Chapter 10: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

(Victoria Larson)

Life was abjectly boring for Victoria Larson. For the past six months each day had brought about the same routine: her sister would wake her up, they would grab breakfast at some establishment with terrible customer service, and would proceed to plan out the day's training venture on their deteriorating map of Kanto. Beth would be cheerful and spunky, Victoria would need serious caffeination to not verbally abuse her, they would argue about which route to take, and eventually settle on some dull, bug-infested side path. Training would continue for however long they felt like battling the underbrush, food would be consumed, and hardly any words would be exchanged. They had run out of exciting things to talk about six months ago. When it was all done they would return to the Center of whatever town they were in, drop off their teams, and have a quiet dinner at some establishment with terrible customer service. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Victoria and Beth were sitting at a two-person table in a shabby little restaurant with rather good pancakes and rather dimwitted waiters, waiting for their tab. Victoria had flagged their server down multiple times and was on the verge of marching up and demanding to speak to the manager. Only Beth's worried plea of, "five more minutes!" kept her in her seat. For the past few moments she had been gazing absently out the window, trying to remember how long it would take to reach Lavender Town on foot. She found that her thoughts kept wandering back to creative ways to murder the restaurant staff, though.

It was still kind of early in the morning, around seven, but since it was summer the sun was already shining over the eastern mountain ranges. Saffron City was a nice place to tourist around in, but Victoria liked it for a different reason. Saffron was essentially the mid-point of Kanto, and if she and Beth were here they could head out to any one of four different towns and routes to capture or train Pokémon—Cerulean to the north, Vermilion to the south, Lavender to the east and Celadon to the west—the "main quadrant" as it was called.

She and her sister had already been to Celadon; they wouldn't need to return there in any hurry. Vermilion and Cerulean were always options, but for some reason Victoria felt inclined to trek the lonely path to Lavender Town. She had heard the Pokémon Tower there was severely haunted, which usually just meant that there were tough Pokémon in the area.

Beth smiled sweetly at their waiter as he managed to wander their way from whatever idiot cloud he had been lost in. He gave them their bill and tried to wander off, but Victoria's quick fingers reached out and snatched his arm before he could leave. She opened the black folder containing their receipt and her green eyes tore over it shrewdly. A scowl came to her face and she shoved it back at him. "This isn't ours. Please attempt to bring us our check this time, and if it's not too much trouble, maybe in the next century?"

"Vee," Beth pleaded quietly, burying her face in her hands. The waiter looked abashed.

"Thank you," Victoria said with venomous sweetness.

Branches. The theme of the day was branches.

Victoria swatted away what felt like the thousandth bramble as it reached desperately for her already marred and scratched face. Heaving a sigh, she stomped quickly through more underbrush, still looking for a clearing. She didn't care how big it was, so long as it was a clearing.

Perhaps this route hadn't been as good an idea as it had seemed before. Victoria had no idea that the unconventional path to Lavender would be so… unconventional.

Beth bounced happily behind her, every so often exclaiming as she thought she saw a place to sit, only to take it back a moment later and confirm that it was just "a kind of flat looking bush."

The two sisters had started out into the underbrush about half an hour after Victoria had unleashed an onslaught of verbal abuse upon the restaurant's manager and earned her sister and herself 50% off of their meal. It was one in the afternoon now, and there was no sign of rest, or even wild Pokémon, anywhere.

Victoria sighed again, making it as terse and stressed-sounding as she could. It just made her feel better to do it. She knew that all this "roughing it" would pay off tremendously if, if, they found any tough Pokémon here to battle. In theory, the deeper one got into forests or caves the stronger the wilds would be, and the more their own teams would learn from the experience of battling them.

Beth, who was somehow undaunted by all of this, had now taken up the most annoying practice of jumping up and down to see over Victoria's red-haired head into the brambles that lay before them.

"Ooh! I think—I see—one! For real this time," she shouted enthusiastically, her voice distorted from jumping.

"Great," Victoria said, half-listening. She could have sworn she heard something like disturbed leaves up ahead, and was straining to hear more. "Would you please—"

Victoria didn't even get a chance to finish her thought, for they were interrupted by what looked and sounded like a patch of forest exploding. Victoria threw her hands up over her face just in time; branches, leaves, dirt and rocks showered her, and she coughed in spasms as she had been unlucky enough to inhale right then. Screaming shrieks filled the air around them, and though unable to see, Victoria did not need to look to know this was bad. "Other way!" she shouted at Beth, reaching behind her, finding her sister's stomach, and pushing her away.

The two sisters were soon tearing through the underbrush, beating the trail they had just flattened, not stopping for scraped skin or torn clothing. Victoria managed to look behind her shoulder just once, and saw that they were being pursued by what looked like every Fearow in the main quadrant.

"Keep going!" Victoria shouted as Beth hesitated for a fraction of a second, almost causing her sister to slam into her. "Don't stop!"

"My phone just—"

"Go!"

Victoria felt a beak snap on her shirt, and she jumped forward with just enough strength to pull herself free. She felt a draft on her back and realized that it had torn a large swatch of the fabric completely off. Curses were on loop in her mind.

"Our teams," Beth shouted, unable to make a longer sentence.

"No time!" Victoria shouted back, wishing direly that they'd had their Pokémon out with them through this ordeal. She struggled to remember how much farther they had to go: if it was much longer to get to the main dirt road, they would have no choice but to try to fight off the Fearow.

Just when Victoria was ready to shout the order to turn and fight, something else flashed in the corner of her eye and her head whipped to follow the movement. She did not have time to shout a warning at Beth; the underbrush burst open again, and many figures jumped out.

It was instinct, and it paid off. Victoria jumped at Beth, grabbed her around the middle, and tumbled to the ground. A second later a burst of flame soared overhead where they had just been. Beth screamed and put her hands over her head. Victoria squinted and coughed anew in the heat from the fire, eyes watering. She struggled to see what in the world was going on.

She saw them then, through the heat haze and smoke; two Growlithe were sending fire at the birds, who were screeching and screaming and beating their wings against it. Victoria swore colorfully at the top of her lungs, unable to hold it in. Wild Growlithe now too, on top of it? They were freaking toast.

"Beth," she said, and Beth, thank God, snapped out of her wide-eyed disbelief enough to listen carefully. "Send out your team, quick."

Beth nodded and fumbled with her Pokémon belt, managing to detach one and hit the button. A second later Staryu appeared, instinctively moving to shield them from the cacophony of heat, flapping and wailing that was so close. Victoria and Beth were now waiting for an opportunity to strike, unsure when the battle would turn towards them.

When a young man stepped out of the clearing, Victoria thought she was hallucinating. He pointed at the Fearow flock and a second later a gray shape shot forward and slammed into the largest bird with an audible thud. The Fearow screamed in rage and tried what looked like Drill Peck on the gray shape, which took the damage with a screeching scrape of beak on something hard. Victoria figured it had to be some kind of Rock-type Pokémon. This situation was so insane she felt delirious with disbelief. Three humans attacked by every kind of wild Pokémon imaginable when mere minutes ago there had been nothing!

There was more movement just out of Victoria's line of sight, but Beth narrated what she was seeing aloud. "A girl!" she said, pointing, and Victoria took her word for it. It was starting to dawn on her that the boy and girl were probably trainers as well, and if they were very lucky, some of these vicious Pokémon belonged to them. Victoria sent out one of her own, just in case. Bellsprout materialized and seemed instantly nervous about the amount of fire around, but loyally stood ground beside Staryu nevertheless.

Victoria had to admit, these Fearow were tenacious. The Geodude (at least, she was pretty sure it was a Geodude, it was so fast) was doing wicked damage, and the fire just kept on coming in bursts of heat. It seemed like hours had passed before the lead Fearow crowed angrily and the flock banked up, kicking up flurries of dirt, rocks and leaves again. Victoria had to close her eyes once more, and when she was able to open them again, the Fearow were gone.

In their place was the young man, leaning over her and peering down. Victoria blinked dirt from her eyes and took in his features: long black hair was held back in a ponytail, darkly tanned skin stretched over a strong jaw and lead down to a sculpted collarbone. He wore no shirt beneath a thick gray mountaineering vest and had brown eyes that were regarding her with concern.

"You two alright?" the boy asked, extending a hand to Victoria. Victoria looked at it as if she wasn't quite sure what it was, and nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound that filled the forest next.

"Cheeee-hooooo! Gav, did you see that? Hell yes! We just whooped like fifty Fearow! Oh, are the girls okay?"

The last bit was tacked on as if an afterthought, and Victoria managed to snap out of her stupor and refuse the offered hand, shakily putting her hands down in the dirt and pushing herself into a sitting position. Beth accepted the guy's help up and leaned against a tree as soon as she was upright. She looked vaguely ill.

Another figure stepped into view, and Victoria's fried brain could barely comprehend that this was probably the source of the "cheeee-hooooo!" She instantly figured they had to be siblings. Both shared the same black hair, bronzed skin and well-defined jawline. The girl was very skinny though, like a kid who had been hit with a sudden growth spurt. Her shirt was flaming red, and Victoria wondered how she had managed to miss her earlier.

"I think they're okay," Gav responded to his probable sibling. He turned to Victoria again. "Can you stand?"

"Yes," she answered, too harshly, and felt immediately bad. To prove it, she pushed herself up off the ground and fought the exhaustion-wobble in her legs. "Thank you," she added, finally realizing how out of breath she was.

"Have you ever seen so many Fearow around here?" the girl was asking Gav now, still hyped up on the fight. "I swear I haven't seen that many!"

"No," Gav responded, only half-paying attention. "Are those yours?" he asked, pointing at Staryu and Bellsprout, who seemed to have relaxed slightly now that the immediate threat was gone.

"Yeah," Beth responded for them, and recalled Staryu with the Pokéball that seemed to be clutched in a death grip in her right hand. Victoria did the same for Bellsprout.

"Kaylee," Gav said to his probable sister, "can you scout ahead to make sure the path is clear?" To Victoria, he said, "Come on, come get some water at our campsite."

About twenty minutes later, Victoria removed her shoes wearily and threw them with conviction in a random direction. One shoe hit a tree and bounced away as her exhausted feet cried in release.

She had to admit, Gav and Kaylee's campsite was pretty swanky as far as campsites went. Under normal circumstances following two complete strangers (one of whom was a boy) into the woods would be very high on her list of things not to do, but given the scenario she figured this one time was okay. Beth, once she had recovered her full speech capacities, had praised the two with never-ending gratitude as well as a torrent of Pokémon-related questions. Her sister seemed to have recovered fairly well and was bouncing around with Kaylee, who took to her babble extremely well. Victoria just zoned out and watched her sister's chestnut brown hair swish back and forth in its ponytail as she followed behind, feeling braindead.

Victoria sat down on a straw mat that served as a common area between two tents. One tent was small while the other was fairly large. A hibachi was cooling to one side and a rope had been tied off between two trees where clothing was drip-drying. There was a small bucket of soapy water off to one side, and what looked like a brown accordion file full of paper. This was the one thing that looked enormously out of place to Victoria, and she frowned at it as she rubbed her left foot absently. A few seconds later Beth came over to her with considerably less gusto than normal. She seemed to have run out of her brief bout of "you saved us!" adrenaline. "Hey, Vee…" she said, dropping down next to her sister and stretching out like a sunbathing cat. "Nice place, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh," she responded, unable to think of a better one. Gav emerged from the large tent with two small cups that looked like thermos lids. He handed one to each sister and they drank greedily of the lukewarm water. Gav placed the thermos down between them and said, "There's more where that came from," before disappearing back into the large tent.

All in all, the day wasn't exactly going the way Victoria had planned.

Kaylee emerged from the small tent, tossing her black slippers much the way Victoria had.

Beth smiled wearily at her. "Hi."

Awkward silence reigned for what felt like an eternity. At some point Gav returned. Kaylee ran her fingers through her hair, removing leaves. Gav coughed. Beth fidgeted. Victoria struggled to get her brain back online.

"So, thank you for saving us from rabid, horrible Fearow," Victoria said, unable to sound anything other than deadpan. "Thank you for the water. You guys should charge people for your rescuing services." Kaylee laughed and Gav smiled warmly at her. Victoria couldn't work up the energy to smile back. "We'll be out of your hair now."

"Really?" Gav asked, looking uncertain about that idea. "You both just ran for your lives for quite a while. It's totally okay if you rest up."

"Please?" Beth asked, and Kaylee laughed again at Beth's theatrically pathetic expression.

Victoria really did want to get back to Saffron, or on to Lavender, as soon as humanly possible. Seeing Beth's exhaustion stopped her though, and she said, "Sorry," to Gav and Kaylee.

"No!" Kaylee insisted. "It'll be fun, we haven't seen other people in like months."

"Way to go, Kay," Gav said, grinning plastically. "We're just a pair of creepy mountain hermits after all."

Beth giggled, but Victoria was now a bit nervous. It must have shown on her face, because Gav smiled reassuringly again. "We've been camping forever, but I assure you we won't be skinning you or holding you hostage."

"We only do that on Tuesdays," Kaylee added, wiggling her eyebrows.

Victoria heaved a sigh and found herself laying down on the straw mat against her will. All this awkward humor was draining what little energy she had left. That was her last thought as a blink turned into a sudden narcoleptic nap.

When Victoria awoke, the sun was down.

She sat up abruptly, sucking in a choked breath of air, and felt a huge spike of aggressive adrenaline pierce her middle. For a sickening second she had no clue where she was.

Bit by bit the day came back to her. Swearing, Victoria kicked and flailed in what felt like sheets, threw them off, and crawled around blindly until she felt vinyl fabric. It took her an impossibly long time to find the zipper, and when she threw the tent door open firelight flooded her vision and temporarily blinded her.

When her sight came back she saw Gav, Kaylee and Beth sitting around a fireplace. One of the Growlithe was napping, curled up on the side. Beth had a blanket around her shoulders, a plate of some sort of food in one hand and a thermos-cover cup in her other. She grinned broadly at Victoria and tried to wave, but found she had no free hands. "Vee!" she said, "Come get food."

"What time is it?" Victoria demanded, and Gav, who was looking at a small LCD screen on a strange chunky handheld device, said, "Eight o'clock. Feel better?"

The unpleasant surprise that she had slept for six hours in a stranger's tent did nothing to improve her mood. There was the question of how the heck she had gone from the straw mat outside to inside the tent as well. Victoria struggled against her temper and took a few deep, calming breaths.

"Beth, we really have to go."

"But..." Beth said, looking helplessly around at Gav and Kaylee. Kaylee jumped in.

"It's super late! Just crash with us tonight, it's no biggie, promise."

"No thank you," Victoria said, but Beth interrupted.

"Seriously Vee, I don't want to go back down when it's dark."

"Then why," Victoria snapped, losing this battle with keeping her temper in check, "did you not wake me up? While we're at it, how the hell did I even get in there?" She jabbed a thumb back at the tent as if it had wronged her. She'd made a valiant effort at civil and cool, but if they wanted to be difficult she could do difficult.

"You... you seemed like you needed sleep," Beth said, and frowned at her. "You don't remember going over there? I asked if you wanted to get out of the sun and you got up long enough to move."

Victoria ground her teeth and stared at her sister, knowing the odds of her lying were slim but feeling suspicious nevertheless. Victoria had been known to growl random phrases out while half-asleep that she could not recall at all in the morning. She glared at Gav, wondering why he didn't speak up. Everything was infuriating her, including the way he kept poking around on his handheld device.

"Really can't advise walking around here at night," Gav said. "Specially not now that we know Fearow roost here. If it'll make you feel better you two can sleep in one tent with all your stuff, and Kay and I will sleep in the other. You should be able to hear us if we try to sneak in and steal from you."

He said it so matter-of-factly, with zero parts bitterness, and Victoria was temporarily taken off-guard. She stared at him, confused, and Kaylee spoke up again.

"You think we'd steal from you?" she asked, sounding a lot more hurt than her probable brother.

"I don't think so," Beth hurriedly assured her, and Victoria had to take more deep breaths to stop from snapping at all of them.

"Sit," Gav said, still not looking up from his device. "We have food."

"And it's not poisoned!" Beth said, showing Victoria her mostly-cleaned plate.

"Or it's very slow-acting poison," Kaylee said, making yet another creepy joke. Victoria was not sure how much more of this she could handle.

In reality, Victoria knew that leaving now was out of the question. They would end up having to stay, but all three of them were delusional if they thought Victoria was sleeping a wink. She would pull an all-nighter and would dropkick anyone who tried anything funny. With this thought in mind she sat down on her knees, face set in a stony expression.

Kaylee snorted. "Miss Congeniality," she teased. "Thirsty?"

As much as she hated to admit it, she was. "Yes," she said robotically.

Gav handed her the cup he'd been holding. "Didn't drink from it yet," he assured her. A second later he shut down his handheld and stretched.

"He emerges from cyberland!" Kaylee crowed, and Gav made a face at her.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, pocketing the device. He turned to Victoria and smiled. "Seriously, we're pretty decent cooks. Everything gets brought to temperature too, thanks to the Growlithe. Trout?"

"No thanks."

"Suit yourself," Kaylee said, taking a huge and rather barbaric bite as if to prove a point. She added some "mmmmm" sounds for effect and Gav sighed.

"This is why we have no friends, sis," he said, confirming Victoria's theory about their relationship.

"No," Kaylee said, glaring at him through a full mouth. She swallowed, then waved a bent fork at him. "It's because you don't let us have a social life."

"Hur hur hur," Gav responded, and got trout thrown at him. Beth screamed playfully as some stray trout went her way, and soon three of the four fireside companions were laughing hard. Victoria closed her eyes and sent up a silent prayer for patience. In spite of her six-hour nap, she was still sandy-eyed, dry-mouthed and exhausted. It would be a long night.

The next morning Victoria was awoken by quiet muttering outside the tent. Her first thought was a torrent of curse words. I fell asleep.

She sat up and gave herself a pat down from head to toes, feeling for her cell phone and Pokéballs and locating her shoes over in the corner of the tent. She took out her wallet and flipped through her marks and all her cards. Outside the quiet talk continued and she listened to it half-heartedly as she checked her credentials.

"... Wait, but Team Rocket is disband—"

"Yeah, I know, it seems that way." Kaylee was the one speaking now, her tone hushed like a conspirator. "But really, we've got a lot of proof."

"... What kind?"

Victoria frowned, pausing in her double-check and glancing over at the silhouettes outside the tent. They looked like they were sitting a little ways away, too far to hear her rustling. It was perfect eavesdropping proximity and Victoria crawled forward to get closer to the tent door and listen better.

"We've been gathering information for a long time," Kaylee said, allowing her voice to get a little louder. "Gosh, since I was really young. Gav's really the brains of the operation, he'd be able to tell you more, but, well..."

There was a pause, and Beth seemed to catch on, because she was speaking very quietly again when she said, "Oh, should you not be telling me this? I don't want you to get—"

"Naw, it's fine, just don't tell Gav," Kaylee said, a giggle in her tone. There was a moment of silence and Victoria could picture the two girls smiling and laughing quietly. A scowl came to Victoria's face as confusion took over. What the heck was going on?

"Anyway," Kaylee was continuing now, "We want to take our evidence to someone higher-up, but Gav doesn't think it's sound enough yet, and we've got to—"

Victoria wondered why they stopped speaking for a second, but a moment later she heard it too. There were footsteps coming closer through the dry grass, and for a second Victoria's pulse accelerated and wild theories sprang to her head about attackers or robbers. A second later she realized it must be Gav and felt incredibly stupid.

"Hey bro!" Kaylee said, as the footsteps became louder.

"... Hi," Gav responded, the one word communicating his instant suspicion. There was some pretty awkward silence, if Victoria could judge the quality of silence through a tent. There were sounds of Gav moving around, rearranging things or something. The girls were still quiet. After a moment the rustling sounds stopped.

"... Okay, what's up?" Gav asked.

"What?" Kaylee responded, in the classical too-fast fashion. Victoria couldn't help but smile. Beth was the same way; she couldn't lie her way out of a wet paper bag.

"What are you keeping from me?" Gav asked, with a sigh in his tone that made him sound a lot like a parent.

Victoria took this moment to emerge from the tent, and drew the attention of the three in the clearing as she did so.

"Morning!" Beth called to her.

"Hi," Victoria said, lifting her eyebrows once to her sister by way of greeting. To Kaylee she said, "So, what's this about Team Rocket?"

Silence reigned in the clearing for a good minute. Kaylee's eyes shot over to Gav, and Beth stared intently down at her feet. After a few seconds Gav spoke.

"What have you been talking about, Kaylee?"

"Aw Gav," she said, getting up and walking in a random direction, apparently just to be moving around. "What's the big deal?"

"What's the—" Gav began, putting a hand to his temple and shaking his head. To Beth and Victoria, he said, "Sorry." He turned back to Kaylee. "You and I will discuss this later."

Victoria lifted one eyebrow and tried to make eye contact with either Beth or Kaylee, but they were determinedly looking the other way. Gav made his way into the other tent and came out with a small frying pan and a metal spatula.

"Well, breakfast will be up soon."

Victoria learned two troubling things over breakfast. She sat down to receive her plate of scrambled eggs, felt a sharp pain at her hip, and discovered a very large, cell phone-shaped bruise there, as well as a tiny cut. She then found out that her cell phone had stopped working sometime during the Fearow attack, probably from being trapped between Victoria and something hard when she fell. She groaned and tossed it to the ground, where it was scooped up by Gav a second later.

"Mind if I?" he asked, already reaching into his cargo pants and pulling out a very tiny tool kit.

"Uh, knock yourself out," Victoria said, shrugging. "I'm due for a new one anyway."

"Oh," Beth said, feeling in her front pockets, back pockets and bra. "Oh, damn. Vee, my phone, I lost it in the woods."

Victoria remembered that Beth had been screaming something about a phone during their mad dash. "Ah, right. We're probably just going to have to get you a new one too, then."

Kaylee spoke up for the first time since the awkward moment that morning. "Well, we can go look for it," she suggested, and Beth grinned.

"Yeah! I'm sure it's around somewhere," Beth agreed, and Victoria felt another wave of suspicion.

"Really Beth, that thing was old. We're both due for new cells according to our contract anyway. When we get into Lavender we'll just find a K-Wireless and pick a pair up. It's fine."

"Oh, but, if yours is broken we should really try to find mine, you know... in case we need to make calls."

Victoria glanced over at her phone, which was now in many little pieces all over Gav's lap. Her eyebrows shot up as she watched him carefully winding little copper wires together near a green circuit board. "Beth, seriously. That'll just keep us here even longer. Not that you both haven't been incredibly gracious," she said, nodding to Kaylee, and then Gav, though he was absorbed in his work.

"Not that much longer," Beth said, shrugging. "Just to see if my phone is around."

"It's really no trouble," Kaylee insisted, and Victoria picked up on what was going on at last. She gave Beth her we'll discuss this later face, which Beth pretended not to see.

Silence stretched on for a while as the girls ate and Gav tinkered with Victoria's phone. Kaylee occasionally nudged him in the leg with her foot and grumbled, "eat," to which he shifted away and went "uh-huh." He had it reassembled by the time breakfast was over, and there was the moment of truth as he pressed down the power button. A second later the familiar three beeps sounded through the clearing and Kaylee clapped her hands and laughed victoriously. "Way to go, bro!"

"Wow," Victoria said, accepting the phone back and staring down at it in disbelief. "Thanks."

"No problem," Gav said, picking up his neglected food and eating quickly while Kaylee started clearing away the fire and dishes.

"So, do you fix things often?" she asked, interested in these strange people in spite of herself.

"Oh, here and there," Gav said between bites. Kaylee laughed.

"He's being modest. Gav here can fix anything. Our database went down last week and he had it up and running in—"

"Database?" Victoria asked, not missing a beat. The siblings became quiet again and she definitely did not miss the glare Gav shot his sister.

"Well, our internet, hard drive and... stuff."

Beth did a double-take. "You guys have internet?" she asked, awed. Victoria had to admit she was impressed, too. These guys didn't look like small business owners, and you pretty much could not get internet access in Kanto unless it was for professional purposes or you visited a Pokémon Center to browse on one of their computers. She heard Initiates had a dumbed-down, censored version of a net browser on their Dexes but wasn't sure if that was true.

"I like technology," Gav said flatly, finishing his food and handing Kaylee his plate.

"So you're able to hack yourself an internet connection?" Victoria asked.

"More or less," Gav said, clearly not wanting to expand on this subject. "Kay, could you let my team out for a bit?"

Victoria didn't let the subject change go so easily. "That's pretty impressive," she said, combing her fingers through her wavy red hair to try to manage it. "What else do you do up here? Other than surf the web and fix cell phones."

Gav sighed. For some reason it satisfied Victoria a little to see that he was not cool and collected all the time. Something about being rescued by someone, given shelter and food for the night, and getting free tech support for her phone did not fill Victoria with confidence as it would most people. Instead she felt a little wary and incredibly curious.

"Gav," Kaylee teased, glancing between the two sisters. "Really. I don't think they're double-agents."

"Kay," Gav groaned again, putting his hand over his head. "You know, I really wanted to have this conversation in private, but if you insist."

"I just don't see what the big deal is!"

Victoria was now completely absorbed in listening to this unique interaction, as was Beth. Victoria at least had the presence of mind to pretend she was fiddling with her phone, but Beth was moving her gaze between Gav and Kaylee like they were two champion tennis players.

"How much did you tell Beth, anyway?" Gav asked, his annoyance very plain.

The girls exchanged a look, and Victoria finally looked up completely so she could enjoy this show more. She couldn't believe how similar Beth and Kaylee seemed to be in the "little sister" category. After a moment, Kaylee said, "Not much."

"How much?" Gav reiterated.

"Just, that, you know," Kaylee shot a look at Victoria briefly, then finished. "About how we have reason to believe the Rockets are around, and that we're gathering news stories and, evidence and things."

"'Reason to believe,'" Gav repeated, some kind of irony seeping into his tone. "And that's it?" he asked, turning his eyes to Beth now. Victoria could see Beth squirm.

"Yep," she said, averting her eyes. "We don't want to cause problems—"

"Hah," Victoria muttered. "Seems a little late for that."

Gav smiled over at her wearily, and they exchanged a commiserating look. Victoria had instantly pegged him as someone who had a tough job as an older sibling. He portrayed way too many of her own traits to overlook.

"Well," Gav said, clapping his hands and getting up to finish breaking down the fire spot, "Guess we ought to just explain what the heck is going on so your imaginations don't run off with you. I guarantee you the real story is much more boring than you think."

"Very boring, I'm sure," Victoria said sarcastically, but she wore a smile as she and the others cleaned up. Victoria not only had Gav pegged. She had her sister's motives figured out as well. Beth was milking for more time with these admittedly interesting siblings, hence her very transparent let's-all-skip-off-to-look-for-my-phone idea.

She would indulge Beth for a few more hours before they hit the road. It wasn't often the girl got to meet new people, though granted these people were not exactly normal company. Besides, though Victoria didn't want to admit it, their "very boring" story sounded like something that was sure to be anything but.