Bad Machinery by John Allison for February 21, 2024

She’s such the provocateuse.

She can open a salon: Lottie’s Lobotomies.

Looks like trouble on the horizon from camo-suit boy.

Lottie’s just trying to stay on his good side so she doesn’t get roundhouse kicked.

Try it and YOU’LL be the dead man, Jordan. Because I’m pretty sure that, even WITH his temper in check, Tuan could beat the crap out of you easy-peasy.

So you may recall, back in “The Case of the Lonely One”, that Blossom and Tuan cornered Shauna in the school in an attempt to let Lem hypnotize her, which resulted in Lem’s accidental (though temporary) death, Shauna fleeing into the night, and Blossom and Tuan being “locked” in the school overnight with the flaking onion corpse. We saw Blossom after that, when she turned Corky against Shauna, but Tuan just vanished from the story, and no one knew why (or at least no one told the mystery kids, and so us, why). Well, this is why.

Blossom will be back in the next case.

Looking at the last panel, I wonder if even with the hugs Tuan has out-of-body experiences or if he’s very well aware of what’s going on.