Page 144 of Joker

Would I try to scare?

Would I weaponize the badge first or hide behind it later?

Every answer creates three more questions. Every question creates another plan.

I don’t realize how deep I’m in it until Shadow comes up beside me near the side lot sometime after lunch, cigarettehanging from his mouth while he watches me stare at the road like I’m trying to set it on fire with my mind.

“You’re spiraling operationally,” he says.

I don’t look at him. “I’m planning.”

“You’re one dry erase board away from becoming a serial killer with color-coded arrows.”

That almost gets a laugh out of me. Instead, I say, “If he comes here, I want him dead before he realizes he made a mistake.”

Shadow takes a drag and blows smoke out slowly. “Yeah,” he says after a second. “I figured.”

He doesn’t tell me to calm down. Doesn’t tell me I’m overreacting. Doesn’t tell me Logan’s got it handled.

That’s one of the reasons he’s blood in every way that matters.

He just stands there with me and watches the road for another minute before saying, quieter, “You good?”

That question should be stupid. It isn’t. Because no. I’m not good. I’m functioning.

That’s not the same thing.

I scrub a hand over my jaw and finally answer honestly. “She told me everything.”

Shadow nods once. “Yeah.”

“I knew it was bad.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know it wasthatbad.” That one hangs there.

He lets it. Then says, “You’re not mad she didn’t say it sooner.”

It’s not a question.

I shake my head immediately. “No.” That part’s easy. Too easy. “I’m mad she ever had to say it at all.”

Shadow glances at me sideways then, something unreadable moving behind his eyes before he looks back toward the road. “Yeah,” he says again, but this time it sounds different. Heavier.

He doesn’t ask me to unpack that.

Thank Christ.

Because I don’t want to. Not right now. Maybe not ever.

Because if I really sit still long enough to examine what it means that Raven trusted me with the ugliest parts of herself and I didn’t flinch, didn’t pity her, didn’t want less of her afterward but somehow more, I’m going to end up in feelings territory.

And feelings territory is where men like me get stupid.

So instead, I focus on the road.

On the plan.