Confused, Bernadette sat up on the couch. The sweat sticking to her back made her cringe. In front of her, Melina sat at the study desk, head low, her eyes looked over something cupped between her hands. A new-looking laptop illuminated her face with a dim glow, leaving the rest of the room in pitch darkness; the curtains on the single .
“What’s the time?” Bernadette tilted her head, trying to perhaps get a glimpse of what laid between the other's hands. The ginger turned her head slightly to eye the other, “ ’round nine in the morning. Ya were out like a light since one.”
Bernadette’s brow rose; lips pursed as she looked elsewhere for a few quiet moments. Along with the searing nausea, she couldn’t remember what had transpired up to the point of her wake, which left a bitter taste in her mouth. She remembered taking medication the day before, at around six in the afternoon.
“What was it I took yesterday?” she looked back at Melina, not getting the best feeling over the fact she couldn’t remember a thing after taking them.
“Pain meds,” the ginger lied (partly), turning back to the task at hand. To be honest, she too felt baffled as to what the mix given to the other contained. It was Zivah who administered it anyhow. She noted to ask the younger when Bernadette went off with Nadra.
“What are you looking at?” Bernadette stood up, swaying for a moment as blood and nausea rushed her head. Melina tried to remain collected, stuffing the collar into her hoodie’s large pocket as discreetly as she could manage. Clicking away the multitude of medical sites on the screen, she opened a clean new browser window.
Suspicion huddled over her brain, but Bernadette shook it off as she leaned on the chair Melina sat on, supressing a wince at the pain in her sides
“Plannin’,” the other replied, drawing some papers from the stack to her left and laying them over the one already laid down on the table. Bernadette craned her head over to look at the contents while the other continued, “Y’know, we’re basically tryina’ overthrow the mafia that’s startin’ to grip on this place.”
The mention of the mafia hadn’t failed to make Bernadette’s hand stiffen, she took couple of deep breaths trying to ground herself.
“My plan’s to get ’em away,” Melina stretched and leaned back in the chair, successfully also breaching the little privacy the ravenette had, “A capo’s down but this is just where the ball gets rollin’!”
Bernadette listened to the other’s word with half a mind.
“This means we stir up the gangs under ’em, stir up the capos, get rid of the underboss and then tha daddy that’s controllin’ this branch! It’s gonna be a long summer after all!” her tone seemed to grow delirious by the time she came to the end of her rant. It unnerved Bernadette, who took her elbow off the chair and instead stood behind the other with her hands to herself.
“I see… But what's the motive you have for this?” she felt a death glare about to prickle her skin, "I mean, it's a big mission, what's the drive for it?"
The other muttered, and as the ravenette turned to ask, she switched to a chirpirer tone, “They’re stirrin’ up the local gangs, makin’ ’em turn on each other 'n whatnot.”
“But most importantly,” Melina took a rattling breath, “Kids are dyin’ because of these fucks. They’re utterly fucked in the head‒ it’s so fuckin’ sick what they do to them kids.”
A boulder squashed Bernadette’s diaphragm. The other's voice shifted to almost despaired. Despite still being a teenager, Melina spoke with the concern of a mother hawk of the street kids (even if not acting that motherly to her gang half of the time). Memory felt foggy, it did almost remind Bernadette of someone from her past. She doubted it was her mother though.
“Oh,” was all that she could muster in the moment. Melina turned to her, her clear eyes unusually muddled. It all changed in the second her lips tugged upwards, “Go to tha livin’ room, I’ll come out in a bit. Fen-Hua prob made breakfast before he went out.”
Without anything other than a hum, the other left the room. Melina turned back to the desk and felt around the collar in her pocket, sighing to herself. Uncovering the tiny slip of paper from beneath sheets of paper she piled up on the table, she twisted it around in her fingers. She’d wished to burn it, but she knew at this point she could only turn to the other’s sister to uncover what went on between them.
She hated the dog analogy, but it's something that came the closest to what the other experienced. Bernadette seemed normal enough right now, but how would it be if Melina pointed a knife in her direction?
The violent outbursts themselves seemed to be forgotten, suppressed. She was afraid of what happens, the subconscious reaction of her body.
As Melina busted her brain over a solution, something came to mind. She hurried to scribble it down onto a blank page, such hurry making her mix Chinese characters into her writing to scrabble it down as quick as she could. At the end, she tore the piece she wrote in and tucked it into her pocket, along with phone number. As she left the room, Melina left the collar in a drawer, where it was better off anyway.
Walking out into the hallway and into the living space, her eyes caught sight of Bernadette’s face. Sitting beside the other, the cushion barely sank at her weight. The other held a plate of eggs in her hand, looking at Melina up until she sat down beside her.
“Don’t forget ya’re goin’ out with Nadra later. Get rest after ya finish. You’ll prob be out for a big part of the night, gettin’ back at three at most if ya’re lucky ‘n find their nest quck.”
Bernadette merely nodded, quick to eat up the eggs on her plate without much regard their blandness. When she stood up to take it to the kitchen, the ginger stopped her by tugging onto her shorts. With a flick of her hand, gesturing her to sit before Melina took the plate out of her hand and put it on the empty coffee table.
“But we got another dilemma on our hands, bud.”
Bernadette looked lost again, as she tilted her head. Melina remembered Anette’s previous lamenting, ‘like a dog’.
“Ya’re goin’ to check in with ya sis when ya’re back. Hope ya two are on good terms," she relaxed as Bernadette didn’t seem to elicit any distress, letting out a simple hum, “Glad we on the same page, I’ll arrange with her to meet up ’morrow evenin’.”
The ravenette perked up, “You have her number?”
Yikes. Melina shook her head as she lied, “An agent of hers came thru the other day.”
The other’s eyes seemed to be a mix of disappointment, but she’d be stupid if Melina couldn’t notice the way the wrinkling around her eyes relaxed in the same breath. The question stood, how did Bernadette really feel about her own sister?