[b]Lynn[/b]

Lynn stared at Archie, wondering how badly the fumes of the restaurant had addled her - the beast was tamer, somehow, not the wild feral thing that it was in the cafeteria, and it was - it was cradling Natalie, like a child. Lynn's hands fell to her sides as she stared, bewildered, the beast roaring at her. [i]Is it going to hurt her?[/i] Lynn thought, her mind hazing in the pain. Lynn was as tough as they came, but Salamandra had put a beating upon her, and there are tremendously few people who can remain coherent in the circumstances Lynn found herself in. [i]I have to kill it,[/i] She thought again, swaying back and forth slowly, a drunken boxer trying to stay upright in the twelfth. There was something she could not piece together, something that was twisting her already churning stomach. [i]Why is it cradling her like that? Why - [/i]

Lynn felt it a moment before it happened. Perhaps it was intuition or her affinity for flame or her pain-addled mind piecing things together too late. There was the surge of heat, the pressure shifted and Lynn knew in that moment, screaming no, to run, to - 

The restaurant burst apart, vaporizing four people in a second. The heat rushed to Lynn like a dog to its master, caressing her face, making her forget for a moment the way Salamandra's eyes had bulged with Lynn's fingers around her throat, Natalie unconscious in Archie's hulking scaled arms. Lynn stared, the knife slipping from her fingers, the metal glowing faintly as it clatttered against the sidewalk.

"No," Lynn said, her voice thick and coarse from the blood running down the back of her throat. "No, no I didn't..." Lynn stared at the fire, knowing, [i]knowing[/i] it was her, just by her being there, that Salamandra may have withered regardless but it was Lynn standing there that made it burn brighter than the sun, that made it break bricks and split steel and turn glass to water. She stumbled backwards, her eyes wide and her whole body shaking, short and frail under the hoodie that engulfed. "No, Christ, I didn't, I..."

Lynn felt twelve years old again, [i]her hands wrapped around the cold glass bottle, staring at the elongated face reflected back at her and the lighter fluid inside, the other hands, bigger and callused, split-knuckled and strong as iron clenching her fingers against it, shoving it back against her, telling her to throw, throw like her life depended upon it - [/i], smaller than the lizard, smaller than the smoking building, smaller than the paramedic that draped a blanket over her and said words she did not hear. Archie looked at her and Lynn opened her mouth to say something but couldn't, she could only shake her head, her mouth full of smoke and salt and iron.

She had to get away. She had to get clear. She had to find somewhere that wasn't this. Lynn turned and stumbled, ignoring the reaction team. Someone else told a paramedic to fuck off through her mouth and with her voice, but Lynn didn't think it was her, because she couldn't have talked, because she was back inside the restaurant, and she was watching herself get thrown to the ground by Salamandra, and wondering why she didn't check the back rooms before she left, why she didn't think the woman was withering, why she poured all her strength into stopping her. [i]I had to stop the lizard,[/i] Lynn wanted to shout, if anyone was listening, but the part of Lynn that had shared cigarettes with drug dealers and kept eating her lunch while someone got their teeth knocked out two tables over in juvy told her to shut the fuck up and get clear, to pray that the paramedics weren't paying attention to who was where and that even the Promise's kangaroo lawyers didn't have enough evidence to pin anything on her.
 
Lynn blinked. She was in the woods. Her feet bled from the rocks and glass she'd walked across but Lynn did not realize it. She did not want anyone to see her, least of all the fucking snake Gennedy and whatever stormtroopers he had waiting to kill a few more people - [i]like you fucking did[/i] - in the chaos. She leaned back against a tree and fell to the ground, her left hand balled into a fist that she bit into with all her strength and screamed, shaking. 

Lynn hadn't gotten a good look. How old were they? Were they kids? Why hadn't she remembered? Why hadn't she thought? Why wasn't anyone else there helping? She had...Salamandra would have killed her, would have raped Archie, would have killed someone else. [i]Why did she have to laugh?[/i] Lynn thought. [i]Why were they standing there? Why didn't they run Jesus Christ why didn't they run?[/i] Her head was still throbbing from the pain, with even her regeneration unable to slow her nose almost sealing shut from the swelling, her jaw puffing up. Her face was a patchwork of pale and purple, and where her hoodie sleeves fell down her bony arms there were deep red bruises from Salamandra's hands, the same that matched her thighs, the last things Salamandra had left her with. She could hear her laughter again, and Che's. [i]I am no fucking better,[/i] Lynn thought, feeling as though she would have thrown up again if there was anything left inside her to purge. [i]Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ Gennedy just put the bullet in my head now. I'm here and there's no cameras just fucking do it.[/i]

Lynn's hair and eyes stopped glowing and died down to a dull mess of auburn, frayed with split ends and uncombed tangles. Her eyes were blue, light and pale and watering. Lynn wrapped herself in the banket and twisted it over and over in her hands and let herself be cold.