Straying out of Sanity

The next thing I remembered was a bright light. At first I thought I was dead and somehow wound up in heaven or for some reason hell was insanely white. But I started to make shapes and objects out of the light as it dimmed and left a pulsating pain where I was pistol whipped on the side of my head.

"Mother fucker," I hissed as I reached up to feel the spot where I was hit. I looked down at my hand and saw clotted blood on my finger tips. Then I noticed that the ground was moving. I blinked a few times, trying to focus, and realized I was slung over somebody's shoulder. And by the looks of it the guy carrying me was one of the guys who attacked us in the alley. Oh how thoughtful, they didn't kill us after all.

"Finally she's waking up," a man said and laughed. "How hard did you hit her?"

"Not hard enough," the man carrying me replied, sounding annoyed.

"Bastard," I muttered since trying to talk seemed like it would hurt too much.

"What?" the man asked in an angry voice and stopped walking.

"You fucking heard me," I said and my little sister came into view, she was being held by one of the guys and had a few scratches and bruises. Oh these mother fuckers are gonna pay... somehow.

"You better think twice before saying shit like that to me bitch," he said and I tried to prop myself up to get a better view of my surroundings.

"Fucking bastard!" I yelled as loud as I could, feeling like my head was splitting in half as I did.

"Watch your fucking mouth!" he yelled, hurting my head worse, and suddenly we were through a pair of swinging doors and I was airborne. I landed, stomach down, on some tables and slid to the end, hitting a person sitting at the edge and stopping. I moaned and tried to get up but my leg fell through a gap in between the tables. I grabbed the edge of the table so I wouldn't loose my balance and fall through.

"Emmalee!" Laurel shouted and I heard a smacking sound and her whimper.

"Don't you fucking hurt her!" I said as loud as my head would allow and attempted to get off the table but my legs didn't want to work properly and I just bumped into the person standing at the edge of the table again.

"What is this?" someone asked calmly.

"He's bringing kids in here and interrupting our meeting! That’s what he's doing!" another yelled and I pressed my palms to my ears to minimize the volume.

"You're having a meeting with him?" one of the people who attacked us asked and I managed to roll over onto my back.

"Meeting? You guys are in a fuckin' kitchen!" I heard Mitch laugh and I couldn't help but smile.

"Shut up boy!" someone else yelled and I heard another smack sound but no one whimpered. Mitch didn't like to show pain so it was most likely him being hit this time.

I shut my eyes tight, since my focus was once again bright and blurry, and waited a few seconds to open them back up. When I did I saw a fuzzy man staring down at me. Slowly little features stated forming, like how he was wearing purple, his face was painted white, his eye sockets were covered in black and his lips in red, how his hair fell across his face in greasy curls, and how his hair was a green color. Then I started noticing how his smile was huge, like seriously way to big to be human until I realized he just played out his lipstick that far out on his cheeks.

I squinted at him and suddenly my vision was perfectly clear and realized that the lipstick was covering scars. This wasn't just some man. This was a certain man who went by the name 'The Joker'.

My eyes widened as I stared at him. He cocked his head to the side slightly and quickly licked a section of his crimson red lips before looking away. I followed his gaze to see my little sister, Mitch and an unconscious Jay being supported by two of the men that attacked us.

"No... He was having a meeting with the TV when I interrupted him and then you interrupted me when you threw her at me," The Joker said, using his hands to motion to the Television on the other end of the Table, and then at me. "Thank you?" he asked the man who threw me and looked back down at me.

I raised my eyebrow at him and tried to at least sit up but my elbow gave out and my head hit the table. I moaned from the pain and had to pull my leg you to the gap again. "I think you broke her," the Joker added.

"Shut up!" the man who seemed to have a very short temper yelled at him and turned back to the men who attacked us. "Now explain this!"

"These are some of the kids doing all the muggings," the guy who hit me said.

"And why did you not kill them like the boss ordered?" the man asked impatiently.

"They put up a hell of a fight," the other calmly said back.

"I see that," the first man said and I realized that it was Maroni. Jesus Christ this day's just full of criminals. "Where's your gun?" he asked me.

"What gun?" I replied, looking up at him and successfully sitting up. He nodded and looked over at Mitch.

"And you're gun? Where is it?" he asked Mitch.

"I don't have a gun," Mitch answered the man.

"I don't suppose he has one either," the man said looking at Jay then knelt down in front of Laurel. "What's your name?" he asked her and she looked up at me.

I shrugged, not finding any harm in him knowing only her first name and she looked back at him. "Laurel," she answered quietly.

"Laurel... you wouldn't by any chance have a gun now would you?" he asked her and she shook her head no.

"Then can you please explain to me," he said getting you and looking at the man who hit me, "why only your men have been shot?!" he yelled the last part, making my head feel like it was splitting open again and I lost my balance when I pulled my hands up to my ears to block the noise.

I fell backwards but was caught, surprisingly, by The Joker and he helped me off the table and kept me steady while I found my balance standing on my feet. I let go of him and used a metal counter behind me to sturdy myself.

"Excuse me," The Joker then said at to Maroni.

"Yes?" he answered.

"Shh!" The Joker moved his index finger in front of his mouth and surprisingly everyone was silent. "Now as I was saying, before Jill over here came flying through the door," he said and cleared his throat. I looked over at Mitch and mouthed 'Jill?' to him. He shrugged and I looked back over to The Joker. "Let's wind the clock back a year. These cops and lawyers wouldn't dare cross any of you. What happened?" he asked looking around the room, "Did your balls drop off? Hm? Y-you see, a guy like me-"

"Freak," The one doing all the yelling before said and all the thugs in the room agreed.

"-guy like me..." The Joker continued, "Look, I know why you choose to have your little," he cleared his throat again, "group therapy sessions in broad daylight. I know why you're scared to go out at night... The Batman. See Batman has shown Gotham your true colors, unfortunately... Dent, he's just the beginning. And as for the television's... so called plan... Batman has no jurisdiction. He'll find him and make him squeal!" he said and clenched his fists.

"I know the squealers when I see them and..." he didn't finish but instead pointed at the TV. The man on there reached forward, having heard enough of The Joker, and turned his camera off.

"What do you propose we do?" another man I recognized as a drug dealer asked him, a bit impatiently.

"Its simple... we, uh, kill The Batman," The Joker said and the mobsters all started laughing.
The Joker waited for it to quiet down but before he could speak again Maroni asked, "If it’s so simple, why haven’t you done it already?"

The Joker leaned down on the table and casually said, "If you’re good at something, never do it for free."

"How much you want?" The drug dealer asked The Joker.

"Uh…" he said and looked around at everyone, "half."

The room filled with laughter again and I decided to make my way over to my little sister as the Joker cleared his throat again. No one did anything to stop me and I knelt down next to her and the man holding her let her go and she hugged me.

"Are you okay?" she asked me.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," I told her and smiled.

"You're crazy-" the man said and I looked up to the Joker.

"I'm not… No, I'm not," he said, putting an emphasis on the last "t", defensively, not looking at anyone as he spoke. He licked his bottom lip quickly as he looked back up. "If we don't deal with this now… Soon…" he spread his arms and shrugged, "Little, uh, Gambol here," he said referring to the man, "won't be able to get a, uh, nickel for his grandma."

Gambol, I'm assuming, slammed his fist on the table and yelled, "Enough from the clown!" as he stood up.

The Joker stood as well and opened his purple trench coat, revealing several grenades, their detonators attached to a string that was around his thumb. "Let's not blow this all out of proportion here," he said, shaking the hand with the detonator, and I turned Laurel's head away, afraid he was going to blow everyone up. Everyone in the room stood up with the two men and everyone seemed a lot more respectful of The Joker.

"You think you can steal from us and walk away?" Gambol asked The Joker angrily.

"Yeah…" He responded without hesitation.

"I'm puttin' the word out, five hundred grand for this clown dead. A million alive, so I can teach him some manners first!" the man said and The Joker looked around again, licking his lips quickly.

He then pointed at Maroni. "Listen, why don't you give me a call when you wanna start taking things a little more seriously?" he asked and dug around in his pocket before pulling out a Joker card. "Here's my card..." he said and threw it on the table. He started to walk backwards towards another set of swinging doors but stopped and turned to me. He looked back at the man and said, "They come with me."

Gambol frowned with his anger and was about to yell but the Joker pulled the string tight, shaking his had again, and the man quickly stopped and yelled, "Go!" at myself, Laurel, Mitch and an unconscious Jay. The men holding Mitch let him go and he slung Jay around his shoulders like a deer and I used Laurel for support and she helped me through the doors followed by Mitch and Jay. The Joker came through the doors last and started running down the hall with no recognition of us. I glanced at Mitch and he shook his head and started following him down the hall. I sighed and followed too.

The Joker led us to an exit where a black van was waiting. Two men in clown masks were standing by the two open back doors with automatic pistols. "Get in," The Joker said and the men let us into the back, following us and closing the doors as The Joker sat shotgun and the Van started moving.