Free Web NovelChapter 80: Chapter 80 - A Kiss
The noise did not stop all at once.
It thinned.
Like smoke drifting apart, like breath slowly returning after being held too long.
Iyisha sat in Malcolm’s lap on the balcony of a building, a blanket wrapped around both of them, her back pressed to his chest while the world below tried to remember how to exist again. Gunfire had become distant, then rare, then gone, replaced by voices that carried grief instead of rage.
People moved through the square in small, broken groups.
Some knelt beside bodies.
Some called names that did not answer back.
Some clung to one another as if letting go would undo the fact that they had survived.
Below them, the surviving raiders were dragged out from hiding places, hands raised, faces stripped of bravado, and shot without ceremony. Iyisha did not flinch at the sound. She barely seemed to register it at all.
She was too aware of Malcolm.
He had not said a word since he pulled her into his arms. He had simply sat there, solid and warm behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist, his hand resting flat against her stomach as if anchoring her to the present, as if he needed the contact as much as she did.
His warmth soaked into her slowly.
His scent, familiar and grounding, settled her shaking breath.
She melted back into him without thinking, her body giving in at last now that it was safe to do so.
What grounded her most was his hand. freewebnovel.cσ๓
Firm. Certain.
As if he were silently assuring himself that she was still there.
Her chest tightened.
"I need to go," she whimpered, the words barely forming as images of Mary and Ester flooded her mind, of Lando’s body jerking and falling back, of blood in the snow, of the hospital she knew would already be overflowing with the injured and the dying.
She tried to lean forward.
Malcolm moved.
His hand slid up, fingers gentle but unyielding as he tilted her head back just enough for her to look at him. His other arm tightened around her, not restraining, just holding.
"It’s okay," he murmured, his voice low, steady, meant only for her. "Stay."
She looked into his eyes.
Dark blue. Familiar. Too close to breaking her apart completely.
She wondered, suddenly and painfully, if he had missed her as much as she had missed him, if the nights apart had weighed on him the way they had crushed her.
"I miss you," she said.
The words trembled as they left her, fragile and honest and entirely unguarded.
He did not answer with words.
He leaned down and kissed her.
It was soft.
Unhurried.
Warm in a way that had nothing to do with heat.
His lips brushed hers as if testing whether she was real, then settled there, gentle and certain, a quiet promise spoken without sound. Iyisha’s breath caught, her hands curling into his coat as the world seemed to drift somewhere far below them.
For a moment, there was no blood.
No snow.
No loss.
Only the warmth of his mouth, the safety of his arms, and the overwhelming, dizzying sense that she was floating, held, alive.
Even without him saying it, she understood.
The kiss was his answer.
Footsteps broke the moment.
"Iyisha."
She startled, pulling back just enough to see Liam standing a few steps away, his jacket smeared with soot and blood that was not all his, his hair disheveled, eyes sharp with the kind of focus that came from holding panic at bay.
"We’re rounding up what medical supplies and personnel we can," Liam said, already glancing back toward the stairwell. "The hospital’s overwhelmed. If you can walk, we need you."
Iyisha nodded immediately, breath still uneven.
"I—I need to check on Lando," she said, pushing herself to her feet.
Malcolm released her slowly, his hands lingering for a heartbeat before letting go. He stood as well and gave a short nod.
"I know," he said.
She hesitated.
Her gaze betrayed her before she could stop it, drifting back to his lips, to the warmth still lingering there. Heat rushed to her cheeks, sudden and undeniable.
Malcolm noticed.
Something almost like a smile softened his expression.
Iyisha let out a small, breathless chuckle, embarrassed, rubbing at her face as if that might help.
"I need to go," she murmured.
The moment stretched, awkward now, fragile in the way only something newly precious could be.
Her face burned hotter.
She bolted.
Pulled herself out of his lap, nearly tangling in the blanket as she stepped away, muttering something half-formed before turning and hurrying toward the stairwell.
Malcolm watched her go.
"Iyisha," he called softly.
She didn’t stop.
She didn’t look back.
And with her heart still racing and his warmth clinging to her like a memory she wasn’t ready to release, she ran toward the hospital.
Then the sounds of grief and urgency swallowed her again as the building was in sight.
The hospital was not a building anymore.
It was noise.
Iyisha stepped inside and the smell hit her first, sharp and metallic, blood and antiseptic fighting for space in the cold air. People filled every corner, lining the walls, spilling into corridors, sitting on the floor with their backs pressed against concrete, hands red and shaking.
Crying layered over shouting.
Names were called and not answered.
Others were screamed until voices broke.
She froze for half a heartbeat, devastation tightening her chest as her eyes tried to take it all in at once. Stretchers moved through the crowd with no rhythm, nurses shouting instructions over one another, someone retching into a corner while another held pressure on a wound that would not stop bleeding.
"Iyisha."
She turned.
Nurse Lina was already moving toward her, her uniform streaked dark, her face drawn but steady. She didn’t ask questions. She pressed a first aid kit into Iyisha’s hands and squeezed her wrist once.
"Anywhere you can help," Lina said. "We’re out of space."
Iyisha nodded, swallowing hard, and dropped to her knees beside the nearest patient.
A teen sat slumped on a waiting chair, pale to the point of gray, one hand clutching his stomach, blood seeping steadily through his fingers and onto the floor.
"Hey," Iyisha said softly, forcing calm into her voice as she knelt in front of him. "Let me see."
He hesitated, eyes glassy with shock, then slowly moved his hand.
The wound was a graze, but deep, torn open enough that it kept bleeding, his shirt soaked through, the red too bright against his skin.
"You’ve lost too much blood," she murmured, already working, snapping on gloves with hands that no longer shook.
She packed gauze carefully against the wound, firm but gentle, pressing until his breath hitched and he nodded, jaw clenched.
"Stay with me," she said. "Keep breathing."
He did.
Around them, the hospital groaned under the weight of the wounded, but Iyisha focused on the rhythm of her hands, on the pressure, on the simple, grounding truth that this was something she could do.
She stayed there, kneeling on the bloodstained floor, doing what she could to keep him alive while the world unraveled around them.
Iyisha did not stop.
She moved from one patient to the next with the other students and available personnel, working on instinct and training alone, hands passing bandages, tightening tourniquets, holding pressure where it mattered most.
Her body worked.
Her mind did not.
It churned relentlessly with Lando.
She learned through Frances, shouted over the din as they passed each other in the corridor, that Lando had been brought into one of the back rooms.
"Doc Mary’s operating," Frances said quickly. "He’s alive."
Alive.
The word lodged in Iyisha’s chest and stayed there.
She wanted to attend to him.
She wanted to run.
Her feet kept wanting to turn toward that room, toward the door she knew would hold answers she was afraid to hear, but she forced herself to stay where she was. There were still people bleeding out in front of her. There were still hands reaching for help. And Mary was with Lando.
He wasn’t alone.
She stayed until the worst of it was done, until the cries softened into exhausted sobs, until those who needed immediate attention were finally stabilized or moved.
Only then did she move.
Iyisha walked fast down the corridor, heart hammering, the hospital sounds blurring into a single rush in her ears. She rounded the corner and stopped short.
Ester was outside the door.
She was sitting on the floor, knees drawn to her chest, face buried in her hands as her shoulders shook, silent tears slipping through her fingers.
Iyisha dropped beside her without a word and wrapped her arms around her.
They stayed like that, pressed together on the cold floor, waiting.
