Saturday, November 17, 2012

Chapter Thirty-Nine-Defying Everything

Chapter Thirty-Nine
Defying Everything
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     Melly stared down Barly, as if she could kill him at any moment. Reid had never seen pure hate in Melly's eyes, and he figured this was the closest you could get to it.
"She's innocent," Melly hissed. "They proved it. A man if behind bars for it. Call off everything. Everyone. Now," she growled.
"Melanie, I can't convince everyone-"
"You won't even try!" she screamed. Mayor Barly pursed his lips and took Melanie's gloved hands in her own.
"Melanie, I am a sentimental man, who always longed to be a father. So I've done everything in my power to treat the citizens of this town as my family, my children. Melanie, I do have such high hopes for you. I want to tell you something my father told me: Everyone deserves a chance to fly. And Melly, helping you with your ascent allows me to feel so...parental."
Melanie wouldn't look at him, just snatched her hand away.
"Of course, sir," she said.
"Melly! Melly!" Victoria came running in, bawling.
"Vi?" she asked her sister. Victoria had a letter in her hand.
"They...they got on a skirmish by Shawdy Town..."
Melanie paled. "Did they..."
"One wounded terribly and one dead," she cried. I pressed my hand to my face.
"It's Frank!" she cried out. "Charlotte married him and now...I never got the chance to love him!"
"Victoria, you're thinking the worst," Melly said, holding her sister's shoulders. "Reid, tell Cal to make Victoria some tea, will you?"
Reid nodded and left.
"You wouldn't be acting like this if you let yourself think besides manner and sense!" Victoria spat.
"Victoria," Charlie warned. Melly paled regardless.
"I can't afford to think like that..."
"What if it's Phillip? Huh? What if it's Phillip laying there on Decater Road? Shot through the head, Melly. Dead as a door nail-"

When Reid came back into the room, Melly was screaming her head off, crouched into a ball on the floor, hands covering her ears, and fingers looking like they could rip out every strand of hair on her head.
"Stop it!" she sobbed. The Mayor excused himself to Dresella's chambers. Melly's voice was thick with emotion, passion, and pure fear. "I won't let it happen! I won't! He's not dead!"
"He might as well be! Marrying you! All when you know he wants to marry-!"
Victoria had been fighting against Charlie's hold, trying to scream directly in her older sister's face, who had always been the center of attention by their loving Father. But at least Victoria was the favorite of the mother, though impassive, she was now the only one left.
Charlie clamped his hand down on Victoria's mouth, and used the other one to slap her across the back of the head. Melanie watched her sister's head droop, and she screamed, but Victoria revived again, with much more vigor.
"Phillip could be dead...or it could be Tommy, or Niall, or Zayn, dying to protect that wicked bitch of the west you call a friend-"
Charlie held Victoria's collar, her face pressed to his, and she screamed in seeing her brother's unfathomable rage.
"Don't ever say that again...ever," Charlie spat in her face, and Victoria writhed to get free. He released her collar, and she ran the whole way, sobbing.
"...Frank could be dead, you know. Adding insult to her further injury," Melly murmured, eyes red and trained on the floor. Charlie didn't need to say out loud what he was thinking: His sister hated India Wilkes, blamed her for the death of one of their friends, Charlie would never be allowed to marry her, and Victoria got off easy in his book.
"Charlie...does God...does God punish people for no reason?"
Charlie looked down. "It's not punishment, Melly, it's just meant to happen."
"Then...then Phillip can't be dead..." she mumbled. "Phillip never did anything wrong, and...and he can't go yet. He...he promised me...." she placed her pale little hands on her stomach. Reid gasped.
"You're not-"
"No," Melanie growled. "That was his promise. That'd he'd come back, and we'd get married. He promised he wouldn't leave me without a piece of him." Her hands gripped her shirt fabric over her stomach.
"...Dad promised to see you later, that night on the phone," Charlie said. Melanie's eyes burned a whole in the ground.
"And he will," she spat.
***
Melly wiped her eyes as she entered her chamber, hoping to not let them see.

But they had heard.

Two little black-gloved hands shot out and pressed Melly against the wall, shutting the door. The other little blonde was sitting on Melly's bed, head in her hands, sobbing.
"Is it true?" asked the brunette. "Is it?"
India slammed Melly's little frame against the wall.
Melanie looked down. "Yes...yes, one of them is dead..."
Audrey began to sob harder.
"Hush," India commanded. "You want some one to hear you?" India's sharp eyes turned on her other friend, focusing on her ice-blue eyes. "You know what we have to do, now, don't you?"
Melly looked down. "I prayed it wouldn't come to this...Indie...I swore, I would never fight to kill..."
"They'll kill you first," India said, packing up a knapsack with her clothes again, just a few outfits and some food, enough to keep her going. "They're hunting you, too, Melly. Half think we're both witches now. The Mayor will at least try to keep hold on you. I'm not so lucky, Melbelles..."
Melly put a hand on her friends shoulder. "Maybe we don't have to fight," Melanie said, smiling. She bent down to whisper in India's ear, and the tan lips curled back to form a wicked smile.
*************************************************************************************************************
Charlie punched the table.
"It's probably better this way, Charles," Dresella said from across the room, sipping the drink in her hand.
"No...she knows better...she wouldn't leave us again!"
Dresella shrugged. "Melanie has always been flighty. Too afraid to speak, it didn't shock me when she left the first time! Crazy girl...I always thought she'd have killed herself by now, though."
Dr. Reid stared at her, dumbfounded, until Hotch nudged him.
"Ma'am, we'll do whatever it takes to get your daughter back."
"Oh, Hotchner, dear!" Dresella laughed. "Don't worry your little heads over her. She'll come back. She couldn't handle it on her own the first time," she said with a blistering smile. Reid grimaced.
"Spencer!" Garcia ran in, laptop in hand, staring.
"I have bugs in all computers in the area, turning on there webcams, and I do believe I just caught us a blue-eyed blonde."
Garcia showed them the screen. Melly's red lips were pursed, her little tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. She was squinting, and Reid realized she didn't have on her reading glasses. Melly blinked for a moment, and groaned, looking up at the camera exactly.
"She knows the light is on," Penelope said. Melly swore.
"What is it?" a voice asked in the background. Melly shut the computer hard, but it bounced open a crack.
You could see a red skirt, rising to meet a black one. Pale hands grabbing gloved ones.
"They know," Melly whispered.
They shuffled off screen, and noises of fabric were heard.
"You don't have to do this-"
"Yes, I do."

"What's happening...?" Spencer asked himself.

The skirts came back.
"They won't find us here..." Melly's voice said. "I don't even think Charlie remembers this...Abba rarely came here, he didn't tinker much. He was more into literature. I guess...this part of him was the only part I couldn't connect too. I wonder if that's why he spent less time here...."
"It certainly is huge."
White gloves fretted at the red skirt, while pale hands fussed over the black.
Melanie giggled. "I feel funny, and you look funny-"
"Hush, the two of you," Audrey called from the corner.
"I don't have to!" Melanie cried, rising fast. "All of my life I've had orders coming at me, and it's nice now to be able to disown everything I've ever stood for!"
"You're throwing away happiness with both hands right now!"
"It doesn't matter! It's always been better than living! I wish I was dead!"
A smack was heard, but neither body trembled.
"I wish I was dead..." Melly's little voice said. Dresella, if possible, was smirking from her spot. Charlie stared.
"They...they're at Dad's tinker shop. It's out a few miles. After our cotton fields. You'll need horses-"
"Or cars."
Charlie glared. "You are not driving over my cotton."

"What if Phillip is dead?" Melly's voice asked again.
No one responded.
"...So long...I've been afraid of losing love I thought I'd lost...you ever think of what we pay for things, and get so little in return."
"...That devil craft I showed you...It involves equivalent exchange. If...If it had worked...you wouldn't be here, but some souless demon with your fathers body-"
"Stop," Melanie commanded, and India's voice stopped.
"India Hampton!"
The three girls turned to the door.
"There's an upstairs..." Melly whispered."And another side door. Go."

"Are they..." Spencer asked, but the girls burst out of the buildings, the two blondes clutching each other on the side, and the brunette with the dark dress on the roof.
"Go ahead! Shoot me!" she screamed. Her dark hair was covered her eyes and part of her cheeks. "I'll live!" she challenged. Reid looked over to where Melly had been, only to see Audrey and air. He looked back up at India, pale hands raised above her head.

Wait, pale?

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" Reid screamed.
"I won't die, because it's not my time to go! As some one told me lately, every one deserves the chance to fly! And if I'm going alone, at least I'm flying free! For those who'd ground me, take a message back from me! Tell them how I am defying everything! I'm flying high! And nobody in...in this whole town...no lover that there is or was...is ever gonna bring me down!"
The girls head tipped up, and every gun holder gasped as the dark wig slipped off her head, revealing a long river of gold, and shocking blue eyes.
"Look at her!" one of the officers screamed. "She's wicked! Shoot her!"
"Kill the witch!" Melly bared her teeth in a smiled. Wicked.
"I hope you're happy!" Audrey screamed.

And then Melanie did it.

"So just try and bring me down!"

Melanie jumped off the roof,

but she didn't fly.

The one thing she couldn't defy, was gravity.


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