The Imperfect Art of Madness (Jerome/Harleen)

Chapter Four - Freeze Your Brain

The dogs should have come with teeny tiny halos.

Little feathery wings busting out of their scarred backs, they were more welcome to Harleen than angels anyway. They were the only thing that kept her cracking in two then and there.

Her hands had been trembling too hard, stomach squeezing as she held onto the knife, as she tried to do what was necessary to protect her friends. Probably the only friends she had left now, she thought dimly, Jerome had seen to that.

And still it almost hadn't been enough.

But then there was the sound of barking and it was summer time again, the lazy heat drifting through the kennels as she dragged a heavy feed bag around. Caring for animals someone else had been lucky enough to have and foolish enough to let go of.

Part of her had told herself she was doing it for her transcripts, a full resume and a coupla extra dollars every week for her college fund. But it wasn't just that, it never had been.

They needed her.

Needed her like no one else in her life ever had.

How many of them came in hurt? Abused? Terrified and mistrusting, branded as monsters when they lashed out because of the hell they'd lived through.

It was more than she could bear sometimes. Enough to send rage burning through her insides, a viscous red and ugly emotion that made her hit out at the walls when no one was around.

That made her drive a knife in when she thought she couldn't.

But then a cold nose would bump her palm and she was okay again.

She was better, because they deserved better.

So she'd killed the stranger and totted off back to ' her ' room with a pounding headache and two dobermans in tow.

The dogs gave her something else to think about at least, something physical she could touch and comfort and care for. Something to distract her from the endless waking nightmare she'd found herself in.

They didn't have names so she made up her own, there was a torn up old movie poster on her wall. Abbott and Costello. She frowned at it, too fancy. Too obvious. Bud and Lou however... that would work.

The one with the half-missing ear would Bud, the one with the half-missing tail would be Lou. They were puppies really, barely a year old if she had to guess, but they were scarred and scraped beyond their years.

She thought maybe they knew how she felt.

She talked to them off handedly as she searched her room. Looking for a weapon, a cell phone, a hidden escape route she'd somehow missed before. It was bare of everything except debris. The medicine cabinet above the sink was a mess too, filled with half-empty bottles of hair dye, deodorants, tampons, tooth brushes - used and not, a whole shelf of brightly coloured grease paints and at least a half dozen prescription bottles ranging from Viagra to Xanax.

She popped one of that last one's before lying back down to sleep in her stolen room, wondering how many maniacs had laid there before her.

When she woke up it was to find a stranger knocking at her door, another lunatic, this one had a pinched face and a smudged red smile painted over her face. If she made it into the lifetime movie she'd be played by a dangerously underweight Rooney Mara type with a buzz cut.

"Clothes," was all the stranger said, thrusting a bundle at her. "Ten minutes."

She wondered if it had been her room before then shrugged. It didn't matter. She shook out the clothes instead, black leggings a size too small, a red t-shirt three sizes too big. She cleaned up as best she could in the broken sink, scrubbing her face free from make-up and wincing as she went over the bruise, the left side of her face still mottled purple and yellow and sore.