[b]Lynn[/b]

The walk with Keaton was - well, not [i]bad[/i] - Lynn supposed, although she felt awkward, shifting her weight, glancing over her shoulder every few steps. Subtly. You never wanted a tail to know you'd cottoned on. As best Lynn could tell, there was no invisible man trailing them, but even she was forced to admit she had pretty much no way of knowing. [i]Can't Denim do her brain thing and figure it out?[/i] Lynn thought. She zoned out for a moment as Keaton was talking, wondering what her role in all this was. [i]Denim's the ticket,[/i] Lynn realized, feeling a bit of the fire flicker out of her. [i]I think she could solve this without me. I gotta....I gotta get my shit together.[/i] Their conversation was interesting, and Lynn enjoyed hearing more about Keaton. She was different. Real different. But cool. Not bad.

The mall was its own set of problems. The shopping malls that Lynn had frequented on Earth were considerably different from this one, in that this one had all of the lights on and that when you bought things here, you received a receipt. Lynn burned through another cigarette on the walk, feeling an itch crawling up her spine. [i]What if Denim wants to go clothes shopping or something with me?[/i] Lynn wondered. Something about that seemed to make the four inches between their heights seem like a mile, something about it drew Lynn's eyes to the curves in Keaton's clothes. The only curves in Lynn's figure were the wrinkles on her hoodie, whose red had faded almost to the point of pinkness.

They entered the mall and the hustle and noise immediately struck Lynn. She'd been in either the steam-filled clamor of the kitchens, a boring ass classroom, or the woods for most of the past four weeks. There was too much to keep track of here, Lynn thought, and the doll in her backpack weighed heavy a stone. Her eyes danced from person to person, Lynn trying to suss them out as quickly as possible. Her fingers curled around the notebook in one pocket and her thin wallet in the other. Lynn was not a usual mark for pickpockets. Something about her demeanor, or perhaps a resting body temperature that could rotisserie-cook a misplaced hand, seemed to discourage it.

"Oh shit, they got those here," Lynn said. Her scowl melted off for a minute as she grinned, looking at the pretzel stand. "You ever had those? They're the shit." Lynn's stomaach rumbled, but she ignored it for the time being. She had managed to put on a fair bit of weight in the last few weeks, although she was sure if those know-nothing doctors tried to check back up on her they'd have more bitchy notes about her. So, Lynn swerved their appointments. "They're all - "

They approached the food court and Lynn's jackrabbit mind, already butterfly-boxing its way through her surroundings (making her heart race, making her knuckles itch, making her see [i]glowing hands that one had glowing hands[/i]) took off at a dead sprint.

Archie was with a fucking cop. 

Son of a bitch.

It was a set-up.

There was a girl seated next to him, smiling and tall, beautiful, glowing and smiling. Smiling. Why was she smiling so much? What kind of snake shit was she pulling? Her outfit was a puzzle Lynn couldn't have put together if she had all day and the picture on the back of the box. Lynn's gut twitched at that. [i]Don't like her,[/i] Lynn thought, an assertion all of her emotional and mental faculties gathered to deliberate upon, voting in unanimous agreement in about two seconds. [i]Why's she here? Why's she here with a fucking cop?[/i].

Lynn had her fair share of times evading the police, or simply needing to reallocate some of the contents of a stranger's wallet and fade back into a crowd. In this regard, being, on average eight inches smaller than the average crowd-goer was particularly useful. Saying nothing to Keaton, Lynn flowed to the left, trying to keep as many bodies between herself and the table some thirty-five yards away as she could. Lynn passed into a nearby store, not particularly caring which one, and putting a few more physical barriers between herself and the fucking narc table. [i]He's been taking lessons from Spoons,[/i] Lynn thought, feeling the taste of smoke rise up in the back of her throat. Her gut didn't like that either. Lynn didn't know if Keaton had followed her in or gone on ahead. She wanted to turn back and shout a warning but she figured Keaton was smart enough to handle herself. Lynn closed her eyes for just a moment and tried to recreate the picture in her head, if there'd been anything she could've noticed. The cop wasn't acting aggressively, he seemed to be having a friendly chat. Meant nothing. A spider will sweet-talk a fly. He'd looked normal otherwise, and Lynn didn't think she saw any other officers in the area, even plainsclothes ones. [i]When you're dressed like a divorced dad and stare at anyone but me, you've got a badge tucked under the Hawaiian t-shirt.[/i] Lynn frowned, the scar across her nose deepening and darkening. Something. There'd been something off about him, something he'd been wearing, but Lynn hadn't gotten a good enough look at him to tell. [i]Damnit.[/i] Didn't matter. Lynn kept one hand locked like a visegrip on her notes, ready to turn the evidence to ash if she saw a uniform.

Lynn looked around. She was in a Bath and Body works. As tense as Lynn was from almost running into their snare like a damned fool, she had to admit this place smelled really nice. Lynn cinched the backpack tighter to her shoulder and glanced to see if Keaton had accompanied her or not. She figured the clever move was for Keaton to split somewhere else. Lynn was going to try and see if there was a back way out from this store, or slip back out in the crowd as soon as she could. Lynn could feel all their eyes upon her - the cameras, the clerks, the attendees. A lesser facet of Lynn's parahuman abilities was an uncanny knack to draw store employees to her presence whenever she entered a retail establishment. Lynn picked up a candle, rolling it over in her hand. Her small fingers could barely fit around it. Smelled nice. Sweet. Like vanilla ice cream. Candles. Who'd had candles? Was it Lucy and her family? Or had it been the Martins, all four months that she'd been there? Lynn couldn't remember the house, in her mind's eye it seemed equally likely it was either one, but she remembered sitting on the floor at night, watching it dance and flicker. [i]No,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]It was Lucy. That was what got the Christmas fire going.[/i] She put the candle back, rubbing her fingers on her jeans to get the feeling of the smooth wax off her mind. Lynn needed to get clear of all this, and intended to linger just long enough to make a semi-convincing act for the cameras. [i]This was stupid,[/i] Lynn thought, grinding her teeth. [i]Why did I let Denim talk me into this shit? This was stupid, stupid, stupid. No way out of here. So many people.[/i]
 
"Can I help you?" a square in a store uniform asked. "We have - "

"No." Lynn said. "Go away."