Straying out of Sanity

I had no idea where they had gone but I felt that I really needed to find them because I obviously had no idea what I was even doing here, let alone anyone else. I mean making sure nobody interferes with the 'meeting' could mean a lot of different shit. Throw The Joker into the mix and all those possibilities become very bad. I felt my heart lunge into my throat due to my thoughts and I quickened my pace down the hallway, checking into different rooms as discreetly as I could when I passed them, trying to find Hunter and Leo.

"Well, hello there," I heard a man say as I reached a tee in the halls.

I quickly whipped around from checking down the left hall and was almost immediately pushed with enough force to knock me onto my ass. "Fancy seeing you again, I thought for sure Joker would've killed you by now," The man said, and I looked up at him as I started scrambling backwards. I remembered him as the thug who had pistol whipped me not more than two days ago.

At the sight of him I quickly reached back and in my hurry I accidentally grabbed the gun The Joker had given me instead of my switchblade. I was screaming obscenities at myself in my head once I realized what I had done, but still held the gun pointed up at him.

He paused for a moment, as did I, before he smirked, "You're not gonna shoot me princess," he said smoothly.

"Why not?" I asked him quickly and smiled up at him, trying to conceal my panic, "Because the safety's on?"

His gaze moved to the side of the gun, where the little switch was, and smiled too, "Yeah, that'd be why." He moved quickly, wrapping one of his hands around my throat as he took the gun from me. I quickly brought my knee up between his legs but he stopped me with his other hand, dropping the gun as he did so, and I remembered that crotch shots didn't work with this guy.

He lifted my body up and crushed me against the wall, his forearm up against my neck, slowly choking me. I was using both my hands to try and push his arm away and keep him from choking me but it wasn't working as well as I hoped it would.

"So you're still alive?" he asked, half laughing in the beginning of his question. I glared at him in response and he shook his head. "So Joker must have a soft spot, eh? Tell me, what he is doing here?" he asked me. This guy must be insane to think I can answer him when his meaty forearm was cutting off any oxygen I could get. And not to mention I was quickly growing lightheaded, I'd surely pass out within the next minute. "So I'm guessing if you're still alive that little brat is too, huh?" he laughed again and I took the opportunity to try my luck again with kneeing him in the crotch.

He didn't completely catch my knee in time and only succeeded in slowing my knee down so I didn't have as much of an impact as I would've liked. But hell, it got his forearm away from my throat.

"You bitch!" he yelled at me as I quickly caught my breath. I saw him reach back and pull out a gun of his own and before I could even think my switchblade was out and stabbed into this throat. My eyes grew suddenly wide at the sight of him in front of me. He froze, for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was maybe only a second or two before falling forward.

Since my hand was still attached to the knife as he fell the blade dug deeper and drug its way half across his throat before he hit the ground. I switched my side in the hall and slid down the wall, trying to keep the bile from rising any further in my throat from what I had just done.

He stared back at me, with eyes just as wide as mine as he clutched at his throat. That’s when a small part of me, the part that was already used to this blood and violence was telling me that the man had dropped his gun. It was telling me that I needed to grab both his and my gun and get the fuck away from him. The more this voice screamed at me the more it had an effect on my body and once it had gained control I quickly grabbed for his gun, then crawled over to my gun and then got up to run down the hall he had pushed me down. I didn't know if this was the way Hunter and Leo had gone but I didn't care. I just wanted away from the bleeding man.

Before I could get far though, I was caught around the ankle and I fell to the floor. I turned my body around and saw the man trying to pull me back. I screamed from my terror and my body, obviously on auto pilot by now started kicking at his face and shoulders.

He let go of me after a few 'persuasions' from my feet and I was up and running blindly down the hall, both guns and my knife clutched to my bloodied shirt. There was a sudden round of gunshots to my left, down the hall a bit, and collapsed onto the floor as I dropped the weapons I was carrying to cover my ears. I couldn't tell if I had been shot or not because I couldn't feel anything but my panic, swelling to a dangerous size in my chest. I backed myself up against the wall and wrapped my arms protectively around my chest and more shots were fired. I chanced a look at my surroundings and through an open doorway, into what seemed to be a lounge where men I recognized at the random new guys from before and two more men who looked like Thugs were shooting at each other. And then at the side of a room, through another open doorway I noticed Mitch waving frantically at me.

"What happened?" he mouthed at me, obviously better that Hunter, and using his hands to over express what he was trying to ask me.

I felt tears start to flood my eyes as I quickly shook my head and rested my head on my knees again, rocking back and forth as a feeble attempt at calming myself down. I turned my head so I could see Mitch still, as he was quietly talking with one of the new men; it looked almost as if they were arguing. He then turned back to me.

"Gun?" he mouthed, making a gun out of his right hand.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head frantically and rocking faster.

"Calm the fuck down!" he mouthed at me, again using his hands. I couldn't tell if he had really mouthed the 'the' because the 'calm' and 'fuck down' were more prominent, but I didn't care. I started taking in deep breaths, trying to calm down.

"Knife?" Mitch mouthed a second later and I glanced over to my bloodied switchblade on the carpet. I stared at it for a second before reaching forward and grabbing it to show Mitch that I had it.

"Okay!" he put a thumbs up and then pointed at the Thug closest to me.

"No!" I whispered again, shaking my head, realizing what he was planning for us two.

"Emma! Please!" he over emphasized with his hands and I felt the tears, that I had somewhat been able to control, coming back. He pointed at the thug again and then he pointed at himself and at a thug currently reloading his gun. He obviously didn't have a weapon with him, and that’s why he wanted me to attack the Thug with the gun. Yeah I could do it easily, I knew that, but I wasn't up for killing another man.

"You have to," he pointed at me and I shook my head, clutching the switchblade to my chest as I tried to desperately stop the tears again.

"One..." he started to count as his Thug started pushing bullets into his revolver. I shook my head fiercely again, hoping that he would stop and everything else would just work itself out.

"Two..." he continued and I bit my lip with dread and anticipation. He knew that I wouldn't leave him hanging and possibly cause his death. He knew I couldn't do that to someone as close to me as he was and he was using that against me.

"Three!"

I don't know if he even reached three or if my mind went into autopilot again and just imagined the three but either way when I heard three I ran into the room and knocked the thug Mitch had given me down due to my sheer force. But it seems that the autopilot had forgotten to stab him because within a second he had somehow thrown me off of him and I had no idea what was going on. I looked to my right to see him steadying himself on his knees and before he had time to lift his gun I plunged my knife into his gut.

He made an 'umph' sound as I collided with him once again but he ended up being much stronger than me and easily ripped the knife out of his muscles and flesh, though my hand might as well be part of the handle because I don't think even I could separate the two at the moment.

He flipped me over again and as I was moving to sit up he aimed his gun for my head and I quickly pushed the gun down and he somehow missed me. But whilst doing so I dropped my knife. I guess I was wrong about my hand and knife being inseparable.

He was on top of me in a blur of color and again aiming for my head. In my determination not to die I grabbed the barrel of his gun and twisted it a full one hundred eighty degrees back at him, all with a few sickening pops in his wrist, assuring that something in there had snapped, as he pulled the trigger.

In half a second half his face was gone and most of his heads contents were splattered against the roof and surrounding walls. But me, being the unlucky bitch I am, had my mouth wide open at the time and whatever of his head that didn't get blown upwards fell onto me, and on my white shirt and allover my torso and arms and on my face and into my mouth.

His corpse fell on top of me, spilling whatever else he had in his head onto me and I couldn't do anything but scream.

And scream.

And scream.

And then I found strength in my limbs to start pushing and shoving the body off of me. And I also found that I was able to roll over and spit out all the brains and blood and eyeball juice and cerebral fluid and everything else that I was unlucky enough to catch in my mouth with more fear filled screams. In fact I couldn't hear anything else but my screams.

But I could feel someone trying to pick me up. And I saw that corpse still trying to attack me. I screamed even louder and kicked him away and he fell backwards. But then he was suddenly behind me, in a backwards sort of bear hug and I flailed around frantically and found some sort of inhuman strength in me to break free from him and half crawl half roll away from him.

And then it happened.

I was struck so hard across my right cheek that I couldn't see anything but blackness for a few seconds. I blinked rapidly, assuring myself that my eyes were not closed and that I wasn't blind because my vision faded back in until everything was clear again. I was staring at the wall, my face having been thrown to the left. I could also hear a deadly silence ringing through the air. And I just stared at the wall before blinking once more and slowly looking up to see what had nit me. And I didn't see the man who had blown half his face of, no.

I saw The Joker, staring down at me, his head tilted a bit to the side and his eyebrows furrowed.