Tattletale answered, sounding exasperated, “If that’s the angle you want, then that’s fine, except being their ally means paying attention. ‘Aunt Rachel’ has been giving you an easy time of it by keeping two or three with her at Casa de Bitch, and you’ve gotten lazy. But—Imp, you wanted this. If you want to be their peer then sometimes that means manipulating them for their own benefits. Imp—Imp.”

Her position was one where I couldn’t see her eyes through the mirror, but her head moved in a way that made me think she was eye-rolling so hard that her eyes were dragging her head with them.

“Imp. If you have to be a little cunty, as you so eloquently phrased it—”

Imp said something.

“Latin, I’m sure. If you have to be a Latin cunt—”

Imp said something else.

“Your effort’s wasted, because I didn’t even bat an eyelash at you knowing the word for it. If you have to be a jerkass to get through the next few hours, then you do that. But I’m going to warn you, if you don’t set boundaries, if you don’t keep the older Heartbroken from stomping all over what Chicken Little, Darlene, Candy and Lookout are trying to build, those four kids will never forgive you. They—”

A momentary pause, an interruption.

“—Yeah, ‘fuck’. Those four kids will love you but they won’t forgive you. They’ll wonder for the next forever about what could have been and when they’re nursing hurt feelings and resentment in their hearts, a little piece of that resentment and hurt will forever and always be ‘why didn’t Imp back us up?’”

There was a long pause. I didn’t hear any of Imp’s voice in there.

Tattletale went on, “If that triple-pronged dildo Samuel wants to stomp all over their feelings, mayyybe let him know you can stomp all over his. Make him buckle and the others will follow. If they’re really into it, you might need to get Chastity to back off, because she’s another mini-leader in that troupe. She always gets giddy when we order pizza and grumpy when it’s not the teenager with the scooter, and as far as I know she doesn’t even realize why. Mention it. That’ll get her to stop.”

Imp said something. I heard a long, drawn out sound that might’ve been a groan or a strangled scream.

“Together-together?” Tattletale asked.

One-word response.

“That’s fascinating. You could ask those two if they want dessert, and if one said yes, the other would skip dessert out of sheer spite. And they’re together on this?”

Another short response.

“Mostly together. That’s still something.”

Imp said something more.

“Easy. Drop a comment like how similar they are to one another sometimes. You—well say it and be careful, Imp. Obviously. So it’s Samuel, Juliette and Roman, you’ve got everyone else handled? How’s Flor? And she’s not being sly so you let your guard down? Huh, good for her. Okay. And Lookout?”