In the Mind of Madness

“Why were you watching my mother and Alan?”

The Joker looked up at Kenna as if surprised. Maybe he was. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other since the night before. Kenna had been afraid that The Joker would look to retaliate for her attack, and she could only speculate why he had been avoiding her.

He was eating, and Kenna realized the only other time she had seen him do that was at the restaurant. Before he replied he swallowed the bite of pancake in his mouth, part of the rather large stack on the plate in front of him.

“I needed some form of entertainment. Didn’t work out that well, though. All they did was sit around and moan about you, like you’re a big deal or something.”

Kenna grimaced a little, leaning on the doorway of the room used as a kitchen. “I don’t know why I ask you anything. It’s easy enough to decipher the answer myself.”

“Then what’s the answer, doll?”

“You were watching for me.” Kenna sighed and blinked a few times, her eyes heavy from the little sleep she’d been able to get the night before.

The Joker shoved another large piece of breakfast into his mouth, this time talking around it. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you get done thinking you’re right about everything we have somewhere to be.”

“Another date night?” joked Kenna tersely.

He gave her a cold and unreadable looks from the many in his arsenal. “No. You’re grounded.”

The corner of her mouth twitched in irritation. “Grounded? I’m not a child.”

“Bad girls get treated as such.” The Joker wiped his mouth on a dish towel that sat on the table, smudging it with red. He left his unfinished pancakes there, standing up and stalking towards Kenna. “And Daddy doesn’t trust you alone, so Daddy has to take you to work with him.”

She twitched her head back when his gloved hand cupped her chin. “So you’re ‘Daddy’ now?”

“That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?” The Joker put on a sympathetic face that Kenna knew he was mocking her with. “A daddy to take care of you.”

“Fuck you.” with that she crossed her arms and glared at the wall, ignoring the way his jabs could make her blood boil.

The Joker giggled under his breath and pinched her cheek hard. Kenna’s hand shot out to slap him, his own strong grip closing on her wrist. He grinned lasciviously and shook his head, releasing her and walking way. Kenna grit her teeth and hated him so violently she was sure he could feel it. And she knew he wanted it.

“Are you going to stand there and pout all day? I have an appointment.” The Joker looked at an invisible watch anxiously.

Kenna put on a big fake smile that dimpled her cheeks, following him with an aggressively bright ‘Yes, Daddy!’ She didn’t catch the excited return smile that twisted his face.

___________________________

Kenna didn’t like the way the mask felt on her skin. Underneath it her forehead and neck were beginning to sweat, and it smelled like dirty plastic. The world looked strange through the eyeholes, and Kenna wondered if that was how robbers and murderers lived with themselves. Watching things through a mask made her feel strangely disconnected.

“You know, I think this is your look.”

The snide voice from beside her made Kenna scowl. “Cute. Why do I have to wear it anyway?”

“Part of the uniform, toots.” The Joker poked the garish clown mask on her face, nearly hitting Kenna’s eye. He smirked when her green eyes narrowed. “If you’re gonna fit in with my goons you’re gonna need it.”

“Why do I have to fit in with your goons?” her voice was irritated, her hands coming up to mess with the hood on her head that hid her blonde ponytail. It was attached to a ratty vest that smelled like blood. The getup The Joker had forced her into was making her feel sticky and uncomfortable.

The Joker was fiddling with one of the many detonators he seemed to have lying around, focusing his attention on it again so he wasn’t looking at her when he replied. “This is going to come as a shock to you, but there are a few people in this town who don’t respect me as an entrepreneur or visionary.”

“Absolutely shocking.” grumbled Kenna, wiping her sweaty palms on her stained cargo pants.

As if he didn’t hear her, The Joker continued. “Many of these people also happen to know who you are, and would most likely use you to get to me. So it’s easier for me if they don’t recognize you, because chasing you around isn’t as fun as it seems.”

“Huh.” she grunted. The thought was something new. She scratched her arm uneasily. “Would it work?”

“Would what work?” replied The Joker distractedly, trying to get a piece of masking tape to hold a torn wire together.

“If some of these undesirables you speak of kidnapped me. Would you pay ransom or whatever they wanted you to do?” she was oddly nervous to know the answer, a bead of sweat slipping down her temple. The van seemed to be getting hotter.

The Joker sighed in annoyance at the object in his hands, or maybe it was at Kenna. “I’d probably just kill them.”

“But maybe they would kill me if you tried getting to them.”

“Oh, well.”

The indifference in his voice made Kenna shiver, despite how warm she was. She stared out the darkly tinted window, watching the ramshackle buildings and ragged people of the Narrows pass by. A moment later The Joker made a low noise that sounded like he was trying to get her attention.

“I don’t like people touching my things.”

Kenna shook her head, refusing to look at him. “You can’t own a human being.”

“I can own whatever I can touch.”

His hand came to rest firmly on her thigh, causing Kenna to twitch and elbow him in the chest. The Joker chuckled at her, removing his hand slowly and going back to what he was doing. Kenna snarled against the inside of her hot mask, wishing that The Joker had driven the van instead of ordering one of his ‘employees’ to do it.

A few moments later the van came to an abrupt halt, something Kenna was prepared for this time. She braced her muddy boot on the back of the seat in front of her, keeping her body from flying off the seat. There was a rather lengthy silence, the goons in the front seat looking back at The Joker in a way Kenna assumed was expectantly because she couldn’t see their faces behind the masks.

He did something to the detonator and it beeped, a threatening grin seeping into his expression.

“Showtime.”