“You’re on her team, you’re all responsible. You told me she was fine to have around the dogs, I believed you. Now I don’t believe you.”

“Shit,” I heard Tattletale whisper. “Factor in that we’re in a strange place, one she associates with fighting and her dogs getting hurt…”

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

“Rachel!” Tattletale raised her voice. “Hey, listen.”

“No.”

Rachel called in the two dogs who were in the way, then hauled hard on the sliding door at the front of the stable, leaning into the motion with her whole body. She was more muscular a build than ninety-five percent of people I knew, more than Tristan or my dad, even, and the effect of her using every major muscle in her body to slam a massive wooden door was pretty dramatic. It rattled after closing.

Tattletale stared at the closed door, then looked over at me. “Maybe take the kids into town? Get them some food?”

“You sure?”

“I really don’t know,” she said. “But get them fed and taken care of, keep them from getting too mad at Lookout, and maybe we’ll just have the one person who’s having a crisis, instead of a whole gaggle of them.”

“Two people having a crisis, at least. Lookout’s going to have a tough time with this.”

“All the more reason. Let me handle my teammate, you handle the kids.”

“Thanks, Tattletale.”

She nodded.

I led the kids away, though they were periodically protesting, questioning me, or turning to try to go back or look at what was happening. Not that there was anything except Tattletale talking to a door.

Down the path, along the road.

I could have offered to carry them, but I needed a moment to calm down before we got there, and I couldn’t help but feel like picking them up, then immediately dropping them off in Kenzie’s vicinity would be disastrous.

Such a smart kid, but she could do such paradoxically dumb things when feelings got in the way. Stealing a dog from Rachel Lindt.

“Hold off on any actions or accusations,” I told the kids. “We’re going to go get food, and we’re going to stay out of Lookout’s way, she’s going to stay out of your way, and when we’ve figured out what happened—”

“She stole a dog,” Amias chimed in.

“—Yes. But the why, and the consequences… we need to figure it all out. Let’s let Tattletale handle it, and everything else.”

Candy gave me a long, searching look, while her teammates kept their heads down. Darlene looked disgruntled, but it had been just last night that she’d brought the full wrath of the Heartbroken down on the girl. She had to be thinking of that now. Chicken was just plain quiet.