Skidmark held the microphone and wore his traditional costume, dark blue and skintight, with the lower half of his face and the area around his eyes exposed.

Lower half and the area around his eyes? That’s pretty much the whole damn face, isn’t it, leaving only a T-shaped bit to stick his nose into?

As costumes went, it was pretty lame, even with the cape that he’d added since the last time I’d seen him.  Especially with the cape.

It’s been such a long time since I got the chance to do this…

There were people who could pull off that sort of thing, like Alexandria.  Skidmark wasn’t one of them.

Capes make you look regal, powerful, in a way. Which is why it’s fitting that Skidmark added one between being a sad sack of potatoes and an important sad sack of potatoes. But in order to have the proper effect, you need to look powerful beyond just the cape. People can tell the difference between an actual powerful person and some pathetic douche who’s just trying to look like one by wearing a cape.

So is it going to be Skidmark himself?

“Hey Sisterfuckers!”

…alright. I guess they go for a different kind of incest in their insults.

Appropriate enough considering how Bryce metaphorically fucked over his sister by joining them.

The music had died all at once, and a slow roar spread through the entire mall, rising to a climax.  Cheering.

Yeah, it’s time for the main event.

All heads were turning to look the same direction.  I followed their line of sight.

A crude platform had been pulled together at one side of the mall, where the rubble was piled highest.

And naturally, that requires a stage. I’ve actually been lowkey watching out for stage-like structures for a while.

The leading figures of the Merchants stood at the front, just behind a railing of metal bars that had been haphazardly welded together.

Howdy!

“Got a reality check for you,” Lisa told him, stepping closer, “Those people who ‘trashed’ the church?  They hurt your sister.”

Judging by the way he’s talking, I’m not sure he’s going to care.

“What?  No-”

Alright, seems he does care. Disbelief it is, then.

“She’s in ICU, bro,” Lisa lied.

And of course Lisa continues playing off of the fact that he does care about Sierra (which she might’ve Known rather than just guessed), exaggerating the hurt to manipulate him.

I mean, if it works, why not. Only thing is he’ll know when he gets out and meets Sierra again, at which point there’s a risk of him going back to the Merchants.

I didn’t get a chance to see where she was going from there, because Lisa was interrupted by a booming voice that rang through the entire mall.  

Oh hey, took ‘em long enough. I kinda expected this to start up pretty soon after the arrival at the mall, but I guess there was quite a bit of pre-party for the Merchants.

Time to find out what sort of bloodshed those red bands are for.

Fuck.

Yeah, that about sums it up.

“Poor baby,” Jaw rumbled.  Bryce looked up at the man and then looked away, angry.

Heh. Yeah, I don’t like chores either, but Jaw is right to be sarcastic about this.

“Got sick, then when I get better my sister drags me to this church, same fucking thing.  Lame people, lame place, and I just know I’ll be doing more fucking chores to ‘earn my keep’.  Fuck that.  Some people came to trash the church, and I figured, hey, there’s a way out.  Have some fun.”

Yeeah, and then you didn’t tell anyone who cared about you a damn thing, not even that you were okay.

Which it does seem like you were, even if the Merchants weren’t as fun as you thought they’d be.

He cast a quick glance at the bleached blond girl next to him.

Ah, yes, that kind of fun.

Maybe he was a bit older. I remember he was described as hard to tell the age of, but I’m not sure whether we learned his actual age.

“There’s no story to tell,” Bryce glared at her.  “Our house falls down, my family moves in with my dad’s friend.  Everyone else goes to work, I’m left with two of the lamest fucking families ever.

Eesh.

So wait, was it boredom?

I was doing more chores in a matter of days than I’ve done in the rest of my life combined.”

How old was this kid again? Twelve-ish? I suppose this attitude makes some sense for a privileged kid of that age (Vista might disagree), but… look around you, dude. Do you really think doing some extra chores is your biggest problem nowadays? It’s certainly not something to go join the fucking Merchants over.

The best case scenario, I guess, is that Bryce only joined to save his own skin from the way the Merchants treat their captives.

“This your boy?” Jaw asked, as he noticed us.

“Yeah,” Lisa said, without even glancing at me.

Hehe.

“What happened, Brycie?  You join the Merchants and neglect to tell your sister, go to stay with her, and then give all the info on where she’s staying to your new friends?  You that big a scumbag?”

Oof, that would be even worse than what I thought might’ve happened (him joining at or after the church attack), which would just be that first part about joining and not telling Sierra.

Bryce scowled.  I could see him trying to look confident in front of his girlfriend.  “Not what happened.”

Ahh, that’s what she is… probably.

So what did happen, then?

“Then tell me a story, kid.  Keep in mind, what you say plays a big role in what happens in the next few minutes.”

Yeah… this could get a bit nastier. 

And then, as I meant to talk about between posts, there’s the matter of reporting this back to Sierra. If Taylor came back without Bryce and told her the truth, unless that truth is very different from how it currently looks, I don’t think Sierra would believe her at first. She’d probably get quite upset at Skitter, and then if Skitter manages to actually convince her, at Bryce and just upset in general.

Point is, this doesn’t look like it’ll end with a happy Sierra.

As we reached the side of one grouping of stalls, I spotted Jaw standing in front of Bryce.  He had one steel-toed boot planted on the same wooden bench that Bryce was seated on, his broad gut almost in the boy’s face.

Huh. Did he already save the kid?

Beside Bryce was a teenaged girl with bleached blond hair, who was almost lying across the bench in her attempt to keep back from Jaw.

Another victim, or young villain? Either way, this is a pretty reasonable reaction to Jaw.

There was nobody near enough to Bryce to be his kidnapper, nobody with a weapon, no handcuffs or chains.

Yeah, I was about to comment on that, but I couldn’t figure out how to word it so I decided to move on in case the rest of the paragraph corrected that impression.

So did Jaw already get rid of the kidnapper, or… is there not one? Did Bryce come voluntarily and join the Merchants? That would be quite a twist. Poor Sierra if that’s the case.

Shit.  I didn’t like what that suggested.

I don’t think I do either… except as a plot twist and story development. I actually think it’d be kinda neat, though unfortunate.