He waited for the bombardment to cease, his hand cupping the back of her neck, keeping her close. His fingers were lost in her hair.
Lieutenant Lark was suddenly shaking sense into him, grabbing Roman’s shoulder.
The artillery continued to scream, cascade, and explode, and he had to shout so they could hear him.
“You both need to retreat to the town! That’s a direct order.”
Roman nodded, relieved to be given a command, and he pulled Iris away from the wall. His fingers wove with hers as he began to lead her through the chaos of the trenches. Over riven wood and mounds of earth and kneeling soldiers. It took Roman a moment to realize some of them were wounded, bowed over in pain. Blood was splattered along the floor planks. Odd pieces of metal flared in the sun.
She began to pull back. “Kitt. Kitt!”
Roman whirled to look at her. His panic was rushing through him like hot oil. “We have to run, Iris.”
“We can’t just leave them like this!” She was screaming, but he could hardly hear her. His ears felt full of wax. His throat felt raw.
“We were given an order,” Roman replied. “You and I … we’re not soldiers, Winnow.”
But he knew the exact emotion she was experiencing. It felt wrong to run. To flee when others were hunkering down, preparing to fight. When men and women were on the ground, moaning in pain. Torn apart by mortar shells, waiting to die with the splintered shine of their bones and the bright red sheen of their blood.
Roman hesitated.
That was when he saw the small round object arcing through the air. At first he thought it was a mere clot of dirt until it landed right behind Iris in the trench with a plink. It spun on the wood for a moment, and Roman stared at it, realizing … realizing it was a …
“Shit!”
He grasped the collar of Iris’s jumpsuit, picking her up as if she were weightless. He spun them around until he had come between her and the hand grenade. The terror tasted sour in his mouth and he realized he was about to heave the peaches and toast he had eaten for breakfast that morning.
How many seconds did they have before that grenade exploded?
Roman propelled Iris forward, one hand on the small of her back, urging her faster, faster around the next bend. They had almost reached it, the place where the trench took a sharp, protective turn. She tripped over one of the planks jutting up from the ground. He took hold of her waist, drawing her up before him, into the smoke and the fading light and the perpetual snap of guns.
There was a click … click … ping behind them as she turned the corner first.
“Iris,” Roman whispered, desperate.
His grip on her tightened just before the explosion blew them apart.
{32}
Smoke in Her Eyes
Iris stirred. Her face was pressed against churned earth and her mouth tasted like warm metal.
She pushed herself up slowly, her helmet crooked on her head.
Soldiers were running past her. Smoke writhed in the golden light. There was an incessant popping that made her pulse constantly jump, her body wince. But she sat forward and she spit the dirt and blood from her mouth, rushing her hands over her legs, her torso, her arms. She had a few scrapes on her fingers and knees and one long cut on her chest, but she was largely unscathed, even as shards of metal glittered on the ground.
Kitt.
She had cleared the corner before the grenade had exploded, but she wasn’t sure if he had.
“Kitt!” she screamed. “Kitt!”
She wobbled to her feet, her eyes searching the haze. She found him sprawled a few paces away. He was on his back, and his eyes were open as if he could see through the smoke, up to the clouds.
Iris swallowed a sob, falling to her knees beside him. Was he dead? Her heart wrenched at the thought. She couldn’t bear it, she realized as her hands raced over his face, his chest. She couldn’t bear to live in a world without him.
“Kitt?” she called to him, resting her palm over his heart. He was breathing, and the relief nearly melted her bones. “Kitt, can you see me?”
“Iris,” he rasped. His voice sounded so far away, and she realized it was her ears, ringing. “Iris … in my bag…”
“Yes, Kitt,” she said, smiling when he blinked up at her. He was dazed, and she began to assess the rest of his body. Down his stomach, his sides, and then she saw it. His right leg had pieces of shrapnel lodged in it. The destruction looked mainly concentrated around the outside of his thigh and calf, and around his knee, but his wounds were steadily bleeding. It was impossible to tell how much blood he had already lost. The splatters on the ground could be his or spilled from others who had been hurt. Iris took a deep breath, willing herself to be calm.
“All right, Kitt,” she said, meeting his gaze again. “You’re injured. It looks like it’s primarily your right leg, but we need to get you to a doctor. Do you think—”
“Iris, my bag,” he said, his hands futilely searching for it. “I need you … need to get my bag. There’s something … I want you—”
“Yes, don’t worry about your bag, Kitt. I need to get you out of here first,” Iris said, squatting. “Here, if I help you, can you stand on your left foot?”
He nodded.
Iris worked to haul him up and balance him. But he was so much taller and far heavier than she expected. They took a few stilted steps before Roman slowly sank to the ground again.
“Iris,” he said, “I need to tell you something.”
She went rigid, dread crackling through her. “You can tell me later,” she insisted. But she began to worry he had lost far more blood than she realized. He looked so pale; the agony in his eyes stole her breath. “You can tell me when we’re back at Marisol’s, all right?”
“I don’t think…” he began, half a whisper, half a moan. “You should take my bag and go. Leave me here.”
“Like hell I am!” she shouted. Everything within her was fracturing under the weight of her fear. She had no idea how she was going to get Roman to safety, but in that split second of desperation, she clearly beheld what she wanted.
She and Roman would survive this war. They would have the chance to grow old together, year by year. They would be friends until they both finally acknowledged the truth. And they would have everything that other couples had—the arguments and the hand-holding in the market and the gradual exploration of their bodies and the birthday celebrations and the journeys to new cities and the living as one and sharing a bed and the gradual sense of melting into each other. Their names would be entwined—Roman and Iris or Winnow and Kitt because could you truly have one without the other?—and they would write on their typewriters and ruthlessly edit each other’s pieces and read books by candlelight at night.
She wanted him. Leaving him behind in the trenches wasn’t even a possibility.
“Here, let’s try again,” she said, softening her voice in the hopes it would encourage him to try. “Kitt?”
Roman was unresponsive, angling his head against the wall of the trench.
Iris touched his face. Her fingertips left a trail of blood on his jaw. “Look at me, Roman.”
He did so, his eyes wide and glazed.
“If you die in this trench,” Iris said, “then I die with you. Do you understand? If you choose to simply sit here, I’ll have no choice but to drag you until Dacre arrives. Now, come on.”