“No, I didn’t figure it out,” Chicken Little admitted. “You did scare me.”

“Not badly enough that you backed off.”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to show weakness,” Chicken Little said, defensive.

Defensive, as if it was all his fault. But Tattletale met Samuel’s eyes, and she saw Chastity’s smirk.

Yeah, it wasn’t on him. They were sending mixed messages.

Mixed messages weren’t the worst thing in the world. If push came to shove and that kid found himself in a serious fight, there’d be more mixed messages than this. The trick was making sure that they were teaching him to deal with them, not putting those mixed messages in his head.

It left a sour taste in her mouth, all the same.

She could see moments, expressions, and recall feelings that reminded her of Alec. Here and there, there were ones that annoyed her, made her cringe as she thought of them. Times Alec had embarrassed her, preyed on her pride, or mocked her and made her lose her cool.

This bad feeling was similar to that. But it wasn’t Alec she thought of, as she looked at Chicken Little and regretted how she’d done this.

Her legs were at ninety-five percent, but that five percent was adding up. The vehicles that were delivering them and their stuff were just pulling down the road now, navigating an urban area that had been built into a rolling landscape, instead of waiting for the landscape to be flattened or managed in any real way.

Every move she was making right now cost something, and these trucks had not been cheap. She wasn’t making any real money for as long as she wasn’t in New Brockton, but she couldn’t go to New Brockton because March was circling that area.

And all the while, the local power structure was shifting. That was their next stop, but they would have to be careful.

“Wait,” Chicken Little said. “Something’s—what the what is in that truck down there?”

Tattletale smiled.

“Tattletale?” he asked.

“Come on. Walk with me. Snuff comes, but let us have our talk.”

“Yes ma’am,” Snuff said.

She left behind a scene where Faultline was hanging back, bewildered at a scene that Tattletale continued to call a ‘good day’. Samuel was physically putting himself between Juliette and Roman, Chastity had cowed Flor into an approximation of obedience and in the process had managed to scare away the soldier she had been flirting with earlier.

They walked past the line of trucks that were pulling over at the side of the one-way road. Drivers were getting out at the left side of the street, but the right side was just for Chicken Little, Tattletale, and her cane.

“Are you okay?” Chicken Little asked her.

“Uh huh. Gettin’ by. But March is going to realize I bounced back fairly quickly. She’ll realize the resources I have and she’ll hurt me worse next time. Be ready for that.”

“I’ll protect you.”