❝ someone is not beating around the bush, now. ❞ her voice was soft as she tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. they didn’t, not as much as they did to dimitri. not as much as they did to her. she was their princess, their lost princess that had returned from the dead. but it was torture. it was torture to look at everyone, to hear their stories, and not remember them. to be told things, how she was like, how she should act, what she should do–it wasn’t home. not really. and the looks that she got, the sad eyes when she told them that she just didn’t know. she felt a heaviness when she looked at adam–she barely remembered him, and sometimes she didn’t know if they were memories or fantasies hanging onto a thread of who she once was. ❝ do you think i would have lived long back in russia? do you think that i would have lived another year? ❞
“I need to know if they touched you. I need to know if they hurt you. I need to know who. You know this, you know why.” She says, and her voice is almost soft, until it is not. It has a sharpness on it, and her eyes are focused. They should know better here, as they did in KGB. No one would dare to ever look weirdly at Melody. They knew of her rage. They should know better. She should have known better. She tightens her jaw, and looks away for a moment. They talked about that before, once, when the first girl disappeared. They said the was obsolete. “You know they wouldn’t do anything to you. You were always too valuable, you know that. They took you in after you were 23. They don’t do that. You were always more.” And perhaps she’s just being optimistic, but that’s something she wouldn’t allow herself to be. Hope is for the weak, and she has never been that.