[b][center]Cordelia Lynn Holmes[/center][/b]

"Amelia you absolute mot-" Lynn leaned into the wall beside her and emptied her insides onto the ground. She had been in the bathroom one moment and then [i]not[/i] the next. Her body was still reeling as though she'd just stepped off a roller coaster, and she had the tense, knife-point jitters of adrenaline. Lynn stood for a moment, staring at the superheated acid that was quietly eroding at the brick wall she stood next to. "Oh, fuck me, can we get some dramamol or whatever before we do this again. Fuck. Motherfuck."

Lynn stood for a moment, reeling less and less with every breath. For a passing second, she considered that right now, with her back to Amelia, entirely unaware of her surroundings, would be the opportune moment for the other girl to do something. [i]If I was right all along, and she narc'ed early - you don't know where you are, this could just be to -[/i]

"That's fucking stupid," Lynn muttered, barely audible, rubbing at her mouth. This was near the spot. Lynn had smoked in this alley before, she thought. She padded at her pants for cigarettes, but there were none. [i]Christ I thought the day couldn't get worse after hugging that anorexia doc.[/i] She needed a cigarette. Throwing up reminded her of - Lynn grimaced and forced that thought down. Lynn shook her head clear and turned to look at Amelia. She gave the girl a nod and walked over, going to stick her hands in her hoodie poc -

Oh.

Lynn cursed again under her breath and walked out of the alley, instinctively glancing for cameras to her right, and - she paused, and had to arch her entire head around to check to the left. The left socket itched furiously, and Lynn wanted to tear the bandage off and scratch it until it calmed down, but she knew that was a terrible idea. For one - ew - and two, she got enough stares as it was. Lynn huffed and kept walking along, for once not bothering a great deal with subterfuge. Lynn had lived most of her time on the Promise - especially those early days - fully expecting to last no more than a few more days at most. Now, she thought, it was really true. If there were terrorists openly attacking the Promise, it was do or die. [i]Either the next batch of jihad jumpfucks gets us, or - [/i] Lynn missed a step, remembering the look on the kid's face, screaming, he was screaming, the gun had fused to his hand it was so hot, it - [i]or martial law finds a reason to give us tattoos and necklaces.[/i] Then the third. The long shot. All in on a shitty hand. 

Lynn tried to think of the words to put together. She turned to look at the area and found it empty. Lynn normally tried to arrive early by design, find a seat with a back to the wall, look around, mark exits - but this was supremely different. The whole point of this was that they would be busy here while she was taking care of things. Lynn just sighed. The air shimmered as she did so. Lynn found a concrete table and sat on it, for once not cognizant of her legs swinging aimlessly a foot off the ground. Her mind was trying to put together the words, the strategy, the plan. Lynn had known all too well how much dumber she was than Keaton, but there had to have been [i]something[/i]. A clever turn of phrase, something she could get through. Lynn didn't see any other way. [i]She has to have figured it out too, if I have. We all die if we stay here. They shook us down without lawyers on the first fucking week, do they think it'll be better now?[/i] Keaton could plan it. Eli, distractions, knew some of the security guys. Lynn had meant to ask her about that. It was weird - real weird - she was buddy buddy with Annie Oakley over in the ICU. Eh. Questions that would go unanswered.

Amelia could move them around. Natalie, well, they'd have to tell her it was a field trip or something, but Lynn reasonably believed that she was the only person Lynn had ever met who could, feasibly, pull someone's spine out of their ass, which was a valuable skillset anywhere. Then - then Archie. That was the stutter-step. [i]Can they get him to the pods without him flipping?[/i] That was the sick twisted part, the little Che part of her whispered. [i]They need Archie in case things go south. Archie's a great big distraction and every one of them knows it. Maybe he takes Natalie with him too, she stays, wouldn't you like -[/i]

Lynn closed her eye and rubbed at her forehead. Something inside her felt so fragile. Her hair glimmered white, soft and radiant, but she did not notice. [i]Why the fuck did he hold me? Why did she come after me? I just - fuck. This isn't gonna get any easier. They have to understand.[/i] Lynn couldn't think of a lie Keaton wouldn't see through. Fuck, for that matter she couldn't think of a lie any of them wouldn't see through. [i]That Chinese motherfucker should've aimed an inch to the right.[/i] She pulled out her phone, looking at the messages. One from Eli. She started to answer, then stopped. What was she supposed to say? (Lynn also wondered who the fuck narc'd on her. It wasn't Anderson, that she felt intuitively, but somebody did, and if there was a spare moment in this whole process to rectify that, she intended to) There were none from anyone else. None. 

Lynn stared off ahead, thinking. She hadn't put much thought into her own next steps, for that matter. Everything since she'd woken had just been a frantic scatter from one movement to the next. [i]Not lying there, though - he didn't interrupt once, he didn't care, he got it, he got how it didn't make sense, how -[/i] to - Lynn was trying to think, there were still the kids, someone had to pay, someone had to burn, she didn't know, if she'd only been fucking smarter, she could've found something more tangible than the hint of a hint, than numbers on a doll's leg, than - if she could just get them towards the docking bay, maybe she could slip away. If they all went they didn't stand a chance, they didn't - they were going to have to kill whoever they found, and Lynn wouldn't think twice about Gennedy, she'd already burned a child alive, hadn't she, but the others, could Eli, could - was she still spinning from the teleportation, she felt light-headed, and - 

Lynn blinked. Her heart was racing. She reached for a cigarette but there wasn't one. Fucking nurses. She rubbed at her forehead again. Then something occurred to her. "Hey, uh, Amelia," Lynn said, the words feeling clunky leaving her mouth. "You got a smoke?"

She had barely asked before they came. As had been the case all day ([i]not all day, things were quiet for a minute, when you were just still, and you got to pretend[/i]), her thoughts hit her half a dozen at a time. Eli looked worse for the wear. Nobody was really badly hurt, but she looked - well, like Lynn felt, though that sort of acknowledgement would never have surfaced to Lynn's conscious mind. Lynn thought after this they would - she blinked, and pushed the thought aside, the nausea worsening for a moment. Natalie. Natalie looked. Natalie looked good. Lynn felt another wrinkle, something that tugged at her from a different angle and in a different way. [i]You know for how fucking awkward that candleshop thing was she was at least trying.[/i] The same desperate thought, the one that always came up to the surface, reared up again. [i]She can't - she can't keep him safe, you know, she - [/i] And then it flickered and changed, like a candle flame. Archie was there. She'd lied to him in the hospital. Lynn had not - she wasn't supposed to have seen any of them again. She wasn't - this was so much harder than she had thought, and she was not sure why. In the back of her mind, there was the sound of ice clinking against a glass, and the creak of warehouse doors, the old familiar twinge of pain in her knee, some days when the weather changed, when she took stairs too quickly. 

Lynn ignored it. Just - just for a minute or two. For a minute she managed to tell herself burning a kid alive meant she could still be a good person. There was still a way. That Archie and Eli and Keaton and Natalie and Amelia, they were all good people, and that - it didn't - there was a way for someone to make it out. There was a way. Just for a minute.

If her thoughts were dancing like firelight, this motherfucker just stepped up and pissed out the fire. Lynn didn't stand up and bristle, but her hair flickered to a sunset orange. Two things were very wrong with this picture. The first was this - wait, Lynn thought - he'd been at the bonfire, right? When she was trashed, she thought there was the faintest sense of an impression of this guy - he -

Lynn glanced over at Amelia and back to the others of the group to make sure she was not, well, hallucinating again. This motherfucker was wearing a leotard. Like they were in the fucking X-men. The part of her mind that had carved a toothbrush shiv an hour and a half ago noticed a bulge in his satchel and Lynn, out of old hypervigilant habit, locked it away for later, trying to decide what it could be, but she was momentarily transfixed by the scene. He had on a Rolex, which Lynn felt obligated to relieve him of at some point. He had on a leotard. He was wearing a leather jacket. Lots of black. And a leotard. The absolute, utter panic Lynn had felt seeing the group approach was just too baffled to speak. He was wearing a leotard. There had been a school shooting that week. He was wearing a leotard. Lynn was missing an eye and this motherfucker wanted another round at the pommel horse.

"Okay, what - " Lynn paused again, trying desperately to make sense of literally anything on this station, because with this, this final point, it had all come crumbling down. She looked from one to the others. "Did - " Lynn was trying desperately hard not to say any shit that might, you know, cross any lines, in terms of sensitivity or whatever. [i]"Sorry, Cara must've fucked up the text - I said, hey guys, let's meet up, not, hey guys, let's cope with the school shooting by getting a fucking spec ops ballerina instructor to show us a good time, classic Cara." [/i] Lynn looked at Archie for a moment (two, three, if we're being honest) and tried to puzzle anything from his face. Anything. Were they hazing this guy? 

Or maybe it was - [i]oh.[/i]

Lynn pulled her cell phone up into her sleeve and took a deep breath before murmuring, [sub][sub]"Cara."

"...yes, Lynn?"

"...am I, like, [i]allowed [/i]to make fun of this guy?"[/sub][/sub]

Cara did not answer. 

"Fucking washing machine," Lynn muttered, turning her phone off for good. She looked back up. There was a hint of - of something on Archie's face. A little hurt, maybe. [i]Don't you get it? Don't you fucking get it, Anderson? Do you think - don't you think - I would've...it wasn't...fucking Amelia, she had to fuck this all up. A little more time, I wanted - but this is already really hard, okay, and what if I - what if I turn out - I killed a kid, I -[/i]

The candlelight thoughts flickered again. Once the bewilderment at Nic had passed (it came in waves), the more sobering thought had occurred to Lynn. For all her jitters and jumpiness, this was far more chilling. She stood up, glancing around. "Before I ask who and what the fuck is - " she stopped, just bewildered. " - okay, I have questions that I don't think God himself could answer about new guy, but - " she scanned again, the fear gripping her a bit more tightly. [i]Did one of them say something? Cara. Fuck. Fuck that bitch.[/i] "Where's Keaton? Have any of you heard from her? Recently?" Lynn had not seen her since the hospital, or even had any contact beyond the text. Her mind started to race again. [i]We were just texting, but - if they got her, if they figured out - [/i] Lynn kept her voice steady, remembering the situation with the body in the woods. They couldn't have that. Not now. "Is she coming?" Lynn realized she hadn't - when was the last time she'd spoken to her? It had been a while, before the docking bay, they'd -

Lynn took a deep breath. She was probably fine. She was probably fine. 

Lynn rubbed at her eyes. The left one still itched. If they realized something was up, or something had happened to her, Lynn felt that nervous knot in her gut spiral down into an abyss. Why wasn't she here?

She needed a distraction. Anything. Just for a minute. She couldn't look at Archie or Natalie. She gave Eli a smile, feeling guilty for not texting back for perhaps the first time in her tenure at the Promise. Then back to - 

"I - is that like a religious thing?"