“She bleeds,” I said. “She gets tired, and she looked really fucking tired when I saw her. She has a lot on her plate, and I don’t think you’re a primary focus. Which is good. You don’t want to be her primary focus, because people who are tend to end up in pieces, one way or another.”

“Alright,” Rain said, sounding anything but.

“She…” I started. I bit my tongue.

“What?” Tristan asked.

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I don’t want to give you the wrong impressions, either.”

“Any impressions help,” Tristan said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But what she said when I talked to her, the way she wanted to make herself out to be one of the good guys, bringing good things to others…”

“Oh,” Kenzie said. She fiddled with her phone.

“It doesn’t necessarily jibe with her working with people who are out for blood and murder. She seems to want to be a very low-key villain or even a Robin-Hood type desperado while simultaneously leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, or she wants to portray herself as such,” I said.

“I’m now sharing the love and bringing some of that security, stability, and safety to others, in my very, very roundabout way,” Kenzie’s phone said, in Tattletale’s voice.

“Yeah, that’s it, thank you,” I said. Kenzie gave me a thumbs up. I felt a bit of the heebie-jeebies at having heard Tattletale’s voice without being braced for it. It took me a moment to gather my thoughts before I added, “It makes me wonder what she would say if she were told that Snag and the other two were out for your head.”

“She could be full of shit,” Sveta said.

“She could be,” I admitted. “Trouble of dealing with masterminds is you can’t ever know.”

“Makes me think,” Tristan said. “We really should have that talk about our group’s game plan.”

“We can’t have that talk without Ashley,” Kenzie said.

“Or Chris,” Sveta said.

Kenzie turned to look at Chris, before giving us a very unenthused, “Yeah.”

“Pretty quick turnaround on your opinion of Chris,” I said.

“It’s not turned around. It’s a love-hate relationship,” Kenzie said. “Sometimes I really like him and sometimes I really don’t. Right now is one of those times I really don’t. I was having fun.”

“There will be other times you can fool around with my power, and with others,” Rain said.

“Yeah,” Kenzie said. She looked at Rain and smiled. “We’re gonna help you with your thing.”

A bit of a non-sequitur, but I wasn’t going to draw attention to it. “Do you want to call Ashley or see what’s holding her up? If she’s not up to having this conversation, that’s okay too.”