When Bernadette appeared in the living room, her hair still dripped cold water onto her face. With each drop, the woman mussed her hair with the small towel hanging around her neck.
Seeing as she took nothing with her when she went into the bathroom (having hurried in to avoid the moment Melina stormed into Nadra’s bedroom), it left her with nothing but the smelly clothing she changed out of before going out and the sweaty clothing she came back in. It forced her to improvise, tugging on the sweatpants she wore prior and a random sleeveless top she plucked out of the laundry.
Melina’s disappearance after Bernadette came out of the shower left her biting her lip. Assuming she took around ten minutes in the shower, the other should’ve already yelled enough or whatever she wanted to do to scold the other (in Bernadette’s own hypothesis). The notion that Melina would break Nadra’s fingers if something happened to the ravenette made her uneasy, prompting her to shuffle from foot to foot.
That was until a murmur of two voices vibrated faint in the air. At their leisured tone, she let go of the lip she prior chewed to blood.
Her steps light on the wooden flooring, she neared Nadra’s room, where the noise originated. The voices familiar, she opened the door to peek in without a second thought (which she reprimanded herself for just as soon as she did),
“Uh‒”
“Get the fuck out!” Nadra’s head snapped to the door when Bernadette made a sound, making the ravenette recoil in the process. Hovering the door closed now, she heard the ginger that stood by the door sigh, almost mockingly.
When the other fit her palm through the door crack, opening it to face the ravenette, Bernadette raised an eyebrow. Looking over the other’s shoulder, Bernadette could notice Nadra’s face contort, drawing her dark eyebrows close, she pressed a finger against her lips, and Bernadette got the message.
Bernadette looked back at Melina, forcing a twitchy smile onto her lips. The ginger smiled back, moving into the other’s space. Bernadette moved back, realizing the other wanted to shuffle out of the room the irritated woman was in. Melina closed the door behind them, the crease between her eyebrows smoothing out with the rest of her pinched features,
“What’cha need?”
A flutter in Bernadette’s chest, she ignored it; “I just wanted to ask if I could get the clothes from the other day‒”
“Yea, get the club clothes. Ya don’t got much anyway,” the other scratched the base of her own neck, “We sorta threw out all ya other clothes when we were cleanin’ the place out to get ya out of the police radar.”
Bernadette’s mouth drooped into a frown, but she forced her mind out of the thought. She nodded, turning to her left to head into the room to the right. She felt a stare at her back but didn’t dare to question, feeling the goosebumps creep up her back instead.
Melina lingered in front of the door, fiddling with the phone she’d just taken out. A bad feeling crept from the tip of her skull down to the soles of her feet, but at this point she couldn’t just toss the meeting aside. Biting her tongue, she clicked over her contacts and picked the number she saved an hour prior. Putting the phone up to her ear, not even three rings passed before a melancholic voice sounded in the speaker,
“You’re cancelling? Don’t try anything funny. I have five of my agents at the edges of your little block.”
Melina stood silent, eyes widened before she ground her teeth together, What the fuck?
“I‒”, she cleared her throat before proceeding, “Just wanted ta’ tell ya we’re ready to get goin’ right ‘bout now.”
The smile Anette held on the other side could be heard from her new manner of speech, “Is that so? I’ll send them over, don’t try anything funny. I can hear.”
With that, the line cut. Melina grit her teeth, not noticing Bernadette creep out of the room and toward the ginger. She turned her head back just as Bernadette reached to ask what’s wrong, which made the other recoil at the forceful movement.
The ginger’s facial features relaxed with a drawn out sigh, “Ya sister’s troops are comin’ to fetch ya.”
Bernadette nodded and slipped past the other, sitting on the couch as she glanced at the door with every tick of the clock. Noticing the way her foot tapped the floor, Melina forced a gentle tone, “Are the two of ya on okay terms? No beefin’?”
The other bit her lip before replying, “We don’t see each other often.”
“I’ll come with you,” Melina said. The words made the other quirk her head, eyes changing and making Melina’s eyebrows quirk up, ears feeling hot.
Before she could follow with more soothing words, though, the front door swung open and outside stood a figure. A thin veil separated the person’s face from the two across the room. But it seemed that the person could see through it while the two in the room couldn’t.
Their thin hand pointed toward the couch, where Bernadette shifted with unease before standing up.
Next, they motioned the woman to come closer, flexing their pointer finger toward themselves. Bernadette followed after standing, but she kept her steps small. To say she didn’t feel safe was an understatement, Melina joined her side by the middle of her stride, eyebrows pinching together.
“Where are the rest of ya?” she asked, holding onto the ravenette’s hand to stop her from moving further. The figure raised 4 fingers, pointing them down to the ground and circling.
“They’re waitin’ downstairs? Alright. I’m goin’ with her, though. No funny business on my turf.”
The ginger could feel her skin prickling under the masked one’s glare, the space feeling awkward as they stood across one another. The veiled person shook their head, and Melina bit her lip before leaning to argue back. She stopped as Bernadette let go, standing in front of the other with a smile.
“Stay, I’ll yell,” she mouthed before turning and hurrying to the side of the masked individual.
“You’re fuckin’ with me. Ya straight up outta ya mind?” Melina was only getting started, but the first sound coming from the masked individual stopped her.
At a snail’s pace, the pale hand uncovered the face, the veil sliding up their face to reveal a youth that couldn’t be any older than fourteen. Melina looked the person up and down, before smothering her tantrum and waving her hand to send the two out.
The sendoff couldn’t pass without her burning glare persisting on the individual’s spine as they creaked the door closed with them.
She listened to the footsteps descend, the loneliness getting to her along with the dread seeped into her bones.
Nadra’s room should look over the street they would pass. Melina took feather light steps as if the ones who took Bernadette would be listening, the door to Nadra’s room creaking open as the breeze from outside pushed stray hairs on the ginger’s head back.
Wait. A breeze?
The emptiness of Nadra’s room could be heard, loud and thumping in her ears. The woman nowhere to be found.
Melina perched on the frame of the window, looking down and around at the street in the distance, the fire escape under still seemed to quiver. The culprit was far gone.
Her stomach sunk as she bit her nails, grabbing her phone and putting it to her ear at a random number in her contacts.
In the seconds she’d opened that door, a thud sounded in the cramped stairwell. Bernadette fell into the arms of a stranger without struggle, a sharp jab to her head knocking her out.