#12.8p2

I looked around, and it was Grue I looked at while I spoke.  “Having everyone in the Docks spread out like this, over this wide an area?  It’s a problem.  We’ve got single families living in warehouses and factories that could comfortably house three to five families, and they’re dealing with problems that we could handle far more easily as a group.  And there’s the logistics of it, getting supplies to everyone when there’s only three to six groups of people on a given city block.  I want to bring people from the fringes in, so we’re not so spread out.  Get everyone working for the collective good.  Build a community and tie everything to a smaller area.”

That makes a lot of sense. If this plan extends far enough, it would also put a lot more people within the range of Skitter’s bugs.

“There’s going to be resistance,” Grue spoke.  “People aren’t going to want to move, and they’re too spooked about run-ins with Chosen and Merchants to trust one another.”

Of course. There’s always going to be stubbornness and fear. I doubt the patriarch is going to like this.

“If-” Sierra started, but she stopped when Grue snapped his head around to face her, intimidated.  She tried again, “If she’s going to try it, now would be a good time.  Word’s getting out.”

About the Mannequin fight, like what brought these former ABBs to Skitter’s doorstep? Or?

“About what, specifically?” I asked.

“You fought Mannequin, you said you’d make him pay, and then you did.  And you did it to save people, people from the docks.  I think people are realizing you’re for real.”

Yep. She’s proven herself, proven that she’s willing and capable of really protecting them.

I shook my head.  “I don’t even understand how.”

Sierra seems to get it, at least.

“Still think you’re moving too fast.  Like I said earlier, there’s no good reason for it.”

“Dinah’s a good enough reason for me.”

I’m mostly with Grue, thinking Taylor is focusing too hard on Dinah, but I get where she’s coming from. She feels responsible for the whole thing, so she feels she has to correct it at any cost to her own well-being.

“Maybe.  But you’ve got to find time to relax, get some sleep, maybe have some fun.  Or you’re going to make mistakes, and you’ll set yourself back days or weeks in your plan.  Slow and steady wins this race.”

It makes a load of sense. Skitter’s a villain who lacks muscle willing to work for a supervillain. They’re muscle who lack a villain to work for. The pieces fit together beautifully.

I wonder what Lung would think if he learned that parts of his gang had gone to the annoying bug kid for work.

“We heard you took on Mannequin,” the girl said.  “That’s ballsy.”

It really was.

“Thanks,” I said, in my driest tone.  Stupid as it was, that statement meant something to me.  Nobody had really congratulated me since my fight with Mannequin.  I hadn’t congratulated myself.

Yeah, see? It was a victory.

It was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that they respected me for what had happened with Mannequin.  A victory was a victory, but people had gotten hurt, I’d gotten hurt.

This is more relatable than it has any right to be.

I could feel Sierra’s steady but insistent tapping on the cube all the while.

“Come on, come on, come on...”

Seems like whatever the people around her want, they’re pressuring her.

They were a short distance down the beach, but they started walking towards us a little bit after we entered the storm drain, and met us halfway.

How did they know to start walking?

Sierra was in the company of a pair of Japanese boys and a petite Chinese girl with a pierced nose and a thousand-yard stare.  There was a degree of attitude coming from them that was all too familiar.  Gang members.  Of course.

I should’ve known the ABB wouldn’t stay entirely irrelevant.

Just because Lung and Bakuda were no longer around didn’t mean there wouldn’t be scraps of the ABB in the area.  They wouldn’t be liked, but they were there, they were equipped for trouble and criminal activity was all they knew.

AU where the Slaughterhouse Nine have a member whose power is to control window shutters. Her name would be Shutterbird.

Reams of glass shards fell as I opened the heavy shutters that stood just behind the pedestals with the mannequins I was using to design the costumes.  I stepped out onto the balcony and set about sweeping up the glass and dumping it into the trash can, using my bugs to collect what the dustpan wasn’t catching.  I wasn’t in costume, and I was in plain sight on the balcony, but I doubted the concentration of bugs was enough to draw attention.

O Taylor, Taylor! Wherefore art thou Taylor? Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Wilbourn, Kiley, Laborn, Dallon or... whatever my surname may be depending on the reader’s preference!

Ten minutes passed before I heard from Sierra.  I assumed it would be about the food, but it wasn’t.

“Why?  You were telling me earlier, but we got interrupted.”

I’d been glad for the interruption, and I was profoundly disappointed the subject had come up again.

Why, though. Is it that you don’t want to tell Grue your answer, or that you don’t have an answer?

I folded my arms and looked away, down the road to where it gradually sloped to the shattered Boardwalk and the ocean beyond.

Here was the leap of faith.  The test of my trust in him.  “Because if I don’t amaze Coil, if I don’t force his hand and give him absolutely no reason to say I failed… he’s going to keep Dinah.  If he does, the only way to free her is going to be if Tattletale and I take Coil down.  And I don’t think we’d succeed.”

Taylor.