An Unexpected Girl

chapter thirty-four

Iris' mom had always told her that if she ever got into a fight, she should hit first, and hit hard.

Iris had a live, front-row screening of the chaos erupting before her. Iris found herself thinking that she wished someone had given Niki the advice that her mom gave her growing up.

Niki had gotten the first punch in, but Adi retaliated hard.

Both girls had let go of their hold on Iris, who slowly backed away as a crowd formed around them. Caught in the center of all this, Iris felt trapped. Her mind was spinning, her mouth was gaping wide open as everything happened all around her.

The music had stopped. The lights had come on. Phone cameras were out, with the flash on and everything. The party had paused as everyone was now tuned into the fight.

Adi was a lot fitter than Niki and clearly a better fighter. Niki initially delivered the first hit with the element of surprise on her side, but that was no longer the case. Adi was on high alert, seamlessly dodging Niki's punches but delivering heavy blows of her own, landing them exactly where she intended.

There were shouts and screams of excitement all around. The crowd of drunk college students were eating up the scene before them. This was quality entertainment. Iris couldn't even blame them, knowing that she would probably be doing the same if she wasn't caught in the middle of all of it.

But she wasn't. Overwhelmed was too basic of an explanation to describe what Iris was feeling right then.

She desperately wanted the fight to stop, but Iris wasn't stupid enough to put herself in the middle of the scene right then. This wasn't some movie or a Wattpad book, and she would definitely end up getting herself hurt. More than she already was right then.

Iris was doomed to just stand there, watching everything unfold. She was numb as the surrounding noise became deafening. The crowd was getting wild as the intensity of the fight increased.

Suddenly, Iris felt hands on her shoulder. They had been on her for a while, shaking her gently, but Iris had only just registered them. 

"Iris! Iris!"

It was Korra at her side, shaking her sharply with desperation clear in her voice.

"Iris, snap out of it! We gotta go!"

Iris could hear her loud and clear, but she couldn't respond. For a moment, Iris wondered if she was broken. She wondered if she had finally been so overwhelmed with everything going on in her life that her brain could no longer process it and had finally shut down.

"Iris, we gotta go. The cops are coming!"

That seemed to snap Iris out of her trance. She looked at Korra, blinking slowly as she tried to process everything that was happening.

"There's no time for this, we gotta leave now," Korra said once again, but Iris realized she wasn't talking to her anymore, "carry her out."

It was only when James lifted her up in his arms that Iris realized he had been standing beside her as well the entire time.

Quickly, the three of them made their way out of the party, with James carrying Iris bridal-style. Despite everything, Iris' mind went to Adi, getting déjà vu as she thought about how Adi had carried her that night on the hill.

Someone had yelled into the crowd, alerting them of the police, and the fight was immediately forgotten. Instead, people were scrambling, frantically making their way out of the party.

Sure enough, by the time they made it outside, there were already a bunch of police cars outside. It did not surprise iris in the slightest. The parties thrown by the black and brown students were always more heavily policed compared to the parties thrown by white people. It wasn't uncommon for police to show up and shut down the parties for "nose complaints". They occasionally made arrests, too.