Lilac Attack! by Sophie Bell

Author:Sophie Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-03-05T05:00:00+00:00

At the crest of the hill, Iris came to a standstill. Her heart was pounding so hard she wished that it alone could power her back up and away again. But she knew she had to face Sebastian. It was funny—in a completely unfunny, sort of sickening way: All she had wanted these past few days was to see him, and now that she was about to, it filled her with dread. From the top of her purple head to the tips of her robotic wings. Was he just there by coincidence? Or had he come to the grassy knoll hoping to see her, too?

She paused to dial down the wings, her back to the bench, all the while feeling so strangely that she was both there and not: like she was an actress playing the part of herself. She had no idea how much time was actually passing. Maybe he wouldn’t even be there anymore. Maybe he was never there in the first place. Maybe she’d just dreamed this whole scene.

Maybe.

Slowly she turned. Her lowered wings fluttered behind her in the breeze, the vitanium-crystal scales tinkling as if she were wearing a cape threaded with a thousand tiny chimes. Her purple ringlets—terribly tangled again, she was sure, from the flight—rustled above her shoulders. She could feel the radiation rising through her entire body and bet she was blushing valentines. Bands of light from the full color spectrum began to beam from her fingertips. There was no point trying to hide them.

From the bench, where—not a dream—he’d been all along, Sebastian stared up at her with his liquid black eyes. Under the scrutiny of his gaze, Iris knew the periwinkle blue was draining from hers, leaving only the palest violet behind.

“Hi,” she barely breathed.

“Hey,” he said back.

They stayed like that for what felt like forever, Sebastian seated on the bench, Iris glowing before him.

“I, um,” she grappled for what to say next. “I saw you here in the park the other day. I called out your name. I guess you didn’t hear me?”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes, observing her with the kind of curiosity he might have had for an exotic animal at the zoo. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time. Taking it all in: the purple hair, the sunrise eyes, the rainbow beams, the violet aura.

The urge to wrap herself up in her crystal wings nearly overwhelmed Iris, but somehow she stood tall.

“You’re a superhero,” Sebastian said at last, in that same soft voice she had so missed hearing. It wasn’t quite an accusation. It wasn’t a question, either. But it seemed to demand an answer.

“It . . . it all happened so fast,” she stammered. “Well, not really, it actually started four years ago, but then so fast after that.” She realized she wasn’t making much sense. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know yet, I didn’t know . . .” She trailed off. There was so much she hadn’t known—that she still didn’t know.

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