“I am too, but I feel like if things keep going like this, after she connected, I’m going to be the one to unconnect. Or Darlene is, and I keep hearing about Darlene’s bad side but I’ve never seen it. Or Candy is, and I feel like Candy would treat the problem like she treats a lot of things, like she’d use her power and try to fix it in one big obvious move that doesn’t really work.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He nodded.

“She does this thing, you know, where she doesn’t smile when she’s happy.”

“Yeah,” I said, quiet.

“I had to tell Darlene that. And Darlene went from giving her hugs when she smiled because she wanted to share that happiness to giving her hugs when she smiled because she needed a hug.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“Except we’re not sure what to do, now, so she’s been hugging her less and I’ve been thinking about taking a day off… and I was glad to be on a mission like this to get away, if I’m being super honest.”

“Yeah.”

“I know all the Heartbroken have rules and weirdness about how they behave, but I can either figure them out or I can deal. But Kenz—Lookout is maybe the worst possible thing for my rules and weirdness, despite the fact I really like her a ton.”

I put a hand out, rubbing his shoulder. “I’ll do what I can.”

“She talks about you guys a lot. She misses you. You, Ashley, and Chris.”

I nodded.

Tattletale cleared her throat. Forewarning for the fact she was pulling an earbud out. “We’re close.”

“Okay,” Chicken Little said. “Thank you.”

There was a pause, as Tattletale put her earbud back in, then to me, he repeated, “Thank you.”

“Sure thing, C.L., thanks for being cool to my friend.”

The street didn’t have any parking, which delayed us. The spot we did find was in an alley, without much room to maneuver.

While Chicken Little squeezed himself and his hawks out of the spot, Tattletale approached me, showing me her phone.

Messages with the address, and a follow up. After a back and forth to hammer out the particulars of the meeting, the response from Countenance was that Big Picture was inviting us to his office, apparently, and he wouldn’t be wearing his mask or gear.

Downside: we had a very limited time when he was free and willing to talk. If we wanted to talk to him later, we had to do it when he had free time around seven o’clock. Which was past Tattletale’s self-imposed deadline.

Despite the fact the building was tall, the ride on the rickety low-cost, fast-install elevator with the chain running through a column in the center was a short one. Up to the third floor, out of eight.