A loud, snapping crack followed by a series of angry hisses jolted Barbara awake. For a second, as her eyelids blinked open, she forgot about everything. But when a dull, achy pain pulsated deep within her body, reminding her she was somehow still alive, the nightmare she was trapped in came back to her.
Ah, shit. After all this, she was still alive? How was that even possible?
"So you're finally awake." A soft voice called out from somewhere in the dark. "If it wasn't for your heartbeat, I would've thought they had killed you."
Barbara narrowed her eyes and waited for them to adjust to the inky darkness. But even in the low firelight, she could still make out the pair of green eyes gleaming up at her only a few feet away.
"Pamela?" Barbara winced back in her seat, huddling beneath the blanket covering her. Oh, great. Of course, she'd be stuck in the dark with this murderous bitch.
Pamela must've noticed her flinch because she chuckled and said, "You don't need to worry. I couldn't harm you even if I wanted to."
Furrowing her brows, Barbara peered down at the floor and watched as Pamela crept forward into the light. She craned her head to the side, revealing a collar slipped around her slender neck. And as shocking as that was to see, the collar wasn't what made Barbara startle. It was the long metal chain trailing behind her. Following its length all the way up to the hole in the wall, Barbara couldn't help but wonder just how sturdy this chain actually was.
"Where—Where are we?" Barbara's chest heaved as she glanced around at her surroundings. But the flickering light from the dying flames was not nearly bright enough to make out what hid behind the shadows hanging on the walls.
"Where it all started." Pamela tilted her head up at the mantle. "Wayne Manor."
Barbara followed Pamela's burning gaze onto the portrait framed above the fireplace. Even with the dim lighting, she could still recognize the three figures painted onto it. A mom, a dad, and their ten-year-old son. The child's face was painted in that same grim, downcast expression she had always seen him with. It seemed even as a child Bruce didn't know how to smile.
If the date painted on the corner was anything to go by, then this must've been shortly before the parents' deaths. One of the last times they were seen all together.
Unable to stomach the sight of the portrait any longer, Barbara shifted her attention back to the woman sitting on the elaborate Turkish rug. How had she not realized Pamela was so badly beaten sooner?
Her updo had come loose and now fell in messy, tangled red waves around her. Though there were no visible cuts or scratches on her skin like before, the smeared, dried blood crusted over her face and neck told Barbara it must've been a fight to the death. Her once beautiful white dress was in tatters, stained with deep red blotches in nearly every corner like something out of a horror flick. But what shocked Barbara the most, almost to the point of letting out a gasp, were the bundles of nerves and broken ligaments hanging off the side of Pamela's empty arm socket.
"You see why I can't hurt you now? I can't even get this chain off me." It rattled as Pamela gave it a hard tug, but didn't budge. "I'm too weak."
"You would need blood," Barbara gulped as the realization of why she was here, alone with this woman, dawned on her.
Something between a chuckle and a breathless wheeze bubbled out of Pamela's mouth. "You're catching on."
Barbara's heart skipped a beat. "Is that why I'm here? To be your next meal?"
"The truth is, I don't know." The chain jangled again as Pamela sat back into a crisscrossed position. "What I do know is neither of us is getting out of here alive. So it's either I kill you or you kill me. But if you want to kill me, you better act fast. The weaker and hungrier my body becomes, the more desperate it grows too."
Pamela flicked her eyes to something on the table beside her. Barbara could hardly believe it. There it was, the one thing she had been searching for. The one thing that could protect her from these monsters.
A stake.
But not the stake she had lost. No, this one was much darker in color, possibly made from walnut instead of oak like the other one.
Seeing there wasn't a collar around her neck as well, Barbara folded the blanket over her lap before rolling herself to the table. The wound underneath her bandages stung as she snatched up the stake and clenched it in her fist. How her hand came to be bandaged, Barbara didn't want to think about. Right now, all her attention needed to be focused on Pamela.
She held the stake out in front of her, trying to figure out how she could stab Pamela without getting close to her. Pamela was a known liar, but something told Barbara she was telling the truth about being desperate enough to eat her if given the chance.
Barbara was not prepared to give her that chance.
"I would rather you be the one to do it." Pamela stared up at her from the floor. "I don't want him to be the one who finally puts a stake in me."
Barbara's grip faltered. "Wh—Bruce?"
Pamela nodded before casting her eyes back to the portrait. "I don't know what that sick bastard has planned, but I imagine it won't be pleasant. He won't kill me. Not yet. Not until he's had his fun first."
She clenched her fangs into a sneer.
"I've been tormented enough by these men. By these Waynes."
Had Pamela gone insane? What on Earth was she talking about?
"I don't understand." Barbara frowned. "Are—Are you talking about Thomas Wayne?"
Pamela whipped her head back around and sighed. "He wasn't the one who made me into this. No. But he might as well have. That book of yours didn't have the whole truth. Yes, Thomas and I were engaged at one point. And yes, he did break it off because of a scandal. A scandal he caused when he told everyone I was a whore. A slut. A harlot who slept around with pretty much every man in Gotham's elite circle."
Barbara could only listen intently as Pamela continued, hanging onto her every word out of fear she might miss one.
"But the truth was, he was the one I wouldn't sleep with. He tried to force himself on me at a party and I refused. He tried to excuse it because we were engaged, but..." she trailed off as a distant look came over her face. "Then he went around ruining my reputation, making sure no man would ever want to marry me again. My parents couldn't even stand the sight of me afterwards. They said I ruined the great Isley name and cut me out of their will because of it."
"So that's why the will skipped you," Barbara muttered, more so to herself than to Pamela. "That's why the inheritance would go to your children and grandchildren."
"They thought only my offspring could restore the Isley name." She snorted, but the crack in her voice betrayed her true feelings. "Of course, that would never happen."
"But there was one man who did want to marry you," Barbara reminded. "Jason Woodrue."
Pamela threw her head back and let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "Jason Woodrue! He was the one who made me into this! I thought maybe, just maybe, I had found someone I could learn to love and get along with. We both had a lot in common. We enjoyed gardening. Botany. Nature. But ultimately, he enjoyed his experiments a little bit more..."
She gave a weak tug at the chain. "Sad that this isn't my first time chained up like this. Men seem to enjoy doing that to women, don't they? Even if they aren't men anymore."
"Maybe you weren't far off when you accused me of being a gold-digging whore. I was no better than a prostitute. But what other choice did I have? I was penniless! I was alone! I just wanted to survive! Is that so wrong?" Pamela clenched her fist and pounded it into the floor beside her.
Barbara pursed her lips together, tightening her grip around the stake. "So that's why you married rich men."
She sighed again, and for a moment, she no longer looked like the bloodthirsty seductress Barbara knew her as. No, Pamela looked like that soft, innocent woman from that portrait painted so long ago.
"It's not easy being what we are. That's why there are so few of us. Unless you're as rich as Bruce Wayne, you have to attach yourself to someone. It isn't fair. Men like him don't know what it means to struggle—to degrade yourself just to survive! They've never had to endure the countless remarks! The looks! The unwanted touches! All they have, it's been handed to them on a silver platter."
Decades of unbridled fury and pain burned across Pamela's face, hotter than any of the flames dancing near them. "You think I wanted to become this? Of course not. But if it meant giving men like Bruce a taste of their own medicine, then I would become the monster every man feared."
A dark, demented grin spread over her lips. "You should've seen them, the looks on their faces when they realized they were being stalked in the dark. In an alleyway. In an empty parking garage. They never knew the feeling of being hunted until that moment. How many women have felt that same feeling? How many of them have vanished, never to return? I know what I did was wrong. But it was nothing compared to the centuries of what men have done to women."
There it was, the last piece of the puzzle. Barbara had been right along. This had been about revenge after all. Right from the very beginning. "Now I see why you went after the Wayne employees. Why you went after men. Why you married them and killed them. But you're wrong, Pamela. There was someone who wanted to marry you. Who could've loved you if you let him. But instead, you killed him."
Though she had tried to remain strong, her voice cracked at the last part, still unable to believe he was dead. But even if someone had rescued him at the last second, there was just no way he could've survived. Not with that much blood loss.
Pamela's eyes narrowed into slits. "Who? Your dad? Please. All men are the same, dead or not. They just want something from you. I thought you of all people would've figured that out by now."
All right, it looked like they were done here. She had heard enough by now to decide what to do.
She would grant Pamela's wish.
Approaching her with the stake in hand, Barbara suddenly paused when she realized there was still a loose end dangling before her. One that would continue gnawing at her if she didn't get the closure she had desperately chased after.
"Jason Bard." She glared down at Pamela. "What happened to him?"
Pamela placed her one good hand over her cheek and shrugged. "How should I know? He's probably dead."
"Enough lies, Pamela!" Barbara pointed the stake at her. "You practically told me your entire life story! So just answer the question!"
"I didn't kill him."
Barbara nodded, starting for the fireplace. If these were the games Pamela wanted to play, then so be it. Barbara wasn't about to join in.
"I wasn't the one who killed him, Barbara." The urgency in her voice made her pause. "I didn't even know you two were at the mansion until you blabbed. Yes, I had my suspicions. But that's all I had, suspicions."
"Then who?" Barbara raised the stake closer to the flames, already preparing to chuck it in with the other logs.
"Who do you think?" A chilling smirk curled across Pamela's bloodied face. "Who had every reason to kill him, knowing I would be the prime suspect to you? Who had every reason to get you involved, making sure you would do the dirty work for him? Who knew about Jason Bard? Who knew about his presence in your life and how important he was to you? Who wanted you to kill me?"
This last question made Barbara's blood run cold. Spinning around from the fireplace, Barbara gaped at Pamela as the horrifying realization dawned on her. "Oh my God."
"Oh, you poor girl." If it wasn't for the cruelty laced in her tone, Barbara might've believed she truly pitied her. "You were deceived from the very beginning."
"I should just let you die." The stake trembled in Barbara's hand. "A slow, painful death at the hands of the man you despise. It's exactly what you deserve."
Pamela's smile fell instantly. "No! Please, no!" She rushed forward, only to be yanked back by the chain and pulled to the ground.
Barbara could only shake her head. How humiliating.
Tired of the pathetic display in front of her, Barbara glided over to Pamela and grabbed a fistful of red hair. She didn't even squirm. She simply shut her eyes and let Barbara tilt her neck back. But just as the stake grazed the swell of Pamela's breast, her hand shot out into the air, stopping Barbara from taking the fatal plunge.
"Not like this." Her eyes shifted past Barbara and locked onto the embroidered curtain draped over the window. "The sun will be rising soon. I want it to be the last thing I see... I haven't seen it with my naked eyes in over fifty years."
Barbara's eyes widened a fraction, understanding what would happen the second she moved the curtain. "All right."
She wasn't sure what made her decide to grant Pamela this small act of mercy. The woman had killed her dad, after all. But perhaps somewhere deep inside her heart, there was a part of her that felt sorry for her. Perhaps she recognized that in another life Pamela would be a much different woman, a much better one.
Pamela was a cruel, vengeful woman. She deserved every bit of pain and torture Bruce would inflict on her. But something in Pamela's story made Barbara's wrath quell. Deep down, Barbara knew better than anyone what it meant to be hurt by others. Even by life itself.
Weird, huh? How could she ever empathize with creatures that would murder her without a second thought? Well, maybe that was what truly separated her kind from theirs. Not their thirst for blood or elongated claws, but the ability to extend an ounce of compassion to even the most despicable of things.
With one last glance at Pamela, Barbara gripped the edge of the curtain and waited for the go-ahead. Pressing her lips into a firm line, Pamela gave a slight nod, never once losing the grim resolve shining in her emerald green eyes.
Taking a deep breath, Barbara tugged the curtain with all her might and ripped it right off the track.
"Rise and shine, Pamela."