Ladybird, Ladybird

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((Iris Waite continued from Return the Slab, or Suffer My Curse))

The hours after fleeing the graveyard passed in a blur; Iris spent most of them curled up behind the bar counter, alternately crying and hyperventilating. Her face had been turned away from the grenade by the time it went off, so she hadn't been blinded, but she'd been able to hear everything. The flashbang living up to its name, and the gunfire erupting immediately after.

The screaming.

Maybe the screaming was just imagined, just the blood rushing in her head and the ringing in her ears. It had felt real enough, and it felt real now, even as she finally started to come down from what she figured now had to have been some kind of panic attack.

Iris was unhurt, but she wasn't unscathed. None of the bullets had been fired in her direction, and so none had so much as nicked her, but here she was, incapacitated for hours after the fact. She could bet that Evie and DeMarcus hadn't reacted like this after shooting somebody. All she'd done was throw a distraction and run for it.

Sitting with her back against the bar and her legs drawn up to her chest, face buried in her knees, Iris once again came to a conclusion that she'd tried to discard days ago.

She couldn't make it on her own.

That was the name of the game, right? That was what you had to do to win. She'd tried, and look how it had all turned out.

She'd been going about it all wrong, she could tell that much, but she didn't know how to course-correct alone. She needed a shoulder to lean on, someone to tell her that things would be okay. Someone who saw her as more than a distraction or an easy target.

At this point, Iris didn't think that anybody like that existed in the entire world, or at least not on the island. The only person out there who really, truly loved her was back home, probably still wondering just what had happened to her. If her dad was here, everything would have been okay. Even if they'd been trapped in the mountains with no food, like that soccer team from Peru back in the 80's, they would have been okay. She believed that with her whole heart.

But her dad wasn't here, and Iris had nobody to love and support her. Only friends who cared until she was too much to handle.

But she needed them. She needed them to hold on for as long as they could manage, because that was the only way that she could manage.

So she had to go back.

Chloé was gone, but Richard and Darryl were still there. Shawn was still there, and Marshall was still out there somewhere. Maybe they wouldn't be able to save anyone, but together they were strong. Iris just needed somebody to be strong.

She'd grovel and beg if that was what she had to do, as long as they would take her back. She'd swallow her anger and tattered pride, at least for one more day. She had to.

The sun was already sinking by the time Iris left the bar; even if she moved as fast as possible in the worsening weather, it was going to be nighttime by the time she reached the research station. If she stuck to the road instead of cutting through the woods again though, she'd be able to make it. She could return to the infirmary and at least have a bed to sleep in, and then she'd find the boys and apologize if she had to, or do whatever she had to do.

Tomorrow was another day.

((Iris Waite continued in Medically Ineffective Intervention))