Page 165 of Joker

Raven looks up immediately. Her body doesn’t tense the way it used to, not all at once, not like a cornered animal anymore, but I still catch the flicker.

That old instinct. That split-second alertness. That buried fear that wakes up fast when the atmosphere changes around her.

I hate that.

I hate that some part of her still lives like the world can tip without warning. And I hate even more that this time, it can.

Logan jerks his chin once toward the hall. “Now.”

I nod. No questions. Not here.

Because Raven’s already watching me too closely, and Lexi’s little enough not to understand words likethreatandsurveillancebut old enough to feel when the adults around her stop pretending everything’s fine.

So I don’t give her anything to clock.

I just cross the kitchen, press a quick hand to the back of Raven’s neck as I pass, and murmur low enough only she can hear, “I’ll be back.”

Her amber eyes search mine immediately. Too sharp. Too intuitive. She doesn’t ask in front of Lexi.

That alone tells me she knows enough to be scared already.

I hate that too.

Then I follow Logan down the hall.

***

His office door shuts behind us with Dom, Shadow, Blaze, and Cain already inside.

Nobody’s sitting. That’s my first clue this is worse than annoying.

The second is Dom’s face.

He’s not expressive on a good day, but right now there’s a specific kind of focused, irritated stillness on him that means he’s found something ugly enough to piss him off intellectually, which usually means the rest of us are about to get pissed off in more violent ways.

Logan doesn’t waste time. “We’ve got a breach.”

The words hit my chest like a hammer, but outwardly I don’t move.

I just look at him and wait. Because if I move too soon, if I react before I know the shape of it, I’m gonna end up putting my fist through a wall and that won’t help anybody.

“What kind?” I ask.

Dom turns his laptop toward me. And that’s when I see it.

Raven.

It’s a photo. Taken from a distance. Grainy, but clear enough.

She’s outside the little grocery store in town from yesterday afternoon, Lexi on one hip, a bag in her free hand, hair up under a cap and sunglasses on but still unmistakably her if you know what the hell you’re looking for.

My entire body goes cold. Not hot. Not explosive.

Cold.

The kind of cold that means bloodshed is no longer theoretical. The kind that starts in the spine and moves outward until every part of you sharpens around it. I stare at the image long enough to make sure I’m not imagining it.

Then I ask, very evenly, “Who took it?”