The quest to break Jasque's facade would begin simple, and Birch would slowly ramp it up.

  It began simply. Birch started publicly flirting with him, where everyone could see. Jasque's character had no choice but to flirt back.

  It had taken just a bit, but Birch saw more and more of the creepy shark-eyed asshole poking through his mask. As her confidence in his duplicity increased, so did her efforts to break him. Though she always made sure he had easy ways to cut things off. But, only publicly.

  As a team, everyone, including Shilloh, had banded around Birch and lent their aid. While using Scotty's intelligence, Birch would ask Jasque to do things that she knew the real him absolutely did not want to do. They had walks in the morning, always during times when he was usually training with Wade. She asked him to pick her flowers, eat unhealthy food, and thought she might even be able to get him to read one of Agne's more 'cultured' books, which would be hilarious.

  After two meals together, Agnes had also caught on to the strange deadness behind his smiles. So the old woman had no qualms throwing him a few curveballs. But she had some lines she wouldn't cross, and firmly believed in operating on kindness—even when perpetuating mischief. By silent accord, they didn't read her in on the more insidious plans.

  "Anyway," Birch said, wiping a tear of laughter from her eye. "I kept asking him if he liked the cologne, or if he wanted to stop going on walks with me. But I did it by Milo, you know, the gossipy cook. So he insisted walking with me was the best part of his day. I told him he might find some unexpected luck if he wore the cologne and left a big ass lipstick mark on his cheek."

  Scotty cackled. "Oh fuck. That's great. Make sure you check for the cologne next time. He hates having on scents that make him easier for animals to notice while he's hunting."

  Shilloh just shook her head. In a different situation, she might have advocated for peace and taking the moral high ground. But that mother fucker had jabbed her with a goddamn needle of knockout juice.

  She would use him to avoid awkward conversations and pump him for information that would help her in her interview, but he had this coming and more.

  In fact, "Hey, next time we're in town I'll chip in to buy him the brightest, most obnoxious shirt we can find," she said. "Maybe one with Christmas elves if we can find it."

  Birch smiled like a hungry panther, "My little sugar plum will love it, I'm sure."

  ~~~

  Not long after, she and Scotty were pushing hard for the second part of the workout.

  This was her favorite part of the daily training for two reasons. The first was because Scotty joined her. She liked him more and more by the day. Which made it a little disappointing that he was keeping himself so busy.

  Apparently, he and Wade had eaten a shit ton of junk food when they first saw each other, as was tradition. Now they were in a competition to see who could burn off that number of calories the fastest. Which was also tradition.

  They both should have long since cancelled out any single night of indulgence. But, the second one of them got close to zero, the other would come in with doughnuts or sodas to throw them both back into the trenches in a sort of mutually destructive, suicide-calorie-bomber style attack.

  Honestly, aside from the fact that it kept him busy exercising and sneaking into town for sugary snacks, Shilloh was a fan. She had even considered joining in. Especially since she was doing runs with a human on her back and could probably kick both their asses.

  The other reason she loved the second phase of their workout routine was because of Wade's reaction.

  The man came back from his own training sweaty, with a practice sword in his arms, and visible steam rising from his shoulders in the cool morning air as she and Scotty took turns flipping a tire back and forth across a clearing.

  "When did you have the time!" the Were yelled, looking at the vehicle he usually rode in. It was up on a jack and missing one of its big all-terrain wheels.

  "Winners," Scotty grunted, flipping the tire before squaring down to get his fingers under it. "Make the time."

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  "Winner my ass. There is no way in hell you can keep up with my schedule."

  Scotty wiped his face with a sweat towel while Shilloh took the wheel and moved it back to the spot where Scotty had started. For all that the man looked like a beanpole, he was strong, cut, and oddly athletic. With his big, loose over-shirt set aside and his baggy tee shirt soaked in sweat, it was easy to see a sort of lean strength he possessed. The kind you saw in lifestyle rock climbers and the rangy men who worked in mines.

  He smiled at the grey-eyed bane, "You know, you're right. I couldn't keep this up with your usual schedule. But, tell me, was Jasque late again?"

  "Thats was you!"

  Birch, who was watching the chaos from a campfire and timed her Jasque attacks to help their pranks more mornings than not, grinned savagely.

  "Just kiss and get it over with already!" Shilloh yelled at the two boys, heaving the tire forward in another big surge of effort.

  Scotty flipped her off, and she returned.

  There wasn't breath for anything else. Her legs burned, her ass was on fire, and her hands were raw from the firearm drills Scotty was having her do with various unloaded weapons.

  But the fire felt good.

  Shilloh bared her teeth at him as she approached the spot where he would need to take over on the fire flip, "Maybe if you get new-couple libido, it'll take me a few extra days to lap both of you in calorie count."

  "Oh, Ms. 'I'm too scared to prank you without my friends around to protect me,' you think you can handle this game?"

  "In my sleep."

  The two men glanced at each other and then turned to her with a pair of evil smiles.

  ~~~

  "Anyway," Shilloh said to Birch, toweling off recently washed hair as they walked towards her extra-large and very luxurious tent, "apparently some pre-Mday music artist invented them as part of a gag in a movie he was in, but they actually taste weirdly good."

  "I cannot imagine that a twink's weiner sandwich—"

  "Twinkie Weiner Sandwich," Shilloh corrected.

  "Yeah, that thing could taste good. I think you were just hungry from exercise and wanted salt."

  The cartographer shrugged. It had been a fun morning. So who cared either way? Scotty and Wade were weirdly passionate about the music of this Weird Al Yankovic. Scotty, because of the satire and historical pop-culture references. Wade, because of the musicality and versatility of the man. She had ended up being forced to watch a bunch of live performances that Scotty apparently kept downloaded on a bulky computer.

  She had eaten a few of the monstrosities and found a dozen or so songs that she wanted to listen to again. In short, it had been a good ass morning.

  Her only regret was that she hadn't been able to sabotage the others' calorie counts as much as she wanted to.

  The two of them stepped into Birch's tent. Shilloh took a seat on a little air mattress, and Birch went through her clothes. A fashion show was the next thing on the docket.

  The caravan was going to drop by a town in the next few days. Agnes, Birch, Scotty, and she were all going to go dancing.

  Her friend monologued absently about them getting Wade to be their designated driver, and about how Scotty was probably the one who got away. Apparently, they had similar thoughts about advanced mathematical models, and he had a sommelier's taste for smutty novels. But, to Birch's feigned dismay, when she asked if he wanted to try anything from the books with her, he had said no.

  Apparently, he was demi-sexual, and she was merely demonic.

  Birch was having a fantastic time with it. She flirted like a cracked-out nymphomanic and kept promising him what their retirement would look like if they got married. Scotty fended her off masterfully, a fussy princess of a man unwilling to sully himself with her rough ways.

  At one point, he had pretended like he only said no because Agnes had stolen his heart. But Agnes then told him that she actually liked inexperienced men. Then the loving grandmother described exactly what she would do to, "a snow white blank canvas of purity" like him. Scotty had flushed crimson. Ever since, he had been terribly respectful and conspicuously unwilling to bend over in front of her.

  Her friend rambled about dancing, dry-tested jokes she would make to Scotty, and they fell into a lovely cadence that complemented her post-junk food stupor.

  Unfortunately, the burdens of friendship called. No honeymoon phase lasted forever, and Shilloh refused to go out with Birch without addressing the issue she had been wrestling with.

  It might ruin this perfect little microcosm of fun and pranks they had stumbled into, but it needed to be said.

  "Anyway, I figure that if I grind on Scotty like super sl—"

  "I'm sorry to interrupt, Birch. But I need to ask you something. And I mean it seriously."

  The shorter woman frowned, "What's wrong?"

  "I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to go for it," she steeled her nerves, met the other woman's eyes, and tried to convey her sincerity. "I saw you looking at some vials before we left Forsyth. I'm not sure what's going on, but I just want to make sure you're going to be able to party safely."

  For what she suspected was one of the very few times in her life, Birch was struck speechless. Finally, the other woman spoke, her voice at a weirdly high octave, "You want to talk to me about… drug use?"

  "Yes. I'm sorry. I'm not against certain types of recreational usage with safe substances. But, I need to make sure you're being smart and not doing something I would have moral issues with."

  "Issues?"

  "Yeah," she said, not letting her gaze waver, "issues like selling it to the wrong people."

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