Lightning Strikes Twice ›› Barry Allen [1]

16- Dead Girl Walking

"You should be receiving a picture of him now," Caitlin responds.

I reach into my pocket and look at my phone screen. "Shouldn't be hard to find him."

"Why do you say that?" Julian questions through my coms.

I walk up to one of the windows at Jitters and peer in. "Because he's right there."
I watch the criminal turn the tabletop to black ash particles.
"He really does have some weird powers." I take out my mask. "I'm going to have a 'talk' with him."

"Don't do that," Cisco says.

"Why not? I'll just electrocute him. He can turn matter to ash, but not energy."

"She has a point," I hear HR comment from my earpiece.

A blur of lightning flies by me. I see Kid Flash sending the Meta-human through the glass door of the building.

I sigh, "now how do we catch him?"

                                         ***

We all back at STAR Labs, discussing the problem we're up against.

"This guy wants to kill you," Iris says to Joe. "If it wasn't for Wally and Barry, he could've killed any one of us."

"We have been through much worse Metas than Yorkin," Joe states. "Iris, we're fine. We're not loosing anyone today."

"Maybe not today, but soon," Iris whispers.

"We just took a whole different path," I murmur to myself.

"What are you saying?" Joe asks.

"Iris," Wally warns her.

"Wally, he needs to know."

"Know what?"

Barry and I exchange a look.
Iris glances and Barry, and he nods slightly to her.

"When Barry threw the Philosopher's Stone into the Speed Force, there was an explosion and he was propelled to the future," she explains.

"Four months from now," said Barry.

"He saw himself before Savitar," Iris says, as a tear drips from her eye. "Right before Savitar killed me... and Sky tried to help, but he got her too."

"I tried, I really did," my voice comes out with a helpless noise. "I had a slow reaction time, and Savitar was quicker..." I fall silent. We all do.

"You're saying," Joe's speaking to Iris. "In a few months you die.?"
Then he turns to me. "And you failed to save her, and you also die."

"Joe, its not Skye's fault. Its not really--" Barry stops.

"Unless we change the future," Wally assures his dad.

Joe walks across the room, shocked by the news. "How long have you known about this? How long!?"Joe asks, his face if full of grief.

"A couple weeks," Cisco answers, his voice is low.

"And you're just telling me now?" Joe looks like he's about to break any second.

"We're sorry," I said, and I truly mean it. I feel even more guilty, that I couldn't save Iris in the future.

"Dad, I didn't want them to say anything, because I knew how you'd react," Iris says loudly.

"This is not something you keep from your father, Iris," Joe shouts. "And you should've known that." He looks at Barry, and points a finger at him. "And you should've too."