Joker by Andi Rhodes

Chapter Twenty-Five

^{If I let myself believe her words, I’ll break into a thousand pieces, and I’ll die. I’ll die because I’ll let her kill me.}

Riley

Agroan wakes me up. I don’t snap to attention right away, and it isn’t until my vocal cords vibrate with a long mewling sound that I realize the groan that woke me up was my own.

I open my eyes, but it’s only a moment before my heavy lids close. I try opening them, again and again, sluggishly blinking.

I catch blurs of things. Brown. So much brown. A window. The blurry outline of a person as they pass me by.

My other senses begin to wake up, faster than my vision. My head lulls, going from resting on my shoulder to lifting, and I realize I’m sitting in a chair. I hear clanking a short distance from me. There’s a musty scent in the air that has me pulling air in through my mouth, but it’s caught by a gag. A piece of cloth stretches my lips and rubs my mouth raw.

How long have I been asleep?

Footsteps. They’re coming closer. Closer.

Freezing cold liquid sloshes over the top of my head, and my eyes pop open. I gasp and jerk upright, whipping my hair out of my face. A shiver wracks me, and when Leah steps in front of me, my memory comes back.

I snarl.

“For a while there, I thought you’d sleep all night.”

I don’t say anything, just hold my glare and pray I develop superpowers that will let me choke this bitch with my mind.

My wrists and ankles are tied to the arms and legs of the chair. I jerk against the rope and the fibers dig into my already raw skin. My nails scrape the edge of the chair’s arms.

Leah leans in close to my face. Full, glossy lips are pulled into a small smile. “It would be okay if you did. The nearest house is miles away. We have plenty of time. But,” her smile widens and she lifts a hand to caress my face. I jerk my head to the side, but the hand follows. “I’m getting impatient.”

If this gag wasn’t in the way, I’d spit. Or bite.

“What the fuck do you want?” I try to ask, but the gag garbles my words.

“What’s that?” Leah asks with a gleam in her eyes.

I thrash and try to headbutt her. With a quick inventory, I see the chair is made of wood, and it scrapes along a wooden floor as well. The walls of this place are logs.

We’re in a cabin.

“Here,” Leah pries her fingers underneath the gag and pulls it to my chin. “Try again.”

I gather saliva and spit, hitting her cheek. Leah closes her eyes and clenches her jaw. Her nostrils flare.

“Fuck you, you crazy bitch,” I seethe.

I gather more saliva, but Leah abruptly stands and slams her fist into my jaw. My head snaps back and I cringe.

She grabs my hair at the back of my scalp and whips me toward her. “Do you really think you get to talk to me like that?! You ungrateful bitch!”

She pops me in the jaw again, then two more to my nose and cheek, all while holding my head in place. Each blow is a new explosion of pain in my skull. I didn’t realize it until now just how badly my head hurts.

A knock sounds on the door and Leah sighs, clearly annoyed at being interrupted from using my face as a punching bag. “What?” she snaps.

The door to the cabin creaks open and Cheryl appears.

Cheryl?

She takes only a moment to glare at me before addressing Leah. “I’m getting antsy out here,” she says. “I need more.”

Leah’s teeth bare. Her eyes are still trained on me, and by the looks of it, she’s even more pissed off now that Cheryl is here.

“There’s a bottle of oxy in my bag. Take it and get out.”

Cheryl scurries to my right, and my hazy gaze follows her. She goes to a table and sorts through a purse, but I stop watching when I spot what’s tacked to the wall behind her.

My eyes widen and my lips part. Photographs of me completely cover the wall, not an inch of brown in sight. Some of them are newspaper clippings dating back from when my dad was still a fighter, but most of them were taken without my knowledge.

My stomach bottoms out staring at some of them, or trying to. My vision is still a little hazy.

Cheryl hurries from the cabin, a bottle of pills rattling in her hand as she walks. The cabin door shuts, and when Leah speaks, it startles me.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

I don’t acknowledge her. I just keep staring at the photos.

The chair jerks and I startle again. Leah drags me over to the wall and shoves the table out of the way. Something falls and clangs on the floor.

“Here, have a better look.”

And I do. I stare at a photo of me, lying in my bed asleep. I’m in nothing but panties and a T-shirt, and my hair is sprawled out over my pillow.

She was there while I slept. While I was most vulnerable. She could’ve killed me, done anything to me, at any time.

I move my gaze to other photos, my stomach flopping relentlessly. I’m glad the gag is off because I think I might puke.

My eyes land on a photo of me and Joker in a hotel room and I scan that section of the wall to see numerous photos from that night. In one, Joker has his dick in his hand while I look at him with disgust.

If that stupid boyfriend of yours had stayed, you could’ve watched him die.

Now you’ll only get to hear about it.

Now you’ll only get to hear about it.

Hear about it.

Joker!

“You never would’ve been able to get to him,” I say, more for my own benefit than hers. My chest tightens and it’s hard to get a breath.

Leah chuckles. “Who, Joker? Joker and the Jokes?” She chuckles again. “Yeah, they’re all dead.”

“No.” I blink back tears. “That wouldn’t have even been possible. The Soulless Kings—”

“Are reckless. Thanks to you, Black Bird.” She smiles and my chest tightens more. “Besides, there’s not much anyone can do to avoid shrapnel and fire hurling at them. Even the big bad wall of muscle you decided to hide behind.” She huffs. “Fucking coward.”

A tear slides down my face and I shut my eyes.

I never told him I loved him. I never said the words.

I inhale a deep breath through my nose and try to pull myself together. If I let myself believe her words, I’ll break into a thousand pieces, and I’ll die. I’ll die because I’ll let her kill me. And I can’t do that.

Because I’m a fucking fighter.

“You’re right,” I say. “I’m a coward.” I open my eyes and pierce her with a strong glare. “But that won’t stop me from killing you, Leah. Now I know who you are. You’re not half the threat I thought you would be.”

“Why?” she asks with a mock frown. “Because I’m a woman?”

“No. Because you’re weak.”

She punches me in my nose, and my head whips back. Blood gushes from it and I close my mouth to keep the coppery liquid from spilling in, but I’m forced to open it to breathe. I pull my head forward and let the blood drip on my lap. It’s run down my chin and my chest, collecting in my sports bra.

“Are you sure about that?”

I take a few deep breaths. “Yes.”

Leah screeches and yanks my head by my hair. She gets right in my face and sneers at me with manic eyes. “You’re an ungrateful bitch!”

“Why do you keep saying that?” I ask, trying to yank away from her. “I talked to you in passing. I sparred with you a few times. You asked for advice and I gave it to you. What the hell did you ever do for me?”

“I loved you!”

She rears back and slaps me this time, but by her expression you’d think she was the one who’d been slapped.

She backs off me and rakes my blood through her hair. Tears are in her eyes. “I’ve never missed a single one of your fights, not even tonight’s. I’ve supported you, been there for you. I sent you flowers, so many damn flowers, and there were nights I didn’t eat because I’d spent my money on you. And then you threw them away!”

She rubs away tears under her eyes and smears blood on her face. She must know she’s doing it. She’s just fucking crazy.

“Chocolates, coffees, clothes, everything I gave you ended up in your garbage.”

“Oh my God,” I say, shaking my head. “You’re fucking nuts.”

She screams as she comes toward me, her palm raised. I’m ready for the blow this time, and my head doesn’t whip so hard. Still, it feels like my skull is cracked, I’m pretty sure my nose is broken based on the sharp pain every time I crinkle it or my nostrils flare.

I’m being stupid.

Reckless.

If I don’t start playing into her fantasy, she’s going to kill me from the head injuries alone.

Leah begins pacing, my blood smearing every time she yanks on her hair or touches her face.

“You’re right,” I say.

She stops in her tracks. Her back is to me, and her shoulders bunch as she tenses. “What?”

I sigh like I’m finally admitting the ‘truth’. “I was ungrateful. It wasn’t because I wanted to hurt you, even though I can see that I did. It was because I didn’t know all of it was from you.”

Leah turns around slowly. Her eyes narrow suspiciously.

“If I had, things would have been different. We could’ve talked. Really talked. Not just in passing.” I shrug. “Maybe we could’ve even gone on a date. I’m not good enough for you. I know I’ve let you down. But if you can forgive me…”

Leah stares at me for a few lingering seconds. I can’t tell at all what she’s thinking, but I hope my acting is good. It’s hard to keep the disgust out of my voice, to entertain the notion that there could be anything between the two of us.

She strides to the table she pushed to the side and scans the top of it before looking to the floor. She bends and grabs something and then stomps to stand in front of me.

My eyes widen on a black, metal crowbar she holds in both hands. “You’re a liar, Riley. And a bad one.”

I glance nervously between her and the crowbar and jerk against the binds.

“I really wish I would have brought a hammer, but this will do.”

What?

Before I can get a word out, Leah lifts the crowbar and crashes it against my hand. I can hear the bones as they crack and shatter, and my mouth opens wide with a scream.

“Sorry, Riley.” I barely make out Leah’s smirk past the pain. “I guess this is the end of your career.”

She raises the crowbar again.