Chapter 23 #3
Joker steps between us with a speed so controlled it’s almost more frightening than violence would’ve been. One hand lands flat on the other man’s chest and shoves him back hard enough to make the barstool behind him scrape.
Not wild. Not messy.
Lethal.
That’s the only word for it.
Everything in Joker changes in an instant. His shoulders lock. His jaw goes hard. His whole body turns into a line drawn between me and the rest of the room. “Move,” he says.
Not loud. Doesn’t need to be.
The drunk guy blinks at him, startled and confused. “Man, I didn’t—”
“I said move.”
The room is changing around us now. Brothers looking over. Voices dropping. The music still playing like nothing’s wrong, which somehow makes it all worse. I can see Emma moving toward me from the corner of my vision, Mac right behind her, but Joker gets there first in every way that matters.
His hand finds my elbow. Careful. Firm. Nothing like the push he used on the other man.
“Raven.”
My name in his voice cuts through the panic just enough to hurt.
I can’t answer. I’m trying. I can’t.
His eyes hit my face, and whatever he sees there makes something in his expression turn colder.
Not toward me. Toward everything else.
He doesn’t waste another second. “Come on.”
I don’t remember deciding to move. I just know suddenly I am.
Joker’s body is in front of mine, then beside it, then angled around me like he’s blocking every line of sight he can while guiding me through the room.
Emma says something sharp behind us. Blaze answers.
Someone kills the music halfway through the next verse.
The whole thing blurs into noise I can’t sort.
Joker gets me through it anyway. Fast. Efficient. Like he’s done this before. Like he knows exactly what to do with a woman on the edge of a panic spiral and doesn’t need me to explain a single thing.
We’re out the side door before most of the room even fully understands what happened.
The night air hits my face hard enough to sting. Cold compared to the heat inside.
Joker keeps moving, not far, just enough to get distance between me and the noise, leading me around the side of the building where the shadows are quieter and the sounds from inside drop to a manageable hum.
Then he stops. Turns. And all at once there’s nothing between us but night air and the fact that I can’t seem to get enough of it into my lungs.
“Breathe,” he says.
I shake my head once. I am breathing. It just doesn’t feel like it’s working.
He steps closer. Not crowding. Close enough to anchor. “Look at me.”
I do. Because there is nowhere else to look.
His face is hard from whatever he left behind inside, but his hands are steady where one is still on my elbow and the other hovers near my shoulder like he’s not sure if touching me more will help or hurt.
“Breathe with me,” he says.
I try. The first one catches. The second too. By the third, I get enough air in to stop the room from tilting quite so violently.
My hands are shaking. I hate that. I hate all of it.
I can feel the shame rising now that the worst of the spiral has crested. The embarrassment. The horror of knowing people saw. Of knowing I let myself slip enough for any of this to happen in the first place.
Joker must see some of that too. Because his voice goes lower when he says, “Don’t.”
I blink at him. “Don’t what?”
“Whatever the hell you’re doing in your head right now.”
I want to laugh at the impossible accuracy of that. Instead, my throat tightens. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, because apparently humiliation just defaults me back to apology.
His jaw flexes. “Don’t do that either.”
I close my eyes for half a second.
Breathe. Open them again.
He’s still there. Still watching me like I’m the only thing in his line of sight. And for some reason that hurts worse than if he looked angry.
“I just—” My voice catches. “It all happened at once.”
He nods once, like he already knows. Because maybe he does.
I don’t explain. I can’t.
Not with my heart still trying to climb out of my throat. Not with the smell of smoke and night and him too close in the air between us. Not with the echo of that song still ghosting around the edges of my head.
So I just stand there and breathe while Joker stays exactly where he is, close enough to hold the whole world back with nothing but posture and intent.
Behind us, the clubhouse noise shifts but doesn’t fully intrude.
All I know is that Joker got me out before the room could close in any farther. Before the panic could turn into something uglier. Before I had to explain a damn thing.
He waits until my breathing evens out enough to stop sounding broken. Then he says quietly, “You with me now?”
I nod once. Not fully. Enough.
That seems to be enough for him too.
His hand leaves my elbow slowly, carefully, like he’s making sure I’m steady before he lets go.
The loss of that contact is immediate. I hate that too.
He glances back toward the side door once, then returns his focus to me. “You going back in?”
The answer rises in me so fast it almost feels childish. “No.”
His mouth tightens slightly, like he expected that. “Alright.”
No argument. No pressure. Just acceptance.
And somehow that undoes me worse than anything else tonight.