“Bitch,” Grue spoke.

“What?”  She snapped her head around to face him.  Her eyes flicked over to me and narrowed slightly before they returned to him.

Well that’s certainly not an ominous response when you’re about to confront someone about something, no sirree.

“This whole thing with you not talking?  It’s not working.”

A bit more general than I expected, but it does cover not talking about the nomination.

“So?”

“So cut it out.  Or at least explain what’s going through your head.”

“What I think is my business.”

“No,” I cut in.  I couldn’t help it.  “You’re a member of the team, and if you’re thinking about joining the Nine, then that matters.”

Taylor’s got her number. I don’t think Bitch is going to like that Taylor’s caught onto that.

Or that she’s getting involved at all, but still.

And yeah, there are a lot of cases where what Bitch thinks can be important to the team. Hell, a few Arcs ago, her thoughts on Taylor almost lost them a team member.

“I’m not!”  She snapped.

Right.

To be fair, she may really not be thinking about joining them so much as letting the tests happen, but it amounts to just about the same thing in practice.

He shrugged again.  He didn’t get it?

Sorry, Taylor, I’m with Grue. What was that supposed to mean? Knock her out??

Drawing from the bugs I had stored in my costume, I drew out words in the air with the bugs flying in tightly controlled formations.  ‘Confront her’.

Ohh.

Right.

This could be seen as pawning it off on Grue, but he is the de facto leader of the team, and Taylor being the one to confront Bitch about anything is a bad idea right now.

He hesitated.

Really can’t blame ya, pal.

‘Be leader,’ I wrote.  Then I changed the words of ‘leader’ to ‘honest’.

“Be leader. Be honest.”

Sounds like an Engrish slogan for something. I don’t know what for, but definitely a slogan.

“Right.  Good.”  Grue looked at Bitch, “We’ll finish checking out my territory, stop in yours to help you with whatever you need to do for your dogs, then we’ll pass through Tattletale’s area on the way back to Skitter’s.”

…wait.

Am I getting the geography wrong here? I thought Skitter’s territory was somewhere in-between Tattletale’s and Bitch’s. The way I’ve been picturing it, this would take them way north, quite a bit south, and then a bit north again.

“I don’t really care,” Bitch said, looking off into the distance.  I was pretty sure she was deliberately looking away from me.

I believe her. She’s probably not particularly invested in keeping herself away from the testers, after all. Though she would probably object to her dogs getting seriously hurt.

It was as though she wanted to pretend I didn’t exist.

Seems accurate enough.

Grue looked at me and shrugged.

This wasn’t going to work.  She was too distant, and that was dangerous.  Not that it wasn’t risky to try to address the problem.  It still needed to be done.

…uh-oh, what are you about to try?

Making sure Bitch wasn’t looking, I tapped two fists together and then pointed at her.

Is that supposed to be a signal to Grue?

“Did you give her a job before you left for Coil’s this morning?” I suggested.

He shook his head, “No.  I make notes, and I make her take notes too.  Keeping track of that girl is a nightmare.”

Heh, I can imagine.

So this means that once her power has erased the memory of her, the most recent stuff doesn’t come back by itself, even after some time of the power being inactive (we already knew it didn’t immediately come back, from Taylor’s experiences in Parasite). Nobody except Imp (and maybe Tattletale) remembers the spat Imp and Grue had at the meeting, and Grue doesn’t even seem to remember that she was even with them to the meeting.

“Tattletale’s working on her idea,” I said.  It felt ineffectual as reassurances went.  In the hopes of elaborating on the thought, I added, “Maybe she’ll be able to keep track of Imp and stay in touch with us, to keep us informed.”

That does sound good, yeah.

Y’know, I wonder how Coil feels about Imp. How does he feel about having a major piece on the board that he sometimes can’t remember even exists?

“Maybe.  You done a sweep of the area?”

I shook my head.  “Need another minute.  I’m trying to be thorough in how I check each area for enemies, and Mannequin can see my bugs, so I have to use silk lines to try to catch him.

Right. Can’t have him dodging them again.

It’s slow, and I definitely don’t want to miss him.  Also, it would be nice to grab some bugs to build up and replenish my stock.”  I let bugs gather on Lucy’s back, depositing spiders and large beetles.  The dog didn’t seem to mind.

“Just as long as they’re not fleas, small human.”

“Aisha’s not here,” Grue informed us.

Who’s Aisha?

Jokes aside, I feel like this being focused on right out of the gate is a good sign for the continued relevance of Imp and Grue’s conflict in this Arc. I stand by my suggestion that Imp is going to go against his wishes and try to spy on the Nine anyway.

Hell, maybe she’ll end up as bait leading the Northern Undertravelers right into the trap I think the title refers to.

He locked the door to his headquarters and climbed on top of Sirius.  Bitch and I were astride Bentley and Lucy, respectively, and Bastard was on the end of a chain that Bitch held.

Oh hey, it’s the base tour.

Also, it seems like the difficulty in noticing Imp only works if you’re not actively looking for her – for instance, Taylor, once reminded of Imp’s existence and alerted to the fact that she’s somewhere in the room, usually finds her quickly. So since Grue would be actively looking for her, he’d probably see her if she was there. And then he’d promptly forget her entirely if she didn’t want to be found, probably.

Although if it worked that easily all the time, there wouldn’t be a risk of the Slaughterhouse Nine doing something to Imp – “oh, you’ve noticed me? just forget that”. Maybe it’s based on “out of sight, out of mind”? I didn’t see anything about Aisha leaving the room before her power took effect last chapter, but Taylor may just have forgotten that before she even had the chance to narrate it.