[i]Cordelia Lynn Holmes[/i]

"Your bag is clear?"

"Yes, mom." 

Lynn suppressed a wince, but just barely. [i]Damnit, it's my sarcasm, it shouldn't piss me off.[/i]

"Absolutely clear? Nothing in there? Nothing on you?"

"No. I promise." Lynn muttered.

"Alright. Well, here's your stop. They're gonna search your stuff, so if you lied, I'll be seeing you soon."

"Well, on that note, goodbye."

Lynn slid out the car, managing to quite easily sling everything she owned/needed over her shoulder. Her parole officer had chipped in for a duffel bag and some clothes, none of which were really her style, but hey, whatever, it wasn't cool to turn down free stuff. Especially gifts. From...well, he wasn't a friend, but...he was somewhere on that end of the spectrum. Lynn yawned lazily, an act which was half prompted by being stuck in a car for so damned long (Lynn had no trouble falling asleep, regardless of the place or surroundings; once her chauffeur had put on talk radio, it was all over) and half an effort to show exaggerated confidence. She wasn't sure what this whole deal was going to be-what these other kids were capable of. A quick glance around the clearing did not impress her. Half these assholes were reading. Christ. Reading. What better way to announce to the world you wanted someone to come along and kick your ass.

Well, one kid was smoking, so there was at least one person Lynn could get along with, at whatever level that may be. Still, these kids weren't going to be all they looked-something she had to continually remind herself. Her second mantra, of course, was that she could [i]not[/i] risk ruining this. There were...heavy repercussions. Several hours of the trip had been spent hammering home the full extent of these repercussions. Generally, Lynn did not really care about punishment-she did what she would and endured whatever came as a result.

This was different.

Lynn scanned the clearing quickly and made little notes to herself. Lynn wasn't institutionalized, but she had led a much harder life than most, and a stint in juvy hadn't helped her paranoia. She'd learned that situational awareness never really hurt, and that first impressions were generally pretty damned accurate. What the girl lacked in formal education, she made up for with experience, with natural intellect. She was a sharp girl, and could've done well in school had events not happened the way that they did-she had merely learned different lessons than the others. Lynn couldn't tell you the first thing about ionic bonds, the Battle of Austerlitz. But ask her to size somebody up? To tell who out of a crowd's got the most money on them? That's the sort of test Lynn preferred.

First. Fellow smoker. Tall. Hair was all weird, maybe he was gay or something. No, wait. Those features. European. Yeah, that was it. European. Explained the smoking, too, Lynn figured. Pretty scrawny for a guy his size. Meant he didn't lift weights or push himself. Standing around looking for a light. Well, Lynn could sure as hell give him a light, but that wasn't her style.

Was it? She was having to, very quickly, weigh out how this worked. Was it better to be strong or merciful here? The thought that she could be genuinely altruistic occurred to her, and was quickly drowned out by the sound of her subconscious laughing. Eh, she could come back to it later. 

Next up, we got-[i]hold up, are we all featherweights? I mean, Jesus, I have an excuse, but these fuckers sure don't.[/i] Short-well, relatively speaking. Everyone was pretty tall compared to Lynn. Dressed pretty nice, and his hair was a bit more orderly than Lynn's lazily tied back bun (ponytails, you see, were a lot easier to grab onto in a fight). Lynn glanced down at her own ensemble-the usual baggy red Chicago bulls sweatshirt, sneakers that had walked many miles and would stand the test of many more, and jeans that were equal parts frayed and whole. Rich? Maybe? She got that vibe. He was the sort of person she would tail on the streets, see what kind of money Mommy and Daddy had put in his wallet that week. Lynn blinked and forced the thoughts out of her head. Probation. Remember the probation. And...huh. He'd been looking at that little sissy book of his for a while now, but not turning too many pages. Kept on glancing around. Shifty. Or checking someone out? Hard to tell.

Third....this guy's eyes. Damn. Lynn almost felt a little bad for the fucker, looked like he'd let a trigger-happy squid be his optometrists. Squids were the ones with ink, right? Or were those octopuses? Octopi...octo...fuck it, Lynn didn't really care what the proper plural was. He was just...standing there. Weird. Maybe a hippie. Or a, what did they call 'em, Wiccan. Lynn was unusually well versed in terms of religions-she'd crossed paths with her fair share of pamphlet-passers and rejects, although the Wiccans generally fell moreso into the second category. Not about to kill a tree to print a brochure. Eh. Weird. Nature type. Probably not much to worry about. Must've had crappy vision with eyes like that. Made Lynn a little uneasy-she didn't like not being able to see where somebody was looking. Reminded her of security cameras a little too much. She would be keeping an eye on the standalone, even if he wouldn't be returning the favor.

Then-Lynn felt a brief sense of worry-why the hell was everyone reading? What the fuck? Was it really that popular? Her own reading comprehension skills were...somewhat subpar...and Lynn briefly wondered to what extent this school would be poring over poetry and to what extent it would be...cool stuff. She might have to play nice with one of these nerds after all. Or just kick one of their asses if they tried to-

A deep breath. Nope. No. Can't do that. Probation. Lynn sighed and didn't even bother sizing up the last guy. Not a lot of overlap between people who read to themselves and people you shouldn't turn your back to.

Well, this was going to be a really, really great experience, wasn't it.

Lynn, cursing steadily under her breath, walked across the clearing. She moved over to the smoker and lifted up her right hand to the end of his cigarette, sharply told the boy to hold still, and gripped the end of his cigarette. She rubbed her fingers for a moment and felt the warmth rushing down her arm, the double-time thumping of her heart for a few seconds. The friction and heat between her fingertips intensified, quickly igniting the end of the cancerstick. There was the slightest-ever so slightest-change in her hair and eyes, a faint lightening that was probably unnoticed, what with all the book-reading. Ugh. Books.

This event probably held next to no significance to the others-perhaps they would be interested in what Lynn could do. She really didn't care if the rest of the circus knew what her particular freakshow display was (so long as they always wondered if she had one last trick up her sleeve). But you wouldn't have asked for a light like that. Not on day one. Not where Lynn was from. So if this fucker was doing it, she might as well play along. There were new rules, apparently, and that was whatever. Not how she preferred to run things, but she couldn't expect these pampered, private schooled sons of bitches to get it. Lynn moved over to an unoccupied spot of the clearing and threw her duffel bag down, leaning back against a tree. She had a good view of the whole clearing from here, able to get every single one of those "Sell me for a pack of Marlboro" looking kids in peripheral vision if she looked ahead. She pulled out a cigarette of her own, cupped her hands around it as she clenched it in her teeth, and made it come alive with ease. One long pull and she let it hand down by her waist, eyes darting around. The tip of one of her tattooes was visible on her neck, peeking out from beneath her sweatshirt, as if it wanted to see what was going on too. As she rolled up her sleeves, her forearms displayed their own markings to match.

"And now we wait," Lynn muttered, wondering how long it took to get a diploma here.