“What?” Grue tilted his head as he looked over his shoulder at me.
“I was going to say she’s not always right, but I’ve still got that black hole in my memory of her, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from.”
Grue rubbed his chin. “Something to keep in mind, but I still think we should check this person out.”
As a reader, I say go with Grue’s plan! I wanna know who it was!
“I agree,” Tattletale said, a slight smile on her face. She tugged on my hand. “Come on!”
We had to stick together. I reluctantly followed, knowing that separating from the group could mean losing them altogether.
Sorry, Taylor, two against one.
We stopped a few hundred feet away from the woman. The silk strands had formed a cord around her arms and legs, and the work of the spiders had tightened the binding as she allowed it to slack. She hadn’t made it back to her feet after falling to the ground.
You okay there?
Grue drew a knife.
“Hey,” I said. I grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”
“She’s obviously a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine,” Tattletale said.
Is that sarcasm?
“Fill me in? Because I must have missed something. Doesn’t seem that clear to me.”
“Think about it. Why is she wearing a mask like that, if not to filter out the miasma? She knew about it in advance.”
What sort of mask? Also keep in mind that regular gas masks don’t work on this.
“Maybe,” I said. I could make out something like a gas mask or filter, now that Tattletale had pointed it out. “Maybe there’s another explanation. It could have something to do with her power?”
Is this Spitfire?
“It doesn’t,” Tattletale said.
Careful. We very recently had two reminders that you can be wrong when you get tunnel vision-y.
Are you absolutely sure?
Thinking about killing someone was one thing. I’d always assumed I might have to do it out of necessity to save a teammate… I’d even come close to doing it when attacking the Nine, not long ago. Couldn’t recall who it had been, but I’d gone all out, used potentially lethal stings and bites.
It was all of them, actually. Well, all currently living ones.
That had been at a distance. Now we were looking at killing someone face to face.
Not quite the same thing, is it.
The mask, there was another reason for it. The-
Tattletale interrupted my thoughts. “If you guys aren’t going to do it, I can. She was following us, she was prepared for the miasma, and I’m positive she’s a bad guy. My power, you know.”
I don’t think the Nine were prepared to unleash this, though.
And “she’s a bad guy” can mean a lot, ranging from
“does criminal jobs for money” to “wants to destroy every planet in the galaxy because she’s goth” and beyond.
“We can’t be certain,” I said.
“With my power, I’m five hundred percent sure. Trust me,” she said, grinning.
Between last chapter and this one we’ve been given enough reminders that Lisa’s power isn’t foolproof that each time Lisa brings up her power as her reason for being 100% sure makes me three times more certain she’s wrong.
Taylor, you’re gonna have to step in and keep Lisa from murdering Spitfire.
She started toward the heroine.
Oh jeez, now Taylor’s going the other way, sure enough that the victim’s a heroine to call her that in narration.
To be fair, that might be the case. The heroes have been wearing gas masks today, so it could just as easily be one of them as it could be Spitfire. More easily, even.
“No,” I said.
“Skitter’s right,” Grue said. “She could be playing possum. Best to avoid being reckless. Keep our distance and finish her.”
…that was not Skitter’s point but yeah, fair.
Fortunately, the only one with a good ranged attack is Taylor, unless Brian borrows something.
“That’s not what I meant. Let’s just leave,” I said. “I’ll make that phone call to, um-”
“Coil,” Tattletale supplied.
I nodded. “We’ll get the information we need, get ourselves cured, or track down the Nine.”
Probably not gonna be that easy, but it’s a good chain of objectives.
Of course, Lisa’s pretty sure they’ve already caught one of them.
“Cherish could lie,” Grue said.
It took me a second to place Cherish’s name. Names were slipping from my mind too easily. “Maybe. We’ll use our own judgement to corroborate her facts.”
Lisa’s power might not be flawless, but at least it’s good at lie detection.
Krixwell Liveblogs 