No Place in My Heart for a Criminal Like You

Unfortunately, I was forced to sit in a puny jail cell which also had other people in there too. I sat on the bench in the cell avoiding any contact with anyone and stayed calm and collected. The whole cell was surrounded by metal bars and I could clearly see a male officer sitting at a desk, typing something up on his computer. He seemed like the only possible escape at that moment, so I went for it.

Slowly and seductively, I walked up to the metal bars, focusing on the officer. I grasped the bars making sure that my handcuffs jingled against them to attract his attention. Immediately he stopped typing and looked up to see what was creating the noise. Once he noticed that the noise was coming from me, he stared at me confused. I shot him my best puppy dog expression, while still maintaining the seduction. The officer shook his head out of the trance I had him in and continued typing again. I cleared my throat, which regained his attention once again. He let out a sigh and lay back in his chair as if to ask what the problem was.

“Come here,” I whispered loud enough for him to hear as I beckoned him with my finger. He shook his head awkwardly, denying my request. “Please. I’ll be gentle with you, I promise.” I winked at him, but he fought the urge to stand up from his chair.

“What do you want?” He asked, speaking for the first time.

“I just want you take these handcuffs off me. And trust me, I’ll give you something in return.” I stuck out my arms passed the bars and jingled the cuffs around slightly.

The officer chuckled slightly before saying, “I don’t think your “Mr J” will be too happy with you for that. Right, Harley?” He used inverted commas as he said ‘Mr J’, mocking me which I certainly wasn’t happy with.

“Well, he won’t be too happy when he gets here and finds that you’ve locked me up, huh officer? That’s equally unpleasant. Just you wait and see.”

“Nice try.”

I groaned in frustration and retreated back to the bench. “It’s so boring in here!” I screamed as I placed my head in my hands. A few minutes of silence passed, but it was broken when a door opened past the office desks.

“Where is she?” asked Commissioner Gordon. Obviously referring to me, he spot me sitting in the jail cell looking like a moody teenager. He began walking over to the cell with a few officers following behind. “Take her to the interrogation room,” he ordered as he stared at me, pity and disgust in his eyes. The officers obeyed and entered the cell, making sure that no other inmates escaped. Two officers grabbed each of my arms and aggressively pulled me out of the cell.

“Mmm! I do like it rough, guys!” I moaned, a loud high-pitched laugh following. They ignored me and continued directing me towards the interrogation room.

Once in, they forced me down in the seat so that I was facing the door that we had came through. Gordon followed soon after and sat across from me.

“Hi there, Gordon. Long time, no see, huh? Nice to have a little catch up, right? So, what you been up to?”

“I’d like to ask you the same thing,” Gordon retorted sternly.

I sighed heavily and leaned forward onto the table. “To be completely honest with you, I really don’t think you want to know what I’ve been getting up to. Besides, I think you already know a few things. I’m quite a popular person, you see. All you have to do is look in Gotham’s paper and you’ll know exactly what I’ve been doing. Well maybe not exactly. What goes on behind closed doors is our business. After all, he’s a man and I’m a woman. We both have needs. It’s only natural that we-”

“Harley! Stop rambling,” he exclaimed, cutting my sentence short.

“I’m assuming you know who I’m talking about here.”

“Yes. Where is he?”

“Well he’s not with me, that’s for sure. After you took me away from him, you evil fiends. Now that‘s just cruel. It‘s like stealing candy from a baby, technically.”

“Where is he, Harley?” He asked again more irritated this time.

I shrugged my shoulders, uninterestedly and cleared my throat before replying, “You won’t find him. Because he’s too hard to find.” Gordon stood up from his chair, finally losing his patience and started towards the door. “Hey, where you going? Was it something I said?” I snickered.

“She’s all yours,” Gordon stated as he exited the room, revealing the one and only Dark Knight.

“B-man! What’s up, handsome?” I asked, jokingly. Ignoring my question he stormed over to the table and slammed his hands down onto the table.

“Where is he?!” He bellowed.

I yawned as a reply. I wasn’t fazed at all by his outburst. I had seen a lot worse than that from The Joker, so I didn’t feel the need to flinch. “You know this is getting really boring.”

“We know you know where he is. So where is he, Harley?”

“Stick around, Bats. You might just see him.”

“What makes you think he’s going to be here?” He asked, sitting down in the chair that Gordon was previously here.

“Oh, he will. I know he will. He’ll get me out of here. He wouldn’t just leave me,” I replied a little too confident. I wasn’t even sure myself if he’d help me. I was just hoping he would, so I fooled myself into thinking that he was definitely going to be there for me.

“How do you know? What makes you different than anyone else?”

“He loves me.”

“He doesn’t. He’s just using you, you know. You’re another one of his pawns. He’s going to play you just like he’s played many others in Gotham. I’d have thought that after everything he’s done to this place that you’d be aware of what he’s capable of. Open your eyes, Harley and stop denying the truth. You must know what he’s trying to do. He’s done it before. Now, just snap out of it before completely breaks you.”

“Shut up! He does love me!” I shouted angrily. With every word, I was slowly becoming more and more frustrated. Not only was he trying to prove me wrong, but also his words were making sense. I couldn’t handle it. My hands were balled up into tight, irritated fists. I saw that The Joker was trying to break me, but I just couldn’t let go of him. After all, I did say I loved him and I meant it. When you love someone, if that person faults or does something wrong, you don’t immediately stop loving them. That isn’t love. I was just an unlucky one who had to fall in love with someone who had faulted many times.

“No, he doesn’t, Harley. Has he ever told you that he loves you?” Batman asked. I lowered my head, not being able to admit that he hasn’t admitted it to me.

“He doesn’t need to. I know he loves me,” I muttered under my breath.

“He’s blatantly hurting you and you’re letting him do it. He needs to be stopped. There’s no good in a man like him and it’s because of this that he can’t love anyone. The only thing he’s interested in, is watching others suffer. He’s not interested in you. Come on, Harley! Wake up!”

“Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!” I screeched as I jumped up from the chair. “He does love me! He does! He does! He loves me!” I continued as tears began to well up in my eyes. I slumped back into my chair tears now pouring down my face, smudging the make-up even more. I silently rested my head against the table as I quietly cried to myself. The room was deadly silent for a short while. Only the gentle sounds of breathing reverberated off the walls. But then, out of nowhere, a loud bang sounded out throughout the police station.

My heart almost jumped out of my throat when I realised who it was. Slowly, I brought my head back up to show the biggest grin of wickedness spread across my face.

In a sing-song voice I said, “he’s here.”