Devil's Playground • Gotham Fanfiction •

XXIII - Truth for Truth?

"I am malicious because I am miserable" - Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

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"Who are you?" Jerome questioned.

Bird opened her mouth to answer him, though she didn't plan on telling him the truth.
If he couldn't remember her on his own, she wasn't about to say anything that might jog his memory.

"What happened to me?"
He asked.

His eyes peered back over to the hard cold metal table he'd woke up on.
With the back of his hand still holding the gun, he pushed the gauze that had started to slide into his eyes back up.

Jerome still couldn't remember much. Everything was fuzzy.

All he could remember was darkness.
A feeling of being suspended in nothingness. A void; for what felt like years.

"Was I dead?" He guessed.

"Yes." Bird answered when he was quiet.

"But now I'm not? He pushed.

With her cellphone still in her hand, Bird tried to make her movements as inconspicuous as possible when she flipped the phone open down by her side.

"HA!" Jerome exclaimed with a sudden jerk of his head towards the right.
It was a rough movement and seemed completely involuntary.

"Nice try." He motioned with the gun from Bird's hand to the table.
Silent instruction to put her phone down.
That as subtle as her movements had been, they'd not been lost on him.

Knowing she really didn't have another option at the moment, Bird closed the phone and dropped it onto the metal table with a thud.
Her plans of calling Jim foiled.

"Well-" Jerome started before another muscle contraction in his neck jerked his head to the side again, "I'm guessing you're not the one who brought me back."

Bird's eyes darted from his face back to the gun in his hand.
She had to get out of there.

He seemed to be having trouble controlling his motions, which meant he could pull that trigger and shoot her without even meaning to.

"It was your cult."
Bird spoke up.

After being so dead set about doing anything to risk jogging his memory, she decided to take another route.

Maybe overloading his still waking brain with information would be distraction enough for her to get out of the room -or at least for her to call Jim where he'd hear Jerome in the background and know what was going on.

"Apparently they've been planning this for a while." Bird added.

"My cult?" Jerome took step closer, "I joined a cult?"

Bird nearly laughed.

"No..." She shook her head, "It's a cult that looks up to you. It was a relatively small following you had while still alive...they mostly seemed to form after you were dead. That's probably why you don't remember."

He was still staring at her, but there was a vacant expression on his face.

Testing the waters, she took a step closer to the table where he phone was sitting.
When he didn't respond or even seem to notice the movement; she started to reach for her phone, but before she could grab it someone tried to open the door to the room.

Bird and Jerome stared at each other in silence trying to gauge the others intentions with someone right outside of the door.

"Is someone in there?" Lee asked as she tried to the door again, but it was still locked.