Patchwork

Sarah was sleeping lightly. The constant checks of the nurses, every two hours, kept her from falling into a deeper sleep. Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have minded, but she kept dreaming.

Perhaps dreaming wasn’t the right word. She had visions of darkness, such a complete and utter darkness that she could see absolutely nothing. The darkness made her feel safe, somehow. It shielded her from everything else.

Because sometimes the darkness was broken by quick flashes of memory, both real and imagined. Gordon’s hands on her wrists became the Joker’s callused fingers squeezing her arms hard enough to bruise. Those hands were around her throat, on her chest, holding a knife over her. Those hands were brushing her face, laying a blade against her cheek.

And then the voice. Whispers at first, barely audible whispers in the freak’s rough growl. His cackling laugh echoed in her skull. A flash of his scars, so close to her they consumed her vision. And then one phrase, louder than the rest, right inside her head.

“Rise and shine, sweetcakes.”

Sarah flung herself out of the bed before she was even awake, scrambling across the floor. She found the pile of ruined clothing on a chair, brought in at her request after the commissioner had left. Her fingers scrabbled at the pockets, finally pulling the deadly looking knife from one. She whirled to face the room, keeping her back to a wall, her heart crashing desperately against the inside of her ribcage.

There was no one there. Sarah swallowed hard, examining the room in the faint red glow from the equipment’s digital screens. There were no unusual shadows, nothing hiding in corners or - she checked quickly - under the bed. The curtain wasn’t moving, not so much as a whisper. She listened hard, and heard nothing.

Her heart was beating way too hard. Breathing slowly and carefully, she tried to calm herself down. Her success was limited by her undiminished fear.

As quickly as possible, she pulled on her shredded pants. Though not exactly outdoor attire, at least they would keep her from showing the world her read end. Her shirt was gone, ripped to pieces, so she just tied the hospital gown tight and tucked it partway into her jeans.

Sliding quietly over to the curtain, she peeked around the edge. There was nothing but a faint crack of light under the door. She pulled it back, wincing at the loud jangle of the curtain rings against the pole. Now that the room was illuminated from two sources, however faint, she checked it again. Her eyes scanned every corner and cranny, and still saw nothing.

She bit her bottom lip, her gaze falling toward the door. Tightening her grip on the knife handle, she grabbed the handle and inched it open.

There was light in the hallway, which temporarily dazzled her eyes. Blinking to clear spots from her vision, she looked both ways, easing her body into the hall. Still nothing. All the other doors on the hall were closed. She could see the edge of the nurse’s station at the end, and hear the distant hum of the computers. Moving carefully and clutching her knife, she edged in that direction.

The nurse’s station was empty. Sarah stood for a moment, staring at the blue monitors. Looking down at herself, she furrowed her brow. She was creeping around a hospital in the middle of the night, wearing a backless gown and shredded pants, carrying a wickedly sharp knife. What the hell was wrong with her?

That thought urged her to leave the knife on the nurse’s desk and go back to bed, but something in the back of her mind stopped her. She looked at the knife pensively, and kept it in her hand. She liked it.

Sarah walked back to her room, no longer creeping down an empty hallway. Opening the door brazenly and shutting it behind her, she swept the curtain closed without looking around and moved toward her bed.

Something stopped her. A chill crept down her spine, freezing her solid. She stood stock still, trying to identify whatever had her body so terrified.

There. Her heart leapt in her chest. It was just a scuff of something against the tile floor, barely as loud as a whisper. Her hand tightened on the knife, shifting it ever so slightly into a better position in her grip.

Something slammed into her back, catching her by surprise and making her scream. It grabbed her around the waist, flipped her around, and slammed her onto the bed. Sarah’s hand came up automatically, slicing toward her attacker’s face. She scored a shallow cut along his cheek, right under the scar that was already there.

“Miss me, pretty?” the Joker purred in her ear.

Sarah kicked out hard, catching him in both shins. When his legs buckled, she squirmed out from under him, but couldn’t get away. He had her wrist in a steel grip, and pulled her back sharply. Grabbing her around the waist, he whirled her around the room in tight, fast circles in a mockery of a dance. He stopped after only a few seconds, but Sarah stumbled and dropped hard onto her knees, too dizzy to stand up.

“Nice to see you, too, sweetcakes. Now, let’s get down to business.”

Sarah pushed herself backward across the floor, shaking her head as much to stop the world from spinning as to deny what was happening.

“No. No, no, no, no, no,” she repeated pleadingly, pushing her back up against the wall.

The Joker’s laugh was high-pitched and chilling. Seizing a chair from the side of the bed, he straddled it backwards. “I’m not here for that, pretty. At least, not yet.” His voice was full of mocking humor.

Sarah’s lip quivered. The knife hung limply from her hand. “What do you want?” she asked desperately.

He cocked his head to the side, staring at her from those dark pits painted around his eyes. “I want,” he said, scraping his chair a little closer to her. “I want to give you what you want. I want to give you a chance to kill the people you want to kill, hurt the people you want to hurt, and I want to give you the opportunity to do it with all my resources at your disposal.”

His tongue flickered out from between his lips, and his eyes gleamed at her. At the first mention of revenge on the ones who had abandoned her, she felt a surge of anger briefly overcome the panic. Her eyes met his with equal measures of rage and fear.

“That’s what you’re offering,” she said, suppressing the tremor that wanted to shake her voice. “What do you want?”

“What I want,” he replied, gesticulating widely. “What I want is to turn this town into a playground full of bullets and gasoline and blood. And you, my sewn up little pretty, can do nothing but benefit.”

Sarah’s mind was debating. The rational part was full of fear, and just wanted to get away from this maniac, to shout for a nurse and escape. The newest part of her brain, the less-than-rational part, hesitated. She wanted so desperately to get back at the police for their incompetence. She couldn’t do it on her own, that part of her mind argued, so why not accept help?

Because it was the Joker, the freak that hurt her in the first place, the rational half answered back.

So use him, then get back at him next, the new part argued, as Sarah eyed his throat.

Yes, that would work. Use him, and kill him when the job was done, or if he tried anything. One finger ran along the flat of the knife blade, caressing it. But she couldn’t be afraid. She would have to box away her fear of him and focus on her hate.

She could do that.

“O...kay,” she said hesitantly, staring into those pits for eyes. “But if you so much as lay a hand on me, I’ll slice you a scar across your neck to match the ones on your mouth.”

The Joker smiled widely at her, growling, “That’s a promise.”