Page 189 of Joker

I don’t ask what he said when Logan cleared it. I don’t ask if he argued. I don’t ask if he’s still mad. I don’t ask if he sounded hurt.

I definitely don’t ask if he even noticed I barely looked at him this morning when he came into the kitchen and found Lexi already halfway into my lap with cereal milk on her chin and one sock missing.

I don’t ask because I’m not sure I could survive the answers.

So instead, an hour later, I’m buckling Lexi into the backseat of Mac’s SUV with Bunny under one arm and a snack cup in her hand while two prospects pull in behind us on their bikes.

One I know by name, Tanner, maybe twenty-two and trying too hard to look like he isn’t intimidated by literally everything. The other is older, broader, quieter, with a road face that says he’s already accepted this outing is beneath him but he’s not stupid enough to argue with orders.

Mac catches me glancing at them and shrugs. “Shadow picked them,” she says. “So if anything breathes wrong in our direction, they’ll at least be useful before they die.”

That should probably not make me laugh.

It does. Not because it’s funny.

Because the sound catches me off guard and feels so startlingly normal that for half a second I can almost pretend I’m just a woman running errands with another woman while our lives aren’t hanging together with duct tape and violence.

Lexi kicks her feet against the car seat and announces, “I want pink shorts.”

Mac glances over her shoulder. “You can’t wear pink shorts every day, bug.”

“Yes, I can.”

“You make a strong case.”

I smile despite myself as I climb into the passenger seat. The ride is uneventful. Almost painfully so. Which, of course, is how these things always go right before they become catastrophic.

The prospects stay close. Mac takes the less obvious route in and loops once around the lot before parking. The shopping center itself is small enough not to feel overwhelming but busy enough to make me instantly aware of every body moving around us anyway.

That old instinct wakes up the second I step out of the SUV.

I can feel it. That low-level, skin-tight alertness. Not enough to stop me. Enough to make me count exits without meaning to.

Mac clocks it immediately. She doesn’t say anything. Just nudges my shoulder lightly once before we head inside.

That small kindness almost undoes me.

The first fifteen minutes are…fine.

Normal, even.

Lexi insists on touching every rack she can reach and holds up increasingly absurd outfits with the kind of absolute conviction only toddlers can muster.

Mac helps me dig through summer clothes while making dry commentary about tiny denim shorts being “a hate crime against children.”

I actually laugh again. Twice. Maybe more. Long enough that my shoulders drop an inch. Long enough that I stop scanning every reflective surface and security mirror and half-visible movement near the door.

Long enough to make a mistake.

That’s all it takes.

One stupid, tiny, human moment.

Lexi is beside me. Then she’s not.

I don’t even realize it immediately. Not at first.

Because I’m holding two little tank tops in one hand and trying to decide if the yellow one will wash her out when Mac says, “Did you want these sandals too?”