[b]Lynn[/b]

[i]"What do you believe everyone is thinking?"[/i] the words seemed to float in-between the pond-ripples of drunk thought that were making Lynn's mind murky. The seven words skipped across them all like flat stones across the water, and Lynn had no idea what to say. She hadn't known how to say the confused mess she'd already said, and with the sudden arrival of another person she already felt like she had said too much, like someone had walked in on her naked, like some midnight spell was over and she was back to riding pumpkins pulled by rats. Still, the question hung in her mind. She...she knew what they were thinking. Why did Eli say it like that? Like she was stupid or silly for thinking that, like it was just in her head? It wasn't - it was what they thought, Gennedy and the doctors and Natalie and Archie and Keaton and Amelia and all of them, she could see it in their faces. Lynn didn't understand.

Lynn rubbed at her face for a minute, trying to sort out her thoughts. Puking had made her feel better, and while she was still too groggy to piece it together, igniting - however softly - had helped as well. The two were saying they were going to stay with her, which annoyed her for a reason she could not explain. Then people at the party would wonder what was up, and they would talk, and they would know. The thought rankled Lynn, even in whatever warm fuzziness remained of her earlier good mood. [i]This is probably what I deserve for getting shitfaced to celebrate a dude's death, if we're really being honest here.[/i] She swiveled her head to look at Amelia. Bonding? Was that what this was? Lynn had reached her lifetime bonding quota, but felt any comment to that effect would be a Dick Move. They had come out to help her, as much as it annoyed (and confused) her.

Look for the noise? Lynn couldn't hear it - at first. She paused and strained her ears and picked up on it. 

There were a great many things Lynn struggled at. Lynn was not skilled at diplomacy even at its most basic forms, and she was not skilled at schoolwork, and she was not skilled at, as some would call it, just chilling the fuck out. All of those were somewhat connected, and somewhat fed off the other, but the last was the one she was the most unskilled at. It was the most double-edged of the things Lynn was bad at, because it had kept Lynn alive in any number of situations - including some recent, reptilian-related ones - but it had caused more than enough problems that I doubt I need to specify.

Regardless, the part of Lynn that was always worried something good was only happening so something worse could interrupt it was never far from the surface. Even half-drowned in tequila, it was simmering, and it rocketed to the front of her mind, screaming at Lynn that it told her so, and that she was a fool, that she should've had her guard up, that now she'd finally die. [i]Cops,[/i] Lynn thought at first. [i]Busting the party.[/i] Lynn blinked, already on her feet, which were steady beneath her even if the world around her remained a bit wobbly. Lynn listened again, still slower on the draw than the two more sober girls with her. Lynn's mind raced for a moment, and the part of her that could not make the numbers on a math textbook page come together ran through some possibilities.

Lynn stumbled forward, her feet not wanting to lift high enough to clear the roots and branches on the forest, and Lynn bounced from tree trunk to tree trunk, falling into them as she tried to move relatively quickly. 

[i]"Alert: Target Within 100 Feet"[/i]

In a brief second, a half dozen thoughts flickered across Lynn's mind - a child's doll; Salamandra's head beaten against the side of the restaurant wall, melting and warping in the heat; a mall food court with two faceless men; an interrogation room, a cold steel table with Gennedy twisting the legs; the sight of the Promise with three hundred dead, full of screams and smoke; Keaton. Then, a plan. A wild, half-put-together, drunk plan. But something. [i]Either Amelia runs and it works, or she stays and it works,[/i] Lynn thought, hoping there was enough adrenaline running in her to offset the liquor.

Lynn grabbed Amelia's arm and felt sick to her stomach, felt awful, felt like an absolute bitch. [i]She came to help you, you asshole.[/i] But Amelia would understand fear and Lynn's brain was too drunk to find better words. Her mind was trying to put together the pieces but she wasn't Keaton, her brain was too slow, and she did not know what the right thing was. "Don't fucking leave alone," Lynn murmured, as quietly as she dared, as forcefully as she could. She knew Amelia was scared back at the station and she could see she was scared now. Lynn hoped she could make her more afraid of her than of the dark. [i]Che taught you really well, didn't he?[/i] a little voice wondered. [i]Would you have done this to Megan and Clarita too, if they started slowing you down? Did you?[/i] Lynn pushed it down. She could apologize or help Amelia sort shit out later but not if they all died right here. If Arianna hadn't seen the two of them yet there was a chance. "Stay with Eli like she fucking owes you money. If shit..." Lynn stopped, her stomach rolling over. "If shit hits the fan, go away fast. Find - " Lynn almost said Keaton but caught herself. There was a good, good chance that Arianna was looking for blood, and if so, Keaton needed to stay far the fuck away from here. She was the only one who knew. "Just go." Lynn had always viewed forests as oversized matchboxes. She would be alright alone, unless Arianna was a nullifier, in which case none of it mattered anyway. [i]At least there will be trees over me,[/i] Lynn thought before she could force the useless thought out of her mind. It seemed that night as if her thoughts were bordered in velvet instead of iron, and it was starting to piss her off.

One hundred feet. That was so fucking close. Lynn staggered forward a few more steps, cursing her feet for being as noisy as they were. She grabbed onto Eli and clamped a mouth over her hand from behind - or tried to. Eli was taller. A lot taller. Lynn settled for whispering, [i]"It's me. Go invisible right fucking now. Get to Amelia. Don't let her leave without you."[/i] Lynn paused, mind whirring as best it could. [i]"Everything. Smell, sight, sound, get rid of it all. Amelia too."[/i]

Lynn stepped around Eli and moved forward as quickly as she dared, her mind still racing. There was - there was a way, she thought, maybe, to bring Arianna out of hiding. But it would mean saying things that Amelia and Eli would not be able to unhear. Lynn tripped and fell, fuming figuratively and literally. [i]They'll think I can't handle my shit,[/i] Lynn cursed, standing back up and moving forward. [i]I need them to go. I can't - four is too many I can't have six, and if I have to burn the forest down it could be - fuck, just get her and go, Amelia.[/i]

As best as Lynn's dizzy mind could tell, she'd put a good fifteen feet between her and Eli. Lynn stood up and gave herself a drunken moment to be pissed off at this, at the fact the odds were good she'd be alone in these damned woods bare-ass naked in a matter of minutes, maybe with Eli and Amelia watching, and then let the heat roll off her. In the dark woods, Lynn's hair was the only light for a hundred yards, blue, then orange, then yellow, then gold. She looked around, a hint of smoke reaching her nose, whose scar was deep and dark in the firelight. Lynn couldn't see shit beyond wherever her light cast, her eyes watering and smarting from the sudden light, but hopefully the same applied to Arianna. She could feel a sensation she had not felt before which was supremely unpleasant, which was the alcohol inside her stomach roiling in the heat and threatening to ignite. As Lynn drew on her powers more, her regeneration started to work, but she would not be fully sober for a while. As it was, Lynn swayed as she stood, and the world swayed with her. She tried to think of everything she missed but she knew her mind was not what she needed it to be. [i]I need to talk to this bitch alone...but Eli won't leave unless Amelia makes her, and I need them to not get involved. Had Amelia said she was noisy when she teleports?[/i] Lynn couldn't remember, and what made it all that much harder to manage was the quiet voice reminding her of the way her nose felt when Salamandra's elbow broke it open, when she knocked a tooth clean from her jaw, when she'd flipped her to the floor. [i]You had nothing to eat today,[/i] the voice whispered. [i]And there is no lizard around to save you.[/i] 
 
Lynn stood, moving in a circle as much as she dared to keep from being a completely sitting duck, but she wanted her to know where she was. "Oy," Lynn said into the dark, the shovel noises stopped - if that's what they were. Lynn wasn't convinced. "I want to talk to you," she said, letting the forest eat up her the soft slur of her words. [i]Let's see what kind of person she is,[/i] Lynn thought. "I know who you are, and you know about me." Lynn could hear Salamandra's voice in her hear, sharp and laughing, that she didn't know who the fuck Lynn was, but that was good too, because it meant she and Keaton were under the radar, and that this bitch wasn't in league with Gennedy. And if she did know and wanted to talk, then maybe Lynn and Keaton were onto something.

And if she stepped out of the woods and put a .44 round in Lynn's chest, that would tell Keaton something too. Lynn wasn't a coward but she didn't like this shit, just standing and waiting.

The dark stretched on and on around her. "I'm waiting," Lynn said. There was too much she didn't know here. Too much her fuzzy brain couldn't figure out. [i]Damnit, why can't I be Keaton,[/i] Lynn thought. [i]Whatever I missed she wouldn't have.[/i]