The TV was on, showing ads.  Alec lay on the couch, his feet on the coffee table, a meal on his lap.  Lisa sat on the other couch, laptop resting on her legs, a phone to her ear.  She turned her head as we came upstairs, gave us a funny look, then returned her attention to her laptop.

Anti-climactic normalcy it is!

“Why the fuck aren’t you answering your phones?” Grue raised his eerie voice.  He flipped up his visor and banished the darkness around him.

Lisa frowned and held up a finger.  She continued talking into the phone, “-don’t agree with this, and if you’d asked me, I would have said you shouldn’t do it.  No, yes, I think it’s an effective measure.”

Hm. How long has she been on the phone? If she’s talking to Coil, and has been for a significant amount of time, that might explain why Brian couldn’t reach Coil and Taylor couldn’t reach Lisa.

Alec… might just have been preoccupied, I guess.

She pointed to the laptop, and I stepped forward, moving the bugs off my face and down to the center of my back, where they would be present but not in the way, resting on cloth rather than skin.  I looked at the screen.

And – discussed after this quote because I forgot to write about it before looking at this bit – what is this “effective measure” that Lisa would’ve advised whomever she’s talking to against doing?

I feel like the screen is going to show a news story involving something Coil decided to do.

“My problem is that it’s not just them.  It’s their families,” Lisa spoke into the phone.  “Unspoken rule, you don’t fuck with a cape’s family.”

Ah shit. Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that sets the entire community against you.

I read the contents of the email she had open.  I felt a ball of dread settle in the pit of my stomach.  I leaned over the back of the couch and put a hand on her shoulder to steady myself as I reached down to press the pagedown key on the laptop.  I read more of the email and then hit the button again to scroll down again.

Ah, email, not news story. Fair enough.

When I’d read enough of the page to verify my suspicions, I hit the home key to return to the very top of the page.  I checked who else had been Cc’ed on the email and the time it had been sent.

The narration is conspicuously avoiding immediately saying what the email told Taylor. Hm.

Brian was walking with long strides, and he had long legs, which forced me to do little jogging spurts to keep up.  It wasn’t tiring, I was fit enough from my running, but it was embarrassing to feel like a small child trying to keep up with a grown-up.

Looooong.

New theory: Brian is Slenderman, but no one has noticed.

Either way, we did make good time getting back to the loft.

Brian put his finger to his lips as he pulled on his helmet and flipped his visor down, emanating his darkness to hide the costume.

Yeah, probably a good call, in case some enemy has infiltrated the Loft.

That said, Taylor is still without her costume – if she’s gonna go in before they’ve made sure no one malicious is there, she’ll need to cover herself in bugs again.

I grimaced and brought bugs up to cover my face, calling more from the area to form the beginnings of a swarm.  Brian – Grue now – reached out and coated the front door of the loft in darkness, then opened it without the slightest of creaks or squeals.

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Yeah, that’s what we’re wondering too.”

Before we ascended the metal stairs leading to the second floor, he coated them in a layer of his power to render our footsteps utterly silent.

I didn’t anticipate the scene in the living room of the Loft.

Hm. Probably either devastation, or anticlimactic normalcy. Maybe there’s an ongoing fight, but I think they would’ve heard that before they entered.

“It’s been ten months, how long does she need?”

“And she’s had how many years, without parents, teachers, bosses?  I mean, even when she had foster parents, I don’t think it was sunbeams and rainbows, y’know?”

He rubbed his chin.  “…Yeah.”

Yeah, this might take a while.

“Tell me she hasn’t gotten at least a bit better in the course of those ten months.”

“Marginally.”

“There you go.  It’ll only improve from here on out.”

A little bit of hope for the being that lives in the dark.

He offered me a theatric groan in reply.

Hehe.

“That might be the problem.  You’re in charge, she looks up to you, respects you, but…” I paused.  How could I word this without getting into the particulars of her mode of thinking?  “…But you’re something of an authority figure in our group, and her personality demands she tests authority.  Especially when she’s insecure.”

Hm, yeah, makes sense.

But not scents. Rachel’s alpha is scentless, after all.

Brian considered that.  With a note of approval in his voice, he commented, “You have been giving this some thought.”

It’s Taylor. She gives pretty much everything some thought. :p

But yeah, it is pretty clear from what she said that she’s been paying close attention to how Rachel thinks.

“I think that you’d have a much easier time handling her if you took an official leadership role in our group.  Not just being the sorta-kinda leader, but actually taking the position.

Hm, yeah, might work. Not sure everyone would be happy with it, especially if not given an explanation for why, but it wouldn’t ultimately be that big of a change except when it comes to Rachel.

If you’re not comfortable with that, or if you think the others will make it too hard, well, she’ll probably get more comfortable with relying on you as someone in charge over time, as you prove you can handle it.”

Makes sense.

“I don’t want to underestimate him, is all,” I said.

Brian sighed, “Yeah.  Maybe you’re right.

Decent save.

But Kaiser was willing to demand restitution for the attack on his dogfighting ring, and I’m more than willing to do the same for this attack from his skinheads, if it comes down to it.”

Yeah, don’t let him get away with thinking that’s a one-way street.

“Both events having something substantial to do with Bitch,” I noted.

“I’m aware of that fact,” he told me, frowning.  “She’s useful, she’s a credit to the team, but she comes with some problems.  We’ve dealt with it in the past, we’ll deal with it in the future.”

“Right.”

Right.

I don’t think Rachel should be blamed for the skinheads’ attack in itself, but she should’ve informed the others long before it got to this point. Much like the main complaint in 5.2, really.

“Funny that it’s Kaiser that’s having trouble controlling his people,” Brian mused, when I was done.

How so?

I wondered if he was still sore over what Kaiser had said at the meeting.

Ahh, right, that.

“Coil upped the pressure the moment the truce against the ABB was broken.  I would be surprised if Kaiser didn’t have his hands full with that,” I replied.

“You’re defending him?”

Hm, no, I don’t think she is. Suggesting a plausible explanation isn’t the same as excusing someone’s actions.

I say this as someone who hates when people assume explanations for my own actions are meant as excuses.

It wasn’t often that I felt acutely aware of the difference in our skin colors, but being asked if I was making excuses for the white supremacist supervillain was one of those moments.

Oof, yeah. That didn’t even occur to me right then – it’s a non-visual medium, after all, making it easier for the difference to fade into the back of one’s mind until it suddenly becomes relevant again. I do appreciate that Taylor has the same experience, one that reflects and to some degree explains how the narration (which of course is supposed to be by her) doesn’t mention it very often.

Bitch scowled, but she nodded.

“Taylor, we should go.  The sooner we check on Lisa and Alec, the better I’ll feel,” he was already moving as he finished talking.

Yeah, let’s get on that.

The moment we were out of earshot, he pulled off his helmet, tucking it under one arm, and asked me, “What happened?”

You mean why Rachel is downright friendly at the moment and willing to accept the temporary hit to her pride on the issue of leaving the doghouse?

Or the details of how the attack was dealt with, without Rachel’s spin on it?

Those things aren’t entirely disconnected, either.

I told him, explaining everything after the point Bitch and I heard the ruckus the bottle man and his gang were causing.

Ah, yeah, at the end of the last chapter I was sort of figuring that this chapter might start immediately after this recap, but this works too.