「 T W E N T Y S E V E N 」
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Harley's baby blue doe eyes gazed into my own. I couldn't even hear the softness of her words lulling me into putting the knife down.
Her fingers sifting squeezing my hands in a sympathetic manner until finally I realised the knife from my grip.
The clatter of the knife the only thing in the room being heard as Harley swiftly pulled me into a soft embrace smoothing down my hair as a few salty tears slipped from my eyes.
What was I doing? Why was I willing enough to plunge that knife into the Joker.
The more I raced through my thoughts the more I couldn't hear Harley comforting soft words. He'd tricked me. He'd gotten under my skin with his twisting lies. I'd walked straight into his trap, and that angered me.
My eyes raising from the floor I came to notice the shadowed figure glaring at us both.
Joker stood angrily the blade clenched in his hand with a stern emotionless stare. His jaw tightly clenched to the point I wondered if he'd smash his teeth by how much he had them gritted, possibly grinding against one another.
" Come on honey, let me take you to your new room." Harley uttered softly squeezing my shoulders as she walked me out the room, arms wrapped around me tracing her fingers through my hair.
The warmth from her body wrapping itself around my own as she urged me forward. Our footsteps muffled our distance noise as I drowned it all out.
The feeling of disappointment in myself rising with every step we took. Our bodies twisting and turning through halls passing multiple version of one singular door.
Soon enough Harley tore me from my thoughts towards one singular door.
"You're going to love it." Harley said cheerfully as she beckoned me inside. The soft click of the door opening taunting me as if my freedom was in reach.
The floor boards creaked blanketed in a various amount of carpeted rugs, fur, soft material all in a range of neutral colours contrasting the bleak featured wall of industrial worn down brick. The plain sloppily painted whitish grey walls one specifically draped in a dark ruby red tapestry with smudges of maroon, tangerine orange and deep crimson red.
A bewildered gasp escaping my lips as my fingers traced across the various pictures pinned to the wall.
"W-where did you—."
" I got them from the house. I thought maybe you'd-."
Harley sounded so chipper, excited almost as I stared at the specific pictures of various memories.
"Like them?" A darkened hunger growing in the pit of my stomach. A pathetic pitiful smile gracing my face.
Harley began to smile warmly getting the wrong end of the stick. Her smile soon falling as a certain sinister taunt to my laugh giving her a sickening realisation. A laugh she'd heard once or twice before.
" You thought I'd like the taunting memories of my life before y-you—before both of you came in and changed it." The anger inside me burning strong as I grasped a hold of Jake and I with a few other friends. Two of those who have moved on and left us, left for a better life.
"Get.out."
Two simple words. Two words with one simple meaning causing such harm towards the infamous Harlequin. The pitiful glow in her cheeks filling out like a dimming candle. Her sadness radiating through her baby blue pools as I shunned her away.
Unaware of the pain Harley has made me feel she backed away, her hand hesitantly reaching out to touch me as I stood with my back turned, tears threatening to fall upon the photographic memory of my childhood a few months prior.
Swallowing her wounded heart Harley fled away put the door, cradling her sadness with the only way she knew how. A smile on her face and need for relieving the annoyance growing in her head. Her sanity twisting it's way around her mind like a spider creating its delicate web.
Myself on the other hand felt like I was being consumed into a black hole. My body a endless black abyss.
My fingers clenched tightly around the picture in hand. My smile bright and mischievous as my eyes seemed to sparkle as I stood beside an old close friend, her fiery sun kissed locks pulled back into a ponytail falling out as Jake stood behind us sitting upon a children's climbing friend at the old skate park not far from my home. The look of happiness etched upon our faces as our small little group was trapped in bliss.
How everything had changed.
How people change.
After what felt like an eternity of sitting in my self pity I slumped off the black heels from the funeral. Rubbing my temples I caught a glimpse of my reflection, my hands dragging down my face.
It didn't take me long to come across what appeared to be a freshly glossed cupboard door to a sliding footed wardrobe. Hesitantly I began to open the door to find a rack full of clothes with a few cubby boxes filled with underwear and shoes. All in which appeared to be all of my original clothes.
They'd been and got my things. The rest of the things from my aunts home. But what caught my eyes was a familiar band t-shirt that I knew I didn't leave at my aunts.
A sinister feeling of dread began to wash over me. They'd been the Hernandez's.
"Shit."
I rummaged through the small cubby sized boxes until I found some suitable clothes to be comfortable in.
Wasting no time in riding myself if the black laced gown of death. The grief and guilt falling to a toxic rippled pool at my feet as the material fell from my body.
Quickly grasping a hold of the band t-shirt i tucked it into a pair of dark washed mom jeans, ones in which had become so worn they'd ripped in the dryer at the knee almost making my outfit look stylish.
Throwing my body back I stumbled onto a soft but lumpy mattress. The makeshift bed welcoming me into a slumber of terror as all my thoughts made clear was the daunting dread of where this band tee had come from. More specially who it originally belonged to.
Jake.
The faintest of knocks erupted me from my slumber. For once I was grateful to whoever was disturbing me. My head was becoming a dangerous place to seek refuge now.
"Come in"
I groggily mumbled slowly lifting my head from the lumpy pillow. My limbs aching at the position I'd fallen asleep in.
"Hey, it's just me—Harley—well."
It was Jerome, sheepishly stood peering round my battered beaten door of my new prison. His head the only thing in sight.
"Is it alright if I come in?"
Wearily I nodded my head pulling my body up by my elbows into a upright seating position.
Something about how he sauntered into the room with this aura of arrogance radiating around him smothered in what appeared to be a cloud of shyness almost made me pity him. He was becoming to complex to analyse in my mind.
He slumped down beside me with his back towards me, his body caving in on itself as he rested his elbows on his knees.
"Soo—how you feeling dollface? Boss seemed pretty vexed earlier on anything to do with you?" A small grin struggling to stay concealed on his face as he peeked a glance over his shoulder in my direction.
" I think you already know the answer to that."
A small smile on his face as he let out a breathless laugh shaking his head lightly.
" Here" he leant down before throwing a small cylinder like tub in my direction. " You've had a rough day I figured you'd need it."
My eyes glanced down to the small label printed across the top of the tub.
Ice cream.
A small laugh escaping my lips as I brought my gaze to him, a small silver spoon in hand.
"Thanks."
Taking the spoon we both sat in a lingering silence scooping up what appeared to be a mixture of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream.
" so-." I started as I stared at the auburn haired boy sat inside my room eagerly scanning everything in my room. " Is there any specific reason you're being nice to me? Or is it the fact that you've been told to keep an eye on me that you're being friendly?"
" Well—I just thought you could use-."
As he spoke it was then I noticed some on his neck, hidden my the scruff of his collar of his jacket.
"What is that?" My fingers reaching out to touch the dark murky patch peaking out against his pale skin.
"Oh—I finally got my tattoo of recognition. It was part of an initiation. The boss thought it was time i made it official. Plus I did succeed in staging the infamous political stunt and the whole apartment plan- I should really stop talking."
My eyes narrowing as I removed the spoon from my mouth. Things were not adding up.
He couldn't possibly—
Jerome could just be my ticket to cracking this place open like an egg.
"Say Jerome" irritation in my voice. The cigs in my brain ticking slowly concocting a plan. One in which I'm more than capable of succeeding in. One in which will fill this ache in my chest.
"You wouldn't lie to me would you?"
"That depends. I have strict instructions from the boss—."
"I understand. But as friends. You wouldn't keep things from me would you?"
The plan in my head unfolding becoming more successful as I began to plant my little seed into his head.
" As friends? No. But you're my bosses daughter. I have to—."
"No I understand I do. But come on." A small smirk playing on my lips, my doe like eyes glistening through my thick wispy lashes. " I'm going to be here I long time. You can trust me."
One thing I've learnt.
Always be the smartest person in the room.
" This scheme of yours that you pulled off."
"Yes" he shifted awkwardly fiddling with his hands. My body drawing closer to his as I leaned across holding my spoon, eyes lingering in his as I dipped my spoon into the tub. His Adam's apple bobbing up and back down as a think sweat began to grace his features.
" Did it have anything to do with the disposal of my aunt?"
The venom in my words striking him down as I'd proceeded to butter him up.
My eyes narrowed into slits almost, they're main destination him, glaring daggers into his own practically holding him at gun point.
" I-I."
"One thing you should know Romey."
My slouched form straightening, all my bones cracking into place until I was sat upright stiff as a board.
" I will not be fooled by the likes of you, or Joker. But you can have fun trying."
A small smirked tugged on the young boys lips. His eyes narrowing into a mischievous glint as our eyes lumbered upon one another. My skin beginning to crawl at the heat his stare was burning onto my skin.
My cold eyes dull as I rose from the bed.
Not a single word leaving my lips as I wandered around my bed towards the door.
Hesitantly I held the door a jar, my body half the way out into the corridor.
"Coming?" I asked turning my head over my shoulder, not bothering to turn myself fully.
I could still see that glint in his eyes as he leapt off the bed with a spring in his step, hands stuffed into his pant pockets.
We wandered side by side down the hall. A silence settling between us.
" You know—." He started squeezing his hands in his pockets.
"I'm not your friend Valeska, no point trying."
My bitter tone causing but a mere eye roll as a reaction from him.
" Well that's insulting, here I thought we were on the borderline of establishing one."
His cocky sense of what I presume is his sense of humour radiating through his speech.
" I'm not here to make friends am I?" My body halting in its tracks turning to face him fully. " But I suppose you already knew that?"
" I get it, I know your problem here Scarlett."
"Oh really?"
" You're afraid that you'll enjoy being friends with me—with the 'enemy'." He scoffed placing the word enemy in fake bunny ear quotations with his hands.
" What makes you so sure of that?" Our footsteps droning on into the air as we entered a large open space.
Possibly a social spot of where Jokers men and disciples hang out.
" Well there's a number of reasons really." He scoffed standing before a stained tattered excuse of a kitchen island, his body slouched against it.
" Go ahead—." I scoffed bringing my attention to a fridge. " knock yourself out." The tubs of ice cream back in there old spot.
"Well my first idea was pretty obvious, maybe you didn't want to be friends because of my devilishly handsome goodlooks—."
I could practically feel the grin burning the back of my skull as my eyes caught sight of a small kitchen block stocked with sharpened knives.
"But then it dawned upon me. That day I saw you in your pathetic excuse of a school. You hung around with Katerina Kyle."
The way he said her name caused my eyebrow to quirk up right in curiosity.
"By the sounds of it gingersnap it sounds like you don't like my dear friend." My back now fully facing the block of knives slowly edging my way closer. Sarcasm lacing my words together.
"That would be correct. Say how much do you know about miss Kyle? Do you really know her that well?"
"Well that depends. I only asked what I needed to know." My hand brushing across the handle of a knife.
This is my chance.
" What did you need to know?"
A small smirk growing on my lips as I clutched the blade in hand, securely hidden behind my back, Jerome wandering eyes anywhere but me.
" Like I said before ginger, you don't need to know tha—."
BANG—-