Aster leaned on the counter, quirking her lips and gazing down at the blank page in Iris’s notebook. “Well, you’re in the perfect place, then.”
“The perfect place? How so?”
“Look around you. There are quite a few people here that you could write a story about.”
Iris’s eyes flickered around the diner, taking in the details she had never noticed before. When her mother strode away to take an order, she took up her pencil and began to write.
She saw Roman. They were alone in the garden again, but it wasn’t in Avalon Bluff. It was a place Iris had never seen before, and she was on her hands and knees, weeding. Roman was supposed to be helping her, but he was only a distraction.
He tossed a clump of dirt at her.
“How dare you!” she said, glaring up at him. He was smiling, and she felt her skin flush. She could never stay angry at him for long. “I just washed this dress!”
“I know you did. It looks better off you anyways.”
“Kitt!”
He tossed another dirt clump at her. And another, until she had no choice but to abandon her task to tackle him.
“You’re impossible,” she said, straddling him. “And I win this round.”
Roman only grinned, his hands tracing up her legs. “I surrender. How shall I pay my penance this time?”
She waited for the bomb to fall. She waited for the end, and her mind flashed with memories, dragging her through the past with lightning speed. People she loved. Moments that had shaped her. She saw a glimpse of something to come, and that was where her thoughts stayed. On Roman and the garden they had planted together and how he was now standing five paces away from her, watching her as if he saw the same future.
At last, the bomb hit the ground.
There was a clatter as it rolled on the cobbles, eventually coming to rest in the crook of a soldier’s body.
Iris glanced at it, disbelieving. She studied the way it caught the light. A metal canister.
Her thoughts were slow and thick, still hung upon the what could have been, but the present returned to her like a slap to her face, waking her up.
This was not a bomb.
This was—she didn’t know what it was. And that frightened her even more.
The eithrals swarmed overhead. Their wings beat cold, rotten air and their talons dropped canister after canister, up and down the street. Panicked voices began to rise. The nurses, doctors, and soldiers who had been holding still broke into frantic motion.
“Iris!” Roman shouted, tripping over the rubble to close the gap between them. “Iris, take my hand!”
She was reaching for Roman when the gas hissed, spilling out of the canister in a green-hued cloud. It hit her like a fist, and she coughed, scrambling away from it. Her nose was burning, her eyes were burning. She couldn’t see and the ground felt like it was lurching beneath her.
“Kitt! Kitt!” she screamed, but her voice stung her throat.
She just needed some clean air. She needed to get away from the cloud, and she frantically moved forward, eyes clenched shut and hands outstretched, uncertain which direction she was heading.
Tears spilled down her face. Her nose was running. Iris coughed and tasted blood in her mouth.
She fell to her knees. She pulled the collar of her jumpsuit up to cover her nose and crawled over twisted pieces of metal and shards of glass and the remnants of destroyed homes, over soldiers who had died. She had to keep moving; she had to stay low.
“Kitt!” She tried to call to him again, knowing he had to be nearby. But her voice was shredded. She could scarcely draw half a breath, let alone shout.
Get to clean air. Then you can find him and Attie and Marisol.
She continued to crawl, blood and drool dripping from her lips as she panted. The temperature was getting warmer. Through her eyelids, she could see the light strengthening, and she pushed toward it.
She tested the air, drawing a deeper breath. Her lungs blazed as she coughed, but she knew she had escaped the gas.
Iris stopped, daring to open her eyes. Her vision was watery, but she blinked and let the tears slip down her cheeks. She coughed again and spit blood onto the ground, sitting back on her heels.
She had crawled to a side street.
She glanced behind to see the cloud of gas and the people crawling out of it, just as she had.
I should be helping them, she thought.
As soon as she made to rise, the world spun. Her stomach rolled and she heaved onto the cobblestones. There wasn’t much in her, and she had no choice but to sit back down, leaning against a pile of stone rubble.
“Keep moving,” a soldier croaked to her as he crawled by.
She didn’t think she could. Her limbs were tingling, and a strange taste was haunting her mouth. But then the wind began to blow. She watched in horror as the breeze carried the gas toward her, down the winding side street.
Iris staggered to her feet and ran. She made it a few strides before her knees gave out, and she crawled until she felt like she could stand again. She followed a string of soldiers downhill. She thought she would be safe in the lower side of town, but more gas was rising on High Street, and she ended up turning around and racing toward the market, where the air looked clean.
“Iris!”
She heard someone calling her name. She spun and searched the crowd that had gathered around her, frantically looking for Roman, for Attie, for Marisol, for Keegan. It was time for them to flee. She felt it in her gut, and she remembered what Attie had told her the day before.
I’ll grab Marisol. You grab Roman. We’ll meet at the lorry.
“Kitt!” she shouted.
She was standing in a sea of olive uniforms, a sea of splattered blood and coughs and boots squeaking on the stones. A few of the soldiers now wore gas masks, their entire faces concealed as they rushed back toward the deadly streets. She had a moment of icy fear that she would be trampled if she was misfortunate enough to fall.
There was a flicker of red at the corner of her eye.
Iris turned toward it just in time to see Marisol and Attie weaving through the crowd. They hadn’t seen her; they were moving away from her position toward the east side of town, and she knew they were heading to the lorry.
The relief softened her, to know they were all right. But then her dread returned, sharp enough to slice her lungs. She had to find Roman. She couldn’t leave without him, and she began to push her way through the throng, shouting his name until her voice was hoarse.
She needed to stand on one of the barricades. He would never see her like this, adrift in the crowd.
Iris began to work her way to one of the structures, shuddering when she finally broke away from the chaos. She took a moment to lean on her knees, to take deep breaths.
A firm hand grasped her arm, so hard that she knew she would be bruised by tomorrow.
She yelped and turned, frightened when she saw it was a masked individual. Their face was entirely concealed by a gas mask made of fabric, two round amber lenses, and a cylindrical gear for breathing clean air. She couldn’t see their face, but she could hear them inhaling, exhaling. They also wore a helmet, which hid their hair, and her eyes traveled down, taking in the jumpsuit they wore.
“Kitt! Oh my gods, Kitt!” Iris fiercely embraced him.
His hold on her arm loosened, but only for a moment. He stiffly created some space between them, and she frowned, confused, until he said, “Put this on.”