Everything happened so quickly. As soon as the first ray of light hit Pamela, she started to burn.
It must've been absolutely excruciating. Hell, it was excruciating just to watch. Barbara could only imagine the pain Pamela was in as her once pale, smooth skin, like that of the finest porcelain, bubbled and singed.
But if Pamela was in agony, she never showed it. At least, not at the beginning. Instead, she raised her hand out to the sun as if she were offering herself to it, to death.
It wasn't long before Pamela's body was completely covered in flames. As was in most cases, it took only the smallest spark to latch onto a shred of her gown and spread out like a wildfire. And it was at that moment, when not an inch left of her was not on fire, did she open her mouth and finally start to scream.
Unable to tear her eyes off the horrifying sight in front of her, Barbara could only watch as the woman she wanted to kill for so long turned to ash.
And yet, she did not feel any sense of sadistic pleasure or relief like she expected. No, she felt nothing on the inside. Nothing but hollow.
Well, that was that then. Pamela had been reduced to an unrecognizable, smoldering pile on the floor. There was nothing left of her, not even a wisp of hair.
Seeing there was nothing left to do here, Barbara decided it was time to leave. Carefully rolling towards the front door, she glanced around at her surroundings, finally able to get a clear view of the manor thanks to the sunlight pouring in. The floor plan was similar to the Isley mansion, which Barbara imagined must have been built around the same time.
But where the two estates differed was in their condition. The Wayne Manor was nowhere near the decrepit state the Isley mansion had been in. Granted, the mansion had been abandoned for years, so maybe the comparison wasn't all that fair. Yet, the manor couldn't have been more elegant, more modern with its cushiony seats and a massive collection of books jutting out of the olive green walls.
Modern. That was the perfect way to describe the manor. Unlike the Isley mansion, which would forever remain frozen in time, Wayne Manor had shed its Victorian roots and embraced the twentieth century. Because nothing screamed modern like an electric chandelier and a pool table underneath.
Shaking her head, Barbara tore her eyes from the parlor and returned to the door in front of her. But as she started to turn the knob, she suddenly paused.
It didn't take any sort of enhanced instinct to realize there was someone else in the room with her.
"Where are you going, Barbara?"
Spinning around, Barbara glared up at the familiar figure standing in the dark hallway, one of the few areas where the sunlight would not reach.
"Home," she spat, never once taking her eyes off the figure.
It hobbled closer to her, using its arm to support itself against the wall. "You know we can't let you leave."
Barbara pressed her hand on the knob, her narrowed gaze daring him to take another step closer. "Watch me."
"You won't get very far. You know that, right?" His blue eyes gleamed in the dark. "You're miles away from the nearest house. Even further from the city."
"No, probably not," she admitted with a shrug. "But seeing you're now missing a leg, I'll take my chances... Richard."
He let out a soft chuckle. "It would seem we're both on equal footing then."
"Yeah, it seems like." She jutted out her chin; another challenge for him to approach. "It all comes down to who's faster. A crippled girl or a crippled bloodsucking parasite."
Richard sighed, his eyes softening as he gazed at her. "Barbara, it isn't what it looks like. Just step away from the door and I can explain everything-"
"You mean like Jason Bard?" Barbara snarled. "What happened to him? What did you and Bruce do to him?"
For a few seconds, Richard remained quiet and Barbara thought he really wasn't going to own up to it. But then he opened his mouth and said, "Bruce didn't do anything to him. It was all me."
Barbara blinked, releasing her grip off of the doorknob. Was this it? Was he finally going to confess?
Was she finally going to get the answer she had searched so desperately for?
"He returned to the Isley mansion that night you last saw him. I figured he would. No one can resist seeing a dead body." Richard adjusted his body so he was fully leaning against the wall. "I waited there for him in the dark. There was no moon that night, so he couldn't really see anything, much less me."
"It was supposed to be a quick death," he continued. "We try to avoid killing the innocent. But as I started to approach, something came over me. I remembered seeing you with him, and I just snapped. From there... Well, you saw what happened to Oswald."
Barbara closed her eyes, trying to imagine the scene as Richard described it to her. But all she saw was red. Red like the color of Pamela's hair. Red like the color of Jason's blood as it was sucked from him.
"Afterwards, I had to cut off the head so he wouldn't come back. It wasn't the cleanest thing, but it was either that or driving a stake through his heart." He sounded so casual, as if he were describing the process of cleaning a gun and not the fact he had just killed someone. "And since I hadn't prepared for... that, I hadn't brought a stake with me."
"What-What did you do with him after that?" Barbara felt as if Richard's hands were wrapped around her throat, slowly suffocating her with each new sentence.
"The car was tossed into the Gotham River." He paused, heaving a deep sigh. "As for the officer, he's out back in the woods. Buried in a ditch somewhere."
Before Barbara even had the chance to scream at him, Richard was limping towards her with his arms outstretched like a beggar. "Barbara, I know this looks bad! I know he was your friend! But you have to understand! Our backs were against the wall! Without you, I don't know what we would've done! Bruce had no way of getting to Pamela! At least not until you showed up-"
"I understand." Barbara nodded, wiping her tears with her sleeve.
"Barb-What? You do?" His eyebrows shot up, nearly touching his hairline.
She nodded again as a laugh gurgled up from her throat. "Yeah, you're right. I wouldn't have gotten involved in this whole mess if he hadn't gone missing. And that means I wouldn't have gotten to know you."
Sharp white fangs glistened in the dark as Richard's mouth split into a smile. "I'm glad you understand. Bruce said you wouldn't, but he never gave you enough credit."
"And you always have." She returned his grin, her tires squeaking as she began moving towards him. "You were the one who took a chance on me. The one who believed in me. It was you, not Jason. It's always been you."
"Of course." Richard crept as far as he could, right at the border where darkness met sunlight. "I never thought this would happen, but I love you, Barbara Gordon. I think I always have since the moment I first saw you."
Barbara cupped his cheek, gently stroking it. He sounded so sincere, so earnest, she didn't dare doubt the effect his charm would've had on her only a couple of days ago. If Pamela was anywhere near the actor Richard was, then she could see why her dad fell so hard and so quickly.
It was true what Pamela had said. Neither of them was getting out the manor alive. That had never been part of the plan.
It was also true she would not get very far once she rolled outside. She would be lucky to even get as far as the driveway. Like Richard pointed out, she was miles away from any sort of help. And even if she could flag down a desolate car, what home did she have to return to? What life? Her dad was dead. She had no job. She had no friends.
Barbara Gordon was nothing more than a dead girl walking at this point. And she wasn't even technically walking.
So as she leaned into Richard, brushing her lips against his, she finally accepted what she had been running from for so long.
Fate.
"I wish I could believe that," she whispered. "But you creatures can't love."
Her hand jerked upwards, impaling the stake into Richard's chest. Right where his heart was.
With a piercing screech that nearly made Barbara's ears bleed, he stumbled backwards into the hall, clutching the stake as he fell.
Watching as Richard struggled to pull out the stake lodged in his rib cage, Barbara felt the hairs on the back of her neck prick up as she was enveloped in complete darkness. The curtains had closed, meaning...
Someone was behind her.
She turned around and came face-to-face with a sight that would've made a lesser person shit themselves. If Bruce wasn't threatening before, then he sure was now, covered in dried blood and with a large gaping hole where his left eye should've been.
"Looks like Pamela sure did a number on you," Barbara observed.
His remaining blue eye narrowed. "Your heart is beating rapidly, but you're not scared."
"No. Not anymore." She gazed up at his towering figure and right into that empty, black socket. "So if you're going to kill me, you better do it on the first try. But I do have one last question... Who started that fire?"
He didn't answer, instead just continuing to stare down at her. But Barbara didn't need to hear anything from him to piece together what had happened. She had wondered why Richard hadn't been at the wedding. Why he had smelled of gasoline. Why Barbara needed to be a distraction in the first place.
In such an old, rotting building, it would've taken only a spark for the courthouse to burn in a matter of minutes. But with gasoline dripping all over the place, it would've taken only seconds.
Without warning, Bruce marched forward, grabbing Barbara by the wrist. She let out an involuntary yelp as he yanked her out of the wheelchair, practically dangling her in the air. The pressure on her wrist was so intense, so painful, she was sure he was going to snap her arm in half.
"Stop! Let go!" She tried tugging her arm free. "You're hurting me!"
"A deal's a deal."
Releasing her from his grip, Bruce let her crumble over the hardwood floor. Barbara raised her head up and stared at the eye glaring back at her through the dark, her chest heaving with uneven breaths.
From behind, what felt like a dagger was buried into the small of her back, pinching her flesh. A familiar acidic taste filled her mouth instantly.
Before she could even let out a blood-soaked scream, Barbara was pushed to the ground face-first and held there as another dagger pierced her skin. But not even those razor-sharp claws could compare to the sheer agony of Richard's fangs as they sank into her neck.
Clawing at the floorboards beneath her, Barbara tried everything in her power to get away. She thrashed, punched, and even tried kicking Richard off. None of it worked. Her feeble hits did nothing to him. And no matter how hard she willed her body to move, she remained pinned beneath him. With every drop he drank of her blood, he only seemed to grow stronger, his hold on her tighter.
No, this was all wrong. She had been wrong. She didn't want to die, not like this. Because this wasn't a death at all.
This was torture.
Is this what Oswald felt? Jason? Were their last moments nothing but agony as their blood-as their lives were slowly drained from them? Did they too scream until their throats were sore and their voices hoarse?
When would it end? Surely Richard must be done by now. Surely, the human body couldn't have that much blood.
How could he do this? And without the slightest hint of remorse? How did her screams not even faze him? Is that how he saw her this entire time? As just another meal? Was nothing they shared together ever real?
But maybe she couldn't blame Richard too much. After all, how many times had she cried over the cow that made up her cheeseburger? Or the pig that would end up as her bacon?
At one point, drops of liquid trickled down Barbara's cheek, and she wasn't sure if they were from her tears or her blood. Judging from the metallic stench hanging in the air, she figured it was probably the latter.
Please. Just let it end already.
When she was five, her family had taken a day trip to Lake Michigan. Those had been much happier times, of course. Her parents were in love and never fought over the stupidest things. Her dad was around instead of always chasing after the latest burglar or drug trafficker. All was right with the world... Except for when she almost drowned in the Great Lake. It was true what they said: it only took a second for things to go wrong. Just as it did here. The second her parents took their eyes off her, she had slipped under a rolling wave.
Though she was too young to think she would die, Barbara could still remember the taste of the water as it entered her mouth. But what she remembered even clearer was the feeling of her lungs on fire as she swallowed more and more water. The paralyzing fear as another wave washed over her, pulling her further and further down.
Not even that could compare to the burning terror she felt right now as Richard ate her alive.
Dear God, why was it so cold? Why was it so hard to breathe?
Barbara's harrowing screams started to die down along with her movements, becoming nothing more than a series of labored, irregular gasps. With her limbs feeling like jelly, her once wild thrashes grew sluggish, only interrupted by the occasional shudder or twitch.
Eventually, she was too weak to even lift her head up, much less her arms. The fight within her was gone, right along with a quarter of her blood. At least she could take comfort in the fact she had fought for her life. Just not hard enough, apparently.
Lying there sprawled on the floor, Barbara could only gaze up at the silhouette standing in front of her. For a moment, her vision went all black, and she lost sight of him. But just as quickly as it disappeared, her vision returned along with the figure. His blue eye fixed onto her, never once breaking its cold, unwavering stare even when his jaw started to unhinge with a sickening, wet crack.
Just let it end.
Something large and sharp glimmered through the darkness, and the last thing Barbara saw before everything permanently cut to black was a pair of fangs dripping with drool as Bruce swooped in on her.