[b][u][center]Cordelia Lynn Holmes[/center][/u][/b] Lynn bit back the words in her mouth as Keaton spoke, the taste of bitter truth burning her tongue as she ground her teeth. [i]Do we expect to split up? Denim, you have to know how this ends.[/i] Keaton spoke up about sharing powers, and even as she considered the logic of it, it irked Lynn. [i]Even you can be wrong, Denim,[/i] she wanted to tell her, cautiously. Keaton spoke up about her abilities as Lynn had suspected she would - matter-of-factly and directly. To say it matter-of-factly was almost like too much humility, she thought. Lynn had caught the lizard's fastball her first day on the Promise, and still seen nothing that amazed her as much as Keaton's abilities. And Keaton had shot that glance at her - something pitying, almost, something Lynn could not quite decide. Before she had time to contemplate it much further, Archie spoke, and Lynn turned to listen, Keaton slipping from her focus. [right][i]"I'm an accident waiting to happen, and we all know what happens to accidents like us."[/i][/right] Something in look shook, and for a minute she was shaking and cold back in the hospital bed. [i]Accidents like us.[/i] Lynn had felt since the hospital - since the kid, the burning kid - since the party - since Salamandra - as if everything in her was filed down to a hair trigger, primed to blast at the slightest touch. [i]Accidents like us.[/i] At once Lynn was livid, enough to scream, wanting to shout that Archie wasn't an accident, that he'd never burned a kid alive on one of his boats, never hurt anyone - the lizard had, sure, but not him, he was deliberate and intentional and only an accident like a blackjack, or a lottery ticket, or those urban legends she'd heard about guys who'd kept a lighter in their pocket that had stopped a bullet. But at the same time Lynn wanted one other person to be collateral, too. Just to - just to get it. Eli started to speak and she forced her thoughts to focus, but it was like trying to mold sand into place with her hands. [i]An ultimatum to Packet?[/i] Lynn wanted to ask. Denzel was too kind. [i]Not an accident.[/i] If this guy could get them into the Spire, they didn't have a fucking choice. They had to. Lynn would do it, if none of them would. Or if none of them could. This guy could get them into the Ring - he could get them Cara, he could get them security, life support, maybe even some kind of gravity thing, Lynn didn't know. That was it. There wasn't a chance for him to live if he stayed behind - there was no chance at all. He was going to die like everyone else if they didn't. Lynn felt her eye itching as she grimaced. They'd just have to make him. Lynn wasn't about to watch all of them die to placate one kid being too big of a pussy to - Lynn felt cold. Like ice in a whiskey glass. "Do we need him?" she asked sharply, the words leaving her throat so suddenly they took her by surprise as the light of her hair and eyes softened to a bronze-red of a campfire. She felt the attention shift to her and that sudden openness, again, and spoke again. "If he's as young as Eli says he may not be trustworthy. I don't want to work with someone who narcs us out for a Playboy and a pack of cigarettes." Lynn felt her heart hammering in her ears. [i]But you aren’t a bad thing[/i] The smell of smoke bristled Lynn's nose and she blinked, forcing herself back under control. Her heart was still hammering. Her throat was dry. She wouldn't have - she wouldn't have hurt this Packet kid, it wasn't like that. Eli was talking from somewhere down a tunnel, she'd moved away from sitting right next to her to somewhere else. The t-shirt was growing tighter on her skin, she could feel every fiber. Lynn dug her right hand into her knee, nails digging into her skin. They still shook. She wasn't like that - she wasn't going to. She wasn't - "How long are we thinking we'll need?" Lynn asked, her voice sounding foreign to her. Words. Anything. Not anything more about this kid. "The sooner the better. Today."