Straying out of Sanity

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 hit 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.

I blinked up at him in response to his staring before I decided to try and sit up.

He went to raise an eyebrow at me, as if to ask what the fuck I was just doing but didn't have time to because once I had moved my right leg I was thrown back to the floor by a searing pain in my inner thigh.

I let out a small scream, not the crazed psycho screams as before , but a scream of anguish and pain as I lifted my head back up to see what was wrong with me. I saw that my thigh was oozing dark crimson though a hole in my black capris and a hole in my leg itself. So he did shoot me before blowing his head off.

I threw my head back to the carpet and ran my fingers through my hair, stopping halfway to pull on my locks, trying in a feeble attempt to get rid of the pain. Which suddenly grew worse for some reason and I screamed again, this time much weaker and much more like a sob as I looked up again to see The Joker sliding my capris off of my legs, smearing my blood all down my right leg.

I hadn't any time to question his antics as his hands immediately shot to my wound and my head was thrown back again by much more pain than before and my scream came out as a silent sob.

"Stop!" I tried to scream at him but it came out as a hoarse whisper soaked in my new tears. "Please!" I didn't care about him forcing my capris and boots off anymore, I just needed him to stop whatever he was doing to my leg.

"Boss! Boss we need-... We have to leave now!" I heard Paige's breathless voice say, pausing in the middle of her sentence. I glanced over to where her voice came from and saw her giving us a perplexed look from the doorway I had come through.

The Joker gave her a quick acknowledging glance and nod before he started to take his purple trench coat off and barking out orders, "You, grab her clothes, you grab her knife and those guns, you... just try and breathe, she kicked you hard, you and you, kill everyone, and you go get the vans!"

"Yes sir!" Paige said and ran off. He had his jacket off now, laying next to his crouched form on the floor next to me, as he started loosening his tie. He pulled it from around his neck and went for my leg again.

"No..." I sobbed, pleaded, with him.

"Shh-sh-sh," he mumbled and wrapped the tie twice around my leg before tying it painfully tight, just above my wound. All the while he was getting sobbing screams of agony from me.
He then threw his coat over my bottom half and then went to pick me up.

"Fuck," I sobbed through gritted teeth as my leg stung with pain. He adjusted me into a more comfortable position for my leg, which was hard to achieve but he somehow managed it and then carried me out of the lounge type room and into the hallway towards the first man I killed.

"No," I sobbed not wanting to see him again, and buried my face into his green vest, clutching at his shirt, begging for him to take me away from the first corpse.

"Nice job," I heard his voice through his chest as we passed the bleeding dead man and turned right into the hallway, which led to the stairs. I sniffed in response to his words and once I felt it safe to look back I saw Mitch half supporting Hunter as they followed us. Hunter was walking in a weird position, while holding himself and trying not to let go of Mitch's shoulder at the same time.

I buried my face back into The Joker's vest, feeling bad about possibly having something to do with Hunter's pain. It would make more sense if I had mistook Hunter for the corpse with half a face and kicked him, in a rather bad spot might I add, away from me.

Joker took the stairs at a slower pace than he was walking, like he was trying his hardest to make sure I wasn't put through more pain than necessary. And that I found odd and even a bit freaky because wasn't The Joker supposed to be like… really sadistic and love when people were in pain?

I didn't have much more time to think on the subject because I could hear gunshots again and I pressed my hands over my ears, making sure to keep my eyes tightly shut. Obviously if I was in The Joker's arms I would be safe, right? I mean he had all these people here to make sure nothing happened and that nothing went horribly wrong so they'd also be protecting him, and me as long as I was with him right?

Unless he decided to use me as a shield…

I cringed at the thought, sending fresh pain through my leg and a small whimper escaped my lips.

"You're gonna be fine, Jill," he sighed as I felt us walk out of the building and I chanced a look at my surroundings. We were already out of the back alley and heading towards the two vans, one of them in which we had came, where they were now parked across the street instead of down the block. He briskly walked towards the one we had come in; calling out, "Go back to the house," as he went. I heard both van's engines start as Joker walked to the back doors, which were open, and let Mitch and Hunter in first, before setting me in and then pulling himself in too. He then grabbed me around the shoulders and dragged me in further, so the doors wouldn't close on me but also causing me more unnecessary pain. Another whimper escaped from my throat and I shut my eyes tightly. I'd give anything to not be in this situation right now.

Joker moved back to the crouched position by my side, like before in the lounge but only on my right side this time, and moved his coat back to reveal my leg. He then grabbed what looked like a metal tool box and dug through it. An image flashed in my mind of The Joker torturing me with monkey wrenches and screw drivers and I quickly forced it from my mind. I glanced around the van to realize that it was only us four in the back of the van, and then I looked behind me to see Paige driving the van and Jared in the passenger seat looking back at me.

"So you got shot?" he whispered, with a small smile.

"Really? I hadn't noticed," I stated sarcastically, trying to smile back but felt The Joker grab my arm and I looked back to see him tying an elastic strip around my arm.

"What are you-?" I started to ask him but I then noticed him taking the wrapping off of a surgical needle and sticking it into a small glass jar, pulling the end back so he could draw liquid into the cylinder. He pulled it back out, flicking the needle a few times and then squirting some out to rid the cylinder of air, like you'd see doctors do at hospitals.

I stared at him perplexed, as he turned back to me with the needle in his hand. He grabbed the arm he had tied up with the elastic and slapped it a few times. I didn't exactly trust him with sticking a needle into my arm but I also didn't feel like pulling my arm away from him and asking what the fuck he thought he was doing because I didn't know how he'd react to that, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be good.

So I just let him continue with what he was doing and stick the needle into my arm, hoping whatever he was injecting into me wouldn't kill me. Once the liquid was out of the cylinder he pulled the needle back out of my arm and tossed it carelessly to the very back of the van, then stared at my arm for a few seconds, as if waiting for something to happen. I admit that I started to feel a bit... weird but I didn't know if it was what he gave me or if I was just imagining things.

"Tell me if you... get cold or if you feel sick..." he told me, removing the elastic before moving back to the toolbox, "or can't breathe... or become comatose-"

"How am I supposed to tell you I'm in a coma if I'm in a coma?" I asked him quickly.

He paused for a moment, ceasing his digging through the toolbox, and looked over at me. "Good point," he said after a moment and then started digging through the toolbox again.

"What did you give me?" I asked, propping myself up with my elbows to see what he was doing better.

"...Morphine," he said, his brows furrowed at the contents the toolbox he had placed in his lap held and shoved it away, only to grab another. He appeared to find what he was looking for in this one and pulled off his purple gloves. I gulped when I saw him take out a bottle of peroxide. This was going to hurt, morphine or not. He then pulled out a rag and a bottle of water.

I gave him a questioning look as he wet the rag and then tossed it at my face. I sat up enough to catch it and figured I could use that to clean off all the brains and blood left on my skin. He didn't seem to care, or even notice really because he was busy soaking his hands and one of his knifes in the peroxide. He then made his way back over to me and before I knew what he was actually doing half the peroxide was poured into my bullet wound.

"OWW!" I yelled at him and almost slapped him with the bloody rag he had given me before I realized that wouldn't be good, so I just settled for a glare. But I guess it didn't hurt as bad as I thought it would because I wasn't sent into convulsions from pain, so the morphine was working I guess.

Until he shoved his knife and finger into the wound and roughly dug out the bullet in my leg. That's about the time I started to wonder quite a few things along the lines of why was he doing this and did he even know what the hell he was doing? Surely a sadistic psychopath wouldn't know how to properly tend to a bullet wound right? Unless he was just going off of experience from tending to his own bullet wounds. And I wouldn't be surprised if he was a masochist, along with the thousands of other things screwed up in his head.

But yes as he dug through my leg for the slug my elbows gave out and I hit the floor of the van, yet again in too much pain to properly scream and all I did was whimper. But I suppose my voice already being hoarse from all my screaming earlier had something to do with it too. I was doing all I could to keep my mind off of the feeling of Joker's knife digging into my flesh and scraping across my bone. Thinking of anything I could besides the pain, bunnies, ice cream, playgrounds, anything. But it stopped, I couldn’t feel The Joker digging in my leg anymore and the morphine I was given dulled the previous pain. I opened my eyes that I hadn't realized I'd closed; my vision slightly blurred by tears, and saw Jared making a weird face. It was a combination of disgust, pain, apology, and other things I couldn't distinguish but it was funny.

I giggled weakly with my slightly damaged vocal cords and received a weird look from Jared. Paige even chanced a glance at me, her eyebrow raised, before turning back to the road. I looked back into the van from the front seats and noticed Mitch and Hunter giving me weird looks too. I then looked over at the Joker and he was rinsing his hands off with the water bottle.

He glanced over at me and said, "Here," picking something up from the ground and tossing it at my face. I moved my face aside so whatever it was wouldn't hit me and heard a soft thunk to the side of my head and I looked back to see a small deformed mass of metal laying beside my head. I went to pick it up so I could see it better and noticed blood.

"This was in my leg?" I asked him and looked over to see him threading a needle with black wire type material.

"Yep," he said quickly, pouring peroxide over the needle and thread and his hands again. I tried to prop myself back up on my elbows to see what he was doing again but my arms didn't seem to cooperate as I'd have liked them too. I frowned at them, wondering why they weren't moving right.

"C'mere," I heard The Joker say, motioning me to him.

"My arms don't work right," I told him and he snapped his head up to me from the needle. He quickly made his way back to my side and one of his peroxide soaked hands went straight to my neck while the other pulled me up by my shoulder.

I flinched under his hands but he gripped me tighter and I realized he wasn’t choking me but checking my pulse. He stared off to a spot slightly above my left shoulder for around half a minute before looking back at me and forcing one of my eyelids to open more than it should. I jerked back but he grabbed the back of my head so I couldn't really move and stared into my eye for a few seconds before releasing me and saying, "You're fine." He then half picked me up and leaned me up against the side of the van and moving ourselves into a sort of awkward position so he had easy access to my bullet wound.

"I feel cold too…" I mumbled, not really meaning for him to hear. It was more of a silent complaint of uncomfort if anything but he still heard me.

Or he just randomly said, "Give me that," Pointing back to his discarded purple coat. Mitch, who was closest, reached forward to grab the purple material and hand it to The Joker. He then passed it along to me, saying, "You'll be fine." I moved the coat over my torso, having a little trouble moving it over my shoulders but it did help a bit.

I clutched it close to my bloodied tank top and bare arms as he moved my leg into a strange position in his lap and started sewing the wound shut. A small jolt of pain would flare in my leg each time the needle was forced through my skin but it was nothing compared to him digging through my wound with his knife. And I'm not sure if I was imagining it or not but I'm pretty sure he was trying to be more gentle this time.