Trevor was miserable.

Rafferty could tell. It wasn't difficult. All she had to do was take one look at him. Rafferty's Jack had never been very good at hiding his emotions.

He was sitting across from her in the back of the flat bed truck, knees pulled up to his chest, with one of "this is not how today was supposed to go" looks on his face. Caleb, Katrin's Jack, was driving, and Connor and Erick were crammed on the bench seat next to him. Everyone called the B Hall Jacks the Triplets, even though they weren't. They were cousins, or something, Rafferty couldn't remember exactly, but she supposed they did look alike.

There wasn't room for Trevor up there, so he was stuck back here with Rafferty and the other Hunters, his misery regarding this mission plain for all to see.

A God had been reported in the vicinity of Deep Hole. If the descriptions were accurate, it was either a Class Two or Class Three. B Hall had been selected to investigate. Pressure had been put on them to take along a fourth. According to Brianna, Katrin had declared it was Rafferty or nobody.

Trevor's current obsession was with Seth, who was sharpening the claws she wore on both hands.

"You know, you should really let Erick do that. He would have a special stone—" he said.

"I'm fine," Seth said, looking at him with a mixture of irritation and disbelief.

Trevor was right, Jacks usually saw to the gear, and they were very good at it.

But does he have to make this a thing?

"It would be better—" he tried again.

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Seth stopped what she was doing, slid a set of claws onto her right hand, and stabbed down into the truck bed. Blue sparks jumped and popped as she sliced into the metal. She looked up at Trevor.

"They seem sharp enough to me. Wanna find out?" she asked, titling her head.

"Yeah, that'll show me," Trevor grumbled, but he didn't say any more.

Rafferty sighed, and hoped he wasn't getting on everyone's nerves too badly.

She understood why he was upset. It was an unexpected job, and Trevor didn't always do well with unexpected. And it was a job with B Hall, and B Hall didn't do anything the right way.

They only had three Hunters, unlike every other Hall, which had four. They didn't have a single member who used a ranged attack, so all of their work had to be done up close and personal, without any cover fire or early strikes. They practiced when they felt like it, and during demonstrations improvised bold new attack patterns, which sometimes succeeded spectacularly, and sometimes failed in equally spectacular ways.

But boy did they get results.

The top rated Hall with the top rated Hunter, B Hall could practically pick and choose their assignments, and Katrin, as Rafferty had recently learned, seemed to be the only Hunter with a free pass to come and go as she pleased.

"Almost there," said Katrin. "We'll stop on the bluffs. You can see everything from up there. We'll camp tonight, and hit it first thing in the morning."

Rafferty nodded as firmly as she could.

She thought Trevor was going to pass out when Brianna started lighting the cigars.

"For luck," Seth explained.

"Do you want one?" Brianna asked, looking at Rafferty. "We always light one for Abigail anyway."

Rafferty reached over and took the offered cigar. Trevor was glaring at her, as if she could force her to drop it with his mind.

"Why don't you have a new fourth?" she asked, still holding the cigar down by her hip.

"Don't want one, don't need one," said Seth, taking a big drag.

Katrin winked at Rafferty, then turn a bit more serious.

"Besides, it never seemed right after what happened to Abby," she said.

Rafferty held out the cigar to Trevor, hoping he might take the hint, and go along with the group for once. Also, she didn't really know how to smoke, and was hoping he did.

Trevor looked at it with disgust.

"When Mr. C is twisting around your lungs and you can't breathe, don't come crying to me," he said.

Rafferty put it in her mouth, trying to look like she'd done this a thousand times before. She immediately liked the peppery campfire taste, but when she gulped a mouthful of smoke, she started to gag and spit. Hard. Like, pretty sure some of it landed on Brianna's nose hard. Rafferty hung her head over the side of the truck until she was sure she wasn't going to throw up, in no hurry to turn around and face the other Hunters.

When she did, Katrin took the cigar from her and showed her how to suck in some of the smoke, and then blow it out, until the cigar gave off a thick white smoke. Once she got it, the other girls gave Rafferty a little pity clap, which didn't exactly make her feel great, but then Brianna leaned over and offered a high five, and that helped a bit.

"See, who says we don't have a fourth?" Katrin asked.

The truck hit a big hole just then, jolting everyone in the flat bed.

Otherwise, Trevor would have said a very bad word, very loudly.