Page 30 of Joker

If that bastard wears a badge and put his hands on her anyway, I’m going to enjoy whatever happens next more than is probably healthy. The thought is ugly enough that I push it aside for now. No point getting ahead of the facts.

Still. It’s there.

The truck eats up another stretch of miles before Raven goes quiet in a different way than before. Not uneasy this time. Thinking.

She stares out the windshield, then down at her hands, then out the passenger window again. I wait because I can feel the question building in her and because if there’s one thing I’velearned over the years, it’s that people will usually talk if you leave enough room for it.

She wets her lips once. Twists that same ring finger. Then finally says, “Do you think we’re far enough away?”

I glance over. “For what?”

Her hand rises slowly to the brim of the cap. “To take this off.”

For half a second, I don’t answer. Partly because the question catches me off guard. Mostly because I’ve spent enough of this drive looking at that cheap blonde wig and knowing it doesn’t belong on her face that the idea of seeing what’s under it lands harder than it should.

I flick my eyes to the mirrors, check the road behind us, the empty stretch ahead, the dark shoulders on either side. No headlights sticking with us too long. No signs of a tail. No exits coming up that’ll force us into more visible traffic. We’ve put enough distance behind Louisiana that anyone trying to trace our route now would be working from guesses and luck.

“We’re clear for now,” I say. “Go ahead.”

She doesn’t move right away.

I can feel her hesitation without even looking fully at her, the same way I can feel when the atmosphere in the truck shifts. This isn’t just about discomfort. It’s about shedding the last piece of whatever disguise got her through the chapter doors and into my truck. Small act, maybe. But not meaningless.

Finally she lifts both hands and slides the cap off slowly, careful not to yank the wig with it. Cheap blonde strands shift in the dim cab light, dull and wrong against the shape of her face.

My hands stay steady on the wheel.

Barely.

She reaches up to the edge near her temple and peels the wig back with the kind of relief a man might feel taking duct tape off a wound. There’s a little grimace with it, like it’s been scratching at her scalp for hours. Then the wig comes free.

And her real hair spills down.

Dark.

Long.

A thick wave of black that tumbles over her shoulders and down her chest in one heavy, glossy fall like the night outside somehow decided it wanted a body.

I damn near forget how to breathe. It’s one of those moments that hits hard enough your brain blanks for a second before trying to catch up.

Because I knew the blonde was fake. Of course I did. Grinder’s people didn’t slap a cheap wig on his daughter because she naturally looked like that. But knowing something and seeing the truth under it are two very different things, and this truth lands like a punch.

The truck suddenly feels smaller. Hotter. More aware.

Her fingers move through the dark strands automatically, loosening the flattened roots where they’d been pinned up too long. The motion is simple. Practical. But there’s nothing practical about the effect.

She looks younger and older at the same time without the disguise. Softer in some places. Sharper in others. More herself,even though I’ve only known her a few hours and have no right to think I can identify what that means.

Her amber eyes lift for half a second, and maybe she catches something on my face because a strange uncertainty flickers there before she looks down and gathers the wig into her lap like she’s suddenly not sure what to do with her own hands.

I tear my attention back to the road so fast it almost makes my neck hurt.

Internal reaction stays exactly where it is, though. Nowhere useful. Nowhere safe.

Fucked.

That’s the word for it.