Half Jack

Jay

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. She... she was--"

A thin sigh from Gordon.

Everything was getting thinner, wasting away. Gordon was growing ever grayer--not enough to persuade him to retire of course--but he was no spring chicky, and my hands weren't getting any younger, either.

(neither is anyone else in this town)

I stared at the white blanket laying stiff against my "friend's" body--still on the morgue table.

(light as a feather, stiff as a board)

"Her face was beaten to a...a .. you think it was Riddler, don't you?"

"Yes." I answered robotically, "It just doesn't stop does it?"

I hardly moved anymore, I'd noticed.

(stiff as a board)

I didn't even budge when Gordon put a hand on my shoulder,

"I'm sorry, son--"

"Please." I shook my head, constricting my face and shoving my fists in my jacket pockets. I moved quickly for the door, wanting to move quickly away from Gordon, from Cosette, from all the other bodies within the morgue.

"Gotta go. Helping Angel look for Homer. You know how he gets."

Gordon nodded.

Angel

He'd been missing for over three days. And I knew why. It was that night, the night she--

I couldn't bear to stay. I couldn't be the idol of strength anymore, no more the picture of perfection in that moment. No more standing still. No more marble statue with a heart of gold. I ran. I ran all the way back home and didn't look back, not even once. The blood

(her blood it's hers and it's all over)

made a horrible noise against the arch of my foot, a terrible sensation against the chilled skin.

I ignored the

(signs you ignored all those signs and now she's gone)

sirens blaring from the police cruisers behind, knowing that the phone calls and questions would be directed at me soon enough. I covered my ears. All I wanted was silence then. Silence and peace,

(you just couldn't shut up)

to slink away in the shadows and never be looked at as some figurine of holiness, of white-knighthood, all over again.

(just like HARVEY DENT)

I shut my eyes and felt my face bunch up. But it was too late to hold back. I could feel pain--shooting up the arch of my reddened foot, and the slouching curve of my neck. The sharp twist of metal, curling up my spine. So much physical and emotional pain I feared I wouldn't make it home. But the wind seemed to support me, push me to the final stretch into my old apartment building.

I cannot tell you why I still lived in that ancient place. I had enough money to leave now, with my job as a social worker.

Maybe it was to remain close to May Queen's old residence. Perhaps it was pure nostalgia. Just maybe, I was afraid of the change that would come so fast and so harsh. Like the slamming door and the death of a friend. A rock, crashing down upon a young bird's tiny head.

I remember grabbing my crumpling face with my elegant fingertips, physically hiding myself from Homer--at that moment, he was sitting at the dining room table and probably nibbling at a hot dog.

I heard him mutter a, "What's..."

But that moment passed vaguely. In my state of shock and stress, I had to get to the bathroom. I simply had to wash the blood from my skin.

In this home, we took showers. The sound of a bath being drawn was a sore trauma for my younger brother, and was simply forbidden.

So when I began filling the tub, I realized too late, much too late, the ramifications.

Homer

It was like a switch, the faucet.

(homer, Mommy is going to wash your hair now okay
don't be afraid

you can trust me

I HATE YOU YOU REMIND ME OF HIM!!
splash air bubbles blub blub blub
GARGLE GARGLE COUGH SPAT)

I froze. I started grabbing at the tiny dining room table, scratching at it like a rat. Fear gurgled within my throat, left a sour smell in my keen nostrils. The vivid and sudden sightless memory of my long since vanished mother drowning me--immersing me in shallow water that fateful evening before she went truly mad--rooted my core to the spot for a few seconds. Like her angry hands were around me then, forcing me to breathe in my worst nightmare.

I reacted the only way I knew how.

I tore myself from the table, tore myself from from the creaking wooden floors and left the house, making a mad dash for the only place I thought to go, in that instant. A place where I was always welcome and always valued. Never invisible, never drowning. Never blind.

Penguin.

Angel

Three days. Three days ago they left like that. With her screaming, laughing. Him without a word, without a sound.

Three days, I thought I'd lost everything. Every bit of family I had. It's not that I was scared for my brother--he knew his way around Gotham better than anyone. I just needed him here in time for Cosette's funeral service. I needed him there, to be my support.

Then Jay called after I came home from work on the third day--the day before the funeral

(party),

promising he'd help me find him. This gave me some hope, but didn't fully draw me out of my detached and near-broken state. Let's just say I would believe Jay's arrival when I saw it.

Sirens blared outside against the midday sky, but there was no reaction. They had become background noise for this city, especially lately. I believed I was the only one who heard them anymore.

Cosette

There were police cruisers outside the building again, the building across the street from where I sat, on a little stool I'd found in the trash.

I smiled wide--halfway enraged, half entertained and lost in my own fancy. I dug into the soft wood of the windowsill with my father's knife. Chipping paint and creating scars. It was a meticulous, however sporadic, habit.

Bloodhaven was as gray as Gotham, but seemed to be shrouded in a darker shadow, encased in a more threatening shell. Perhaps because it did not have its own ridiculous protector and night time guardian. Maybe it was just my more recent murderous outlook on things or the fact that when I occasionally ventured out and took a walk, those few lonesome remnants of a chemical factory gave me the creeps.

Either way, I festered in my new hovel of a home. I'd taken comfort in a rotting tooth of a structure deep in the poorest part of the city. Only three days old and I was ready to break free from this chrysalis.

And it was the apartment across from my personal hell that would fully crack it open.

I'd been watching the tenants from the old window, digging the knife slowly into the sill and analyzing every movement made. They became my life and my friends. Especially the woman. She had red hair and reminded me of someone close. Every hour I saw her in the window or standing on the stoop smoking a cigarette I wanted to reach out and pluck her from the dismal scene. Take her away and keep her safe. Wrap her up in vines and preserve her beauty for the world to see.

But I couldn't. It was her husband. Her rotten rat of a husband.

He would come home and hit her, I could see in the windows. It happened in the kitchen. She would burn the chicken, or anything else. And he would descend upon her. A sudden barrage, something that she would raise her arms up at and turn her head away from--ashamed. The second night I watched, she looked down for a while after an episode, looked down with her hair in her face and her fingers rubbing at her eyes. The back of her hand would rub across her nose quickly and I knew what she felt. Defeat. Alienation. Muffled panic.

And today, the day she sat out on the stoop with a damp rag to her nose talking to the police, shaking her head confidently and sending them away--the wire snapped in my brain.

I'd purchased some rope when I first got here. I stood up abruptly, grabbing up the old make up bag off the floor, my skull buzzing and filled with hot-headed blood. I had a costume to plan. This time, for something more than a party.

I heard my laugh ring awfully through the decaying halls of my temporary and decaying home.

The redhead's husband would be my first kill, but certainly not the last.