He wore a polite smile and wasn’t doing anything more offensive than holding me, but something in his demeanor told me that Senegal wasn’t bothered in the slightest to be a thirty-ish guy with a teenage girl in one arm.  Just the opposite.

I actually had to go back to Interlude 8b after that last paragraph and check whether the guy Coil was talking about at the start of that was called Senegal. He wasn’t, that was Creep, but I do think there’s a good chance Senegal is receiving a similar form of payment.

“Hands off,” I told him.  I didn’t want to remove his arm because I knew that if I failed, if he resisted me, it would only reinforce his position over me.

Might as well be upfront about being aware of this, I guess.

He didn’t budge.  “Your friend there is the one calling the shots, and she said we’re a couple.  Until I hear different-”

Yeeah, I’m not convinced even that would dissuade him in the long run.

“Knock it off, Senegal,” Lisa ordered him.

Thank you, though.

The soldier backed off, raising his hands in an ‘I’m innocent’ gesture.

Yeah right.

That fake smile was still plastered on his face.  Would I even know it was fake, if I hadn’t spent the time around Bitch?  Or would I just think he was a slightly awkward guy with poor sense of boundaries? 

This… hits close to home, having dealt with a pedophile on Discord who for over a year just came across to everyone as a sweet, slightly awkward guy with a poor sense of boundaries.

I wasn’t one of the victims, I was one of the mods involved in dealing with that situation once we found out about it. Still was a stressful and upsetting situation that lasted a while.

Uncomfortable, I looked up at him to see his expression, and I didn’t like what I saw.  It reminded me of a look I’d seen on Bitch’s face from time to time.  That look where I could see that animal that had been at the core of any of us since before we walked upright.

Yikes.

Let’s, uh, hope he’s just a good actor.

Let’s really hope that.

Just like Bitch, the animal at Senegal’s core was vicious.  The difference was that he was much better at pretending to be normal, and his animal wasn’t angry.

Maybe it’s a bit of both, in a bad way.

It was hungry.

Lisaaaaa!

He stepped inside.  A Hispanic boy in the front hall whistled sharply as Kid Win stepped inside, while a group of Asian-American boys and girls in dirty clothing ran around him, screaming at a ear-piercing volume as they continued a game, some pointing and hooting at the superhero.  Occupants aside, it was dark, with only two dingy lightbulbs and no open windows.

I can’t say I’m not getting Oliver Twist vibes from this moment.

I’m guessing the Hispanic boy is Chariot?

It’s nine o’clock at night.  Don’t these kids have a bedtime?

Hehe.

He checked the folded paper he had in his hand, found the room number, and headed up the stairs.  A morbidly obese, older man sat halfway up the stairs, maybe a babysitter for the kids.

Seems I was wrong.

It’s definitely not Fagin over here, though. Not exactly the kind of guy the Wards would try to recruit.

Kid Win hoped the man was a babysitter, because the man was white and the kids weren’t, meaning he probably wasn’t family.

Babysitter or genuinely good adoptive father are the two good options. One of the bad ones would be this situation being more like Oliver Twist than I first thought.

If he wasn’t getting paid, there was only one uncomfortable explanation for why the man would be willing to tolerate that yelling and squealing.

A couple uncomfortable explanations. One more uncomfortable than the other, but both fucked up.