Page 67 of Joker

Raven startles so hard even though to everyone else it’s almost invisible.

Her shoulders jerk. Her spine goes rigid. Her hand tightens instantly around Lexi’s arm like she’s anchoring herself through the kid.

And just like that, my imagination betrays me in vivid, violent detail.

I see bruised-looking fingerprints in my head.

Not real ones. Not something I’ve actually seen on her skin.

Just the shape of them. The implication of them.

Thumb marks around an upper arm. A hand clamped too hard around a wrist. Fingerprints blooming dark against pale skin where someone bigger and meaner and too fucking comfortable with control decided he had the right.

My vision narrows. It only lasts a second. Maybe less.

Then Raven blinks, breathes, smooths her hand over Lexi’s back like nothing happened, and keeps talking to Emma as if her body didn’t just tell on a history she still hasn’t spoken aloud.

But I saw it. I saw all of it. And something ugly settles deeper.

Not just anger now. Not just protective instinct.

No.

Something more focused than that.

I’m starting to want names. Not vague pieces of a story. Not “the ex.” Not “connected.”

Names.

I want the exact shape of the man who taught her body to react like that. I want his face. I want his schedule. I want to know how many people would miss him if he disappeared and whether any of them matter enough to complicate the math.

Because every time she startles, every time she apologizes too fast, every time she checks a lock like it might fail her if she doesn’t physically confirm it with her own hand, I feel the same thing clawing harder at the inside of my chest.

Whoever touched her should be afraid.

And I’m getting real close to making that a practical problem instead of just a thought.

It starts small enough that I almost miss it.

Not because I’m not paying attention.

I’m always paying attention.

But because Lexi’s attachment to things has always come in clear, obvious forms. Bunny. A specific cup. A blanket she refused to sleep without for three months before abruptly deciding it offended her personally. Her preferences are usually loud and immediate and impossible to mistake.

This one sneaks up on me.

At first, it’s just little things. Small enough that I could probably explain them away if I wanted to. Which I do.

Desperately.

We’re in the common room midmorning, and Lexi is sitting on the floor with a handful of crayons and a coloring book someone found for her in one of the toy bins. Jason is nearby with blocks, periodically wandering over to investigate her colors like he’s conducting some kind of deeply serious quality control check. Emma is at the table helping Amy and Casey with something that looks suspiciously like homework despite the fact that neither of them seem remotely interested in it. Mac isin and out of the kitchen, and the whole clubhouse is moving in that low, lived-in rhythm I’m still trying to get used to.

Lexi is humming to herself under her breath while she colors something purple that should not, under any known law of nature, be purple.

Then she looks up.

Scans the room.