[b]Lynn[/b]

There were a lot of things about Amelia that pissed Lynn off. Chief among them was that this bitch was insufferably sharp. Lynn did not like that one iota. Now, she was completely off the mark with her two-timing comment - as if Lynn would even have a sliver of feelings for Archie was ridiculous - but Lynn did not like how observant she was. 

"Yeah," Lynn said neutrally. "Molotov." That worked or whatever. Lynn pulled out a cigarette from the pocket of her jeans and put it between her lips, the tip beginning to smoke without the use of a lighter. Lynn was by no means perfect (end sentence), least of all in the art of concealing her emotions. In Lynn's experience, however, the more someone knew you was the more they could use against you. Lynn did not like what that nickname made her remember, but she was going to be damned if the Hollister anarchist saw her squirm. Especially -

Lynn blinked and looked back at her, genuine surprise splashed across her feelings. "Tagging?" She cocked her head and looked at Amelia, trying to figure out the colors of her outfit. "Who...who did you run with?" That certainly hadn't tracked. This girl had no tattoos. Maybe she was...no, Lynn could truly think of no gang that would take Amelia as she was. [i]Maybe she screwed her way in,[/i] Lynn thought, which was among the lower echelons of respect one could occupy in Lynn's mind. Although something in her admitted that seemed unlikely, tempting an idea to indulge in as it was. Before Lynn could interrogate her further about her criminal history, she'd commented on her and Archie. Lynn began to bristle at that, but Denim had approached, and for once Lynn saw no reason to add fuel to the fire. [i]She's testing you,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]She's trying to size you up. She must be rattled. If she didn't see what happened to Archie she saw the footage. Or saw the fucking hole in the cafeteria wall. No need for them to know how many gallons of oil were involved.[/i] Still, Lynn didn't like this shit one bit. She had Amelia trying to needle her apart and figure out what made her tick over here, Archie and Natalie skulking over in the shadows, and Denim showing up a little too unprompted. 

Something clicked in Lynn's mind. [i]Amelia went after that steel toed boot guy. She went running after him.[/i] He'd been the one to set Archie off, interrupt the headmaster, and cause this whole ruckus. Lynn did not for one minute believe he was operating independently of the Promise's authority. No, this was a chance for them to...to what? Their security forces had looked like a total joke, they'd been out of place. It'd been up to her and Natalie -

Lynn stared away, zoning out of the conversation for a moment. Her cigarette was half consumed.

[i]It was a fucking hit. On me and Spoons. And if we took out Archie in the process, all the better.[/i]

So simple. They'd spared her the needle to make her an example for all the goody-two-shoes who grew up at private schools with mommy and daddy. Lynn's hair began to turn white, her blue eyes flecked with white dots as well. [i]Well, it only took me a week to figure out your scheme,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]And I turned it pretty well on its ass.[/i]

Then Denim had to go and mention the flowers. Was she trying to test her too? Lynn was sick of this shit. "Didn't have them when he came to me," Lynn said quickly. "I - " then this girl mentioned Freaky D coming by her. Yeah, that was the tap dancer's name. Lynn really did not know what to think now. Had Lynn ever sat down to play Clue, she would've felt very much like the player with the fewest clues a turn before the game ends. [i]I do not like this one bit. Why does he come by her? How does Amelia know this prick? And what in the name of fuck are those two still talking about?[/i] Lynn did not possess anything bordering emotional intelligence. She didn't know exactly what she felt about Natalie and Archie plotting. Not betrayal, because Lynn wasn't dumb enough to get betrayed, but - well, she had expected a basic level of camaraderie between them, given recent events, and this was a quick turnaround. That wasn't getting betrayed, which only happened to idiots, that was just expecting someone to not be a complete douchebag. Lynn had sobered quickly to the quality of people on the Promise. [i]You try to give people a chance to be decent and this is what they do. Jesus.[/i]

Lynn turned back to Keaton. [i]Fuck this skull and dagger crap.[/i] "We're not all really friends," Lynn said. "Don't really know each other." This one was older, and Lynn didn't think she was here under the needle either. Gears whirled in her head. The fact was that everyone here was a threat in the way everyday people hadn't been back home, but trying to figure out how they were a threat was the challenge. Could they throw her through the airlock door like Spoons, or could they screw with her mind and make her terrified of stuff that wasn't there? Lynn briefly considered the idea there were telepaths on this space station. [i]I don't care about probation, I'm whipping their ass if I find them.[/i]

"Yeah, I - " Lynn froze as Archie screamed. The cigarette between her teeth charred to ash in a moment and her short hair sparked like aluminum foil in a microwave before glowing yellow, her eyes matching. A faint smell of smoke curled up off her, but not enough to singe her clothes. "Oh if I have to kill that motherfucking lizard again," Lynn said, moving towards the woods. Her hands were curled up into fists. [i]Your back is to those two. Not that it matters with the teleporter. You don't know what the other one can do, but there's no getting around that. Maybe she can only talk to squirrels or something. Spoons is to the right - she's not going to throw the first punch, she's scared. You need to hit whatever it is fast before Archie roids out again, and before anyone - [/i]

Lynn came over to Archie and saw the corpse. Lynn immediately looked around for what caused it, but she knew it was in vain. This body wasn't fresh. There was nothing in the trees and nothing in the water she could see. Curiosity pulled her a half step closer. White. Brown hair. Blue eyes. No tattoos. A staff uniform. His face was all kinds of fucked up. [i]This body was ditched here.[/i] Lynn noted. The body didn't bother the sixteen year old. She'd seen them before. Like this? Carved up and tortured in the face? Some part of her felt nauseous, but it was the faraway part, the part that didn't know what to think about flowers or couldn't sleep at night sometimes. That part that was easy to tell to shut the fuck up when her hair was glowing and her knuckles close to splitting. [i]Somebody wanted this guy to suffer.[/i]

Lynn was no one's fool. Archie finds this body as Denim approaches? As Amelia follows the tap dancer?

"Archie," Lynn said, grabbing his arm and pulling him backward. Her fingers were warm, on the verge of being hot, but not painfully so. Not yet. "Get the fuck out of here. Did you touch him? Did you leave prints? Hair?" She took her free hand and pulled her own hood up. Inside her hood jumped some dozen degrees as she did this, and Lynn forced her temperature back down to keep from charring the inside of her sweatshirt. [i]They are not pinning this shit on me.[/i] Lynn glanced around again. [i]They're always watching,[/i] she realized. [i]All it takes is that AI fabricating some voice recordings and I'm out the airlock. Damn them. Damn them.[/i]

A part of Lynn pieced something together. She didn't think any of these, excluding potentially Spoons - but she really didn't think so - had seen some real, real shit. Or done real shit. [i]Cesar[/i], Lynn thought briefly, intrusively, before forcing that out, with the part of her that was trying to think of how painful it was to have your face carved like that. What she was thinking was that they weren't realizing what she was. This wasn't a dealer who went to the wrong street corner or a drunk moron who slapped the wrong girl's ass. This guy had made somebody real, real mad, and she was willing to bet that uniform was put on them as a sign. 

The people who did that kind of thing were fine killing kids. Only kids who saw too much. If her Freaky D as a false flag theory was right, this was the Ruby to the Oswald. "Get the fuck up. Get up and walk away. C'mon." Lynn's tone was hard and serious. Lynn kept her hand on Archie's arm, trying to feel if it was getting bigger, but that was hard to tell, given that her small hands couldn't fit around his arm to begin with. Lynn turned back to the others. One of them had to be involved. [i]Who?[/i] Spoons was waiting here at the river, as was Amelia. But Denim had known [i]exactly[/i] where to find them.

She looked back down at Archie. 

[i]And all that assumes,[/i] she realized, [i]He really can't control his little lizard problem.[/i]

Lynn kept her hand on his arm like a vise. One should keep friends close and enemies closer. Cordelia Lynn Holmes had only the latter.