Hu-Tully-Vargas Apartment
Seattle, WA
United States of America
2009
“I can’t believe you.”
Ezra Tully shuts his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose, and counts to ten slowly while inhaling. He tries to ignore Leo’s ranting, the pacing, the occasional Spanish curses that come out once every couple of breaths. “Fucking unbelievable,” Leo Vargas rants. “I can’t believe you said that—that you encouraged her to go to the fucking lion’s den here in Seattle—”
“Leo.”
“She’s still young, Ezra! She’s younger than the both of us, what were you thinking—”
“Leo.”
“And we can’t contact her, her battery was close to dead when she left.” Leo takes a deep breath; Ezra takes the opportunity to open his eyes. “This is stupid, we’re leaving—”
“Leo!” Leo stops; he meets Ezra’s eyes. There’s frustration, a hint of confusion, a hint of shame. The presence of shame makes Leo want to rip out his hair; all that goes on in his head are the phrases we shouldn’t have sent Iris out and we’re idiots, we’re fucking idiots. Ezra shakes his head, clears himself of emotions, and gives Leo a harsh look. “Iris is going to be fine. She knows better than to investigate matters that she shouldn’t get her hands on.”
“But she doesn’t!” Leo snaps. “Iris doesn’t know when to stop! You remember doing the piece on the shoot out? When she nearly got caught in the crossfire just for the story?”
“She didn’t ‘get caught in the crossfire’, you’re exaggerating—”
“She got injured, Ezra!” Leo stomps his foot on the wooden flooring of the apartment; the sound makes Ezra nearly recoil back. In front of him does Leo ball up his fists and send Ezra a fierce glare. “She got injured and she’s going to get injured again, or—”
“Or what?” Ezra counters. He delivers his own glare: sharp, pissed off. Fire meets fire. “Or what, Leonardo? What’s the worst that can happen?”
“You know exactly what can happen here,” Leo snaps. He marches up to Ezra’s face, shoves a finger in his chest; “And we’re fucking wasting our time arguing about Iris when we could be going out, getting a cab, and stopping her from pursuing the story. It’s pointless. META never should have sent us—what the fuck were they even thinking when they gave this to us?” He steps away, ignoring Ezra. Ezra keeps a steely gaze on Leo while he continues, “We’re lifestyle and culture writers, not—not fucking hard news. We’re not made for this. We were never trained for this. This isn’t our beat.”
“There’s no point in sticking to one beat, Leo.”
“There’s no point in trying out something that can kill you!” Leo throws his hands up in the air, frustrated, “We’re not talking about a celebrity, Ezra. We’re not talking about businesses on the rise or CEOs on the go—I would have preferred that,” he admits bitterly. “I would have preferred going to this Kang Enterprises person and talking to them instead of—instead of this fucking mess right here.”
Ezra doesn’t say anything when Leo continues in a quieter voice, rage fading into a mess of worry and concern. The panic settles after the irritation, and Ezra hates it, he hates it when Leo’s onto something, he hates it when Leo has his hunches.
“This is a drug ring, and we’re sending Iris right to the center of it.”
(Leo’s predictions, after all, came true more than half of the time.)
--
When Iris doesn’t return that evening, Leo starts to pace the floors again.
It’s noisy. Ezra grits his teeth; he tolerates the noise for a rough average of three minutes before standing up and wordlessly transferring to one of the spare rooms in their temporary apartment. There, at least, it’s quiet; the sound of Leo’s footsteps is blocked by the somewhat thick walls.
He can’t help but think about Iris.
He can’t help but think about the younger girl who had argued with them earlier in the day. If there was something Iris could do, it was debate—her reasoning had been enough for Ezra to let her off the hook and for him to ask Leo, as politely as he could, to shut up.
“This is bullshit!”
“I’m a journalist!” Iris insisted. She turned her attention to Ezra, who regarded her so, so carefully. “I’ll do my best,” she promised, “I know what to do. You can count on me, I promise I’ll do my best to get something worthwhile and I’ll be back instantly. It’s like I was never gone.”
“That’s not what I’m concerned about.” Her eyes narrowed; she’s about to argue, to debate when Ezra gave her a firm enough look that softened her fire. “As soon as you sense danger or threats, Iris—run. Get out of there. I don’t care about the story.”
(In the back, Leo scoffed. Ezra’s blood boiled.)
For a moment, Iris pierced him with a near blank gaze, as if searching for truth or sincerity in his eyes. Ezra understood why. He and Iris traded gazes, looks; no words had to be exchanged between the two of them.
His brow quirked. She gave a tense, impatient nod.
Finally, Ezra broke. He closed his eyes, inhaled, and then opened them to see her still standing there, her bag slung over her shoulder and her ID clipped to the breast pocket of her shirt. “Go,” he told her. “Investigate. Write something. But come back by evening.”
Much to his surprise, Iris hugged him. Ezra tensed; his eyes widened slightly, he inhaled sharply—but he hugged Iris back nonetheless, kept his arms around her as if he could prevent her from leaving. The second thoughts threatened to leak in. Ezra batted them away with the sensation of Iris in his arms, Iris safe, Iris secure—
But it was too late. Iris pulled away and regarded him with brave, determined eyes. “Thanks Ezra,” she whispered. “I know Leo doesn’t want me to and that he’ll rip you to shreds—”
Of course he would. Ezra could already hear Leo steaming in the back. But he pushed it away, ruffled Iris’ hair lightly. “I’ll handle him. Go.”
“I’ll say bye to Leo first.”
He let her. Ezra stepped away and watched as Iris approached Leo, as she reached out hesitantly and spoke his name quietly: “Leo.”
“Iris, you know you shouldn’t—”
Ezra tuned out at that point.
As soon as the apartment door closed, Leo began his tirade.
--
When Iris doesn’t return after one, two, three days, Ezra isn’t surprised when Leo leaves the apartment to file out a missing person report.
Ezra isn’t surprised either when, weeks after, police regretfully announce that they have given up on their search and had no other choice but to declare Iris Hu as dead.
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