Tonks' warning was heard and ignored. Shannon didn't have any intention of starting anything unless the woman gave her another reason to. They were about the same size; fair fight. Shannon could take her, she thought. If she had to. The man who wasn't Ianto said something about mind control and Shannon's brow knit again as she thought about it. It would explain why Jack was being such a douchebag, but...it certainly didn't help her figure out how to spring the ones in the cell...
"Know what, Jack?" Shannon asked, her eyebrows arched. "Fuck you. How about that? Fuck. YOu. First of all, you never asked nicely, and second of all, I'm not hurting anything so if you're gonna be an asshole, then mind your own business about it, k? Thanks," she snapped.
She finally looked away from the apparent guards when the other man went on again and her eyebrows raised. Safer for them in the cage? So then what the hell did he think that meant for her outside it? "What? Are you kidding me?" she hissed at him. "Uh hi, outside the cage right now, thanks...way to be a team player," she added sarcastically. Here she was trying to help them and he was saying he was better off where he was. The silent "too bad for you," in the statement - whether intentional or not - was perceived and Shannon frowned.
But then the sound of the lock being moved caught Shannon's attention and she saw Ianto's hand covering it. Looking back at him, Shannon swallowed thickly. Ianto was the one person, Shannon though, who really and truly would be able to tell and he was saying that that wasn't Jack. Nodding, Shannon started to look around at the others in the cage. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, but something, maybe on their clothes; anything she could try to quickly pick the lock with. "Okay, okay. Yeah, okay. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. If I do it just right, they won't even notice it's picked right away," she whispered back.
When Jack slid up beside her, Shannon gasped and startled, her head whipping around so that she could keep an eye on him. "Really?" she asked, sounding far less confident in her attempt at sarcasm than she had the first time. "What reason's that? You know, right? I presume with you guarding it, you must know why," she pointed out. "Why do I have to move? I'm not doing anything," she challenged gently. Because, well, she wasn't. Yet.
Shannon could hear the other woman talking and she nodded without looking away from Jack. She knew who the other woman was referring to and the answer was... Well, she'd thought she had. "Jack, please," she said, looking him in the eye. "Don't do this. Please don't do this okay? Do you remember when you said you'd never let anything happen to me? Huh? During the earthquake, right? Please don't do this, because...you'll only be hurting yourself. Whenever whatever is in there lets you out again...if you do this, I won't be around. I'll never trust you again; I won't be able to," she said seriously, chewing her bottom lip and hoping like hell that the other woman's idea wasn't going to get her into more trouble. Ianto's wiggling fingers in her periphery gave Shannon a reason to reach up finally and take his hand, giving it a small squeeze. Even if the two of them could shake Jack from it...what about the other woman? The one outside the cage with her.
While the last woman awakened and began to hiss at something, Ianto addressed her and the other man in the cage was...doing whatever was making things light up just out of the corner of her eye, Shannon's attention was focused on Jack. He was either going to react positively...or he was going to hurt her, because she wasn't moving away from the cage and he'd have to break her hand to get her to let go of Ianto's; for the first time ever, Shannon was afraid of Jack, even if she was going to give every ounce of her effort to keep him from seeing it.