Everything Burns

Clowns

I begin walking in another direction, turning right from the spot where I was apparently sleeping, going in the same direction as the Asian-looking man I had stopped. I don't know where I'm going. Tired though. I would like to sleep again.

Somewhere a horn blares. I hear it over the other horns. Someone shouts. I look up to see a black van driving on the wrong side of the road. I should move out of the way. I should...

All of a sudden, the van swerves and takes out a street sign, right in front of me. I stop, feeling confused and lucky. The side door slides open and a man in a clown mask gets out, then another. One moves behind me and grabs me. Startled, I kick at the other one and catch him right in the balls, then buck against my captor as the injured man curses and bends over.

"Knock her out!" comes a voice from inside the van.

"Boss says not to touch her!" my captor says. He is having a difficult time holding on. "He doesn't want any marks!"

"You think he won't have your ass for letting her get away?"

By that time, the man I'd kicked is up. He comes over to look at me through the slits in his mask. "Why you little..."

I spit on him. I'm not exactly in the habit of spitting on people, but I think it's probably justified at this point. The ground rocks, and my body remembers it's hungover. Or something. I swoon. The man holding on to me uses my moment of weakness to shove me into the van as people look on.

I hit the floor of the vehicle. It has no windows. Kidnap van, I think.

I sit panting on the floor as the van takes off. One of the men comes over with a roll of silvery masking tape. Another holds my wrists together. Smells of jacket leather, sweat and cigarettes. When I realize what's happening, I start to fight again, but a wave of nausea strikes me helpless. I lean back as icy sweat pours from my body. I watch the man work. "Where are you taking me?" I ask.

"Someplace you don't want to go," a different man says.

"Yeah, the place where bad little girls go," another says.

The man finishes binding my wrists and starts unlacing one of my shoes. "Hey!" I say, and kick at him.

"The Boss is going to like this one," someone says.

"Yeah but is it the right one?"

"He said she would be at this corner at this time. You see anymore tiny redheads wondering the street like lost puppies?"

"Let me help," the nearest man says. The one at my feet grabs my legs and holds them under his arm while the other man removes my shoes and binds my ankles with the tape.

"Who are you taking me to? And why? I just got here."

"To Gotham?"

"To this...reality...apparently," I say.

The men - there are three of them - look at each other.

"Yep," one of them says. "She's the right one."

I look from one to the other, and even glance briefly at the driver in the rearview mirror. The men ignore me and leave me sitting on the floor with my back against the backseat in favor of sitting in the two bucket seats toward the front. One man, the one who didn't get out of the van in the first place, sits on the backseat. He seems to be looking at me, but it's hard to tell, because he's still in his mask. They all are.

He takes something out of his pocket, and tells me to hold still. It's a strip of black cloth. He ties it around my eyes.

"The right one for what?" I ask. That's when I realize my mouth has gone dry. That's when I realize I already know the answer.

"You'll see," he says. "Now shut up before we have to tape your mouth too."

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

Sitting in darkness as the van sways is probably the only thing that keeps me from throwing up. Gotham. I'm in Gotham. Batman's city. It's real for me now. I'm in it.

I wonder what it means.

I concentrate of the rumble of the van as it makes its way through Gotham's streets. I like the feeling. I concentrate on that, and calm down a bit.

"Ooh, look at that one," one of the men says.

"Hey, I have a question," another says. "What do you think the Boss will do with her?"

"Shut your hole," the other replies.

Yes, I agree silently. Shut up. Don't talk about it. I don't want to believe I've been kidnapped. In Gotham. It's all too much. It's not real yet.

At least, not until the van turns a corner and begins to go much more slowly. I can tell we're almost there, wherever there is. My heart begins to pound. Again, a sharp turn. Feels like a driveway turn. Mouth is dry again. Heart too fast. Feels like I could pass out, or have a heart attack.

"Where are we?" I whisper. "Who do you work for?"

No one answered. The van stops, with the motor running, then creeps forward. My vision behind my eyelids goes darker. I begin to tremble all over.

Finally, there is a loud noise to my left. Van door.

"Come on!" One of the clowns pulls me out. I nearly stumble. Disoriented from not breathing properly.

"Please..." I say.

"Save it for him," the clown says. "He loves to hear people beg. Especially pretty ones."

Oh god.

He takes my arm and begins leading me through darkness. I step on a pebble and falter.

"Pick her up, you dimwit. Can't you see she's barefoot?"

I steel myself for going over the man's shoulder, which isn't hard, since I'm small. Men like to pick me up.

My friends. They like to pick me up. We have a few drinks and one guy never fails to pick me up and spin me, or tries to carry me on stairs. I always think I will die at his drunken hands.

Will I ever see my friends again? Unexpected tears prick my eyes, but I hold my breath. There is no way in hell I'm going to cry today. No way, no matter how hungover I am. No matter what they do.

Instead I concentrate on keeping my stomach tight so it won't hurt to be flopped over this guy's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. My stomach lurches as he takes me down stairs. I try to count the footsteps around me, to see if all of the men came. I think there is only one other, but they are wearing soft shoes so it's hard to tell.

Chemical smells mix with the scent of leather and of man-smell.

Finally, we stop. He sets me down. Instinctively, I know I am in the lair of a predator. "Don't move," the clown says softly. The tone of his voice has softened. He stands in front of me and takes off the blindfold. I jump when I see the mask so close to my face. Through the slits in the mask I see his eyes - blue. "Don't move," he repeats.

The earnestness in his eyes keep me rooted to the spot. He is worried. I nod. He glances behind him and moves away, putting the blindfold in his pocket as he goes. I try to watch him, but something catches my eye.

My vision narrows until all I am aware of is the figure standing across the room with his back to me.

He stands in a dark purple coat with his feet apart, studying a map on the wall with his head cocked. His hair, long enough to obscure the back of his collar as he looks up, hangs in limp squiggles of green-tinted blond. Even though his back is to me, the unnatural tilt of his head makes me shiver.

My knees want to buckle. I feel lightheaded. I try not to breathe too loudly.

Don't turn around. Please...don't turn around.

He turns around.