Chapter 40: Tear-Stained Revenge Planning
The front door slammed open so hard the framed picture of a wilting venus flytrap Harley had insisted was "art" rattled on the wall. Harmony stood in the doorway, backlit by the grey twilight, her small frame shaking. Sobs wrecked her chest, ugly and gasping. Black streaks of mascara cut through the blush on her cheeks.
She stumbled forward, collapsing face-first into the deep cushions of the couch, burying a wet, broken sound in the fabric.
Harley froze mid-swing, her aluminum mallet poised above a hapless piñata shaped like a cartoon banker. The playful malice drained from her face, replaced by something instantaneous and feral. She dropped the mallet with a clatter that echoed in the sudden silence and was at the couch in three long strides.
"Hey. Hey, look at me." Harley's voice was low, stripped of its usual manic gleam. She didn't try to pull Harmony up, just slid onto the cushions and gathered her, turning the younger girl over and cradling her face in both hands. Her thumbs, rough from gripping bat handles, smeared the tears and makeup. "Breathe. C'mon, bunny, breathe with me. Out." She demonstrated, a sharp, exaggerated inhale.
Harmony tried to match it, her breath hitching painfully. She clutched at Harley's wrists, her nails digging into the leather straps of her bracelets.
"Who do I gotta kill?" Harley asked, the question delivered with a terrifying, flat calm. Her blue eyes were chips of ice. "Just give me a name. A description. I'm not picky."
From the archway to the kitchen, Ivy appeared, a shadow detaching itself from the deeper shadows of the hall. She moved silently, her bare feet making no sound on the floorboards. She didn't rush. Her gaze took in the scene: Harley coiled like a spring around the sobbing girl, the abandoned mallet, the salt-sting of misery thick in the air. She came to stand behind the couch, looking down at the crown of Harmony's head. Her expression was unreadable, but a single ivy tendril snaked over the back of the sofa to gently brush a stray curl from Harmony's damp forehead.
"It's... it's stupid," Harmony choked out, pressing her face into Harley's palm.
"Don't care," Harley said, her voice still that low, deadly wire. "If it hurt you, it's not stupid. Was it some jerkoff at the boardwalk? Someone from the grocery store? I saw that bagboy lookin' at you funny last week. I shoulda popped his eyes out then."
Harmony shook her head, a fresh wave of tears spilling over. "No. It was... online."
The tension in the room shifted. Harley's predatory stillness didn't lessen, but it redirected. Ivy’s green eyes narrowed slightly.
"Online," Harley repeated, the word a curse. "What, some troll? On that stupid app you're always on?"
"It's... a forum. For Arkham... survivors." The word tasted bitter. "People who got out. Talking about their... recovery." She swallowed hard. "They had a thread. 'Most Irredeemable Inmates.' And I was... I was on it. They had my picture. My name."
Harley’s grip tightened infinitesimally. "So a bunch of normies sitting in their basements with their dick in one hand and a moral compass in the other decided to play judge? Fuck 'em."
"They said things," Harmony whispered, her voice small and shattered. "They said I was a lost cause. That I chose the darkness. That I was... just like you. A monster who enjoyed it."
A slow, wicked grin spread across Harley's face. It wasn't a happy expression. It was a baring of teeth. "Aw, they think you're like me? That's the nicest thing anyone's said about you all week, Harm."
"Harley," Ivy's voice cut in, soft but firm. She rounded the couch and sat on the coffee table facing them, her knees almost touching Harmony's. The firelight played in her hair. "Let her finish."
"They talked about my file. Someone leaked parts of it. They said my psych eval proved I was... predisposed. That I was just looking for an excuse. That I didn't belong with the patients, I belonged with the criminals." She looked up, her hazel eyes swimming with a fresh kind of pain. "They said I was a groupie. That I was just... clinging to you two because I had a fetish for villains."
The room went utterly silent, save for the crackle of the fire and the distant, relentless sigh of the ocean.
Ivy reached out, not with a vine, but with her own hand. She cupped Harmony's cheek, her touch cool and steadying. "Look at me," she said, and her voice was the deep, quiet rumble of roots moving through earth. "Do you feel like you're clinging to us?"
Harmony shook her head, a desperate, tiny motion.
"Do you feel like our... groupie?"
"No."
"Then their words are empty. Noise." Ivy's thumb stroked her cheekbone. "They are people who need to believe the world is simple. That good and evil are clear. They need to put us in a box labeled 'monster' so they can sleep at night, safe in their own boring, fragile little boxes. Their opinion is irrelevant. It has no power here."
"But it hurts," Harmony breathed.
"I know," Ivy said, and there was a universe of old, weathered pain in those two words.
Harley leaned forward, her forehead pressing against Harmony's. "You wanna know what you are, Hayes? You're ours. Our mess. Remember? You said it yourself. You think we give a single, solitary fuck what some nobody on the internet thinks about our mess?"
A shaky, wet laugh escaped Harmony. "No."
"Damn right, no." Harley pulled back, her eyes blazing. "Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna order that disgusting extra-cheesy pizza you like. We're gonna watch terrible movies until you fall asleep. And then," she said, her grin turning truly feral, "I'm gonna get on that forum. And I'm gonna give those sanctimonious pricks a real reason to be afraid of the dark."
Ivy sighed, a long-suffering sound, but there was a glint of approval in her eyes. "No murder, Harley. Digital only."
"Fine," Harley pouted, then brightened. "I can do so much with digital. I can ruin their credit. I can sign them up for every cult, alien conspiracy, and furry dating site on the planet. I can make their printers only print out pictures of my ass for the rest of their natural lives."
For the first time, a real, genuine smile broke through Harmony's tears. She looked from Harley's vengeful glee to Ivy's calm, unwavering support. The hole their words had torn in her chest began to knit itself back together, stitched with something stronger than internet malice. It was stitched with them.
"Okay," Harmony whispered, leaning into Ivy's hand and squeezing Harley's wrists. "Okay."