Trigger warning: this chapter is rated M for violence and gore

Her heart was pounding in her throat as she walked out of Crane's office. He was about to poison her. He was just about to poison her! And he had accused her of—no she didn't want to think about it. Her and Falcone? There was a factor of truth to it, but he really didn't know the half of it, and she wasn't about to explain it to him. It was physically exhausting to put all her energy into suppressing those memories of her life with Falcone day in and day out, and in a span of less than ten minutes Crane had threatened to ruin all her hard work. His unwanted words echoed in her ears, Are you admitting that you and Falcone were involved? Why was he torturing her like this? All to find out what she feared? The tips of her fingers had gone numb and her hands were shaking uncontrollably when the guard returned her to her cell.

"Uh, Elena, you alright girl?" asked Harley, eyeing her shaking hands and disheveled appearance. "You off your meds or something?"

"We're doing it" Elena hissed through the steel bars of her cell.

"What?"

"Escaping. Tonight during dinner. Tell Ivy we're getting out of here."

The three girls had fallen into a tense silence during dinner. Ivy was poking moodily at her sweet potatoes and Harley kept checking the clock excitedly. "Now, Elena?"

"One more minute," she muttered in response. That was when the orderlies changed shifts. Elena kept her eyes on the men in the corner, chatting and smoking. Yes, her plan might very well work. "Get up, it's time" she whispered. The two blondes and the redhead stood up from the metal foldout benches and walked towards the kitchen. Tapping their trays on the edge of the garbage can, they casually walked into the kitchen when no one was looking and shut the door.

"You ladies aren't supposed to be in here- !" an indignant lunch matron scolded before Ivy slammed her head on the edge of the counter, knocking her out, while Harley locked the door.

"Don't kill her" Elena moaned.

"She's not dead, but we have more important things to worry about at this moment. How are we escaping?"

Elena pulled the pink bottle that Crane had given her as part of her demands, and unscrewed the cap.

"Nail polish remover?" Ivy asked skeptically.

"Funny thing about nail polish remover" said Elena as she began to pour the liquid over the kitchen stoves, "Is that it contains acetone, a base for most pain thinners. It is also-" She flipped the switch for one of the stoves and flames burst into life. "- highly flammable."

Harley clapped delightedly as she watched the flames jump from stove to stove until the whole kitchen was aflame, and the fire began to consume the wooden cupboards above the stoves as well.

"That's very cute, but how does this help us escape?" asked Ivy.

"Oh, we're not escaping tonight."

"But you said-" Harley began, but Ivy interrupted her.

"I told you if you betrayed us I would kill you, Moretti" she growled, grabbing Elena's throat.

"We don't have all the pieces, it won't work unless we do" she gasped, struggling to speak and breathe at the same time.

"Let her speak, I want to hear what she has to say, Ivy" Harley said reproachfully, swatting at Ivy's arms until she loosened her grip on Elena's throat.

"We were never going to escape tonight, it's not possible," Elena began, rubbing her neck. She began rummaging through the cupboards until she found what she was looking for. "Voila!" she said cheerfully, holding up three lunch matron uniforms.

"And what are we supposed to do with those?" Ivy asked skeptically.

"That's how we disguise ourselves, when we walk through the halls to the basement. There are security cameras everywhere. Harley, I need you to take these uniforms, go to the Maintenance Room and steal blueprints for the sewers, I'm sure they'll have them. And Ivy," she said, turning her attention back to the irate redhead, "I need you to lift a syringe from one of the orderlies, one that will knock one of them out when the time comes. Can you do that?" She nodded, reluctantly. "I would ask you to steal one of their keys to our cells, but that would be too easily missed. Hopefully, later we can use the syringe to knock out one of the guards, swipe their keys and get down to the basement after dark when all the patients that work there have gone to bed. And get a flashlight, one of you, from the guard's desk. It'll be dark when we go down to the sewers." "

"But Elena, what are you going to do then?"

"They need someone to blame the fire on, and once the smoke detectors go off all the orderlies are going to rush over here, I saw it happen when I set one off earlier in the men's bathroom."

"They'll punish you for this." Harley's girlish face was twisted in concern, but Ivy did not so much as blink at Elena's plan.

"We'll do it," Ivy conceded. "We need to get out of here before the smoke detectors go off, Harley."

"Go out the side entrance, not the way we came in," advised Elena.

Harley pounced on her and wrapped her in a tight hug. "Don't forget who you are, when they torture you. We'll be waiting when you get out."

They quickly left, Ivy shooting her one last look of- was it approval?

She sat down in the corner on the tile floor to get out of the smoke, and covered her ears when the smoke detectors began to screech, their red lights flashing. She heard chairs scrape in the other room as orderlies stood up from their card games and smoking and began to usher patients out of the cafeteria. One attempted to open the kitchen door, but it was still locked.

"Hey, open up!" the man outside ordered, rattling the door. "Get the keys, someone's locked it!"

Elena heard the dreaded door slam open as orderlies filed in and began to put out the fire. "There, that one!" shouted a guard, pointing at her.

"Get away from me!" she shrieked, scratching and clawing at the men who in seconds had pinned her to the group and restrained her. "Get off of me you monsters, no, God!" She screamed louder than the smoke alarms, but now they had been turned off and it was just her screaming to a roomful of unsympathetic, underpaid goons. A man pulled out a five inch syringe from his pocket and gave Elena a satisfied smile as he approached her with it. "NO!" The needle was shoved unceremoniously into her neck, and the poison within the needle was injected into her system. Elena snarled at the sharp pain from the needle, but her breathing quickly slowed and she watched as blackness began to creep into her vision.

Harley had said they were going to torture her. Great.

When she awoke, her vision was blurry and there was a sharp pain in her neck. Blinking furiously in the blinding white light, she attempted to look around the room for clues as to where she was. But upon trying to move her arms, she discovered they were strapped down tightly- her legs as well. She was completely powerless and that was utterly terrifying.

Calm down, Elena, you have to keep it together.

She bit her lip and turned her head to the side to try to see where she was. As far as she could tell, she was in one of those isolation rooms that Crane had in the basement, similar to the room where he- no Scarecrow- had showed her the man he had driven out of his mind with fear.

You have to make it through this sane, you know what's at stake.

"Miss Moretti, you're awake finally."

Crane's voice startled her. She hadn't even realized he was in the room.

"What am I, on suicide watch or something?"

"You appeared to have a mental break," he replied, walking over to where she was restrained. Though she couldn't see his face, she could tell from his voice that he was smirking.

Elena flinched as his cool fingers brushed against her neck, still sore from where the needle had pierced her skin.

"Imbeciles," she heard him mutter, and then he began to rummage through medical supplies. "This may hurt," he warned, and she inhaled sharply at the cool sting of rubbing alcohol on her neck. Why was he helping her? Just hours ago he had accused her of sleeping with her uncle, the crime lord of Gotham City. She hated him, she still hated him.

"Let me go," she said, trying to put a bit of steel in her voice to disguise her fear. But Crane made his living off of fear, it was the one thing he was utterly obsessed with, and she doubted she fooled him for an instant. Her attempts to hide her emotions were probably laughable to him. Knowing him, and seeing how he was able to completely conceal what he was thinking made her realize how awful she was at hiding hers. Alarm, fear, hatred, he could probably see it all on her face. It was unsettling how she was starting to see herself more and more from his point of view.

"You really are in no position to make demands, Miss Moretti." His voice was right above her now, but she still couldn't see him. He wasn't touching her anymore, but she could still feel the ghost of his fingers brushing against her neck. The thought of his hands on her caused anxiety to course through her veins, and something else she didn't want to identify.

"I'm feeling homicidal, not suicidal."

"Is that supposed to reassure me?"

"I'll promise not to hurt you." She knew she was antagonizing him, but he had backed her into a corner and she had nothing left to defend herself with.

She heard the squeak of his shoes on the tile floor and the soft thrum of the air conditioner in the corner of the room. "You really don't seem to understand the predicament you are in, Miss Moretti, so allow me to explain," he hissed in her ear, all mock politeness and amusement gone from his voice. "I have the fire department asking me to charge you for destruction to government property, a staff that is eager to see you punished, and the head of organized crime, your uncle, demanding to see you. And you know what is the only thing standing between you and them?" His breath felt surprisingly cool on her cheek, but his voice was full of hot rage masked by his icy demeanor. "Me."

Elena shut her eyes, maybe if she shut her eyes the world would stop for a moment and give her a second to catch her breath. Her heart was pounding so frantically and the bright florescent lights were making her dizzy.

Suddenly she felt the leather restraints loosen from around her wrists and ankles, and a hand wrapped around her forearm and yanked her to her feet.

"Look. At. Me."

He grabbed her chin and forced her to lock eyes with him. His eyes always made her feel trapped, like a deer in headlights.

"What are you thinking?" she asked softly, her voice barely louder than a whisper. His eyes were like ice, the color of ice.

"I'm wondering whether you're worth the trouble." She should tear his eyes away from him, say something clever or witty but her mind was blank. Elena had never been this close to him before. His gaze was scorching but she couldn't look away. She was the victim in this horror film, doomed from the beginning. "I've been lenient, I forgave your earlier outburst and look how you've repaid me. As far as I'm concerned, our deal was void the minute you attempted to burn down half my asylum." He reached into his pant pocket and pulled out a syringe, filled with toxic looking green liquid.

"No!" She tried to shove him away, but he kicked the bed she had been strapped to out of the way and slamming her against the wall. Her head was reeling from its collision with the concrete, but she still desperately tried to push him away. He was crushing her, her wrists in his vice-like grip above her head, his hips holding her in place. With his free hand he began to search for a suitable injection site on her arm, causing her to struggle even more violently.

"Don't fight me."

"Stop!" she shouted shrilly. "Please," she begged, searching his eyes in one last attempt to find some human emotion. She knew what would happen if he injected her with his toxin. Her mind would be destroyed from the inside out, and she would have to be strapped down in some mental ward for the rest of her life. Her brain would turn to mush, and only be able to process the abject terror she would feel ever waking second of every single day. "Please."

He met her eyes as he slowly pushed the needle in her arm, face blank of any emotion.

Elena gasped and finally managed to tear herself away from him, but the damage had been done.

"Oh God, oh God," she moaned, sinking to the floor. A spot of blood was forming at the injection site- he really had poisoned her. She'd never escape the asylum, and her last lucid moments would be spent with Crane.

"Based on your body weight, the toxin will take approximately two minutes to dissolve into your bloodstream and reach your nervous system."

She wasn't listening anymore. Everything he said at this point was irrelevant. Perhaps it's better this way, Elena she told herself. This way, all of her secrets would die with her.

One minute left.

How had she gotten here? She was 18, but she felt decades older. She'd gone to school, gotten good grades, and stayed out of trouble... for the most part, anyways. So why was she now locked up in Arkham again?

I killed a man.

"GodDAMMIT!" Her vision blurred suddenly and she felt as though her skull had suddenly split open. She put her head in her hands and closed her eyes, but she could feel the room spinning beneath her, and she felt her heart seize and then-

It was quiet. The room was empty- Crane must have left when her eyes had been shut. She heard that anxious buzzing sound that rang in her ears whenever things were too quiet. The only noise that she heard now was the sound of a faucet dripping, amplified one hundred times over. The sound was driving her crazy, but where was it coming from? A drop of water unexpectedly hit her on the nose, and she rubbed it off with her index finger.

Why would the roof be leaking? she wondered. Then her heart stopped- smeared on her finger was blood. She looked up to see a corpse staring down at her with blind, white eyes, and blood from a bullet hole in his head dripping down on her.

"What?" She jumped to her feet and ran to the door, shaking the handle, but it was locked.

"Elenaa," the corpse groaned in a raspy voice. "Remember me?"

She spun around and stared at the dead body shuffling towards her. Sandy hair, wearing a leather jacket and Nirvana T-shirt, the only thing different about him was his eyes, which were now a milky white. And the bullet wound, of course.

"Jacobs," she whispered softly. He had been one of Falcone's lieutenants, and had been a drug and sex addict that helped deliver drug shipments.

"You killed me," he said, pointing an accusing finger at her. "You stupid bitch."

"I did... You gave me no other choice."

She had always hated dead bodies. Her friends had tried to get her into zombie movies and TV shows like The Walking Dead, but she had never been able to stomach them. The dead reminded her of the bodies she would occasionally find around the house while she lived with the Falcones. A dismembered arm had once been left in the bathtub, a severed finger she had been forced to wrap in Christmas paper and mail. The worst memory she had was of finding a dead body in the trunk of her uncle's Corvette. She had been trying to find the source of the blowfly infestation, and stumbled upon it. She had showered for hours afterwards, trying to wash the smell of decomposition from her hair. Now the smell was back, and surrounded and suffocated her.

"Yes, because I know your secret," Jacobs crooned in a sing-song voice. "You snitched to the DA, and none of us could figure why, you had it so good as Falcone's favorite. But then," he laughed, wagging his finger at her, "Then one day I spotted you at the hospital, and after questioning your doctor found out all I needed to know. Who would have thought, right?"

"Stop, please don't tell anyone!" She had thought she would take her secrets to the grave, but here they were, back from the dead.

"No, I'm going to tell," he snarled, crossing the distance between them and grabbing her throat. "I'm going to tell every bloody person I see, but first..." He tightened his grip on her throat. "I'm going to kill you. Do you know why they call me the Butcher?"

She slapped him across the face, scratching him and drawing blood. His eyes darkened in anger.

Lifting her by her throat, he dragged her over to the restraints like a flimsy rag doll. She tried to fight him but oxygen deprivation had all but sapped her strength.

"There," he said patronizingly, patting her head after he had strapped her in. "Look up. That's something of my own invention." Above her was a mirror that covered the entire ceiling, giving her a full view of her and her captor. "When Mr. Falcone wants me to maim someone, he wants it done in a way that's gonna scar them for the rest of their life. The mirror there, that was my idea. That way my patients have to watch as I saw off their limbs. Their reactions are priceless, I have them all on video back at my place."

She yanked hard on her restraints but got nowhere. He had pulled them so tight they were beginning to cut off circulation to her limbs.

"So, what, you get off on their fear?" Her voice was weak and scratchy, but her eyes stared at him determinedly through the mirror.

"There's nothing wrong with enjoying another's pain."

"Sadist," she spat.

"Realist," he countered. "Life is nothing but pain. The sooner you learn to enjoy it, the more satisfied you will be as a human being. Now which would you rather keep, your arms or your legs? Doesn't matter really, you're going to die of blood loss anyways, but I'll let you pick."

Her heart was about to explode with all the adrenaline that was pumping through her veins. This can't be real, this can't be. But there was Jacobs, standing right above her, holding up a handsaw that glittered in the florescent light.

"I'll cut off your legs, don't want you runnin' nowhere." His hands traveled up her leg, pushing her skirt up and reaching her inner thigh.

"STOP!" she shrieked, but he had already begun to saw through her leg. There's no such thing as simply getting your leg "chopped off." There is layers of tissue and bone and muscle to cut through, and every moment of it is agony. Elena's mouth was open from screaming and she could taste the saltiness of her own blood. She desperately wanted to look away but it was like her eyes were super-glued open, and she couldn't look away. "HELP PLEASE!" she screamed, but she couldn't drown out the grating sound the saw's teeth grinding against the her bone. She was stuck on the ceiling, detached from her body and watching from above, but she still felt every second of the pain. Hundreds of millions of nerves in her leg were firing off warnings to her brain.

"Woo wee," Jacobs whistled. "Damn girl, look at that leg," he said holding it up to her face so she could see. "Do you want to hold it?"

The sight of her own severed flesh and broken bone inspired more terror in her than anything else in the world. She began to scream and she doubted she'd ever stop. "Elena," a voice called from above her. Not Jacobs, someone else. "Elena, stop, it's over." She blinked. The mirror had disappeared, and so had Jacobs, and all the blood.

Her heart was racing too quickly for her to stop and think.

"Where is he?!" she yelled, twisting her head back and forth. Someone had untied her restraints and she sat up on the bed. Her leg. She could still feel it, as if it were right there. Phantom Limb Syndrome, that's what it was, wasn't it? But she could see her right leg, it was still there. "It's still there," she said disbelievingly, hesitantly touching it as though she expected to fall off the next moment. But it didn't.

"What you just experienced was a vivid hallucination," Crane said, pulling his glasses off and wiping them on his shirt. He was standing where Jacobs had been moments before.

She looked at him curiously. There were three shallow scratch marks across his pale face that were beginning to bleed. Looking down at her hands, she saw that there was blood beneath her nails.

"I had to strap you down." He'd replaced his glasses and continued to stare at her. "You were choking yourself."

"What... why- why am I not... not-"

"I gave you the antidote."

She had been prepared to descend into madness. Her face was contorted with confusion. "Why? Isn't this what you wanted?"

He turned away from her, silent. Then he said, still facing the doorway, "You'll receive varying doses of the toxin each day." Hope fluttered in her chest at his words. So she wouldn't be going crazy?

"Until when?" she asked.

"Until your brain can no longer handle it, and you lose your mind completely."

Why was she shocked? She should have expected it. When she had woken from her hallucination, she had thought- well, she had hoped he was looking at her with some sort of regret. His pale blue eyes had almost seemed to lighten when she woke. But she was wrong. She should know better than to expect the best from people, especially him.

The heavy iron door slammed behind him, followed by the sharp click of the lock. It wasn't until he left that she realized he had called her by her first name. Crane, not Scarecrow.

Elena. He called me Elena.

Jacob's character was inspired by a character on the show Criminal Minds, from one of the earlier seasons, that episode was so scary! Sorry for making you guys wait so long for another chapter. I have no good excuses besides school, college apps, tests, stress ughh /3. I was also having a bit of writer's block, and I didn't want to write a chapter that I wasn't 100% sure of. I love you all, I think I actually have the sweetest followers :') Your reviews are always so nice and actually make me smile for the rest of the day, honestly. Keep reviewing, favoriting, and following! I will tryyy to update soon.