The Schemer

Joker on Jack

Clara laughed. 

"Seriously? A clown underneath a clown's mask?" Momentarily forgetting her current position, the woman chuckled deep in her throat. The clown's black, bottomless eyes narrowed, tongue darting out to wet his lip. 

"You're, uh, way too happy with this situation, Schopenhauer's lover. Are you, uh, delusional?" Not getting anything more to say, the man's chin received a hammer fist from underneath with the back of the hand, forcing his head to turn upwards. Meanwhile, Clara stood up, just in time to duck a fist from the right. From this crouched position, she dived forward, colliding with the man's torso, hugging him tightly, except not with love and admiration, but rather in a death grip, forcing air out from his lungs. Now it was the clown's turn to grunt, trying to keep both his own and the additional hundred and forty-something pounds upright. To be on the ground was dangerous, and he knew well that the majority of times a street fight without rules ends the moment when one falls. Therefore, digging his heels into the ground, the man used his own force to counterbalance his opponent's weight. Like two sumo wrestlers, they grunted and growled, trying to push one another, not really doing much damage.

But the clown wasn't stupid. Changing her position, Clara's eyes darted towards a large wall clock, mentally debating with herself how long will it take for police to come. It has to come, right? Returning her steely gaze, she noticed the man's eyes glued to the same spot that hers were a moment ago. Narrowing his eyes once more, licking his lips, realization showed in the bottomless holes. "Someone's going to be late. More time for Nietzsche, perhaps you will find another, more inspirational quote." Grinning, Clara performed a sided push, relieving the force, but tugging the man's body sideways, so his own weight would make him stumble. Except, what she didn't expect was that the clown wouldn't release her when falling. Usually, the ones she spared with would lose their grip, using their hands to soften collision with the ground. What this man did was both extremely stupid and, the woman had to admit, rather cunning. Due to his enormous strength, they did a 180-degree turn, him being on the bottom, woman collapsing on top. A high possibility of organ damage or at least broken ribs didn't matter to the clown, apparently, as the priority was not to release Clara from his grip, putting her in a vulnerable, nearly defenceless position. 

Sirens could be heard somewhere in the background. The woman knew that the police would be here at any moment, and so did the clown. So he did something that Clara wasn't expecting. "Toots, it's been a, uh, pleasure meeting you." Suddenly, a sharp pain appeared in her oblique, making the woman crouch. The sneaky man revealed a knife from his pocket, stabbing, not deep enough to cause mortal damage, but to slow her down. Pushing the woman off of him, the clown scrambled on his feet, rushing towards a bus with all the money inside. With a last glance, he closed the door. School vehicle moved, the aggressor disappearing in a long line of similar cars. 

Clara lost him. That bloody creature went off, leaving this mess behind. Slowly standing up, the woman clutched her wounded side, running towards the main exit - the one that she used at the beginning when coming inside. Police cars started parking next to a huge hole in the wall where the bus was, not caring about the main entrance. This is how she escaped, crossing the street, surprisingly void of any moving cars, and scrambling inside her Mustang. The first thing to do was to put pressure on the stab, disallowing blood to drip freely. Furthermore, Clara didn't want any stains on the seat. It took a lot of time and professional equipment to clean blood from the leather. Ripping her shirt, the woman made a temporary bandage, securing it with a military knot. Calm breaths came in and out from her nose. She was used to similar situations, so panic didn't occur now. Starting her car, Clara reversed, careful not to disturb the traffic, and drove home. She will call and announce herself sick. That's what her plan was. The woman couldn't take care of others when her own body was flawed. Besides, that tear needed serious attention. Who knows what else that clown had stabbed before, and she doubted whether he actually cleaned his sharp tool afterwards.

To silence her own low, occasional grunts, prohibit them to reach her ears, Clara turned on the radio. Immediately, a song of her liking started playing, matching the woman's mood. With music on, Clara could concentrate easier, the pain dulling to slight ache. 'You... turned and you ran, oh yeah, oh, slipped... right from my hand.'  Fueling her anger, but at the same time allowing thoughts to run freely. 

It took a good twenty minutes to reach the house. Stepping out and inside, Clara went straight to the bathroom where her first aid kit and much more was. Cutting the knot, she slowly peeled the fabric off, exposing an ugly-looking, jagged stab. Her previous assumptions proved to be correct. The wound was not deep, hardly damaging anything on the inside, except ripping muscle. "Now I will have one more valuable specimen in my collection." Amusement could be heard in her voice, careful, long fingers tapping ethanol-based solution on the wound. It hurt, utterly abused her nociceptors, except it didn't impel much of a reaction in her stony expression. "At least the idiotic manager is still alive. Of course, if the clown didn't come back to finish his work, or he hadn't bled to death." Putting on a clean bandage, Clara cleaned the mess, throwing out the bloodied shirt and muttering something about the need to wash her coat. 

Calling the hospital, she informed them about her imaginary cold in the middle of summer, lowering already deep voice to the point of vocal fry. Clara would've grinned at this successful attempt of becoming a rock singer, if not the actual gruffness of her mood. Tea. She needed some tea. A drink, and some time to think. Mindlessly, the woman turned on the TV in her living room, leaving it with an aim of brewing a cup of expensive green tea. Since the kitchen was partly connected with her living room, no walls in between, Clara could hear everything that was said. "A few hours ago, a Central Bank robbery was executed by a man who calls himself 'The Joker'. Five people were found dead, with clown masks on their faces, bank manager seriously injured."  With the speed of light, completely forgetting her tea, Clara scooted from behind the bar. On the screen, a picture of the very same man was exposed, with a question 'Have you seen this man?' underneath. "Currently, this is the fifth bank that was robbed by the man under the same alias. Police forces with the help of Batman are currently running an investigation on..." 

Clara stood there, frozen, steely eyes locked on a disfigured face in front of her. What she previously believed to be a simple warpaint, dragged into a pattern of a huge, smudged smile, the woman now realized was actually a pair of scars. A long time ago, she had seen this sort of macabre wounds, with a cheerful name of 'Glasgow smile', typically done by British gangs. Although not as serious as this clown's. The doctor guessed that there were some serious complications when healing those rips, disallowing his flesh to close up correctly, which resulted in jagged, uneven scars. "The Joker." Testing, almost tasting the name on her tongue, Clara tilted her head to the right side. "You have a very unique sense of humor."

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Song of the chapter: Five Finger Death Punch - Blue on Black