I'm not crazy. I'm not. (Joker Fan-Fiction)

Chapter 19

I regained consciousness slowly, head lolling from side to side, breathing ragged; everything ached. Particularly vicious bouts of pain cropped up every few seconds, mainly stemming from my ribs and my forehead––it felt like someone had taken an axe to my skull and left it there. I stretched out to properly examine myself, but the movement was cut short. My hands were bound behind my back with a thick length of chain, which, upon a faint tug upwards, was apparently bolted to the floor. I quickly found that my ankles were also chained down, and that I was propped haphazardly in chair.

Groaning, I pried my eyes open, the rest of my face protesting the action. It took more than a few seconds for my eyes to focus and that was not a good sign. I was grateful that the lighting was dim, gratefulness fading when the room finally became clear. It appeared to be an old warehouse, bricks stained almost black with grime, cement floor littered with cracks. "Shit," I groaned. In the way of escape routes there was one door I could see and one window, at the very top of the wall to my left, about the size of a cereal box. The room was barely illuminated with giant, overhead lights that looked minutes away from catching fire.

But, besides me, the room was empty. I could hear the faintest of heartbeats outside––two, maybe three. That's when the events of the night came rushing back.

Wes.

He was right outside and I was bolted to a fucking chair. I began to panic, heart rate skyrocketing and causing the ache in my skull to spiral into sheer agony. Nix wasn't here and that could only mean one of two things––they'd killed her or she'd fled. I fought the fleeting urge to vomit and instead focused on calming my heart. "The quieter you are the less likely they are to come back inside," I thought, taking a few deep breaths through my nose. Their heartbeats stayed in the same location, to the right of me, just outside the wall. There was no indication that they'd heard my tiny outburst. "Okay, think, you need to get out of here, use your head, Z."

I cautiously twisted my hands, testing the tightness of the shackles. There was nearly no room on either side of my hands, and even if I dislocated my thumbs, pulling my hands free would still be still a struggle. Wes knew exactly what he was doing, years of interrogation and training had prepared him for instances exactly like this one, and in that moment I don't think I'd ever hated anyone more. Hated or feared.

I was wrenched from my thoughts when the men outside began to move towards the front of the warehouse. Now or never. I started to pull against the restraints when two hands landed on my shoulders, grip firm. I couldn't stop the scream, sharp and short that echoed throughout the room. "You try to remove the chains and I remove your hands completely," Wes said, fingers digging into my collarbones before he moved to stand in front of me. He looked completely composed, face inscrutable. Ignoring every survival instinct embedded in my body, I spat out a vicious "fuck you." Wes smiled at that, a real smile, almost fond. Almost like before.

"I missed you, too," he said, just as Cole and Brett entered through the front. Neither attempted to reign in their smugness.

"What do you want?" I asked, turning my attention back to Wes. At that, he crouched down so that we were nearly eye level, clasping his hands in front of him.

"That's a very complicated question, Azalea," he said, having the audacity to sound like he was sorry.

"Then spell it out for me," I snarled and he tilted his head, studying me like an insect under a magnify glass.

"You left me for dead," he murmured, and my rage eased to a simmer, replaced by confusion.

"You were dead," I said, fighting back the memories of that night, "you heart stopped, I saw it––"