Page 180 of Joker

That’s a hell of a thing to sit with.

So I do what I always do when I don’t know where else to put the hurt.

I turn it into work.

***

By the time the sun starts dropping, I’ve walked the perimeter three times.

Then again.

Not because it changed between the second and third pass. Because movement keeps me from doing something useless like standing outside her door and waiting for some sign that she’s okay enough for me to go in.

I check the gate schedule and make Cain shift it tighter. No gaps longer than ten minutes between eyes on the main road, and nobody works a post solo if I can help it.

I have Dom widen the outside camera sweep by six degrees on the east corner because there’s too much dead space near the brush line and I’m not interested in finding out the hard way that I was right.

I make Blaze rerun the town routes with me, not because he forgot them, but because I need somebody with a bike and half a brain to tell me if there’s anywhere else somebody could sit and watch without being obvious.

He doesn’t complain.

That alone tells me how bad I look.

Shadow joins the second route without being asked, which also tells me enough.

Neither of them says anything for the first twenty minutes.

They know better.

We take the outer road past the diner, the gas station, the little grocery store where the picture was taken, then cut back around the service road that runs parallel to the tree line. Bikes rumble under us the whole way, late-day heat baking off the asphalt, wind cutting just enough through my cut to keep me from boiling alive.

Normal ride. Abnormal silence.

By the time we pull back onto club property, I’ve got two more potential observation points in my head, one new blind spot I don’t like, and exactly zero improvement in my mood.

I kill the engine beside the row of bikes and swing off mine in one smooth movement, stripping off my gloves and shoving them in my back pocket before I even fully straighten.

Blaze pulls his helmet off and studies me for one second too long. “You look worse.”

“Thanks.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

Shadow kills his bike too and plants both boots on the gravel, arms draped over the handlebars while he watches me with that same steady, infuriatingly perceptive look he’s hadsince we were fourteen and one bad foster placement away from becoming statistics.

“You going to keep doing laps till the whole county’s secure or you want to actually think for a minute?” he asks.

I turn toward him. “I am thinking.”

“No,” Blaze says, tossing his gloves onto the seat. “You’re punishing the property because you can’t punch the problem in the face.”

I stare at him flatly. That bastard has gotten entirely too perceptive in his old age.

Shadow’s mouth twitches once, then smooths right back out. “He’s got a point.”

“Of course I do,” Blaze mutters. “I’m beautiful and right all the time.”

“Careful,” I tell him. “I’m in the mood to become your problem.”