Re: [No. 3: Iris & Sam]
The slap of Sam's palm to her own head drew a pained sound from Iris' throat, a soft no, don't do that..., but she didn't reach out again, didn't interfere because she knew sometimes you just needed to do something to cope. Sam stopped relatively quickly, so she tried not to worry too much about those few hard moments of contact.
And yes, the panic was still rolling through Iris' mind, a mudslide of thoughts that she could barely hang onto, nearly pulled under by the weight and flood of them. But she tried. Like clinging to a cliff by just her fingernails, she tried to meet Sam's mostly calm gaze with one of her own. Her thoughts still whirled around her, but her whisper was mostly even when she shook her head. Sam's insistence that she was a victim because of the way Iris had hurt her - it knifed another painful stab of guilt through her stomach, acid and ache climbing up her throat.
"What if they make a mistake? We look too much alike... What if they don't listen? They could think..." She could see it already in her mind's eye, the too-real way she saw the things that happened to people she knew. Angry, grasping hands, kicking feet, and suddenly the thought of the flash of silver, deadly weapons reflecting what little light was out there, Sam broken by the crowd. The thoughts birthed another of those pained sounds from her throat. "Or we just stay here and hide." She looked around the trailer, eyes adjusted to the lack of light, finding the outline shapes of cabinets and cupboards. They were both small... It could work. "In there..." She pointed at the cabinets. It wouldn't be comfortable, but maybe it could be safe.