Page 12 of Joker

He glances at me after a minute. “Can I steal your mama for a second?”

Lexi looks between us, then back at her picture. “Okay.”

He sets her down carefully and waits until she’s back on the floor before tilting his head toward the far end of the room. I follow him to the narrow strip of wall between the window and the television, far enough away that we can talk without Lexi hearing every word if we keep our voices low.

“Everything’s set,” he says.

I hate the way those words make my stomach drop. “For when?”

“Tonight.”

My throat tightens. “Tonight.”

He nods once. “Safer that way. Less traffic, less notice. They’ll move you after dark.”

I look down at my hands because I can’t look at him and keep my expression under control at the same time. My fingers twist together restlessly, nails catching against skin. “How far?”

“Alabama.”

I lift my head. “That’s farther than we talked about.”

“That’s the point.”

“I know the point.” The words come out sharper than I mean them to, but I’m past the place where I can smooth every edge. My father doesn’t react to the tone. He only watches me with that steady patience he’s always had with me, even when I make it difficult.

“This chapter owes us,” he says. “And I trust them.”

I let out a breath that doesn’t help. “I’m so tired of people owing people.”

He doesn’t answer right away. His jaw works once, and for a second I can see the man under the president, the father under the patch, and he looks tired too. Tired and furious in a way he’s trying very hard to keep leashed.

“I know,” he says finally. “But right now owed is useful. Useful is what we need.”

I look away first.

There’s no arguing with the truth of that. Pride does not keep your child safe. Pride does not get you through the night. Pride certainly does not erase the fact that if I had reached out sooner, if I had pushed back sooner, if I had told my father what was happening before Cal managed to cut me off from everyone who ever loved me, maybe we wouldn’t be here at all.

Maybe I wouldn’t have waited until the ground was giving way under my feet.

Lexi laughs softly at something on the television, and the sound slices through me.

“I hate this,” I admit, the words rough and low. “I hate being moved around like luggage. I hate that he did this to us. I hate that I let it get this bad.”

My father’s expression hardens at the mention of Cal, though his voice stays even. “You didn’t let him do anything. He did it. That’s on him.”

I laugh once under my breath, and there’s nothing amused in it. “That might make me feel better if I didn’t remember every time I told myself it wasn’t that bad. Every time I thought if I just stayed quiet, or fixed the wrong thing, or stopped pushing back, maybe he’d calm down.”

“Raven.”

I shake my head before he can say anything else. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?”

I look at him then, really look at him, and for one ugly second I am seventeen again, angry and stubborn and sure I know better than everyone else. Only there is nothing youthful in the exhaustion dragging at me now. “You warned me to slow down. I didn’t. You said something about him felt off. I told you that you were overreacting. He smiled at me and touched my back in all the right places and acted like I hung the moon, and I was stupid enough to think that meant something.”

My father’s gaze does not waver. “It did mean something. It meant he knew how to lie.”

The brutal simplicity of that hits harder than comfort would have.