Body Count

Try as she might, Shane could not sleep through the steady flow of curses and questions Bruner threw at her all through the night. She wore her mask to try and block out the sound, but that merely made the words sound oddly magnified, so she quickly threw it aside. Burying her face in the sheets didn't work, either, mostly because they stank too badly for her to keep herself submerged in them for long. She even tried just stuffing her fingers in her ears and hoping they'd stay there while she slept, but this was uncomfortable, and her arms kept slipping out of position. Finally, she gave up.

"Will you be quiet!" she blurted, throwing her arms into the air frustratedly. Her back arched somewhat, and it cracked pleasantly. She was strewn over the sheets, limbs all akimbo, facing Bruner upside down from the other end of the room.

Bruner, however, refused to end his interrogation. Being tied to a chair, placed under an annoyingly buzzing light bulb, and forced to spend the night alone with a mass murderer who was nearly seven years his junior did not seem to suit him at all. He continued spouting inquiries at her, hardly pausing for breath or giving her time to answer, his face screwed up in rage.

Most of the questions she usually would have answered happily, but in truth the liking she had taken to Bruner had quickly worn off. He was quick to judge, noisy, and kept telling her she was just another angst-filled, hate-driven teenager that had gone a little too far in their violence, no doubt after a night of drinking and doing experimental drugs. And Shane was tired beyond belief. Her scar throbbed as she thought of all the sleep she could be having right now, if it hadn't been for this excuse of a man.

As the pain in her scar throbbed and dulled, her other injuries came to mind. Eagerly welcoming a topic to think of that might drown out Bruner's endlessly intruding voice, Shane shut her eyes and tried to focus in on the pain coming from her hand. It was almost healed, having been left to do so without medical help, but there was a ridge of uneven bone across the back of her hand extending from the base of her thumb to the base of her little finger. She found, upon trying to do so, that she couldn't fully extend any of the fingers on her right hand.

Her shoulder didn't hurt at all anymore. A memory flitted across her mind, and she grinned stupidly as she remembered The Joker suddenly shouting at rocks and throwing them through shop windows. The scar along her shoulder and arm was long and ugly, puffing out at the edges the way The Joker's did on his face. But his scars weren't ugly, she argued with herself. They were trademarks. Meaningful. And, somehow, they made him a little more appealing.

Pushing this last thought roughly aside, her mind traveled down her leg to her left ankle, which only ever hurt if she put great pressure on it, like jumping from a high place. It always slanted out a bit, but she could walk perfectly fine. All in all, her body had mended up nicely, and she was sure she'd be good and ready when the next session of abuse rolled around on The Joker's calendar.

"Hey! I asked you a question!"

She blinked, her vision blurred around the edges. After being closed so long, her eyes sent tinted messages to her brain, so everything looked slightly more green than usual.

"You've asked me hundreds of questions," she said, furrowing her brow in an attempt to get him in better focus.

"I've asked this one at least three dozen times! Why don't you answer me?" He asked this last part as though, in not doing so, she was paying him great personal offense.

"What's the question?" she asked blearily, rubbing her eyes.

"Why are you working for him?"

Her hands stopped, still in the act of rubbing the sleep away from her eyes, and she frowned. Her scar pulled slightly.

"Working for him?" she repeated, her voice thick with confusion. In her mind, she tried to remember ever thinking she was working for The Joker, instead of with him, or because of him. "I didn't know I was." she said truthfully.

"Liar," he said instantly, looking down at her in disgust. "Stop protecting yourself. I don't have anybody to rat you out to."

"I'm not lying. I don't lie," She felt a surge of pride in herself, because she could say this without feeling guilty. She had indeed never lied to her memory, at least not in the past month or so.

"All teenagers lie," Bruner said at once. He seemed to have an answer to everything. "I did. My - friends did."

By the look on his face and the way his voice hitched, Shane was quite sure he was not about to say 'friends' at all. She remembered the names Cole and Britney coming up when she first met him, but she didn't bring it up.

"I don't really find a reason to lie anymore," she said, shrugging her shoulders. This was difficult to do, as she was still lying almost upside down on the enormous pile of sheets. Her entire body shifted down slightly. "The Joker can always detect a lie. And besides, the truth gets you further in life than deceit."

"Oh, yeah, I bet you're right where you want to be in life, are you?" he sneered.

Shane flinched, as though he had threatened to hit her. "No, but if I survive, I don't plan to lie to the police about where I was."

"If you tell them you were with The Joker, they'll throw you in a padded cell."

"Probably."

"They won't ever let you out - you're insane."

"Too true."

"You'll never see your family again."

"If my - if they want to visit, they'll let them in."

Shane's voice had stopped just as Bruner's had. She had come very close to mentioning her father, but she was positive that saying 'Dad' aloud would hurt her far too much. Bruner either didn't notice, or he let it pass just as she had.

"If you ever get out, you won't be able to make a living."

"No doubt about that."

"Your friends will abandon you."

"They're better off without me."

"Don't you ever disagree?" he said, exasperated. "What is it with you?"

Just then, the door banged open and light flooded in. Bruner and Shane both squinted, facing the door.

"Morning!" The Joker said, throwing his arms out. The way he was standing in the doorway, the light shining behind him, his arms spread out, Shane thought he looked something like a crudely designed Saint.

"It's morning?" Shane said quietly, hardly believing her bad luck. Bruner had managed to keep her up all night.

"Yes, Princess. And you have a big appointment today!"

She looked up at him, worried. "What, are we going to blow up a dentist's office, or something?"

He laughed. "No, no, no! You're going to introduce yourselves to our other prisoners - William and Clifford!" He beckoned her to him, and she got to her feet somewhat laboriously.

"Oh, Princess, are you tired?" He danced over to her energetically, as if to mock her current exhausted state. "Did that mean old Stone Bruner keep you up?"

"Yeah, but I'll be just fine, I've gone without sleep before," She took a step, staggered slightly, and caught herself on the door frame. "It might take me a while to walk anywhere, though." she added fairly.

Shane was rather sure she wasn't meant to see, but through the corner of her eye she saw The Joker throw Bruner a filthy look before striding out of the room after her.

"Where are they, again?" she said, her mind still trying to convince her legs to work properly.

"Next door, Princess. Do you need help?"

Shane looked up at him quickly. Yes, she thought she might need a bit of help walking that distance, but it was far from The Joker's personality to offer her any sort of assistance. He himself looked baffled that he'd even said the words, and looked back at her with an expression of mingled anger and concern.

"I - yeah, I think I do ..." she said meekly, angrily aware that she'd just told Bruner lying was pointless in front of The Joker, and she deeply wanted to say, "No, I'm fine, thank you."

"Come on, then ..." he said grudgingly, apparently furious with himself for asking in the first place. He put an arm around her waist, and grabbed her broken hand and pulled it over his shoulder. He was holding her as though she was something dirty and not to be touched. The arm he had around her waist was stiff, hardly making contact with her body at all, and his hand was cupped around thin air near her hip. Feeling as though she should actually be treating him this way, after what he'd done to her, Shane was affronted.

They hobbled across the warehouse and into the cloudy morning air, moving along like a grotesque four-legged creature with two heads that didn't like to be too close to each other. The second warehouse on the property was hardly fifteen feet from the first, thankfully, and they were soon in the doors and across another, much smaller, building floor.

The Joker led her to a storage room much like her own, where he quickly let go of her and fumbled for keys in his pocket. "Where are you ... " he said to them, frowning down at the jumble of silver and brass-colored keys on the ring. When he found the right one, he jammed it into the lock and shoved it open.

Two men were tied to two more chairs in this room, which was completely bare except for the men and a light bulb dangling from a chain on the ceiling. Daemyn was standing quietly in a far corner, his mask on.

The first man was tall and lanky, his knees hunched up and his ankles tied to the legs of his chair. He seemed to be trying to lean away from everybody at once, which was hard to do, as there was somebody in nearly every direction he tried to lean. His shaggy hair fell partially over his eyes, creating a light brown curtain over two deep, dark blue orbs. For some reason, as soon as the two had entered the room, he had chosen to stare fixedly at Shane. She thought this was odd, as she was the least extraordinary out of the two, but his piercing gaze was reserved only for her. She turned away, just as she noticed the man chewing his lower lip, glancing from time to time at his fingers.

The second man was equally skinny as the first, but almost half a foot shorter, and much more fierce looking. He had the look of somebody who had tried desperately hard to look like nothing at all, with no defining tattoos or piercings of any sort, though he looked like the sort of man to get them. There was a large purple bruise blossoming over his right eye, and Shane had a sneaky suspicion he had acquired it not very long ago. His eyes, a strange, murky gray, didn't seem to be able to focus on anything for very long. They stared for a moment at Shane, and then The Joker, and then the shifty man next to him, at the wall, at Daemyn's still figure, and back again. He sat as if he owned the place, but hated it at the same time. The vibes Shane got from him were extremely confusing.

"Shane," said The Joker, pulling her out of her quick observations. "This is William-Aiden Leat," The taller, jumpier one gulped and continued staring at Shane. "And this is Clifford Jaren Oxford."

Cliff actually nodded at her in greeting. She raised her eyebrows in surprised reply.

"Boys," the boss went on, putting an arm - much more comfortably than before, she noted - around Shane's shoulders. "This is Shane Fatello."

The two of them merely stared. William seemed, if possible, even more nervous than before, and tried to edge his chair away from her. Clifford looked at her in what she thought was unwonted approval.

"Tell her a little bit about yourselves!" said The Joker, shaking Shane as he spoke. "William! You first, please!"

William looked appalled at having to speak aloud. "I'm ... Will ... and I ... I'm twenty-one years old ..." he finished lamely. The high tone of his voice at the end of the sentence implied he was asking a question rather than stating a fact.

"Good, good ... and you, Mr. Oxford?"

Clifford blinked calmly up at Shane. "I'm Cliff. Seventeen years old. Unemployed, hate my life. Had a motorcycle before I was kicked in the face and dragged here."

He sounded absurdly like he was at an interview for a job opportunity, rather than tied to a chair in an abandoned warehouse.

"Well, now that introductions have been made ... they're ready!" The Joker chuckled through closed lips, clapping his hands together. "Shane ... these are you very own clowns!"