Patchwork

Just to prevent any hyperventilating, there is in fact more coming after this. Don't worry.

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Sarah slept.

After the Joker had left, she had cried until there were no more tears left. Then she had begun to think about what he would do to her. She knew it had been two days, at least. That meant she had only a few hours left to live, and he had only a few hours left to get what he wanted.

The thought made her physically sick. She had thrown up in a corner, her stomach convulsing hard and coming up with nothing. Thin yellow bile was all her system could produce. She’d felt light-headed and weak. Crawling away from the puddle of vomit, had she curled up in the middle of the floor.

Her dreams were filled with images from the Joker’s visits. She twitched in her sleep, seeing visions of his hand on her scars, feeling his breath on her neck, his mouth on her mouth, his weight on top of her.

His hand on her throat.

Sarah’s eyes snapped open, her fingers clawing at the hand around her throat. He wasn’t choking her, not yet, but the mere presence of the hand terrified her. Her nails scratched his gloveless hand, opening shallow wounds. The Joker took her hands and pulled them away one at a time. Realizing that he wasn’t actually hurting her, Sarah let him. Her heart wanted to rip, tear, kill, but her mind told her to wait for her chance. Suddenly, it didn’t matter if she died, as long as she could kill him first.

His eyes were on her face. When she favored him with a hate-filled glare, he smiled.

“Morning, pretty. Or should I say afternoon?” he asked, his smile never reaching those dark eyes. “We only have a few hours until dark, sweetcakes, and I thought we should get started.”

Sarah’s hands flew toward his face, her nails scratching madly for his eyes. Flat on her back with his hand around her throat, she used the only weapon she had: pure, careless fury. The Joker growled, grabbing both her wrists and wrenching them to the side. Gouges on his face seeped blood as he grinned at her.

“Still fighting. My dear, you do know how to make a man happy.”

Sarah replied with a string of screamed curses. Without even thinking, she brought her leg up in a position that made her muscles scream, hooking her foot around his neck to try to pull him away. His hand tightened around her throat, cutting off her air even as she pried him away. He let go of her wrists to grab her ankle, pulling hard in a direction her leg definitely was not meant to go. She screamed without any air, pushing at his body with her hands to make him stop. She felt something in her hip go, probably a muscle, as he pulled at her leg.

The pain was unbearable. She could feel her hip joint beginning to separate. Salvaging her last bit of air, she yelled hoarsely, “Stop! Stop! Please!”

He let her leg go, and she dragged it back into a normal position, her hip on fire with pain. The hand on her throat left, and she took several deep, gasping breaths. Her hands lay loosely at her sides. She turned her head to see what the Joker was doing as he stood and moved away.

His gloves were sitting on the remaining whole chair. He removed his jacket and waistcoat, draping them carefully over the back of the seat. Rolling up his sleeves, he looked back at her. The look in his eyes made her fists clench in fear and anger. He took off his tie and sauntered back slowly. Sarah scrambled to stand.

She made it only to her knees before he was in front of her. He took a handful of her hair in one fist and pulled her upright, pinning her body against his with one strong arm. She snarled in his face and brought a knee up hard, missing his groin by centimeters. He twisted his lower body, still holding her in place, until his hip was wedged between her legs, destroying the chances of getting in a kick.

“Oh, pretty, pretty, pretty,” he growled, face less than two inches from hers. Sarah stared into those mad eyes. She found herself momentarily mesmerized by the swirling depths of insanity she saw there. It was a moment too long.

The Joker seized her shoulder and spun her, one hand still fisted in her hair. He slammed her up against the wall. Pressing himself against her back, he pulled a knife from his pants and placed it against the side of her throat. Sarah, crushed between his body and the wall, struggled not to move. The knife was too close to her artery. If she shifted even a millimeter, he’d slit her throat and she’d be done.

He licked his lips. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly reasonable, as if he didn’t have her pressed up against a wall and helpless.

“Now, here’s how I see it. You,” the knife shifted slightly up her throat, making her shiver. “You have two choices. Since no one’s coming for you, I can do what-ev-er I want and kill you, or, I can do what-ev-er I want and let you live. The choice is up to you.”

Sarah’s lips twisted into a snarl, though she remained silent. The Joker chuckled, a deep growl growing in his voice.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

The Joker stepped back, letting her free but keeping himself between her and the door.

“Remember this game?” he asked, smiling. He flipped the knife between his fingers, catching the handle again.

Sarah turned to face him. She knew, no matter what he said, she was going to die. Her eyes were locked on his blade. She wanted it, wanted it so that she could cut those scars of his wide open. She had never felt so much hate and rage in her heart as she did now, and it had completely taken control of her. For the first time in her life, she wanted to kill.

“I remember.”

With a feral shriek, she launched her self straight at him. His knife came up quickly, catching her across her shoulder and arm. He whipped the blade around to come back in, but she was already on top of him, hitting and scratching. She clawed at his horrible, smiling face with one hand while the other fist and elbow pummeled the arm holding the knife. The Joker grabbed the hand scratching at his face by the wrist, bending it painfully. She punched him in the jaw with all the power she could muster, eliciting a grunt of pain. He dropped the knife on the floor, and she lunged for it, ignoring the pain in her wrist. The blade skittered across the floor, just out of the reach of her fingertips.

She was still stretching for the knife when the Joker’s hand clamped at the nape of her neck, forcing her head down to his. Growling, he shoved their mouths together. Sarah fought desperately, but the hand on her neck kept her in place. His lips pressed so hard against hers that she could feel her lips bruising. His tongue forced its way into her mouth, making her gag. He tasted like old milk left out too long. The scars on his face pressed into her cheeks, making her cuts hurt.

He let her head go and she reared back, gasping for air. Together they rolled over and over across the floor, fighting to see who would come out on top. The Joker won, his weight pinning her to the floor.

Seizing both her wrists, he held them above her head. He used one hand to grab something above her as she struggled. She didn’t realize what it was until she felt the tape wrapping her wrists together.

Sarah screamed, bucking her hips wildly in an attempt to throw him off. He rode her violent thrusts expertly, never stopping until her hands were securely taped together. When he let go of her hands, she pulled on them desperately, only to discover that they were also tied to the chair she’d broken.

The Joker sat up, his knees pinning her thighs together. Sarah took heavy breaths, trying to regroup. She couldn’t be trapped yet, there had to be a way out of this.

The Joker’s hands moved to her shirt, ripping what few strips held it together and revealing her bra. When she bucked her hips, he slapped her open handed across the face. The strike detonated lights in her head, disorienting her.

He ran a hand down her side, ignoring her struggles underneath him. Shuddering with fear, she realized has had her well and truly pinned. As his hands roamed lower, it really hit her what he was going to do.

Sarah screamed again, bucking and struggling wildly, yanking on her hands desperately to free them. Instead of hitting her this time, the Joker pressed his mouth to hers once more. Her screams died in his mouth, drowned out by his feral growls of pleasure. He pulled back, wiping the smudges of makeup from the corner of her mouth.

“I remember how well you take a hit, sweetcakes,” he said, drawing another knife from some hidden pocket. “And it seems to me, I owe you for a few. Plus...”

He leaned in again, his voice a growl so deep that it sent shockwaves of fear through her bones.

“I want to see you bleed.”

He cut her face quickly, the blade burning into her face and chest again and again. She yelled in pain, tears leaking down her cheeks from squeezed-shut eyes. He opened a cut in her upper lip, slicing through her entire lip to her teeth. He cut her eyebrows, her collarbone, her ear.

The knife slid down her chest, barely scratching a line between her breasts, and stopping just above her heart. Sarah’s breath hitched in her chest. Blood ran in her eyes, but she could still see the Joker’s face through a haze of red that made him look demonic. Fear turned her heart to ice, numbing all else, even the pain of the fresh cuts on her face.

“No,” she begged. Salty tears ran down her cheeks, stinging distantly in her wounds.

The Joker’s smile grew wider. Taking his free hand, he ran a finger down her cheek, wiping a clean streak in the blood.

“Pretty little Sarah doesn’t want to die,” he taunted, chuckling. He licked his lips and sat staring at her for a minute, his eyes locked on hers.

When he spoke again, his voice had lost its mocking note. “I can see the hate in your eyes,” he said, his voice sliding over her heart and sticking. “I’m going to let you live, little Sarah. And I’m going to leave you. But I want you to remember something.” His finger traced her lips, the knife pressing a little harder into her chest. “I could have killed you and didn’t. But your uncle and his precious commissioner could have saved you. And they did not.”

He slid sideways, freeing her legs. Sarah just stared at him, bewildered, in pain, and still afraid. She watched as he withdrew yet another knife from a hidden pocket and held it up, clearly showing it to her. With a big grin and a wink, he slipped it into the pocket of her ruined jeans. Gently, he touched his fingertips to her eyes, closing them for her. She complied, still trying to comprehend the fact that she wasn’t going to die.

The last thing she felt was the impact of a knife hilt slamming into her temple.