The grim oil painting I’ve been living in for the past three days keeps bleeding, colors blurring together.
Once again, I have a choice. I can let this happen to Rose. I can go back to the way things were before she came down into the hollow. I can be a flower, not a weed, finish my trials, bloom under Sol’s nurturing sunlight. It’s what I wanted. What I thought would save me.
But Rose would be gone, buried in a cold, shallow grave next to Marigold, and I’d still be Iris.
Not me, butIris, the girl Sol has taught to let go of everything besides him. The girl he wants me to be. And I’ll know, no matter what happens from here, who he really is. What he’s capable of. What he might ask of any of us in the future.
I’ll always know what happened to Marigold.
The veil has been lifted, and I’ve seen too much.
My other choice is to risk my life, whether it be here, at his hand, or out there, where I have no one and nothing, except Rose. Maybe Poppy and Zinnia, if I can get them out of here. I willlose them, too, if I go to jail for what I did to Mr. Brophy’s store.
Staying here would, in some ways, be the easier choice, but it wouldn’t bemine. It would be the choice of the girl Sol told me to be. And I don’t want to be her anymore.
Everything comes into sharper color, burning bright and vivid. Time speeds back up.
This isn’t a dream. It’s real. And I’m awake.
With the knife in my hand, I throw myself toward Sol. I don’t think. I don’t calculate. I just swing. The feel of the blade sinking into the flesh of Sol’s back makes me yelp, but the sound is drowned out by his roar of anger and pain.
His hands release Rose’s throat as he tries to turn and grab at me again instead.
Rose crawls away, sobbing and sputtering, as I dodge Sol. He’s slower now, but he’s still moving, which means we aren’t safe yet. I need him still long enough for us to get out through one of those doors.
His hand, previously around Rose’s throat, is pressed to his bleeding back as he crouches, glaring at me.
“That was a bad idea,” he hisses, his free hand clumsily trying to grasp my wrist. Even slow, he’s still strong. If he catches my arm, I doubt Rose will be able to help me get away again.
“Notas bad as this one,” I say as I make a snap decision and rush forward, knife held out in front of me.
He tries to put up his hands, tries to block me, but the pain from the first wound has slowed his reactions, because this time I’m able to push the knife into his gut.
Blood floods from the wound, all over my hand and soaking his shirt. Bright, gruesome red.
“Iris!” Rose’s scream is sharp and ragged from somewhere behind me.
Sol, with a gurgling groan, crumples to the floor, where he wraps his arms around his bleeding middle.
“What’s going on?”
Concerned voices come from down the hall as Violet and Lily come rushing out of their room. There’s creaking on the stairs as Poppy and Zinnia stumble down from the attic, dark brown eyes wide with panic.
And they all see it.
See Rose leaning against the wall, still catching her breath.
See Sol curled on the floor, panting and bleeding as he curses at me between groans of pain.
And see me, standing over him with a knife.
IRIS
“Whatdid you do?!”
Violet’s scream is the first one I hear as the chaos reaches a fever pitch around me. She pushes past me, rushing toward Sol’s writhing, moaning body.
I don’t know how to answer. My blood-soaked hands are shaking, and my heart is beating like a war drum in my chest. All I can do is stare at Sol, at his glazed eyes, which are looking right back at me.
