If that was true, I was really glad I hadn’t tensed up.  She was sturdily built and she didn’t hold back in the slightest.  She kicked down the dog gate, and an instant later, her fist connected with my cheekbone to send me sprawling to the ground, my tailbone absorbing most of the impact.

Welp, here we go.

I’d been knocked around by Lung, Glory Girl, Bakuda and even Leviathan.  Some of those guys hit magnitudes harder than Bitch did, but it still hurt like hell.

Yeeah, a hard punch is a hard punch, even if some people punch even harder.

It spoke volumes that while Lisa stepped forward so she could defend me, Grue and Alec didn’t.

About what I had expected, yeah.

The dogs tentatively passed through the open gate, but hung back in deference to their master.

“I-” I broke off mid-sentence – opening my mouth to speak had caused the pain in the right side of my face to come to bear, full force.  “I deserved that.”

Probably the best she can say right now. Good Taylor.

His little sister?  Here?

…ah yeah, I forgot to comment on that.

Shit, she doesn’t happen to be Imp?

Either, it seems Brian has found out about Aisha’s awareness of his powered antics.

Alec was sitting cross-legged on a pile of furniture, a bowl of colorful cereal balanced on one knee.  A long cut ran from just beneath his ear to his shoulder, beneath his shirt.  He was watching a TV that was plugged into an extension cord that hung from the ceiling.

Howdy.

He’d turned my way at the barking of the dogs, and I almost missed him uttering the words, “You gotta be kidding.”

Honestly, this is an entirely fair response. Even if he didn’t have reason to be pissed at Taylor and surprised to see Lisa bringing her back to their place, everything about the way she left the hospital and didn’t come back to them over the next few weeks would’ve suggested to him that it was unlikely she’d never come back, yet here she is.

One of the dogs apparently recognized me, because it stopped at the gate and wagged its tail.  A part of me took that as a good sign.  Then Bitch appeared, immediately wheeling on me, water flying from her damp hair.

Ah, uh, hi there.

Let’s not have round two of 2.8, alright?

She’d probably just come from the shower – she wore loose fitting army pants and a black tank top that had darker spots where beads of water had soaked into it.  A towel hung around her shoulders.  As she saw me, emotion hardened the lines of her face.  Her hands clenched as she strode toward me.  I saw the aggression in her body language, squeezed my eyes shut and tried to relax.  I remembered what Brian had said during our sparring, about how tensing up would only make you more vulnerable.

Taylor is entirely prepared for the fact that Rachel might attack her right now.

I’m not sure the others would be quite as inclined to help stop her this time.

The place hadn’t yet been organized.  A pair of beds sat in one corner, surrounded by assorted pieces of furniture.  The building’s interior was dry, crisp, and brightly lit.  It might have appeared sterile, if not for the spray paint on much of the sheet metal, and the tracks of dried mud on the ground near the door.

True sterility is hard to come across these days, isn’t it, in most parts of the city?

Our arrival was met by the furious barking of a half-dozen dogs.  A set of gates ringing the front door stopped them from attacking us.  

Hm. We might not be visiting Imp here.

Brian was sitting on the far end of the room, beside Aisha.  He wore his regular sparring uniform, and Aisha wore much the same thing, though she was wearing shorts instead of yoga pants.

Hiya. I take it Rachel’s around too, and probably Alec. I guess we’re about to see Taylor trying (successfully, somehow) to get the remaining Undersiders on her side. This ought to be interesting.

I’ll be honest, I’m a little bit sleepy today. Efforts to become diurnal again are going well, but my body hasn’t quite caught up yet.

Still, though, I don’t want to postpone today’s liveblog session (in part because something I thought might force me to postpone to tomorrow ended up getting postponed to tomorrow itself), so I’m going to try to give you a proper quality liveblog. Hell, maybe it’ll help me be less sleepy. But yeah, if my sleepiness does become too much of an issue, I’ll just have to split the chapter.

“Totally got you, Dork,” she chuckled.

Yep. She totally gotcha.

For several long seconds, we remained there, unmoving.  Brian and Imp appeared in my peripheral vision, but they stopped when they saw Shadow Stalker.

Hm.

Yeeah, this is one hell of a tense situation, but why is nobody doing anything? Is it because Shadow Stalker is stuck between a hostage and a hard place? If she kills Taylor, there’s no way the remaining Undersiders don’t attack.

Shadow Stalker started laughing, then stood, holstering her crossbow.  I felt Regent stand in the other room.  When the kitchen door opened, he was laughing as well – the exact same cadence as Shadow Stalker.

Oooor maybe I was spot on about Imp being able to possess or otherwise control people. Multiple people at a time, by the looks of it. Is that how Sophia got loose in the first place – to play a prank on the others?

He ran his fingers through his hair, and Shadow Stalker moved one hand, as if to do the same thing, but the hood she wore stopped her.

It seems like she’s limited in how much she can control them individually without it carrying over to the other person/people being controlled.

She stepped away, and her movement seemed uncannily out of character; maybe a bit of a slouch, a bit of swagger, that hadn’t been there before.  Her eyes met mine.

Out of character, because it isn’t her. Other than physically.