3. Speculator
The first time around, Cherish had arrived before breakfast, with an oversized coat wrapped around herself and red-rimmed eyes with the lights gone out. She'd been broken enough to join their family, and Jack had been mad, because it meant he didn't get to break her.
He still found a way. He always did.
Cherish wasn't even close to being the first person who joined with the ambition to take over the Nine, but she was one of the few who had gone with a long term plan. Didn't matter. Jack had seen right through it within minutes, and Cherish had mistaken his interest as stemming from her self-nomination.
Was that his power at play?
Bonesaw had implanted safeguards in everyone while Cherish's power was disabled for her test. Artificial neural connections to keep their intentions concealed, and a switch that would render them immune to her power once activated.
Assuming nothing else had changed, Cherish would have been on her way to the house when Riley woke up, well within her sensory range. The safeguards would give her artificial feedback about herself, but she could still read Riley's emotions towards everyone else.
She had to know.
The smart, sensible decision would be for her to run the other way, but Cherish was scarcely familiar with the concept of smart, sensible decisions. She was much more likely to leverage the information for brownie points with Jack.
Why had she missed her deadline, then?
Riley sat on the bench by the door to put her boots on, and Jack's scrutiny made her uncomfortably aware of every movement. Her breathing was steady, but required active concentration. She could have regulated it mechanically, but this body still felt too foreign for it to be comfortable.
How much information was his power feeding him about her?
She considered going to the bathroom to buy herself a few minutes alone, but suspected he would see right through it and stop her, just as he had stopped her from going back to her room.
Shatterbird hurried upstairs, leaving Burnscar to gather their dishes in the sink while Siberian disposed of her leftovers.
Crawler turned off the TV and stretched, the armor plating on his back grazing the ceiling fan as he did. Murder Rat teleported out of the way as tentacles whipped out in every direction, and she reappeared next to Riley.
Their eyes met for a second, and only her acute awareness of Jack's attention kept Riley from flinching away.
The rest of the face was easier to look at, if only because she could pick it apart with her power. The maxilla and mandible had been hastily reshaped into a snout, and muscles stretched over the bones with little concern for functionality. The uneven mouth didn't close, and drool leaked between her teeth, forming tendrils that periodically broke under their own weight and fell to her feet.
The longer Riley looked, the harder it was not to cringe.
Clones aside, it had been a very long time since she'd gotten a good look at any of her old work. A few victims in asylums and hospitals had survived Gold Morning, and she had received photographs and reports in order to provide guidance to other doctors, but she never saw them in person. Which was silly, really, because it would have taken her a couple of hours to undo everything, while those doctors had taken months to get a quarter of the way there, even after she gave them step-by-step instructions.
She saw movement from the corner of her eyes, and chanced a glance while sliding one arm through the sleeve of her coat.
Jack fiddled with a cellphone while leaning against the countertop. The sight was jarring, as he hated using cellphones. Not because of the logistics that came with keeping Shatterbird's company – Mannequin could solve that easily enough. Jack just found that they clashed with his aesthetic.
There was only one person she could imagine on the other end.
The possibility of her demise coming from Cherish texting Jack felt vaguely insulting, but the realization of what it meant threatened to cave in her lungs.
Was it already over? Did he know?
For a second, Riley was back in the pocket dimension, drowning beneath the false expressions the system pasted on her face as Jack and Gray Boy both looked at her and knew.
She had no system to rely on now. The expressions were hers to fake, and she knew she was doing a bad job. The drowning was hers to fight, and she had no lifeline to cling to.
Jack's face betrayed nothing, and she averted her eyes just as he raised his.
Siberian joined her as she zipped up her coat, carefully placing a warm hat over Riley's hair. Riley thanked her, and reached for her hand as they waited for the others.
Siberian's protection made it easier to breathe.
Riley fumbled to reacquaint herself with the mental link to the spider boxes, then called all the active ones to her location. They trickled in from various directions until she had twenty or so.
Shatterbird came down the stairs in full garb just as Burnscar reappeared in the kitchen, Mannequin in tow.
"Do you think she chickened out?" Burnscar asked Shatterbird as they stepped outside.
Burnscar wore a sleeveless dress with no shoes, and unlike Shatterbird, she could compensate for it by heating the air around her. Shatterbird put considerable effort towards pretending the cold wind didn't affect her, but no one was fooled.
"Perhaps she had a rare moment of lucidity about the disgrace her presence would bring to the team," Shatterbird answered, words slurring slightly as her teeth chattered. "More likely, she failed to complete Mannequin's test, and decided to run rather than pay the price. We'll have to do something special in response. I have suggestions."
"It's Mannequin's test. He gets to decide, otherwise it's not fair," Riley pointed out, raising her chin in his direction as he stepped through the door. While the words came almost naturally, the voice and demeanour required active focus.
Mannequin bent down to avoid hitting the doorframe, then pulled himself upright once he was on the veranda. He didn't look any different from the last time Riley had seen him, and since she didn't know what he was working on right now, it was safer to assume he had the same equipment as back then.
Shatterbird turned to him, and he shrugged. Cherish was too far removed from his favored type of prey for him to care much about the outcome.
"Her phone goes straight to voicemail. I suspect she got rid of it," Jack said as he joined them, an unzipped coat over his shirt.
The tension in Riley's shoulders relaxed a fraction, but the relief didn't breach her mask.
"We'll do it the old-fashioned way," he continued, "Crawler can pick up the trail from the last tattoo artist she used."
"Are we taking the RV?" Burnscar asked, thumb pointing towards the stolen vehicle parked a few yards away. It was big enough to fit Crawler, in the same way a milk crate was big enough to fit a body if you had the right attitude. The door had stickers with a happy-looking family of stick figures performing various outdoor activities, and additions had been scribbled in sharpie to more accurately reflect the current ownership.
Crawler let out a low sound, but didn't elaborate, as he was in the delicate process of squeezing himself through the door leading to the veranda, and talking at the wrong time might undermine the structural integrity of the house.
They moved to let him through, and Riley took the chance to look around.
The house was surrounded by a forest, with trees tapering off around it, and a retaining wall on the side of a slope that had been carved out to build the foundations. Bushes and bare flower beds lined both the house and the path leading to the driveway, with bird feeders and tacky deer sculptures in between. The driveway was a teardrop-shaped patch of rocky ground that extended into a dirt road through the forest, with a chain and mailbox marking the edge of the property.
"Must we take the RV?" Crawler asked once they were all gathered in the driveway.
Jack raised a hand to his chin, fiddling with his beard as he pondered the question.
"As much as I like to make an entrance, I'd rather keep a low profile until we know more. It would be embarrassing if reinforcements showed up before we even had a chance to look for Cherie."
Crawler let out a long-suffering sigh.
Siberian knowing how to drive made a lot more sense now that Riley knew about Manton. Still, no one dared to comment. It had been empirically proven to be the best option available.
Mannequin had claimed the co-pilot seat despite his lack of eyes, because he was too tall to fit around the table.
This left Burnscar, Riley and Murder Rat to sit opposite Shatterbird and Jack, with the spider boxes hiding inside the furniture, and Crawler filling every inch of remaining space.
He'd be in one hell of a mood once he got out, but that would hopefully help solve the Cherish problem.
"I don't know," Jack told Shatterbird. "We can't discount the possibility that it's something else entirely."
Riley's eyes moved to Shatterbird before Jack's could turn to her.
"She could be dead," Burnscar pointed out.
"That would be dreadfully boring. She knows what little Bonesaw is capable of," Jack answered, his knife pointing to Murder Rat.
The mention had to be acknowledged. Riley forced herself to make eye contact while offering a toothy grin. He smiled back, eyes unreadable.
"Might not be her choice. She could have, I dunno, been hit by a car? Caught in crossfire in a random fight? However people usually die when we're not involved."
"A fitting end, for someone who was never worth our time in the first place," Shatterbird declared.
"Hm." Jack let the sound hang in the air long enough for Shatterbird's eyes to return to her book, then start stealing glances at him seconds later. She then followed Jack's attention to Riley, and looked between the two of them with increasing scrutiny.
Not good.
Riley scrambled for something to say that would bring Jack's attention back to Shatterbird and distract her, but Jack spoke first.
"I'm more inclined to think that she's running. Could go in very different ways, depending on what set her off, how much of a head start she has, and whether she found other capes to enthrall for protection. Who knows, maybe she'll surprise us and do something interesting."
Shatterbird spared Riley another look, then scoffed.
"The only interesting thing that little twat has ever done was to kill Hatchet and nominate herself, and I still maintain that we should have killed her on the spot for the insult."
Riley registered the words and calculating look a second too late, and by then, Shatterbird's eyes had already narrowed on her.
"That's the second time today that you failed to call me out on my language."
Suspicion dripped from her voice like ice water, forming puddles of dread in Riley's lungs.
"Because it's annoying that I have to keep repeating myself." The stress made it easier to find Bonesaw's voice. "You really should know better by now. Maybe I'll have to get creative about it."
If it turned into a fight, the vials in her pocket were her best bet to take out everyone around the table at once, but she'd have to pick one without looking, and the movement of the glass would tip off Shatterbird.
"You've been acting strange all morning," Shatterbird continued.
"And?" Riley challenged her.
"Given the timing and who we're dealing with, I have to wonder."
Riley laughed, and the laugh wasn't hers.
"Are you insulting my work? You think my safeguards aren't good enough to stop her?"
Shatterbird glanced at Jack, but he said nothing, and Riley didn't dare to look at his expression.
"What did we eat last night?" Shatterbird asked, standing her ground.
"Macaroni with Bolognese sauce and grated cheese," Riley answered without missing a beat or breaking eye contact, and letting as much annoyance as possible color her tone. There had been a few stray noodles at the bottom of the sink, and an empty jar of sauce in the dish rack. "Burnscar made it." They only ate pasta when it was Burnscar's turn. "It was good." It never was, but Bonesaw wouldn't say that.
"Thank you," Burnscar answered pointedly, more in Shatterbird's direction than in Riley's. Shatterbird tended to be less polite about burnt food.
Shatterbird exchanged another look with Jack, then relented and went back to her book.
Because he'd dismissed her concerns, or because she'd caught on to his game and didn't want to interfere?
"We still haven't decided where to go next," Burnscar said after a moment of silence.
"We'll see where the hunt leads us," Jack answered. "Hard to make plans when we only know to expect the unexpected."
"Sunday's book club will have to be postponed if we're on the road," Shatterbird said. "It gets too messy when we do it here."
The book club. Riley suppressed a shiver. One more reason to scram as fast as possible.
The subject was enough for Shatterbird to hog the rest of the conversation.
It wasn't quite enough to keep Jack's eyes away from Riley.
The tattoo parlor was surrounded by police cars.
Siberian and Mannequin went first, clearing a path through blood and violence while the rest of them attempted to extricate themselves from the RV without stepping in too many of Crawler's eyes.
Crawler remained behind, sulking. They cracked a window open so he could pick up Cherish's scent.
"Five minutes," Jack said as they gathered in front of the now much larger crime scene. "Just enough to get a feel of what happened, not enough to receive unwanted company. Then we hunt her down."
He held out a hand, and Riley had no choice but to accept it. The contact made her acutely aware of the poison needles hidden in her fingertips, and the calluses on his skin reminded her of the implied threat when his hand had been on the back of her neck.
How long until she had an opportunity to act?
He wouldn't let her out of his sight. Wouldn't let her have five minutes to herself. Wouldn't let her tinker. Even if she survived the day, he definitely wouldn't leave her alone with Siberian for the night.
The hug they'd shared earlier lingered on her skin, cold, rough and unwanted. The prospect of being alone with him for hours felt like collapsing on the floor in exhaustion, out of breath and too tired to fix her mother.
How long until she broke?
It had taken days, the first time. Maybe weeks. It had felt so long that she'd lost track.
Hours, the second time, from her power's manifestation to the moment she gave in.
The woman in the suit had needed five words. Five carefully aimed bombs, in the right context, at the right moment, to shake the very foundations of her being.
More words from Tattletale, to strip away everything else.
The world had been at stake then, and it still was. She might help him end it again, if he broke her.
He'd find a way. He always did.
She couldn't afford to give him the chance.
He smiled at her as they stepped over the police tape, and she gave him Bonesaw's best smile.
By the end of the day, either she would be gone, or one of them would be dead.