busy to notice her up there.

She made a split second decision and got on her knees. With a whimper of dread, she threw the front half of her body over the seat. She kicked out her soggy legs and squirmed, trying to get the rest of her trembling body into the back seat.

It was then that she heard the sound she had been dreading.

There was a click and a squeak as the rear doors opened.

That was it.