Suicide Squad (5 page)

“I love you, too,” she responded as she gave him a hug, then got into the car. “Next week?” she said, hoping.

“Next week,” Lawton said. “And I’m always here. Whenever you want me.”

Lawton watched the car take off. Zoe was in the back seat, waving goodbye to him. He gave a wistful smile then turned away. He took two steps then paused.

His smile was gone. The day, which had been spectacularly perfect, was over in an instant.

“Thanks for waiting for my daughter to go.”

The Bat stood behind him. Dark. Menacing. Lawton never even heard him approach.

“This is nothing she should see.” The voice was coarse gravel. “Besides, she’ll have gray hair when you see her again.”

Lawton spun even as his wrist magnums snapped into firing position. Then the demon was on him, fists slamming him in the face. He felt warm blood filling his mouth. The monster lashed out at him again, and he felt his legs slip out from under him. He fell to the ground.

The demon straddled him, punched him, but Lawton jammed his wrist magnum under the monster’s chin, and fired. The slug shredded the latch of the bulletproof cowl, exposing the flesh beneath. Whatever the hell the Bat was, he was human, and Lawton’s next shot would go up through the skull and split the Bat’s brain in two.

The demon slammed his leg into Lawton’s knee, cracking it. Lawton emptied his other magnum into the demon’s armored chest.

The Bat fell back a step, but then regained his balance and drove a fist into the side of Lawton’s head. He staggered. His ears were ringing and he could barely see, but he swore to himself that he’d die before he ever backed down.

Lawton reached for another gun, but the Bat smashed a boot to his hand, nearly breaking his wrist. He dropped the gun, the Bat moved to kick it away, but Lawton was ready. He grabbed a knife from a wrist holster and slashed at the Bat’s exposed face. The monster fell back, avoiding the hit, but he was thrown off balance.

Leading with his shoulder, Lawton rammed the Bat in the gut and sent him tumbling back to the ground. Lawton was on him in an instant, plunging down with the knife. The Bat struggled to turn, and the knife lodged in his side, between the armor and his skin. It had to hurt like hell, but the Bat didn’t even screech.

He wrapped his legs around Lawton’s neck and spun him into the sidewalk.

“Stay down,” the Bat said as the police sirens closed in. Before Lawton could blink his hands were cuffed and locked to a streetlamp pole. Batman was gone, and a half-dozen police cars pulled in next to him.

The Joker stuck his left hand out of the car’s open window and let several puffs of snow come to rest on his finger. He stared at them, remembering his own childhood holidays, then licked the snow away.

“Tastes like crap. Just as I remember. Some things don’t get better with age.”

“C’mon, Mr. J,” Harley protested. “You’re driving like an old man. Pedal to the metal.”

Joker growled then pushed his high-performance Italian machine to as fast as its 1,244hp, twin turbocharged V8 engine would let him.

“So what if we die,” he said, and he laughed. In seconds they were a slick purple streak slamming through the Gotham City streets as if nothing would ever dare get in his way.

Harley thrust her arms out and laughed, but then she noticed Joker wasn’t laughing.

“You still cross with me, Mr. J?”

Joker snarled at her and again slammed the gas pedal as far down as it could go.

“Yeah. For all those second stringers I had to kill because of you. They were decent, you know. Reliable people. Good men. Loyal men, and they’re falling like dominoes.”

“Well, maybe you should stop killing them? I’d hate to work for you. Your health plan sucks.”

Joker leaned in and barely took the corner. Ahead of him was a local street fair. Too bad. Even as he cannoned toward them, the people scattered. He plowed into the barriers, smashed his way through food stands, then turned at the next corner and sped on.

Too bad. Nobody got flattened.

“Excuse me?” Joker suddenly said, continuing their conversation as if nothing had happened. “You’re putting this on me? You provoke them with your constant need to test me. You’re engineering your situations.”

Harley folded her arms over her chest and gave the Joker her award-winning best pout.

“Well, I’m young. Vibrant. Alive. And I’m sure as hell not staying home at night.”

Joker growled again. “You make my teeth hurt. I can’t do this anymore. I’m putting this thing into a wall.”

He slammed the gas down again and the car rocketed forward.
This is what life’s all about
, he thought. He glanced up and saw a black shape in his rearview mirror. It was closing in on him.

The damned Batmobile.

“Forget flatlining,” he said. “Buckle up.” Harley laughed, removed her seatbelt and let the two halves retract into their holders.

“Hope you got insurance.”

The Joker gave her a dirty look as he again slammed the gas pedal.

“Now’s not the time, dear.” He took another turn, and Harley almost ended up giving him a lap dance. She giggled as she wiggled back into her seat.

“Again,” she demanded.

Insatiable.

The car shuddered. Something slammed on its roof. It should have been impossible at their speed, but then again, their pursuer specialized in the impossible. Sparks rained down as a blowtorch sliced the roof open.

“Puddin’?”

Batman was glaring down at them.

“I see him. I’m not blind. Hold on or you’ll be flying out the window.”

She clutched the seat as Joker took the next turn even faster. Somehow Batman still hung on.

“My turn,” Harley said, and she laughed. Reaching for Joker’s .45, she took it and fired upward into the roof.

BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM!
Five rounds flatted against their pursuer’s body armor. One ricocheted and shattered the front windshield.

“Let’s go swimming, Harley,” Joker said. “You do swim, don’t you?”

“Nope. Don’t even like to drink that stuff.”

“Well, that sucks for you then.” Joker laughed as he whipped around another turn and cannoned toward the Gotham River.

There was no way Batman could stay with the car. He whirled and fired a cable onto a fire escape. As the dark purple sports car punched through a chain-link fence and crashed into the water, the crime fighter retracted the line and swung to safety.

Harley couldn’t hold on. She was thrown into the windshield and got stuck halfway through.

* * *

Batman let momentum bring him back to the river. He released the cable and gracefully arced into a dive, slicing into the water.

The car was sinking fast. Its xenon headlights cut through the murk, illuminating a clear path for him to follow. He dove deeper while reaching for a specific canister kept in his belt. He removed a small re-breather and placed it over his mouth. It wouldn’t provide a lot of air, but it would last long enough.

He followed the car as it speared into the deep and buried its nose into the river mud. Then he took out his belt flashlight and aimed it at the car. Harley was out cold and drowning. Even as he grabbed her by the hair and lifted her head, he realized Joker was gone.

How the hell did that happen?

Batman pulled Harley, freeing her from the car. Her eyes snapped open and she grabbed two knives hidden in her uniform, then tried to bury them in the man who was trying to rescue her. They wrestled until he slammed his fist into her, knocking her unconscious. She’d stop resisting, and he could save her.

Gripping her firmly, he swam back to the surface. Reaching land, he lay her on her back and administered chest compressions. No response. Only one more thing to try. It was repulsive, but her only hope. Batman put his mouth to hers, this woman who had just tried to kill him.

He alternated breaths with more chest compressions.

Suddenly she wrapped her arms around him, turning CPR into a prolonged kiss. He fought and pulled away.

She coughed and looked up.

“Why the favor, Bats?” she asked.

Batman glowered at her. “Joker took something important away from me,” he growled. “It’s my turn.”

Harley didn’t reply, but she shivered.

Harley Quinn woke up in a cage in Belle Reve, thoroughly rested from her fun-filled day-long class trip with her wonderful, sexy professor, Mr. J.

She was hanging upside down—the only way she could sleep. Slowly, languidly, she unfolded and lowered herself to the ground.

Her cage was in a cell block Harley had all to herself. It wasn’t that she could wander its spacious nooks and crannies—she remained locked up in her own cramped little space—but she wouldn’t be bothered by the other nutcases they sealed away in this maximum-security crazy house.

Harley preferred the quiet.

So she could listen to the voices in her head.

Armed sentinels stood outside her cage, outfitted to the teeth, waiting for her to make a wrong move. Any wrong move. The last time she had, she took out four of their squad before she was brought down by a triple dose of sedatives. These guards were not going to make the same mistake.

They were armed and as brutally Neanderthal as supermax guards could be. They were also afraid of her. She might look like a pretty little snip of a girl, but she could kill a man twice her size before he could even grab his weapon.

Their commander, Captain Griggs, was a tyrannical redneck, and proud of it. He had decided to pay her a visit, and paced in front of the Neanderthals, then stopped and turned to stare at her.

“You know the rules, hotness. Stay off the bars. You sleep on the floor.”

Harley walked up to the bars, grabbed them, and glared at Griggs.

“I sleep where I want,” she said. “When I want. With who I want. So ha.”

Griggs laughed. “This is my house, little missy. You break my rules, you pay me.” He tapped the mic worn on his shirt. “Hit her.”

Before Harley could react, a jolt of electricity shot through her. She let out a surprised howl of pain, and fell to the ground.

Uttering a feral growl, she picked herself up. She saw the smug look on Griggs’s face, and the growl turned to a roar of rage. Without thinking she hurled herself against the bars again.

Bouncing off, she hit the floor, unconscious.

* * *

Griggs stared at Harley, lying there in her cage, then turned to Alan Dixon, his second-in-command.

“Now that’s a whole lotta pretty, and a whole lotta crazy. The word batshit don’t even scratch the surface.”

The guards knew the routine. They pulled out their tasers, prepped them, then headed into the cell.

“Okay,” Griggs said. “Let’s get her done.”

Floyd Lawton had to find his own ways to keep up his strength and stamina while locked away in Belle Reve—they weren’t about to grant him gymnasium privileges.

Let the body go, the mind will follow
, he mused. Besides, he wasn’t going to be in here for long. Not even a supermax could hold him, once he decided he didn’t want to be there.

Lawton rolled up his mattress, tied it tight with his bed sheet, then hung it like a punching bag. Not quite what he’d find at a fancy fitness center, but it would keep Lawton sharp and ready. For anything.

He was trapped in a concrete-and-steel cage, and the space between the bars was fitted with ballistic glass. Even if he managed to procure a weapon, Lawton couldn’t shoot his way out of this place. Even so, he wasn’t about to let that stop him.

WHAP-WHAP.

He hit the bag. The makeshift cord groaned as it swung back and forth. He hit it again, angry with himself that he’d allowed his daughter to see into his other life. The life he desperately wanted to keep far away from her.

WHAP-WHAP!

He kept hitting it, each punch harder than the one before.

“Yo, Floyd,” Captain Griggs shouted. Lawton ignored him and hit the bag again. In his mind, Griggs’s face was in front of him, on the mattress. That encouraged him to hit it even harder than before.

“I said, yo, Floyd!”

Lawton stopped, grabbed a towel, wiped the sweat from his face, and finally turned to the cell door.

“Only my friends call me Floyd.”

“You ain’t got no friends, Floyd,” Griggs replied. He motioned to his lap dog, Dixon, who was carrying a food tray. “Besides, it’s suppertime.”

The guard picked a small wrapped bar from the tray and slipped it through the slot. It landed with a loud thunk.

“Nutriloaf,” Griggs said. “All the vitis you need, with none of the flavor of actual food. Mmm-MMM crap!”

Belle Reve must’ve had a lucrative contract with whatever company produced the garbage because whatever cesspool they found it in, it was pretty much all the prisoners ever got. Lawton wouldn’t have given it to a rabid dog, yet somehow it was legal to for them to feed it to the prison’s long-term shut-ins.

Lawton stared up at his daily tormentor. “Know something, Griggs?” he said. “Back on the block, I’d fly to New York every Friday for a rib-eye. Wagyu beef. That’s the cows they massage and feed beer. Ever had a steak worth flying cross-country for?” He grinned. “No? Bet you just fry up some frozen chuck patties, macaroni salad, and moon pies. Right?”

Griggs just stared at him.

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you, Lawton?” he said, contempt dripping from his words. “Big and powerful. Well, guess what? You’re here, and you’re nothing here.”

Lawton rested his face against the metal door and looked at Griggs through the slide window. “C’mon, big-shot. Unlock the door and take a swipe at me. Let’s see what you’re made of.” Griggs had his army with him. They were armed and, judging from the red in their eyes, in the hunting mood, but Lawton wasn’t about to give them any cause to unload their weapons in his direction. So he stepped away from the bars to let Griggs finish his little speech.

“Remember, Lawton,” the asshole said, “I am your king, and tonight I’ll go home. Have a cold beer. Watch some television and fool around with the old lady. While you fester in this cage like a sick dog eating the scraps I feed you. No one knows you’re here, Floyd, and no one ever will. With no calls. No mail. Just your memories—and those are gonna fade away, real soon.”