Chapter Forty-One-For Good

Chapter Forty-One

For Good

 

 

 

 

 

 

"How are we going to get out of here?"

Melanie didn't meet Audrey's eyes. Audrey tried to blink away her tears.

"They're right, aren't they? You're just going to hide in your shell, like last time! You won't be right again, will you?" she screamed, eyes burning. "Will you?!"

"Hush," Melanie commanded. "You want them to hear you? I-"

Suddenly, a scream erupted from the group, and Melly's eyes turned to see bodies falling, to hear guns erupting.

"The BAU," she sighed. She saw Derek Morgan rushing through the assembly with his gun, pushing whoever out of the way, so he could reach the two girls.

"Are you okay?" he asked them, undoing their bonds. Audrey nodded fiercely.

 

After the witch hunters were cleared out, and Melly's blanket was wrapped around her, Hotchner drove up in a black SUV with a single passenger.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" Melly asked her. India nodded back, sadly. Melly shuck Phillip's hand off her shoulder as she rose to meet her friend.

"I never thanked you," Melanie said,"for helping me. When no one else did."

India sighed, pulling her friend tighter, savoring the moments she had.

"They can put you in protection, you know that, don't you?"

India shook her head. "I don't want to hide. Perhaps there is a God, and maybe I'm supposed to die." She turned to look at Charlie, whose red-eyed gaze softened. "But I really wish the hands of fate would bring me here again. But that's not what is intended for me." India stroked Melanie's face one more time.

"They'll kill you," Melly supplied, and India nodded. 

"We all die in the end, Melly. I thought you knew that by now."

India kissed her friends gently before retreating into the line of trees.

 

A few weeks later, the two girls would be standing over a grave, in a funeral that the whole town would protest. Melanie and Audrey, side by side in black. Melly's tight grip on a sobbing boy, who'd lost his closest thing to a mother. Charlie didn't come. At sunset, the girls set off again, and away from India's body.

"She knew she was going to die," Audrey whispered. Melanie nodded.

"She died for a reason. To change everyone."

Audrey pursed her lips.

Melly continued, musing,"Who can say if it was for the better? I just know we have been changed, for good."