The idea of the L-ementals was originally collectively created by AxelGripp, Khalalat, juribelit, Bry-Guy-1996, and Syfyman2xxx.
The cover image belongs to AxelGripp on DeviantArt and is used with permission.
This story was co-written with dubb1.
Chapter Nine
After some quick discussion, Lincoln left the hidden bunker along with Clyde and Luan. Lincoln hesitated, unsure about leaving Ronnie Anne or Leslie, but Luan begged him to go with her. Something had happened to Luna and they needed to do something about it, and she wanted her brother there with her. Ronnie Anne gave her blessing so now he was out on a rescue mission. He was flying per usual, while Clyde was bouncing like his legs were pogo sticks. It reminded Lincoln of Tigger. Luan seemed to be skating on her own ice. She was creating a pathway of ice before her that she could slide on, while somehow dismantling the ice behind her at the same time. Lincoln assumed it was to avoid leaving a trail. Had she been followed that way in the past?
About two hours later, traveling west at an unclear speed and not in a straight line, Lincoln had to cover his eyes. "What's that light?"
"That's where we're going." Luan said, also adjusting her glance.
They got closer and Lincoln could see what was so bright. Up ahead was a wall made out of what looked like giant diamonds. Not only that, but there were rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and other gems. The wall was large and irregular, but in the sunlight it was practically blinding.
"What is that? It's like someone made the Trojan wall out of pure bling." Lincoln asked.
"Luna's group made that. It's a good defense, meant to keep dangerous animals and the infected out."
Clyde jumped over the fence while Luan turned to snow and just crept through the small barely seeable gaps in the wall. Lincoln floated there behind them before going up and over.
"Not much of a defense against elementals." He muttered.
"The options are limited here. Besides, it did slow us down, didn't it?" Clyde commented.
A few normal kids who seemed to be playing a game of tag ran by, pausing when they saw the newcomers.
"It's the Louds!" One of them shouted, but this didn't sound scared. Rather it sounded excited. The kids then came up to Luan and Clyde, but they froze when they saw Lincoln.
"It's him!" They screamed, now sounding scared before running off.
"Oh crap, Lincoln you should be flesh now. They're not going to like seeing an air elemental." Luan warned.
"Why? Does Chandler have one working for him?"
"Worse. Chandler is a smoke elemental. They probably think you are him."
"Seriously? He's smoke?" Lincoln asked, though he did turn back to a normal person. Luan stayed ice and Clyde stayed rubber.
Doors could be heard closing and someone ran their way, and right away Lincoln could tell this was another elemental. A woman, older than Luan, but her element wasn't immediately obvious. It was shiny, but colorless. Almost like glass or a prism.
"Hello children, I was warned that Chandler was here." She said, her voice vaguely familiar to Lincoln but not anyone he could place. Up close he could tell that she looked like she was made out of bubbles. A few came off her like she was boiling softly and the bubbles floated up and popped, like the kind that kids would blow.
"It's alright Miss Santiago, just a misunderstanding." Luan replied.
Lincoln blinked. 'Ronnie Anne's mom?'
"But we have good news. Ronnie Anne is back. She's at the base right now, Lincoln is here too."
Maria gasped and glanced at the newcomer, finally noting his white hair. "Lincoln?"
He nodded. "Hi Miss Santiago, long time no see." He then turned to air, hoping to reassure her. "I'm definitely not that jerk Chandler."
Maria sighed in relief. "Why isn't my daughter here too?"
"She's protecting your grandchild right now."
Maria's head literally exploded, making the three elementals jump back. Fortunately it reformed rather quickly.
"What did you just say?!"
"Okay, you have got to teach me how to do that. I just know I could make a great gag out of that." Luan replied.
"Definitely not me. I've seen rubber pop before and I'm not going through with that." Clyde commented.
Lincoln stepped up to the woman who was essentially his mother-in-law. "Miss Santiago, Ronnie Anne and I have a daughter together. Her name is Leslie and I know they both want to see you."
Maria just stood there silently before shaking her head to clear her thoughts. "I am holding you to that Lincoln. So if you didn't come here to show me my daughter, what are you here for?"
"We've lost contact with Luna's group. Do you know where they were heading?" Luan answered.
Maria shook her head again. "No, but I know who would. Follow me."
She led them through the small town, and Lincoln was overcome with a strong sense of nostalgia. The place was similar to Nowhere but still different. Nowhere had the look and feel of being built by people who had been there long enough to perfect it, while this place looked more like it was made by the Flintsones. The buildings were made from stone, but they resembled modern houses as best they could. Not only that, but there were large metal boxes, like the kind you'd see in trainyards or freightyards, scattered around but open. It looked like they had been repurposed for something else, possibly storage or safety shelters. People started going outside, or at least looking.
"It's okay, it's not Chandler. It's my missing brother, Lincoln Loud. An air elemental." Luan told anyone who was listening.
Maria led them to an open tent set up like a gazebo. Seated there was a sickly looking person, someone gangly with pale hair and sore skin, coughing a few times. Not only that, but there was a line of sick people behind him all looking bad.
"Carlota will be here shortly, she can tell you where your sister went."
Maria then sat down beside the sickly man and spread some bubbles all over his body before moving her hands up and down as if she was scrubbing him. Then she retracted the bubbles back into her, and the man looked a little better. Still sickly, but more like the worse was behind him.
"Does that feel better sir?" She asked.
He nodded and smiled before getting on his feet. "Thanks again Maria. I'll see you tomorrow."
Maria smiled and helped him off before addressing the crowd. "Does anyone have dangerous symptoms right now?"
Someone raised a hand, which looked like it had some grime on it. This person was allowed to skip the line and go to her, and Lincoln could see this person had some familiar looking sludge on their body. They were clearly affected by the disease elemental. Maria immediately covered them with bubbles and scrubbed them, and soon enough this person was free of any puss.
"Thank you so much." They said, sounding relieved before leaving and another taking their place.
"What is happening here?" Lincoln asked.
"Miss Santiago is one of our most important people. Her element allows her to temporarily 'clean' the infected." Clyde said, making air quotes. "It doesn't last long, but it makes them human again and less likely to spread the L-Virus. Every person in this town is a former infected that she's been able to save."
"Even those kids? They didn't look sick at all." Lincoln asked.
"They still are, but thanks to her they can at least have some semblance of a normal life now. It's no cure but it's the best we have."
"Until we get Lisa back." Luan added.
"We have to bring Leslie here." Lincoln stated.
The ice girl and rubber boy turned to him. "What?"
"Leslie cured Mr Grouse. I saw it with my own eyes. I think she's a medicine elemental. She can cure them all."
Luan's eyes widened. "Are you serious?"
"As serious as you are cold."
Luan wobbled. "Holy crap. That could completely change the dynamic between us and Chandler's hell-ementals. They'll lose all leverage over people if they're not the only ones with a cure anymore."
"Chandler has a cure?" Lincoln asked.
"It's how he got into power. We don't know how, or if it's even real, but every person in that city of his believes he does and he must have something to show for it. As the world fell apart, he promised a cure and sanctuary from further infection and you saw how many listened to him."
Lincoln raised an eyebrow. "But if he really has a cure, then why isn't he the one here treating these people?"
"It's Chandler, would you really expect him to?" Clyde asked.
Luan nodded. "That smoky creep isn't concerned about saving the world, just protecting the one small piece of it he has control over. As far as he's concerned, the rest of the planet can rot for all he cares. Just so long as he gets to be king of the one part that doesn't rot."
"This is why we have to take him out of power." Clyde told his friend. "We started this rebellion as a way to clear your family's name and save the world from something Lisa did feel responsible for. But now it's because this world is dying and the only one who until now could save it has been leaving it to fall apart. We could do so much to rebuild the world, and if Chandler does have a cure, we need to take it from him. And the only way we can do that is to take down what else is keeping him in power too."
"Gladly,"
"Hey guys!" Someone called out from the side. The trio turned and saw another elemental woman walking up to them carrying a basket. She was older than Luan and had a good figure, but her element was not immediately obvious. To Lincoln, it looked like some polished stone. Maybe marble? Or a jewel?
"Hi Carlota." Clyde greeted.
'Oh, Ronnie Anne's cousin.' Lincoln thought, recognizing the name but not the person.
"Do you know where Luna's group has gone to?" Luan asked.
Carlota nodded. "Oh yes, she and the others headed towards the orchard."
"We better head there fast." Luan stated.
"Do you know this orchard?" Lincoln asked.
"Actually, yes. It's one of the places outside of Great Lake where Chandler has control. It's basically where most of the farming happens, so we just call it the orchard. No idea what he calls it."
"We thought that maybe that was where he had been keeping Lola and Lana, putting them to work there, but we already confirmed that they aren't. Just a handful of survivors that have agricultural experience and give Chandler's city some of the crops. So there shouldn't be any threats to worry about." Clyde added.
"Then what happened to Luna?" Lincoln asked.
"We're about to find out."
Back at the base, Ronnie Anne had gotten Leslie down for a nap. The base had limited supplies and rooms, so Sid took Ronnie Anne to the room she was using here and set up her bed so that a young child could be safe and comfortable on it. Ronnie Anne took a brief moment after her daughter was resting soundly to note that Sid's room didn't look like she was bunking alone, even though there was only one bed in it.
"I gotta admit, I never thought you'd come back to us with a baby, Ronnie Anne." Sid said, standing beside her friend. Now she was in flesh form, and wearing the same kind of outfit Luan had given them earlier. Hers was yellow with purple stripes.
"I have to admit it surprised me too, but I don't regret it at all." Ronnie Anne said, looking down at her child for a moment before quietly leaving the room. "Is any of my family here?"
"Last I checked, they were helping some of the people who stay away from Great Lakes in survivor communities. There are a few of those scattered around the world. One of them is where the majority of our resistance is hiding right now."
Ronnie Anne raised an eyebrow. "Then why are we here instead of there?"
Sid looked uncomfortable. "Let me show you."
Sid led her friend to another room, opening a door that had several locks but none of them were being used.
"Lisa put those there in case this place gets raided. What's in this room is very important to the Loud family."
The two girls went inside and Ronnie Anne gasped. There before her were two large tubes, the kind that looked exactly like what you'd see in a sci-fi movie, where people were healing from super advanced medical tech. The tubes were filled with some green liquid, hooking up to other machines that looked like it was monitoring or regulating something. Inside the green liquid were Rita Loud and Lynn Loud Sr, unconscious and tethered to float within.
Ronnie Anne stepped closer, as if to get a better look. "What happened?"
"They caught the L-Virus. Lisa got them in here before it could take them over, and she worked harder than ever to find a cure. But she got caught a year ago, so that's on hold until we get her back." Sid explained.
The sound of another door opening drew their attention, and they turned to see a young girl come into the room. She was about seven years old with short messy blonde hair and wore the same outfit every other elemental had so far. Except this one was more colored, like a rainbow, with some orange added in.
"Who are you?" She asked, defensively, eyes locked on Ronnie Anne.
"It's okay Lily, she's a friend." Sid told the small girl.
"Lily? Oh wow, you've gotten so big since the last time I saw you." Ronnie Anne said to Lincoln's youngest sister.
"You still haven't told me who you are." Lily pointed out.
"I'm Ronnie Anne, and I'm… basically your sister-in-law. I'm with your brother, Lincoln."
Lily looked surprised. "Lincoln? He's back?"
"Do you remember him?"
Lily shook her head. "Not at all, but everyone always talks about him. Where is he?"
"He's out with Luan, trying to see if Luna needs any help since she won't call us back. Oh, and Lynn's on her way here." Sid claimed.
"Hmm…" Ronnie Anne hummed. "Luna and Lynn are out, Luan, Lucy, and Lily are here, Lola, Lana, and Lisa are captured. Where are Lori and Leni? You haven't mentioned them at all."
Lily huffed in anger and walked away, and Sid had an awkward uncomfortable look on her face.
"There's no easy way to say this Ronnie Anne, but those two… are gone."
"Gone?" Ronnie Anne repeated, confused, then she gasped. "You mean they were-?"
"No, they weren't killed or captured. They both just… left."
"Left?"
Sid nodded. "About a year ago, Lori just up and left us all. No warning, no messages, no breadcrumbs, just gone. And so was Bobby."
"Bobby?"
Sid nodded again. "We're pretty darn sure wherever Lori went, Bobby went with her. We haven't seen or heard from either in over a year, and believe me, we've looked. After that, things got bad for a bit and Leni also just… left. We can't find her either. Luna and Lynn started spending more of their time on their missions, I think to avoid going crazy, and Luan has basically been stuck being the one holding this place together since none of them will."
"I… I can't even…" Ronnie Anne stuttered, unsure if she wanted to hit something or not.
"But now that you and Lincoln are back, maybe the family will finally be able to reunite and with everyone back we can actually be a real threat to Chandler's forces. We can save all those people trapped in his prison of a city and begin to heal the world. We can finally fix everything." Sid exclaimed, trying to bring back a positive vibe.
"Can we?" Ronnie Anne asked, looking hurt. "I mean, what do you think will happen if Chandler is taken out of power?"
"Well, we'll be free to work on a real cure for the L-Virus and save everyone, and then when everyone stops hating us for being elementals we can begin to rebuild civilization. It won't be like it was before L-Day, but at least it will be a step in the right direction."
"But what exactly is Chandler doing that is so terrible that he needs to be taken down? I mean, framing Lincoln's family and imprisoning his kid sisters, I agree those are dick moves, but those things you're talking about, it looks like he's already doing them. Why not just leave him be and make a new city elsewhere after you save Lola, Lana, and Lisa?" Ronnie Anne asked.
Sid sighed. "You didn't get a good look at what it's like in Great Lake while you were there, did you?"
"All I saw was the slum district and three elementals working for Chandler trying to capture us. My concern was saving Leslie, not understanding the city."
Sid moved to take a seat, with her friend doing the same. "That so-called Haven of Chandlers, let me tell you the truth about it. And why we must bring it down rather than let it remain."
With a destination in mind, Lincoln, Clyde, and Luan left the survivor camp and headed out. Though first they stopped by one of the freight boxes that was locked with a keypad. Luan went up and typed in 711, resulting in it unlocking. She and Clyde then opened the door. Lincoln gasped when he saw what was inside.
"Is that what I think it is?"
"Yep, that's Vanzilla. Lisa kept it and she and Lana did some restoration. I guess even Lisa can get sentimental." Luan told him, then chuckled. "Heh, sentimental elemental."
"The Orchard is about two hundred miles away, it's close to where Royal Woods used to be. If we want to get there quickly, we're going to need something faster than running." Clyde explained.
"Alright. Sounds perfect." Lincoln said.
"Only one problem. Lisa converted it to run on solar power since gas ran out years ago. So we have to get back by night or else we're all stuck." Luan added.
Lincoln looked at the sky, seeing the sun was going to be setting in an hour or two for sure. 'Weird, this will be the first time I've actually experienced a real night in five years.'
"How fast can it go?" He asked.
"If we leave now, fast enough." Clyde replied while Luan got into the driver's seat and started it up before slowing driving it out.
"How are we going to get it past that jeweled wall?" Lincoln added.
"Same way we got past it. Elemental power."
Luan drove it up to the wall and got out. She then cracked her knuckles and turned to snow before sliding under Vanzilla before reforming as a pillar of ice holding it up just above the edge of the wall. The van wobbled a bit and her face was visible, looking strained. Apparently this was still really heavy for her. Fortunately Clyde came up and turned into a rubber slide, the kind you saw when people had to evacuate downed planes, and latched on to her. Luan then pushed the van down Clyde where it slid down and landed on the other side of the wall.
"Damn, I hate doing that." Clyde groaned as he regained his human shape.
"Yeah, it's not very ice. Get it?" Luan joked, regaining her own human shape.
"Do either of you know how to drive? I never got to learn." Lincoln reminded them.
"Oh it's easy, you just steer and push the gas pedal." Luan told him, stretching her arms.
Lincoln rolled his eyes. "Wow, forget comedy, being a driving instructor is your true calling Luan."
Luan huffed. "Fine, I'll drive. But you're going to learn, Lincoln Cloud."
Luan got back into the driver seat with Lincoln and Clyde getting in the other seats. Lincoln went right for the passenger seat and Clyde didn't fight him on it. Luan started it up and they began driving off.
"It will be a while before we get to any roads. Back when they were actively hunting us, we had to avoid where most vehicles could go." She told him, minding the bumpy ride.
"It must have sucked to have spent five years being treated like criminals just because one science experiment went horribly wrong." Lincoln mused. "Almost funny how a few years ago the worst people thought of us was being banned from grocery stores or public pools."
Luan laughed a little. "Yeah, I miss the days when that was as bad as it got for us."
"Tell me, did Chandler do anything other than just smear our name and offer people a vague cure? I just can't help but think that Lisa would have been able to come up with a cure by now if he hadn't turned the world against you guys."
Luan shook her head. "It wasn't that easy. The way Lisa described it, the L-Virus is like being infected with every disease at once. Cure one part of it, there's dozen more parts to work on."
"There's more." Clyde added. "We've talked with the treated, after Miss Santiago gets them back to normal. They all said that when they were all slimy and zombie-like, it's like there was a voice commanding them to seek out other people. They don't remember much, but they all agreed that they weren't in control of themselves."
"Lisa thinks that this virus might have some sort of hive mind element to it. Like it's…" Luan started, struggling to put into words.
"Like it's all the work of a single disease elemental?" Lincoln finished for her.
Immediately Luan hit the brakes and forced Vanzilla to stop, avoiding running into anything. She then looked at her brother in shock.
"Did you just say a disease elemental?"
"Is that even really a thing?" Clyde added.
"When I saw the first infected person, I thought it was a disease elemental. And when I saw more get infected, I thought it was them spreading their powers out to infect others. Even elementals like us. And where I've been, the only things that could hurt an elemental were other elementals or this mineral we called ether."
Luan and Clyde looked at each other, taking this in, before looking back at him.
"Holy crap, all this time, we never considered the possibility of a disease elemental. But that actually makes sense. Patient Zero isn't the first person infected, they probably are the disease elemental. The mastermind of the hive mind." Clyde proclaimed.
"Someone out there… has been infecting everyone we ever knew… on purpose?" Luan asked, looking like she was getting really angry. The air around her got cooler and the steering wheel in her hands began to rapidly frost.
"Luan?" Lincoln said.
"We lost so much. Our friends, our neighbors, our home, and we're even losing Mom and Dad to all this… and none of it was an accident?" Luan hissed, the chill and frost spreading.
"This is bad. We have to stop her." Clyde said.
Not having any other ideas, Lincoln compressed himself and then shot himself against her like an air bullet, tackling her against the door. She hit and yelped, mostly in surprise, and after he left her she sat upright, breathing heavily but the chill was retracting.
"What the hell was that for?"
"You were about to hulk out." Clyde warned.
Luan gulped and then looked ashamed. "Sorry, but…" She then leaned her head against the steering wheel. "It's just been so hard to deal with everything. Lori and Leni are gone, Lynn and Luna are never around, we've had old friends betray us. I have to be the responsible one all the time and I just…"
She was stopped by the desire to sob, shedding frozen tears that clattered on the van floor.
Clyde moved around her. "Take the back, I'll drive from here."
Luan nodded and adjusted to get around the rubber body by turning into snow. She settled on the nearest seat, still just a pile of snow instead of human shape, and continued to vent.
Lincoln sighed. "You guys had it so much worse than I thought. All this time, I thought everything was still normal here. I never thought I'd be coming back to this."
"We can fix it. We have to." Clyde insisted, settling into the drivers seat and making needed adjustments. "Okay, next stop, the Orchard."
"You do know how to drive, right?" Lincoln asked.
"If you mean was I taught professionally, then no. Was I taught at all? Yes."
He started up the van and though it jerked for a bit as it got moving, it soon got going. Clyde was careful, but the van was going faster than when Luan had been driving.
"By the way, what did you mean by hulk out?" Lincoln asked, having a good idea but he wanted confirmation.
"It's pretty self-explanatory. When one of us gets too angry or stressed we turn into these dangerous monsters and just lash out until we calm down or something makes us stop. It's happened a few times over the years, and it's one of the many reasons so many people have become so afraid of us."
"Something like that happened to me." Lincoln confessed. "The place I've been staying out, the infected came and tore it apart. I snapped and became a living tornado, I think I did more damage to the place than they did. Leslie crying snapped me out of it."
"Wow man, that must have been rough." Clyde said. "I've never done it. Sid did once, she looked like some kind of flightless wasp, ended up demolishing a building in the process."
"Sid? Wow, what brought that on?"
"People burned down her house and tried to kill her sister as she was turning into an elemental too."
Lincoln gasped. "People tried to kill her?"
"They tried to kill all of us. Once the pandemic was inescapable and we were outed to the public, and someone put two and two together, someone got the idea to throw rocks at your family house and it just grew from there. We all got targeted and ousted from our homes, forced into hiding."
"Hold on, how bad was the pandemic at that time?" Lincoln asked. Something about the way Clyde described the situation didn't make sense to him.
"At that moment, it was over the entire country and started to show up in other countries. Most of us were already elementals, but some of us weren't yet. You see, Lisa was convinced that she could fix the whole thing with this stuff she called Compound L. But when she did, she just created more elementals. Word got leaked, we don't know how, and everyone soon learned that Lisa created the elementals and then they assumed she created the L-Virus too. From then on, as far as the public was concerned, we were terrorists. Hulking out when they actually attacked us just fueled the fire."
Lincoln wasn't sure what to say. He just pictured his family hiding in their old house trying to fend off an angry mob with torches and pitchforks trying to lynch them all.
'Back in Nowhere, people were a little afraid of us, but for the most part they all thought we were like angels there to save them. But all this time, people here saw them more like devils.'
The ride continued in silence, none of them knowing what to say now. Lincoln silently wished he could say something to help everyone feel better but he was lost for words.
After finishing her talk with Sid, Ronnie Anne went looking for Lily. It didn't take long, because the young girl came back to the room where Rita and Lynn Sr were being contained.
"Hey Lily, can we talk?"
"What about?" Lily asked, going up to the pods and pulling out what looked like solar panels. Lily's hands glowed brightly and she put them on the solar panels.
"What are you doing?" Ronnie Anne asked, curious.
"Our generator hasn't worked in a long time, no one here knows how to fix it. So I have to spend my entire day going around refueling the solar panels over and over again so this place can keep working and so my mom and dad don't die."
Lily sniffled a little, wanting to cry, but she kept powering up the panels before eventually stopping. She just stood there, slumped for a moment, and then Ronnie Anne knelt down behind her and pulled her into a hug.
"I'm sorry you have to deal with all this."
"I hate this." Lily said, sounding angry but still crying. "I hate the creep who turned the world against us. I hate the people who betrayed us. I hate my sisters who spend all day doing I don't know what while I'm stuck down here being a battery. I hate this life."
Ronnie Anne was surprised to hear this, but after thinking about it, she realized that she shouldn't be. This was the only life Lily could remember, and being a seven year old confined underground while everyone else has the option to leave, who wouldn't have some resentment?
"Everything will be okay now that your brother is back." She assured the youngest Loud sister.
"How does him being back change everything?" Lily asked.
"You can always count on Lincoln to find a solution. It's one of his best traits. I guarantee you that Lincoln will find a way to fix everything."
Lily scoffed. "He's been gone for over five years. It's too late for him to fix anything."
"What do you want Lily? For someone to go back in time and prevent all this from happening in the first place?"
"What would I be losing if we did?" Lily asked back.
Ronnie Anne frowned and stood up. "Come with me."
For a moment, Lily thought about refusing, but the look in the Hispanic girl's eyes told her it would be best to just comply. So she followed her all the way to Sid's room and went inside. There she saw a baby nestled soundly on the futon-like bed.
"Who's that?"
"That is my daughter. Your niece. Leslie Loud." Ronnie Anne whispered to avoid waking the baby. "You wouldn't lose anything if we time-traveled back to this L-Day and stopped all this from happening? You'd lose her. Tell me, is that a price worth paying to you?"
Lily stepped closer, as if amazed by this new addition to the family. For so long, she had been the youngest, with only Carlitos being about the same age as her. She had always been seen as the one who needed to be protected and guided, told what to do. No one ever asked her what she wanted or thought was best, she was just too young.
And now there was someone else here who was younger and more vulnerable. Someone that she could be the protector of for once. Gently touching Leslie's hair, careful not to wake her, she felt something familiar. Her hair felt soft and warm and there was only one other person with hair like hers.
"Linky," Lily said, using the nickname she and her sisters would always call their brother lovingly.
Ronnie Anne smiled. "I guess you remember him better than you thought you did."
Lily shedded a few tears. "I've seen pictures of him, but until now, he's just been someone else's memory to me."
"I think you were always his favorite of his sisters." Ronnie Anne soothed, kneeling beside the girl. "But to be fair, you were also the least troubling out of all of them at the time."
Lily chuckled. "Yeah, I can believe that."
"He'll be so happy so see you when he gets back. And maybe with him back, your other sisters will have more reason to stick around. In fact, I'm pretty sure they will. I always saw Lincoln as the lynchpin that held you guys together. With him gone, it's no wonder you all fell apart."
"The order that binds the chaos." Lucy said, emerging from the shadows.
"How long were you there?" Ronnie Anne asked.
"Since you left Leslie to nap. I felt I should keep an eye on her." Lucy replied, turning back to flesh. "And I agree, Lincoln is the lynchpin in our family. Like you are to yours."
"Did my family fall apart too?"
"Bobby's gone, your mother and cousin are working to help the survivors, and your other cousins are often with my sisters. I don't know where your father is, sorry. So yeah. I think losing you had the same effect on them as losing Lincoln did on us."
"But things will get better now, right?" Lily asked.
Ronnie Anne nodded and made a fist. "Right."
Hearing Ronnie Anne renewed a small sense of hope in Lily, so much that she made a fist in response.