Chapter 2: The Living Room Interrogation
The rose was still tapping when a different sound cut through the silence—three sharp raps on the bedroom door, followed by the turn of the lock. It wasn’t Harley’s energetic rhythm.
“Up. Now.” Ivy’s voice, cool and clear through the wood.
Wren hadn’t slept. She’d sat on the edge of the narrow bed, staring at her hands, tracing the faint marks the vines had left. They looked like bracelet imprints. She stood, her legs stiff, and opened the door.
Poison Ivy looked her up and down. “You’ll do. Follow.”
No explanation. Wren followed, her socked feet silent on the polished hardwood floors. They passed through corridors she hadn’t seen, past closed doors humming with machinery, under a skylight where the moon hung like a sliver of bone. The house felt alive, a sleeping beast with a strange, vegetal heartbeat.
Ivy pushed open a set of double doors into a sprawling living room. It was a study in violent contradictions. Deep emerald velvet sofas that looked sinfully soft were arranged around a mahogany table scarred with cigarette burns and what might have been acid marks. Crystal chandeliers dripped light onto scattered playing cards and half-empty whiskey decanters. The air was a layered cocktail of fine cigar smoke, old leather, and the faint, sweet-tangy perfume that was uniquely Ivy.
And there, between two armchairs, resting as casually as a throw pillow, was a loaded crossbow.
Harley was perched on the back of the largest sofa, swinging her legs. She’d changed into a loose tank top and silk shorts, her hair damp at the ends as if from a shower. She gave Wren a slow, appraising smile.
The Joker occupied a wingback chair. He was turned slightly towards the grand fireplace, a long, sharp knife in his hand, catching the firelight on its blade as he flipped it end over end, catching it by the handle with a soft, repetitive snick.
“Sit,” Ivy said, gesturing to a plush ottoman positioned directly in the center of the room. It felt like being put on a stage.
Wren sat, folding her hands in her lap to hide their trembling. The fire was warm on her skin. The snick of the knife was a metronome counting her heartbeat.
“So,” the Joker began, not looking at her, his attention seemingly fixed on the dancing flame reflected in the steel. “The list. Quite the inventory. ‘Praise.’ ‘Humiliation.’ ‘Fucking till I pass out.’” He repeated her words with a clinical detachment that made her skin crawl. “Tell me, little canary. Which of these is the real prize? The sweetness… or the slap?”
He finally turned his head. The fire cast half his face in shadow, making the red of his grin a gash of darkness. “And don’t say both. That’s a boring answer.”
Wren’s mouth went dry. This was the test. Her babbling had gotten her in the door. Now her honesty had to earn her a chair at the table. She swallowed. “The… the lack of thinking,” she said, her voice quieter than she intended. “When you’re… when it’s like that. You don’t have to think. Someone else has the control. All the stupid, buzzing thoughts in your head just… stop. It’s quiet. That’s the prize. The quiet.”
The knife stopped flipping. He held it poised in the air. Harley stopped swinging her legs. Ivy, who had moved to lean against the mantle, tilted her head.
“Quiet,” the Joker echoed, tasting the word. He looked at Harley, then Ivy, a silent communication passing between them. “And how do you feel about the quiet being… enforced?”
Before she could answer, Harley slid off the sofa. She began to circle the ottoman, a slow, predatory orbit. Wren forced herself to stay still, to track her with her eyes only.
“She likes when women are mean to her,” Harley said, not to Wren, but to the room. “That’s what she said. ‘Mean.’ Such a vague little word.” She stopped behind Wren. Wren could feel the heat of her, smell the clean scent of her soap. Harley’s fingers, light as ghosts, brushed the hair away from the back of Wren’s neck. Wren’s breath hitched. “Does ‘mean’ mean I don’t let you come? Or does it mean I make you come until you cry? ‘Mean’ is a lot of things, songbird.”
Her touch vanished. She completed her circle, coming to stand in front of Wren, blocking her view of the Joker. She crouched down, putting them at eye level. “You gave us a yellow for knife play. Light cuts. Why yellow and not green? Be specific.”
The interrogation was sudden, direct. Wren’s mind scrabbled for purchase. “Because… because a cut is permanent. A mark. A bruise fades. A welt goes away. A cut… stays. It’s a decision that lasts longer than the moment. It’s… serious.”
“Serious,” Harley murmured, her blue eyes flickering with something unreadable. “You think we’re not serious?”
“I think you’re the most serious people I’ve ever met,” Wren breathed, the truth of it solid in her chest.
Harley held her gaze for a long moment, then stood, looking over at the Joker. “She’s consistent.”
The Joker resumed flipping the knife. “Consistency can be a lie told very well.” He shifted his chemical-spill eyes to Wren. “Ownership. Collar. Talked to like a toy. You want to be a thing.”
It wasn’t a question. Wren felt her face flush, a hot wave of shame that was inextricably mixed with a sharp, unwelcome thrill. “In that space… yes.”
“And outside of it?”
“I… I don’t know yet.”
“Wrong answer.” The knife stopped. His voice didn’t rise, but it filled the room, cold and absolute. “You are a thing. From the moment you woke up in our garden. You are our thing. The only question is what kind of thing you’ll be. A useful thing. A decorative thing. A broken thing.” He leaned forward, the firelight making hollows of his cheeks. “Your ‘space’ is a fantasy. This,” he gestured with the knife, taking in the room, the estate, the three of them, “is the reality. The collar isn’t a game here. It’s a fact.”
The finality of it stole the air from her lungs. He was right. She had bargained for her life, and this was the currency. She had offered herself as a submissive, and they were accepting—not as roleplay, but as terms of existence.
Harley had moved again. She was beside the Joker’s chair now, one hand resting on its high back, her expression watchful.
Ivy spoke from the fireplace, her voice the gentle rustle of a threat. “You noted the fungal growth on the Strelitzia. Explain the treatment.”
The shift was so jarring Wren’s brain stuttered. She blinked, forcing the panic down, grasping for the solid ground of fact. “You… you need to improve air circulation. Trim surrounding foliage to reduce humidity retention. A fungicide might be necessary, but a bicarbonate solution could work as a first pass. It depends on the strain.”
Ivy considered her. “You’ll show me tomorrow.”
It was an order. A task. A thread of purpose.
The Joker stood in one fluid motion, the knife disappearing into the folds of his coat. He looked down at Wren, his expression unreadable. “You stumble on the big questions. You cling to the small details. A contradictory little thing.” He stepped closer, until the tips of his polished shoes almost touched her knees. “We’ll have to see if that contradiction is worth the trouble.”
He turned and walked out, his footsteps fading down the hall.
The room felt larger, emptier, and somehow more dangerous without his concentrated presence. Harley let out a long, exaggerated breath. “Whew! Pop quiz passed. Mostly. C’mon, toy.” The word was a deliberate, testing poke.
Wren looked up at her.
Harley’s grin was back, but it was edged in something softer. “You look wiped. Ivy’s got you gardening tomorrow. You’ll need sleep.” She offered a hand, just like she had in the conservatory.
This time, Wren took it without hesitation. Harley pulled her up, but didn’t let go immediately. Her thumb rubbed a small, slow circle on the back of Wren’s hand. “The ‘please’ thing stands,” she said, her voice low, for Wren alone. “And just so you know? You wanting the quiet? We get that. Probably better than anyone.”
She released her hand and gave her a light shove toward the door. “Go on. Don’t make me tuck you in.”
Wren walked back to her room, the ghosts of their touches on her skin—Ivy’s clinical assessment, Harley’s circling presence, the Joker’s devastating finality. She was a thing. Their thing. The thought should have been a prison door slamming shut.
But as she lay in the dark, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the house, a treacherous part of her felt something else for the first time since she’d died: a terrifying, electric sense of belonging.
It was a sick feeling, that belonging. It curled hot in her stomach, warring with the cold dread. She slept in fits, the tap of the rose against the glass now replaced by the sigh of the house’s old bones and the distant, metallic echo from a floor below.
Morning came as a grey seep of light through the window. No one came for her. The silence felt deliberate, a test of its own. Her stomach growled, a brutally normal sound.
She used the small, attached bathroom, scrubbing her face with cold water. Her reflection was familiar yet alien here, the freckles across her nose like scattered dust. She listened at the door for a long minute before turning the handle. It was unlocked.
The hallway was empty. She followed the scent of coffee and something burning, her socked feet silent on the runner. It led her back to the vast living area, now washed in pale, cloudy daylight. The crossbow was gone. The decanters had been cleared.
Harley was nowhere. The Joker was a silent, lounging shape in the same wingback chair, reading a newspaper with the headline “CHAOS IN QUINCY: GAS MAIN OR GAG?”. He didn’t look up.
Ivy stood at a gleaming industrial stove, her back to the room. A saucepan hissed. “Sit,” she said, not turning. “If you’re hungry, you eat. We’re not barbarians.”
Wren hesitated, then chose a stool at the large kitchen island. It was cold marble under her palms. Ivy placed a bowl in front of her. It held a perfectly arranged portion of oatmeal, topped with fresh berries and a drizzle of honey that looked amber-dark and expensive. It was absurdly, meticulously normal.
“Thank you,” Wren said, the words feeling strange.
Ivy merely nodded, returning to her own bowl. She ate with a precise, economical grace. The Joker turned a page of his newspaper. The rustle was loud.
“You said to show you the Strelitzia,” Wren ventured, picking up her spoon.
“I did.” Ivy’s emerald eyes flicked to her. “After you eat. The fungicide is mixed. You will apply it.”
“Okay.”
“And you will tell me what you think of the soil composition in the eastern bed. It feels lethargic.”
Wren paused, a berry halfway to her mouth. “It… feels lethargic?”
“To me,” Ivy stated, as if this was obvious.
The Joker chuckled behind his paper, a dry, papery sound. “She talks to them. They talk back. Don’t get her started on the roses’ gossip. Vicious, the tea roses. Absolute terrors.”
Ivy shot him a look that could have wilted steel, but there was a faint, undeniable warmth in it. A shared joke. Wren felt like she was watching a planetary alignment through a keyhole. She ate the oatmeal. It was perfect.
The conservatory was different by day. The light was diffuse, softer, the colours deeper. The air was still warm and humid, but it felt more like a workplace. Tools were laid out on a stone bench: shears, trowels, a spray bottle filled with a milky liquid.
Ivy handed her a pair of thin, green gloves. “Wear these. The solution won’t harm you, but I dislike unnecessary chemical contact on skin.”
Wren pulled them on. They were supple, like a second skin. Ivy guided her to the towering Bird of Paradise. Up close, the black-edged lesions on the leaves were clear. “Apply evenly. Not a drowning. A misting. The plant is stressed. More stress is counterproductive.”
Wren nodded, focusing on the task. The simple, physical instruction was a relief. She misted the leaves, her movements careful. She was aware of Ivy watching her, not like a supervisor, but like a scientist observing a new variable.
“The eastern bed,” Ivy said after a while. “This way.”
They moved to a raised planter overflowing with dark, rich soil and the lush greenery of exotic ferns and trailing vines. Ivy sank her bare hand into the earth up to her wrist. She closed her eyes. A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of green traveled up her forearm.
Wren stared, her breath caught.
Ivy opened her eyes, withdrawing her hand. “It’s not lethargic. It’s sated. Over-fed. Complacent.” She wiped her hand on a cloth. “Your diagnosis?”
It was an exam. Wren crouched, picking up a handful of soil. She squeezed it, watched it crumble. She smelled it—deep, loamy, but with a flat, heavy note. “It’s too dense,” she said slowly, thinking it through. “Too much organic matter breaking down without enough aeration. The roots are probably waterlogged underneath all this luxury. They’re lazy. They don’t have to fight for anything.”
Ivy was silent for a long moment. “Yes.” The word held a note of satisfaction. “We will amend it. You will help me turn it. Today.”
The work was hard, physical. They removed plants, set them in temporary pots, then began to fork over the dense soil, mixing in gritty sand and perlite. Wren’s muscles, softened by her old life of desks and commuting, burned. Sweat stuck her shirt to her back. Ivy worked with a silent, relentless efficiency, her strength undeniable.
“Why are you doing this?” Wren finally asked, the words punched out between turns of the fork.
Ivy didn’t stop. “The soil needed correction.”
“No. I mean… this. With me. Letting me do this.”
Ivy drove her fork deep, levered up a dark wedge of earth. “A thing must have a function to have value. You expressed a desire to be useful. This is useful.” She glanced at Wren, her gaze calculating. “It is also a test. Patience. Diligence. Respect for the process. Many people lack the capacity for any of it.”
“And if I fail?”
“Then you become decorative,” Ivy said, her tone flat. “Or fertilizer. The latter is simpler.”
Wren kept digging. The threat was no less real for its simplicity. The soil, now looser, darker, breathed a sweeter scent. Her hands ached in the gloves. It was the best she’d felt in days.
They were finishing, repotting the last fern, when a shadow fell across the planter. The Joker leaned against the glass wall, having appeared without a sound. He watched them, his hands in his pockets.
“Playing in the dirt, Red? How domestic.” His eyes slid to Wren’s dirt-smudged face, her damp hair. “Our little canary looks like she’s actually working. Miraculous.”
Ivy placed the fern with a final, firm press of soil around its roots. “She is adequate.”
“High praise.” He pushed off the wall and took two steps into the conservatory. His attention was a physical weight. “Adequate at gardening. Adequate at babbling. We have a more pressing adequacy to assess.”
He pulled something from his pocket. It was a collar. Simple, black leather, polished to a dull sheen. A single, small silver O-ring hung from the front.
He held it up, letting it swing slowly. “You theorized about a space. A game. This is the tool that marks the transition from theory to practice.” He tilted his head. “The question is whether you’ll choke on the reality.”
He didn’t move to put it on her. He simply extended his hand, the collar dangling from his finger, and waited. The conservatory felt suddenly airless. Ivy watched, still as a statue.
This was it. The line. Wren looked at the collar, then at his empty, waiting eyes. The quiet she craved was on the other side of that leather. So was everything else.
Her throat was dry. She wiped her earth-dusted hands on her trousers.
Then she took a step forward, and bowed her head.
The leather was cool and surprisingly soft against her throat. His fingers brushed her skin as he fastened the buckle, a brief, clinical contact. The click of the closure echoed in the quiet space.
He stepped back, considering his work. The collar sat snug, not tight, but undeniable. It felt heavier than it looked.
"Look at me," he said, his voice devoid of its usual theatrical rasp. It was flat. Instruction.
Wren lifted her head. The ring at the front rested against her clavicle. Her heart hammered against it.
Harley’s whistle cut through the humidity from the doorway. She’d been watching. "Suits you, songbird. Really pulls the outfit together." Her tone was light, but her eyes were fixed on the black band, her expression unreadably complex.
Ivy wiped her hands on a cloth, her gaze analytical. "The material is treated. It won't irritate, even with sweat. It's also resistant to tearing." She said it like stating a product specification.
"That's... practical," Wren managed, her voice sounding strange to her own ears. The weight was a constant pressure, a focal point. Every swallow was measured.
"Practical," the Joker echoed, his grin returning, sharp and knowing. "Yes. Now, the rules are simple. You wear it. You don't remove it. Anyone tries to take it off you, you make them regret it. That includes you." He leaned in slightly. "It's not a symbol, canary. It's a fact. Your fact. Own it or be strangled by it."
He turned and left, his footsteps fading down the stone path.
The three women were left in the green, dripping silence. Harley pushed off the doorframe and sauntered over. She didn't touch the collar. She touched Wren's chin, lifting it gently. "Breathe. You're turning a fun shade of purple."
Wren let out a shaky breath she didn't know she was holding. "It's just... very real all of a sudden."
"No shit," Harley laughed, but it was soft. "That's how it works. The list was fun to read. This is what it looks like when the ink is dry." She dropped her hand. "So. You're wearing the fact. How does it feel?"
Wren thought about it. The dread was a cold pit in her stomach. But beneath it, coiling through the anxiety, was a terrifying thread of rightness. "Like I'm not pretending anymore."
Ivy nodded once, a sharp, satisfied dip of her chin. "Good. Pretense is a waste of energy. Come. The amended soil needs watering." She walked away, expecting to be followed.
Harley gave Wren a little nudge. "Go on, gardener. Duty calls."
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of physical labor and surreal normalcy. Wren watered the eastern bed, the collar a familiar new presence with every movement. Ivy directed her to other tasks—pruning a diseased limb from a citrus tree, reporting a shivering orchid. Instructions were given. Wren executed them. Praise was not offered. Competence was met with silence, mistakes with a single, corrected demonstration.
It was, in its own way, peaceful.
She was scrubbing soil from under her nails at the conservatory's deep sink when Harley found her again. The sun was low, casting long, distorted shadows through the glass.
"Hey. You're wanted in the study. Don't look so worried. It's not a firing squad." Harley’s smile was crooked. "Probably."
The study was a room Wren hadn't seen. It was lined with books, but they weren't for show. Volumes on advanced chemistry, mycological studies, and dense psychological texts sat beside well-worn collections of crossword puzzles and lurid true crime paperbacks. A large, digital map of the city glowed on one wall, dotted with pulsing, unlabeled markers.
The Joker was standing by the map. Ivy was in a deep chair, a thick book open in her lap. An empty space on the leather sofa seemed to be the destination.
"Sit," the Joker said, not turning.
Wren sat. The collar pressed into the back of her neck against the sofa. She waited.
"Ivy says your work was acceptable. You learn quickly, and you don't complain." He finally turned from the map. "This is a bare minimum, but it is a minimum you have met. Therefore, you earn a basic privilege."
He gestured to the low table in front of the sofa. On it was a sleek, modern tablet. It was switched off.
"You may use this. It has no external connectivity. It cannot call, message, or access any network outside this house's internal server. It can, however, access the estate's archives." His eyes gleamed in the low light. "Film. Music. Books. The complete history of our... projects. A library of chaos. Consider it your orientation.”
Wren stared at the tablet. It was a window, but one that looked only deeper into the labyrinth. "Why?"
"Because a thing should understand its environment," Ivy said, not looking up from her book. "Ignorance leads to clumsy mistakes. We dislike clumsiness."
Harley dropped onto the sofa beside Wren, picking up the tablet and powering it on. The screen glowed. "It's got all the good stuff. Classic cartoons. My dissertation, if you can stomach the academic crap. Red's botanical grimoir. Puddin’s... well, let's call it his art portfolio. Home movies." She swiped, her smile turning sly. "You wanted in. So get in. Start studying."
The Joker walked over and stood before Wren, looking down at her. "This is the next test. What you choose to look at first. What questions you ask. What you find in our history that makes your new fact feel heavier or lighter." He crouched, bringing himself to her eye level. His scent of lavender and ozone filled the space between them. "Your curiosity is your most valuable feature, canary. It's also the most dangerous. To everyone."
He stood and left the room. Ivy closed her book and followed without a word.
Harley stayed, tapping the screen. "He's not wrong. This is where people usually screw up. They go looking for the boogeyman and forget that the boogeyman has grocery lists and favorite socks." She handed the tablet to Wren. "Don't be an idiot. Start with the cartoons. I'm gonna go make popcorn. You want popcorn?"
Wren held the cool, heavy device. "Yes, please."
Harley’s grin was genuine. "See? You're learning." She bounded out.
Alone, Wren looked at the home screen. The icons were innocuously labeled: Media, Archives, Projects, Designs, Domestic. Her thumb hovered.
She didn't open Projects. She didn't open Designs. She found the Music library and scrolled, her pulse steadying. She selected a random, old jazz album. The sound of a trumpet, smoky and slow, filled the quiet study.
Then, almost against her will, she navigated to Domestic. It contained folders: Utility Schedules, Inventory, Grounds Maps. And one simply labeled: Manifest.
She opened it. It was a list. Names, dates, a word or two. Acquisition dates for furniture, art. Installation dates for security systems.
Halfway down, she found it.
Asset: Wren Calloway. Acquired: [Yesterday's Date]. Source: Orbital Debris Field (Theta). Status: Integrated. Designation: Pending.
Orbital Debris Field. The words meant nothing and everything. It wasn't a car accident. It was something else. They knew where she came from. They had a name for it.
The jazz played on. The collar weighed exactly the same. But the room, the house, the entire world outside the glass walls seemed to tilt on a new, terrifying axis. She placed the tablet carefully back on the table, the music still swirling.
Harley returned with a big bowl of popcorn. "Find anything fun?"
Wren took a handful. The butter was real, the salt perfect. "Not yet," she said, and the lie was smooth as the leather around her throat. "Still learning the menu."