Method Madness

The apartment was quiet in the way only an old apartment could be: layers of silence, each one laid down by years of footfalls, laughter, late-night arguments that never quite left the drywall.

Even with the city alive beyond the glass, the living room felt like a time capsule—mid-century sofa, rug that still smelled faintly of dog, and a wall of family photos so perfectly squared you'd think someone measured the smiles every month.

Barbara sat on the floor, back against the couch, one bare foot fidgeting at the edge of a coffee table stacked with library books and police reports. She was in sweats and a t-shirt, wet hair knotted in a towel, the posture of someone who had nowhere to be and nowhere to go. On the stereo, an old jazz record spun low and blurry. She scribbled into a spiral notebook, tongue caught between her teeth.

From the kitchen, Jim Gordon called out,

"You want more coffee?" His voice was half-muffled by a mouthful of toast.

Barbara leaned her head back, craned her neck until she could see the faded blue of her father's bathrobe at the edge of the hallway.

"I'll explode. And it's after five."

He grunted, then appeared with the mug anyway, steam rising, the "#1 Dad" graphic faded to a ghost of its former self.

"Decaf. Doctor's orders."

He handed it down and eased himself onto the couch above her, knees popping audibly. His hair was still mostly brown, but years of stress had salted the temples, and his eyes had the hollowed-out look of a man who'd seen every possible outcome and knew the worst ones came true more often than not.

Barbara sniffed the mug.

"Liar."

He shrugged.

"I like the smell."

She sipped, then set it down on the nearest stack of reports. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The sun was setting, lighting up the thin film of dust on the windows, making the entire room glow the color of old film.

Barbara closed her notebook and twisted around to look at her father.

"You're not worried about the review board?"

He shook his head.

"They don't want my head. Not this quarter."

"Sure about that?"

"Two weeks from retirement. What could go wrong?" He smiled, but it didn't quite reach the eyes.

Barbara rolled her own.

"You know you're tempting fate."

"That's my job." He draped an arm across the back of the couch, fingers absently combing through her damp hair.

"You staying for dinner?"

"I told Leslie I'd meet her after six, but I can help with prep." She stretched her legs, toes brushing the baseboard heater.

"Anything but salad."

He snorted.

"Pizza. Again. Easy on the greens."

She grinned.

"We'll both die happy."

He looked at her, then, really looked, the way he did sometimes when he thought she wasn't paying attention. There was pride there, and worry, and a bottomless gratitude she'd survived to adulthood with most of her soul intact. He opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and let the silence stretch.

A knock came at the door.

Neither of them moved for a beat. Then Barbara blinked, as if woken from a spell, and said,

"Are you expecting anyone?"

Gordon frowned, checked his watch, then shook his head.

"Maybe a neighbor. Or the mail."

Barbara stood, cinched the towel tighter around her hair, and padded across the carpet. The hallway was longer than it needed to be, painted a gray that never looked clean, and the deadbolt stuck a little when she tried to turn it. She called back,

"If it's a package, we're not signing for any more—"

She opened the door.

And for one surreal, impossible moment, the world went silent again.

Standing on the stoop, illuminated by the last sweep of evening sun, was a man dressed as if he'd been poured from a Vegas souvenir shop: pink-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt, pressed khaki shorts, white bucket hat, and a camera slung around his neck big enough to belong to a war photographer. He wore sandals—actual sandals, with socks—and carried a cheap paper bag with a hotel logo she didn't recognize.

His face was pale, almost too pale, like old ice under green-tinted lenses. His mouth was stretched in a smile so wide it seemed to hurt.

She stared, not processing.

"Hi!" The man's voice was bright and helium-high, completely at odds with his size. He grinned wider, if possible, and pointed the camera at her.

"Say cheese, Babs!"

The click was loud, mechanical, a flash that burned her retinas for a split second.

Barbara recoiled, blinking, one hand coming up out of reflex.

"Excuse me, do—are you—?"

He stepped closer, close enough for her to see the faint dusting of blue makeup at the hairline, the white teeth too perfect, too regular.

"Sorry, wrong address? You're not the famous commissioner's daughter, are you?"

For the first time, something in her spine went cold.

He smiled, and in that instant, the mask of the tourist slipped—not completely, just a hair, just enough to show the rictus of something ancient and hungry underneath.

"Oh," he said, eyes wide and shining.

"I must have the wrong number."

Behind her, she heard Gordon's chair scrape.

"Babs, who is it?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but the man at the door was already moving.

The paper bag dropped, and something heavy and metal flashed from behind the camera.

She barely had time to register the gun before the first bullet hit.

....

The first shot was so loud it seemed to punch a hole in the world.

Barbara staggered backwards, the blast slamming her shoulder into the doorframe. For a split second, nothing happened—then the pain hit, raw and absolute, as if every nerve in her gut had been wired to the same detonator. She doubled over, hands pressed to her stomach, warmth gushing between her fingers.

Behind her, the hallway floor was already stippled with droplets. Blood ran down her wrists, painting the towel at her head, the gray of the walls, the slippers abandoned by the door. She heard a second shot, the report bouncing in her skull, and the next wave of pain folded her in half.

She tried to scream but the air came out in a wet, bubbling cough.

Gordon was up in an instant, feet bare on the carpet, voice breaking into a thousand useless syllables.

"Babs? Barbara!"

He reached for her, but the man in the tourist shirt aimed again, casual as a man lining up a golf swing.

A third bullet, through the thigh. Barbara's legs gave out; she pitched backwards, arms pinwheeling, and landed hard against the coffee table. The glass top exploded in a storm of shards, glittering with a hundred points of light before raining down in a stinging, razored mist.

The table frame cracked under her weight and splintered, one edge gouging into her back.

The smell of blood and gunpowder filled the room.

She tried to move. Nothing below her ribs answered. Her left hand slapped at the floor, hunting for leverage, but the muscles were gone, replaced with an alien numbness that radiated outwards in a bloom of cold.

The man in the shirt—Joker, she could see it now, the white caked in the lines of his neck, the way his grin never twitched—stepped over her, careful not to track blood on the rug.

He paused, considered, then snapped a picture of her with the big camera. The flash went off, searing the backs of her eyelids.

"Beautiful," he said, voice thick with delight.

"Oh, Babs, you really do take after your old man."

Gordon lunged, but another figure appeared—hulking, face hidden behind mirrored aviators and a Joker mask printed on a balaclava. The goon seized Gordon, twisted his arms behind his back, and shoved him to the floor with a boot planted squarely in the middle of his back.

Barbara lay in a hurricane of pain, blinking against the tears, fingers dragging crimson streaks across the laminate. She tried to roll over, to see her father, but the Joker dropped to a squat, blocking her view. He reached down, and with a showman's flourish, lifted her chin until their eyes met.

"Smile," he whispered, and pressed the shutter again.

The world tilted, the room filling with spots and static, but through it all she heard her father's voice—frantic, pleading, fighting to get to her. She tried to say his name. Only blood came out.

The last thing she saw before the dark was the Joker's face, so close the makeup smeared onto her cheek, the flash of the camera like a bolt of lightning over a grave.

Then nothing.

.....

Jim Gordon tried to get up, but the goon's weight was impossible. The bastard had years on the force, Gordon could tell, maybe ex-military; the hold was perfect, unbreakable, and the boot at his spine pressed him so hard into the carpet he thought his ribs might snap.

He craned his neck, desperate for a line of sight to Barbara, but the only thing in focus was the Joker's shins—bare, hairless, and sprinkled with red, like a chef's apron after the worst night shift of his life.

Joker put the camera aside, reached into the dropped paper bag, and withdrew a thick length of police-issue zip ties. He dangled them in the air, as if showing off a trophy.

"Commissioner!" he sang.

"I'm afraid this is going to be a very, very bad day for you."

The second goon entered the apartment, took in the carnage, and snorted with delight.

"You got the girl good, boss." He walked a circle around Gordon, then rolled him over with one foot, not gently.

Gordon's breath came ragged; he'd been punched before, but never in the soul. He managed,

"You leave her alone—"

The goon slapped him, open hand, hard enough to rattle his teeth.

"You're not in charge, Grandpa." He zipped Gordon's hands together behind his back, then looped another tie around his ankles. Tight, professional.

"We got a job to do."

Joker knelt beside Barbara, camera in one hand, the other poking at her wound with an idle, almost clinical curiosity.

"She's a tough one. Bet she could break the world in half if you let her." He tapped her cheek with two fingers.

"You awake, Babs? Want to see your old man before he goes?"

Barbara's eyelids flickered, but nothing else moved.

Joker stood, wiped his hand on Gordon's robe, and gestured to his men.

"Time to go, gentlemen. We don't want to miss our window."

The goons hauled Gordon to his feet, ignoring his curses, and dragged him toward the door. Gordon twisted, tried to plant his feet, but they yanked him along, bouncing his shins off the upended coffee table, the broken frame still sticky with his daughter's blood.

He tried to look at her, one last time, but the Joker blocked his line of sight.

"She'll be fine, Jim. I promise," Joker whispered, lips almost touching his ear.

"But you—oh, you're going to remember this. Every detail."

The goons muscled Gordon out the door, down the hall, and into a waiting van. Joker lingered, pausing to survey the ruin, hands on hips, smile stretching wider and wider. He walked the perimeter of the living room, snapping photos, narrating his own documentary.

"Note the décor. Suburban, mid-level income. Daughter with a PhD—oh, Babs, you're such an overachiever. Now look at her! Isn't it funny how one moment can change everything?"

He dropped the camera on Barbara's chest, letting the strap dig into the wound. Then he knelt, lips close to her ear, and whispered,

"You're a star, baby. Smile for me."

Then he was gone, sandals slapping the hallway tile. The laughter followed, rolling down the corridor, out the door, and into the low dusk of the city beyond.

Barbara lay on the floor, alone, eyes staring up at the ceiling. She could feel nothing below her chest, but her mind was a red tide, boiling and churning, refusing to die.

She heard a siren, far off. Maybe coming. Maybe not.

The room was so quiet, you could hear the blood soaking into the rug.

.......

Okay you guys are smashing the reviews and ruining my backlog of chapters but fair is fair so here is your free chapter for 30 reviews. From now on it's gone up to every 10 reviews to save my sanity hahaha.

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