The next day I was on cleaning duty, apparently we have to do that here. Cleo was with me but apparently she's not allowed to help out when it's not her turn to clean. We were heavily monitored by guards. This was actually her hour of free roam but instead of doing anything of value she spent it hanging out with me. Abner decided he wanted to stay in his cell. I was scraping gum off the floor before some dickhead walked past me. He realized he had toilet paper on his shoe and draped it over my shoulder.
"There you go, champ." He said patting me on the back. He walked away as I glared a hole into his head.
"Four." I whispered.
"What was that?" I looked back over at Cleo kicking her legs back and forth while sitting on a table.
"Nothing, don't worry about it." I said. "You know you don't have to sit around here and watch me. I can handle myself against the lame brains in this shitcan."
"Oh do you not enjoy my company?" She asked.
"No it's not that at all." I told her. I looked up at her and she had a sly smile on her face. She dramatically held a hand to her head.
"No no, I know when I'm not wanted. Oh, how you wound me, (Y,N)." She teased. We both shared a laugh.
"Hey, how come we have toilets in our cells if we also have bathrooms out here?" I asked her.
"The ones in the cells don't work. We had to get bathrooms installed, state mandated. The old toilets barely worked and you'll be surprised how many people killed themselves because they had to sleep five feet away from their turds." I turned my head to see the girl from yesterday with the blue hair walking past us with a garbage bag. Now looking at her she looked kind of familiar. I think she was one of the Superman villains. "So what're you in for, guppie?"
"Guppie?" I repeated.
"Prison slang, keep up, punk." She said moving her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"I think you're into being in prison a little too much." Cleo said. "You do realize this is the world's most dangerous prison?"
"And I've been here six months and I'm still standing, babe." The girl said sticking her tongue out. "Anyways, spill, why're you in here?"
"If I have to explain that I killed Scarecrow and a couple of my old classmates again I'm gonna-"
"Wait, you killed Scarecrow. The Scarecrow? Cool!" The girl said.
"You killed some of your classmates?" Cleo asked. "Why?"
"I really don't wanna talk about that." I said sternly. I didn't wanna snap at Cleo but it just kinda happened.
"And what's the power dampener for? Is it something good or are you just another reject d lister like dot face and rat girl here?"
"Her name's Cleo, you walking pile of worm food." I said looking over at the girl. She actually flinched before I got a killer headache out of nowhere. I held my head in pain as Cleo got up from her seated position and looked like she wanted to give me a hand but didn't know what to do.
"(Y,N) are you alright?" She asked.
"I... think so." I groaned, still holding my head. Cleo helped me to my feet.
"Alright, cool it, man, I was messing around. You don't survive as long as I have in this place without knowing when to call it quits." The other girl said. "No need to laser my head off."
"What are you on about, now?"
"Your eyes went red for a second." Cleo said. "You never brought that up as part of your powers."
"That's because I didn't know that happened. Are you sure you didn't just hallucinate that?"
"I saw it too, buddy. What are you, some sort of psycho?" The other girl asked.
"Yeah, some sort..." I said.
"I'm sure if we sit around busting balls any longer the guards are gonna bust our heads in." The girl said. "Anyways the name's Livewire. And if you're gonna sperg out like that again, make sure to take an Advil or something. If it was anyone else in this shithole, you'd be dead for looking at them the way you just looked at me." She told me before walking off.
"Are you sure you're okay, (Y,N)?" Cleo asked again.
"I think. I've never had that happen before without my mask." I said.
"What does that mean?"
"No offense, Cleo but we aren't necessarily close enough to go through all my mental disorders right now." I said. I pride myself out of Cleo's arms before continuing cleaning. Cleo watched me silently, obviously concerned.
. . .
"Your pet project isn't doing so hot, Ms. Waller." Economos said monitoring the cell floors.
"I think he's doing just fine. He only needs to relieve some tension. How much longer before Lawton's team gets back?"
"Another two days minimum before their mission can be close to ending." Harcourt responded.
"We'll try our best for now. If The Ghost has a tough time controlling himself for the next two days we can always resume his therapy sessions much like at Arkham. Any volunteers? Harcourt?" Waller looked over at her subordinate who returned with a look like Waller had two heads.
"Me? With all due respect, ma'am, I am no licensed psychiatrist and I'm not looking to start my career with a homicidal maniac who drove four of his five doctors to madness and the last to Suicide!"
"And with all due respect, Emilia, you seem to forget that you're no better than the rest of my convicts. You're lucky you're still alive at all and it's either you become (L,N)'s therapist or I put you on the field with Task Force X. Or we go with option C and I bury you with the rest of The People. Do we understand each other?" Waller said sternly. Harcourt gulped and silently nodded. "Good."
"...Damn she roasted you-"
"Shut up, John, you fucking dickhead!" Harcourt shouted at Economos.
. . .
"I don't want to be here in your London Dungeon~.
I don't want to be here in your British hell~.
Ain't no mystery why I'm in misery in Hell~." I sang to myself in my cell. Honestly I thought there'd be a lot more action when I went to Bell Reeve. I'm starting to believe the Suicide part of this Suicide Squad is how much you want to die of boredom waiting before Waller calls on you like a lapdog.
"You have a nice singing voice." Cleo said from behind the walls between our cells. I looked over at the one and sat closer to it so I could hear her better and she could hear me better.
"Cleo? Eleven AM? This is early for you. What's the occasion?"
"Nothing. I am serious, though. For someone who seems to sing a lot about death and mutilation it's surprisingly... calming to listen to you." Cleo confessed. Again I had to hit my heart to stop it from acting up. "Like it's something I could listen to when I went to sleep."
"I'm sure you can go to sleep to anything." I joked causing her to laugh.
"I think you should learn how to take compliments."
"Ratcatcher 2!" Someone shouted. We looked over and saw one of Waller's lackeys with a few guards. I read her name tag. Fio Crawley. "Oh wow, you're awake already. You're on lunchroom duty. You're scraping all the gum out from underneath the tables and cleaning up all the dried blood with Blackfire. You'll also be scrubbing the toilets outside of the lunchroom today." She told Cleo. Cleo sighed.
"I guess we can talk some more later." She said. The guards opened up her cell and she walked out. Fio looked over at me.
"Crimson Ghost, you've got one hour of free time today. You can either head out now or you can notify a guard when you wish to go out." She told me. "You'll be allowed one item out of a very limited list to use on your free time. And don't get any funny ideas as we'll still be watching."
"I wouldn't dream of it." I told her. I looked over at Cleo and remembered that she spent her free time with me yesterday even though she didn't have to. I thought I'd might as well return the favor.
"See you in an hour?" I asked her. She got a giddy smile on her face and she tried to look away for a little bit before looking back at me and nodding.
"Yeah, I'd like that."