IRIS
“What did 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.
If Lily hears her, she doesn’t show it. She runs to join Violet, kneeling beside Sol and frantically examining the wound. Poppy and Zinnia, though, remain frozen at the foot of the stairs, two sets of big brown eyes darting back and forth between us all.
“Kill you?” Poppy asks. “What do you mean? Why?”
“Because we were going to leave.”
“We’ve gotta get him to the hospital,” Lily says, completely ignoring the rest of us. “Violet, get the keys, we—”
“No!” Sol snaps. “No hospital.”
Lily pulls off the sweatshirt she was sleeping in and presses it to Sol’s stomach, trying to stanch the flow of blood. There are tears streaming down her round cheeks now. “But you’re gonna bleed out if—”
“No!” Sol yells.
“Why not?”
But I know why not.
Because if Sol goes to the hospital, there’s a chance they’ll ask who he is.
He can lie, of course, but if he’s not careful, not clever, they might still find a way to track him down.
Particularly since the cops know about this house and have seen his face.
They’ll want to know who stabbed him. It’ll bring attention he’s long tried to avoid.
And if Rose is right, there are warrants out for his arrest. He could go to prison.
A fact that, based on Violet’s silence, I suspect she is aware of.
I look away from the scene and meet Zinnia’s gaze. I know she must be confused and scared. Even more so than I am, since she’s just woken up to violence in this peaceful garden.
Peaceful as far as we knew, at least. But we came here after Marigold. This safe place we found was tainted before we’d even arrived. It’s a hard pill to swallow, even with as much as I’ve seen, and she and Poppy aren’t aware of any of it.
“He asked me to kill Rose,” I whisper to my sisters.
“I’ve been having to do these trials to prove my loyalty, and that was one of them.
” I can’t look at Rose when I say it. I know she’s probably already put the pieces together based on Sol’s words before.
But I’m not ready to see the terror or pain this might cause her.
There will be time to face it later. “I couldn’t do it, so we were going to leave. ”
Zinnia is shaking her head before I’ve even finished speaking. “That don’t make any sense. Why would he want you to kill Rose?”
“Because she’s a weed.” Violet turns to glare over her shoulder at us. “And weeds need to be plucked. This is proof of that. Look what the two of you have done!”
“He wouldn’t let us leave,” I plead, desperately wanting her—all of them—to understand. “We were just going to go, to sneak out. But he wouldn’t let us.”
“Of course he wouldn’t,” Violet says. “If he had, y’all would’ve gone off and told someone about this place. And then it’d be over for all of us. None of us get to just leave.”
Poppy gapes at her. “No one told me we were trapped here.”
“I mean,” Zinnia says, her voice low and shaky, “we ain’t been allowed to go into town …”
“Yeah, but that was for our own safety,” Poppy says.
“No, it wasn’t.” Rose’s arms are wrapped around herself.
She’s still pressed against the wall, keeping as much space and as many people between her and Sol as possible.
“That’s what he said, but it was really about him.
He’s a criminal who’s living with a bunch of underage girls in the mountains.
He didn’t want anyone he wasn’t completely sure was loyal to him going into town because they might lead the cops back here.
It’s why he won’t let them take him to the hospital right now. ”
“Stop it!” Lily cries out. “That ain’t true.”
The way Lily protests breaks my heart. I can hear the desperation there. The need to believe that Sol is a good man. Because if he’s not, then she’s dedicated years and done terrible things in the name of a monster.
We all have.
“Then why wouldn’t he let Marigold go, Lily?” I ask, trying to keep any accusation from my tone. “Why lock her up in the shed? Why send you and Violet after her, unless he was hiding something?”
Lily doesn’t say anything to that. She turns her face away from me, putting her full attention back on Sol as the sweatshirt becomes soaked through with his blood. But I hear the little sob she lets out.
Poppy and Zinnia are both silent, though I can see the question in their eyes when I mention Marigold. But now isn’t the time. Sol is still conscious. Still glaring at me even as he weakly tries to give Lily instructions on where to find a first aid kit to stitch up the wound.
I don’t want to be here if he gets back on his feet.
“I’m leaving,” I say.
“No you are not.” Violet is on her feet then, stalking toward us like a mountain lion about to lunge at cornered prey. “Y’all ain’t going anywhere. You might not be willing to protect this place, Iris, but I am.”
She’s reaching for me—about to grab me by the neck—and I hear the shout from Rose and the intakes of breath from Poppy and Zinnia. But it’s Lily who appears behind her. Lily who grabs the scrawnier woman by the shoulders and pulls her back.
“No, Violet!”
“Let me go!” Violet tries to throw an elbow back into Lily’s gut, but Lily just wraps her arms more firmly around her.
“This ain’t the way to protect him, hon,” Lily says. Her voice is sweet. Calm despite the tears rolling down her cheeks. “Right now, we gotta get him to the hospital.”
“I said no!” But Sol’s voice has gotten weaker.
Violet snarls, but she stops thrashing for the moment.
Lily ignores Sol’s protests. “Come on. You gotta help me get him to the truck. Me stitching him up ain’t gonna be enough.”
Slowly, Lily releases Violet, who shoots us one more threatening glare before she turns around and goes to help Sol to his feet. He barely seems conscious, his large body dead weight on the small woman’s shoulder as she practically drags him toward the door, leaving a trail of blood behind.
Lily goes to follow them, but she stops and looks behind her, giving me one last look.
“Thank you,” I say.
She says nothing. She doesn’t even nod. I wonder if that would feel like too much of a betrayal. She swallows, presses her lips together, and then turns away and joins Violet, pulling Sol out the front door.
Tears are pouring down my cheeks now, too. Lily, the kindest of us all, can’t leave him. She’s made her choice. But still, she’s giving us the chance Marigold never had.
There’s something else, too. By taking him to the hospital despite his protests, she’s saving his life and keeping me from having that weight on my conscience. A weight she knows herself all too well.
“I’m leaving,” I say again, this time to Poppy and Zinnia alone, who are still frozen at the foot of the stairs, seemingly unsure where they are meant to go. “You can come, too. My plan was to come back for you, once we got to town and got some help.”
“Where will we go?” Poppy asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “To town, but from there I’m … I’m not sure.” I hesitate. “If we go to the police, you two might have to go into foster care. I’m sorry. I don’t want that, but—”
“But it’s better than here,” Zinnia says.
“Even if they split you two up?” Rose asks.
“I’ll be eighteen in a few months,” Poppy says. “It’ll suck, but Zinnia’s right, it’s better than this. If this is how Sol wants us to prove our loyalty … I don’t want no part of this.”
“This ain’t freedom,” Zinnia says. “It’s a prison.”
“So you’ll come?” Rose sounds hopeful for the first time since Sol attacked her.
Zinnia nods.
“Thank God,” Rose says. “Let’s get out of here.”