Page 81 of Joker

I look back out at the dark yard, the faint outline of bikes parked near the front, the quiet stretch of land that surrounds this place like a barrier. “It’s strange,” I admit.

“What is?”

“This,” I say, gesturing lightly around us. “It’s loud. There’s always people. Always something happening. And somehow it’s still…calmer than anywhere I’ve been in a long time.”

He doesn’t answer right away.

When I glance at him again, his eyes are on me, steady in a way that makes my pulse shift.

“Because nobody here is pretending,” he says finally. “What you see is what you get.”

That lands. Harder than I expect.

I nod slowly. “Yeah.” Another pause. Then, quieter, “I’m still getting used to that.”

His gaze doesn’t leave my face. “Yeah.”

Something about the way he says it makes it feel like he understands more than I’ve said out loud.

That makes me uneasy. Not because I don’t want to be understood. Because I’m not used to it happening without effort.

“You grew up in this?” I ask, partly to shift the focus, partly because I want to understand him in the same way he seems to be understanding me without trying.

He huffs a quiet breath. “No.”

“No?”

“Not like them,” he says, jerking his chin toward the clubhouse behind us. “Most of the guys here were born into it. Raised around it. Knew what this life was before they ever had to choose it.”

“And you didn’t.”

“No.” There’s something in his voice now. Not sharp. Not defensive. Just…edged.

“Where did you come from?” I ask carefully.

His jaw tightens slightly.

For a second, I think he’s going to shut the conversation down.

Then he says, “Foster care.”

The words are simple. Flat. But they carry weight.

I don’t ask anything else. I don’t need to.

He gives me more anyway. “Me, Shadow, Blaze,” he says. “Same group home. Same system. Same shitty odds.”

I glance at him. There’s no self-pity in it. No softness. Just fact. I nod. I don’t know what to say to that.

There isn’t a right answer. So I don’t try to give one.

“Ended up with the Savage Knights first,” he continues, voice still even, like he’s talking about something practical instead of something that clearly shaped him. “We met Cobra and Hammer there. Seemed like the right move at the time.”

“And it wasn’t?”

A humorless smile flickers at the corner of his mouth. “Not even close.”

“What happened?”