Obsidian

iii. Down the Rabbit Hole.

HARLEEN

Harleen deserved to get her ass handed to her, and she knew it.

She hadn't even thrown her hands up to protect herself from the blows raining down on her. They screamed different curses at both her and The Joker and threw out the names of people she couldn't recall killing but knew that she probably had. Waves of nameless faces that she had cut down in her game with The Joker.

But now the game was done, and the waves had settled into a blur of the past.

Harley Quinn may have killed them, but Harleen Quinzel would try to remember them. She tried to listen to the names of those she'd taken away as a boot came in contact with her ribs, but it was getting hard.

"You and your freak boyfriend killed my brother!" One of the women snarled in her ear, grabbing a fist full of Harleen's hair and wrenching her head back. "Elijah Hargrove. You remember him?"

"No, I'm sorry." She managed, squinting at the other woman through her swollen eye. Amber skin, dark eyes, button nose. Harleen had no idea who she was.

"You're a fucking liar!" The accusation was accompanied by a fist to her gut and a cannonball of pain.

She grunted, gritting her teeth as she took the blow, swallowing the pain. Harleen had taken many a beating in her life – her coach, her father, The Joker; what was one more from a bunch of women she didn't know?

At some point, someone came in to break up the fight and help her off the ground. She'd pushed them away and stumbled back to her room without a word.

She could walk, and that was better than she was used to.

She would be fine.

It didn't surprise her when Jessica Winters came into her room not too long after, as she'd been nursing her wounds and told her that she was going to have to stay somewhere else for the night, but it did piss her off.

"Ms. Quinzel, you can't just walk the streets!" Jessica called after her.

"You said I had to get out," Harleen called over her shoulder, slinging her bag over her other, unbruised shoulder as she made her way out of the lobby of the building and out into the parking lot. "So, I'm getting out."

If Jessica said something after, it was lost in the slamming of the door behind her.

Frigid air stung against the laceration on her cheek and the tender skin of her blackened eye, and she sighed deeply. She closed her eyes to fight back the memories of long nights in the gymnasium with her coach's voice in her ear and the sharp sting of the ruler that he would bring down against the backs of her legs.

" Pain is the price of perfection, Harleen !" He'd shout.

But if that was true, why was everything she did such a mess?

Blinking back her tears and swallowing the lump in her throat, she focused on simply getting to the other side of town. Her best friend and ex-lover, Pamela, had told her to find her if she needed anything. Harleen would crash on her couch for the night and start over in the morning, and everything would be fine.

Things will be fine.

Pulling her thin jacket closer, she carefully descended the cement stairs and into the empty parking lot. Okay, she thought. If I pick up the place, I should be able to get to Pammy's only a little after dark.

The black Bentley that pulled into the parking lot hardly concerned her, but she kept an eye on it in case some guy tried to pull up and get fresh with her. But when it hit a fast, sharp turn and parked near her, Harleen was ready for a fight.