Authors Note: Be Advised this chapter contains descriptions of suicidal thoughts and actions. 

Lights and shadows dance behind my eyelids. Muffled sounds surround me. Arguing. That's no good. And a beeping? Loud and annoying. Steady. Why am I on my back? It's uncomfortable, I do not like it. I try and roll over, to my stomach. I'm stopped with the sound of metal on metal. There's slight pain around my wrists. The arguing stopped. What the fuck is happening. My eyelids feel heavy, so does my body. I just want to sleep. I force my eyes open anyways. The lights blinding me makes me regret that choice. I repress a groan.

"Ban co the lam mo den duoc khong" I ask. There's silence for a second, minus the beeping, which I'm guessing is a heart monitor or something. Ok.... No Vietnamese then, which is odd, my handler speaks that too. Where is he?

"Can you dim the lights please," I ask again, hopefully they know English. Nothing. I slowly open my eyes blinking rapidly to get used to the light. I'm met with the sight of a white ceiling. That's weird, none of the medical bays have had white before. What happened anyways? I turn my head and blink. Oh. That's what happened. That's very not good. Oh, fuck I am in so much trouble. Vaguely I hear the beeping pick up, but my focus doesn't leave the man in a black cowl. He's going to kill me, and if he doesn't, I'll want to before Sportsmaster gets a hold of me. A woman steps between Batman and I, her hands are up, palms face out in a "I mean no harm" way. Don't believe it.

"Hey, it's ok, you're safe," the woman, Black Canary tries to soothe. That's absolute bull. I try and sit up, only getting so far before the same metallic sound as before rings through the room. I glance at my wrists. Handcuffs. Wonderful.

"You mean no harm huh," I growl out, voice scratchy and throat feeling raw. How long have I been out? Where am I? I tug on the handcuffs angrily. I know it won't do anything, but I am pissed off and handcuffed to a bed in a way that is so not fun.

"You're a known criminal that has resisted us before, precautions had to be taken," she tells me. I glare at her. "We don't want to have to keep you like this, but we do need you to answer some questions." I say nothing. I will say nothing. Ain't getting myself in no more trouble than I already am thank you. "You've got a lot of marks on the inside of your elbow Demon, what kind of drug are you taking?"

"I'm not," I say. Batman shifts behind her and I glare in his direction. He's probably already running tests on my blood. He might already know more about what they were injecting me with than I do.

"A drug test tells us otherwise," he says. Knew it. "Heroin, Cocaine, Adderall, and trace amounts of Venom." I keep my face blank and focus on my breathing. I suspected the first three, but Venom? I had no idea about that one. Just stay calm, tell them as little as possible, escape at the first possible opportunity. Get back to Sportsmaster, keep the punishment as light as you can. Returning willing would make it easier. Possibly.

"How old are you Demon," Canary asks. "I'm guessing around twelve." I'm thirteen, I think. Somewhere around there for sure.

"Why are you working for Sportsmaster," Batman demands. The good cop-bad cop routine. Original.

"Can you tell us your name," comes Canary's gentle voice. Demon, Asset, Weapon, Kid, Girl, Bitch. Take your pick. My head hurts. Shut down. I drown out their voices, they keep asking questions. I want them to stop. My body hurts. It's cold. Wait. If it's cold, why am I sweating.

"How long have I been here," I ask quietly, silencing Canary who was about to ask something else.

"You were pulled out of the lake about ten hours ago," she informs me. I let my head hit the pillow. Fuck. This is going to suck.

"You're going to either want to make sure I am sedated or not be in the room for the next 24 hours," I say.

"And why's that Demon," Canary asks. I bite my lip. Oh, fuck it.

"My last drug does was around twelve hours ago. If it included Heroin like Batsy said, withdrawal is about to start and its gonna be a bitch", I answer.

"You're not getting any more drugs, so sedation is out of the question," Batsy says.

"You didn't know you had Heroin in your system," Canary probes.

"I knew there was something in my system, but I didn't know what. If you aren't going to sedate me we're all in for a ride. I've been told that I am not pleasant during withdrawal, and that was with less drugs," I tell her. She goes to open her mouth again. For fucks sake. "I'm not answering anything else," I snap at her. They do try, a couple more times before they finally leave the room. I sigh. This is not going to be fun. I shut my eyes. Please just let me sleep through the worst parts.

My eyes snap open. I'm covered in sweat. I can feel my body shivering. I can hear the heart monitor going crazy. Can that even be my heart? Can hearts go that fast? My hands are trembling. Tremors. I think my nose is running. This sucks. Why can't they just give me a little something to help? It doesn't have to be Heroin but like morphine or something come on.

(Timeskip)

I don't know how long it's been but I can't stop shivering or my hands from shaking. It feels like it's been ages. My muscles are having spasms too. I wonder if they're just doing this because its fun for them. A slight growl leaves me throat. No better than the doctors or Sportsmaster then. Some heroes. I'm hungry too. How long has it been?

The door creaks open, slowly, lights beginning to flicker. My eyes widen as the man walks in, the guard uniform as pristine as ever. Baton in hand. No! Not doing it!

"I'm not going back!"

Other guards appear behind him. All at the ready to force me back there. Back to the yard and that cell. I wont have it. They near the bed of which I'm still handcuffed too. I rather die than go back and do it all over again. I press my wrists as hard as I can against the metal, dragging back and forth until the blood flows. They rush me, one's trying to get me to stop, the other's digging around for something in the room. There's three. The third comes too close to my legs and I kick out as hard as I can, catching them in the chest and sending them backwards. The second guard is trying to calm me down, holding one of my wrists still and reaching for the other. No! I will not go back.

"Just let me die," I yell, struggling more, pressing harder against the metal, anything to bleed, to die faster. I will not do that again! The guard I kicked is back up and trying to grab a hold of my other arm, the one that I still drag against the metal. Struggling, I yank the other wrist from the guard as I begin to thrash and slam my head back as well. One goes to grab my head. That's a mistake for them as I bite down on their hand. Their quick enough to get it away. I would have gotten a figure if it had been a slightly better bite. I can feel the blood, taste it. I hate the metallic taste. The two guards have managed to grab a hold of a wrist each, trying to stop the bleeding, as I begin to feel the effects of it.

"Please just let me die," the sob leaves my chest before I can stop it. I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want to live anymore. I just want to die. Why won't they let me. "I just wanna die, please, just let me, please." I feel a prick on my arm, elbow, drugs, no please. I look to see the first guard that entered, the bastard that he is, standing triumphantly above me. He won. I'm going back. No. It gets harder to struggle. I'm so tired. I just want it all to end. I struggle to keep fighting, to keep my eyes open so they don't win, but the drugs win and my eyes slip closed, darkness consumes me.

It feels like I have had cotton shoved down my mouth and throat. There is a beeping somewhere in the room. My body feels so heavy. I try and bring a hand to my face, but I can hardly move it. Opening my eyes is much harder than it's supposed to be. Glancing down I discover the restriction of movement is being caused by leather restraints? Like the ones that they put on crazies in Arkham.

"It's good to see you awake," a gentle, accented voice says to my right. I turn my head, trying to locate it. I don't recognize the voice, but then again, I don't recognize my surroundings either. I can feel my eyebrows scrunch together when my eyes land on the speaker. Wonder Woman? What happened? Why am I here? Where am I? I open my mouth, trying to ask something, anything, as the beeping in the room picks up. Nothing comes out, there's too much cotton in my mouth. "Here," she says standing and bringing a glass of what looks like water to my lips. I try and move away from it. Eying her warily. There could be something in that. She sighs and takes a drink of it before once again lowering it back to me. I bite my lip. I can't remember if she is immune to poisons and stuff. Fuck it. I accept the drink, gulping down as much as I can, trying desperately to get rid of the cotton feeling. "Slow down," Wonder Woman says taking the glass away from me. I don't fight it. I'm so tired. My head sinks back against the pillow. I feel so weak. Like I just had the flu, strep, and pneumonia all at once or something.

Looking back down at my wrists I notice that under the leather straps they're bandaged up, thickly, like I had been hurt. What happened? Why is everything so foggy when I try to think? Wait. Didn't I kidnap Robin? So, they found us then. Oh, Sportsmaster is going to be so mad. I don't think I could get out and back to him right now. I really just want to sleep some more. And water. Some more water would be nice. There was fire, right? They came to get Robin and there was some sort of explosion. I think I drowned. Didn't die apparently. Batman and Black Canary were here. I think this is the same room. I don't remember feeling this bad though, or what happened to my wrists. I look over to Wonder Woman. She's reading a book, the cover isn't in English. Greek maybe?

"What happened", I finally get out, the effort exhausting. She looks up from her book, eyeing me in a way I don't quite understand. There's wariness for sure, which is expected, she'd be a fool not to be. But is that concern? That's suspicious.

"You went through some serious withdrawal in the last couple of days," she tells me. Her accent is nice. Wait. Couple of days? I mean withdrawal explains why I feel like absolute shit, but days? How long I have been gone from Sportsmaster? He'll be so pissed.

"It's going to be ok. Can you try and slow your breathing," her voice filters through the panic. Fucking heart monitor. I squeeze my eyes shut. Why am I so emotional? Because he's gonna be so mad. It'll hurt so bad. He'll do the thing again. I hate the thing more than anything.

A hands on my shoulder. My eyes snap open as my body attempts to lurch away from the contact. I don't get far. Restraints. I can't help the growl. I've been Demon too long. I think it's part of me now, the growling. My eyes meet Wonder Woman's. There less guarded now, filled more with the emotion I can't name, its softer though.

"Relax, you're safe here," she states, "Sportsmaster can't hurt you anymore." I hear the door open, but I don't look away from the woman. How much does she know? How much has she seen?

"Demon," a familiar voice comes from the doorway. I finally tear my eyes away from Wonder Woman and see Black Canary standing in the doorway. She enters the room and closes the door behind her. Her right hand is all bandaged up. Did I have something to do with that? "There's some sedatives in your system right now, they might make you feel a little weird," she informs me, her voice gentle. Sedatives. Probably also what's making me more emotional. Makes it hard to not show anything. Probably something in it from Batsy too, to get the answers he wants. She Canary catches me staring at her injured hand. "It's going to be fine," she says, which has me looking up at her face instead, "drew blood but no permanent damage thanks to Wonder Woman getting you off quickly." Shit.

"I bit you," I say, it's no longer a question, but I don't remember doing it.

"Yes, you were having some sort of a hallucination. We think you also had a psychotic break, its during all this that you also tried to hurt yourself," she answers. I glance back down at my wrists, a foggy memory of there being handcuffs there instead.

"I tried to kill myself. Is that why I have Joker's loony straps," I ask.

"Joker's loony straps," Wonder Woman quietly repeats next to me, a hint of humor in her voice.

"For your safety we felt it was better to use those. Once we think you're stable enough we can see about getting them off.," Canary says. I don't know what to say or do so I just kinda wait.

"Is there something else we can call you, besides Demon," Wonder Woman asks. Random. But ok.

"Um," I start, not really knowing the answer she's looking for.

"Was there anything else you've been called? Something a little less, I don't know villainous," Canary steers.

"They called me Asset or Weapon. Sometimes kid but that was mostly just Sportsmaster," I tell them. I don't like those stares. "What," I ask after silence prevails too long. My eyes dart between them. I don't understand what's the matter with what I said.

"What about before Sportsmaster? Were you ever with someone who called you something else," Canary asks. Yes. I was. But that was so long ago. They called me lots of things. "You haven't been with Sportsmaster forever have you? Don't you have a real name?

No I haven't. Yes. But its been so long. Who called me by it last? My eyes pinch together. Try to keep them out. Keep them out. Keep them out. The beeping is getting faster.

"Let's go you brats!" I've been called so many things.

So many different things.

"Little pig, little pig, let me in"

Too many.

"Let's go kid."

"Well, you're well hell of a fighter, Scrappy."

"Come on Ace, we've got places to be."

Ace. Scrappy. I liked those. Not my real name though. Are they? I don't think they are. Not by government standards anyways.

"Well, it's not much but I think you'll like it here. Welcome home, Ember"

My eyes open. My fists are clenched. Canary's staring at me with that look. The one I don't understand that much. Ember.

"Ember, I think I was called Ember," I say, nearly breathless. Should it have taken me that long?

"It's good to meet you Ember," Canary says. I repress a snort. "Do you remember a last name," she asks.

"I don't have one," I tell her.

"It's ok if you don't remember, we might be able to," she starts explaining.

"No," I bite out. "I don't have a last name. It was just Ember, and hardly that."