So, I know it's been three months since I last updated. I've known what I want to say, but for some reason, the words just weren't coming. But I've just started a new job, a remote position that's Monday through Friday during business hours, so I hope to be able to devote more time to writing in the coming months.
Fatal Fury, King of Fighters and its characters are property of SNK/Playmore. I don't own them, the video games, or the animes.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Growing Pains
Monday, March 8th, 1999
"Come on, Kimberly! What's taking you so long?" There was a rare excitement in Melanie's voice as she led her roommate through the darkness of the woods.
The black-haired girl was doing her best to keep up, but Mel was moving with all the speed one would expect from a short girl who'd spent most of her life running. Earlier that day, Melanie had said over lunch that she had something she wanted to show her friend. It was now two hours past lights out, and Kimberly was outside the fence, trying to follow Melanie's trail to… God only knew where.
She stepped past a small strand of shrubs and then lost sight of the wiry blonde. Blinking in confusion, she glanced left and right… then gasped when Melanie suddenly appeared in front of her. "Come on, slowpoke!" She laughed. "Try and keep up." With that, she was off again.
Kimberly rolled her eyes and huffed after her. "Look, Mel, I appreciate that you're so excited. But… could you slow down?"
Melanie laughed, as well. "Geez, you're the one who keeps saying that you're got gold in the 100-meter the Field Day before I came to the school! I thought you were fast."
"Still not as fast as you. Your time on the obstacle course is at least a minute ahead of mine!"
"Well, I don't mean to brag, but…"
"You learn to be fast running from cops and social workers," Kimberly finished for her.
Now Melanie was the one who huffed. "Have I become that predictable?"
"Totally," Kim answered, and they both laughed.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the shed that Melanie had discovered the night she'd tried to run away from the school. Kimberly couldn't help but notice that while still run-down, it looked a little less dilapidated.
"I wasn't too concerned with how it looked outside," Melanie told her. "The inside is where all the good stuff is. Come on, let me show you."
When they went inside, it was dark. After Mel lit the oil lamp with her lighter, Kimberly could see the surroundings better… and let out a low whistle. What had been a filthy hovel filled with dust and cobwebs had been cleaned up to the point where it was actually a usable workspace. And Melanie hadn't slouched there, getting rid of anything that couldn't be used, and either purchasing or stealing suitable replacements.
"So… this is where you've been sneaking off to since the end of last summer?" Kimberly asked her, still looking around and taking everything in. On another workbench, she saw a half-dozen yo-yos in various states of disassembly. Attached to one end of the bench was a vise with another partially built yo-yo clamped into it.
Melanie saw what she was looking at and couldn't help but beam a little. "I've been keeping notes, Kim. I mean, I've hit people with a yo-yo twice… well, one of them wasn't a person, but you get the idea. It could work as a weapon, I know it could. Problem is, it doesn't hit hard enough. I have to find a way to make it do more damage. And I gotta find a material that will hold up, and not break if it hits too hard."
"And, of course, you also have to know how to use it," Kimberly pointed out. "There aren't many books out there on yo-yo combat."
"Well, from what I've read, the principle is the same as a flail. I'll worry about that once I've perfected the weapon itself."
Her roommate shrugged. "I dunno, Mel, it might not be a bad idea to at least practice with a toy yo-yo until you get the other one perfected. Then you'll at least have some idea how to use it when you figure out how to make the weapon."
Melanie shrugged as well. "Maybe. But it's not the only thing I'm working on. Check this out." She directed Kimberly's attention to another table, upon which rested some slivers of metal, what looked like a rock tumbler, and a few books: one on welding, another on sharpening.
"So, I don't have a torch just yet," Melanie said. "So, I can't really make the claws that your comic gave me the idea for. But look at this." She picked up one of the metal slivers, which was semi-sharpened into the shape of an arrowhead, with a small bit tapering off in the back, which the blonde girl grasped between two fingers. "See? It's like that one day during gym class, when we were doing target practice. Remember how I said it would be better if you had multiple things to throw? Well, these are small, and easy to hold, so you can throw a bunch at once."
Kimberly recognized what her friend was making right away, having read the same books on knife combat. "Flechettes… okay, now that's impressive."
Melanie raised one golden eyebrow. "And the yo-yo wasn't?"
"No, that was really cool, too. Honestly, this is all… pretty sweet. I think it's cool what you're doing out here, and… I appreciate you showing all this to me."
The other girl smiled then, a genuine one. "Why wouldn't I, Kim? You're my friend."
Now Kimberly couldn't help but smile, and wrap her arms around Melanie in a hug. "Always nice to hear you say that, Mel."
Melanie hugged her back, but only for a moment. Then she said: "Okay, enough of the Hallmark shit. As long as you're here, you wanna help me?"
"It would be my pleasure, Mel."
So for the next few hours, the two girls tinkered with the yo-yos and read up on flails and welding. Every time Melanie found something interesting, she'd jot it down in a notebook. After they'd been working for a while, Kimberly mentioned something to her friend: "Hey, Mel, I've got an idea that I think might help your yo-yos."
The other girl cocked an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"Yeah. Use twine. It could probably withstand a lot more than just your basic cotton string."
"Hmmm," Melanie turned her gaze towards the ceiling for a moment. "That sounds like it's worth looking into." After she jotted this down in her book, she closed it and slipped it into a hiding place between two wide cracks in the floorboards. "But now I think it's time that we called it a night. We do have class tomorrow."
"Sounds good," her roommate said, and then helped Melanie put the tools back where they went. The blonde girl then extinguished the lamp, and they went back outside into the forest nighttime.
Kimberly was letting her eyes adjust to the dark, then she raised an eyebrow at something she thought she saw in the branches a few hundred feet away: a shape of some kind. "Huh, wonder what that is."
Mel had her back to her friend, and was shutting the shed door and securing it with a padlock she'd bought in town. She turned around at the sound of Kim's voice. "What?"
The black-haired girl pointed. "Thought I saw something in the trees back there. Or maybe someone."
Melanie looked in that direction, but saw nothing. "Well, if they were there, they're gone now. You sure it was a person?"
"Well, no. My eyes were still adjusting to the dark, but from what little I could see it looked like a person. Do any of the other girls know about this place?"
"Just the usual suspects. I told Layla, Zoey and Niko about it, but I not that I was bringing you out here tonight. I wanted you to be the first to see it."
Kimberly couldn't help but smile at that. "Thanks, Mel. Though I really wish I knew what I saw just now."
"Are there any hunters in these woods?"
"Nah, the Organization owns the forest around the school for a few miles in each direction. Landy doesn't really let anyone else come on it."
Melanie shrugged. "Well, I'm getting sleepy. Can we go back now?"
"Sure," said Kim. "I'm not even a hundred percent sure I saw someone, anyway. After you."
With that, the two girls started off through the woods in the direction of the fence.
Henriksen remained crouched in his hiding place until Melanie and her friend were out of sight. Then he sat up a little, fixed his night vision binoculars on the shed the girls had just vacated.
"So, the girl has a shed that the school probably doesn't know about," he remarked to himself. "This will be useful. Now all we need is for Keiko to see things through on her end."
Saturday, April 3rd
Weeks passed. The routine for the girls at Clemency School went on the same way it always did: classes, chores, Saturday field trips, gym and knife practice. Melanie also continued her "extra-curricular" activities: visits with Nikolai, visits to her workshop, checking books from the library. In her trips outside the fence since the night she'd taken Kimberly, she neither heard nor saw anything unusual.
Now, she was inside the dollar store in Burlington, once more purchasing a generous amount of yo-yos. "The twine was a good idea, Kimberly," she told her friend. "I think I may be really close to something."
"That's awesome, Mel," said Kim. Then she noticed something she hadn't before. "Are you chewing gum?"
"Yeah," Mel admitted, holding up a pack of Wrigley's spearmint that she'd grabbed from another aisle. "Don't worry, I'll pay for it at the register." Even though she still wasn't averse to shoplifting, out of respect she swore she'd never do it when she was with one of her friends.
"That's something new for you," Kim noted.
"Yeah, well, I'm… getting real sick of seeing all the girls around me start puberty," the small blonde girl explained. "And it's like, every other day now, someone else gets their first period. What really pisses me off as that all of Regina's gang have passed that mark. So I asked Gladys if there was any way I could work off aggression during the day without punching some bitch, since I don't want detention right now. She suggested I try this." Melanie then made a face, pushed the gum from one side of her mouth to the other. "But I don't think it's working."
Kimberly laughed. "Maybe you need another piece."
"Maybe I need another pack." She gave a growl of frustration and grabbed another yo-yo off the rack, dropping it into the basket. "Okay, I'm done here," she said.
"Me too." So the two girls made their way to the register, where they once more saw that the friendly-looking woman was working today. Melanie didn't pay her much mind, as she'd gotten used to seeing the new part-time manager. Though she hated it every time the woman tried to make friendly conversation.
Today was one of those days. "Buying out our supply, as usual?" She said as she rang up and bagged the yo-yos Melanie was buying.
"Consider yourself lucky I need them," Melanie said with a yawn, and handed her the open pack of gum. "Because no one else seems to buy them."
The clerk's smile didn't falter. She simply rang up the gum and bagged everything. "Must be a pretty big science project you're working on."
"Duh!" Melanie passed her a ten, and after collecting her change, she and her roommate were back outside.
"You could be a little nicer to her, Mel," Kimberly pointed out.
"I dunno, she just rubs me the wrong way," Melanie said with a shrug. "I mean, I feel like Albert and I had an understanding. He didn't see the need for phony smiles or any of that crap. Her… there's something about her I don't trust."
"One of those street life gut things? Or is it because you don't trust any grown-ups?"
"Not true!" Melanie huffed defensively. "Nikolai is cool. And I'm pretty sure Gladys is on the level!"
"So, two."
"But, I mean, that clerk... I don't know what her game is. I don't think she's a molester, but… she seems too pleasant." After taking a few more steps, Melanie scowled and then spit the gum she'd been chewing onto the sidewalk. "This is definitely not working." She offered the pack to Kimberly. "Want some?"
The dark-haired girl smiled and accepted a piece. "Thanks, Mel."
Melanie smiled back. "No problem." She then popped another piece in her own mouth and the two of them continued on towards the bus.
As one might imagine, a piece of chewed gum on a sidewalk was something that went unnoticed by pedestrian traffic. Except for one person. Keiko Renzabura waited until the two girls had put some distance between themselves and the store, then she walked outside as quickly as she could while at the same time trying not to draw attention to herself.
She stood over the discarded confection, and was pleased to see it rested in a small pool of the blonde girl's saliva. "At last," she whispered. Bending at the knees, she pulled out a pair of tweezers and a small glass vial, used the first thing to pick up the gum and slip it into the second thing, then she capped the vial, pocketed it, and started back towards the store.
To think, for weeks now I've been trying to come up with a way to get a sample, and Melanie just did it for me. She walked back into the dollar store and resumed her place behind the register, a cold smile on her face. Once the store is empty, I'll go on break and give Henriksen a call.
The smile didn't waiver as she went back to organizing the counter. "You may have just bought your last yo-yo, you little bitch," she whispered softly to herself. "Because if your DNA confirms what I already know, we'll soon be wiping that insolent smirk off your face. Permanently."
Friday, May 14th
Today, there was no class, but Melanie almost wished there were. Because it was the day when the girls went into Burlington for their dental checkup and cleaning. There was a DDS in town that Joan Landy had been using since the school opened, and she always chose a Friday in the middle of May to book every appointment for her girls, so they monopolized his office from open to close. Melanie had never liked going. Given her trust issues, the small blonde certainly wasn't comfortable with the idea of an adult putting his fingers in her mouth, even if they were wearing latex gloves.
Of course, the instruments weren't very pleasant, either. But Melanie could take comfort in three things: one, it was only once every six months. Two, some of the girls had seen her watching the movie "Marathon Man" on the black box in the rec room, which made them start resisting the bi-annual trip (and none of them told Joan the truth about their reasons behind this, as it would reveal the secret hookup). And finally, because Joan Landy was a stickler for all forms of hygiene when it came to her girls, none of them ever had cavities, so their time in the chair was brief.
But there was something different about this visit. After Melanie had "served her sentence," she was browsing one of the stores in the shopping center the dentist had his office in, when Ms. Wallace found her and told her that she needed to go back there. She followed the heavyset woman, and on arrival, saw Dr. Culverson sitting behind his desk, with Joan Landy and a few other girls (Zoey, Olivia, Jaclyn, and another blonde girl named Morgan) sitting on the opposite side.
Joan smiled when she saw Mel and Wallace enter the room. "Ah, there you are, Melanie. Please, take a seat."
Culverson was smiling as well, which made the blonde girl trust him even less. She continued to stand in the doorway. "It's all right, Melanie, you're not in trouble," her guardian assured her. "Please, sit down."
Still moving with caution, Melanie found an empty chair. Ms. Wallace nodded at Joan and excused herself, shutting the door behind her. As the small girl was taking her seat, she heard Morgan mutter: "We might as well be in trouble."
"That's enough, Morgan, dear," Joan reproached her. "It's not as bad as you think."
"Yeah, it's worse," Olivia muttered.
"Enough now, girls," the neatly-dressed blonde woman snapped. "You don't want to make Melanie nervous."
"Yeah, little too late for that," Melanie said with heavy sarcasm.
Joan ignored her and asked the dentist to repeat what he'd just told the other girls. "Well, I'm pleased to report that once again you did not have any cavities," he said. "But I saw some concerning things in your x-rays. At this point, you've lost all of your baby teeth, but your permanent ones aren't coming in the way they should be. There's a slight misalignment in their growth, and in order to correct it, I'm afraid you girls are going to need braces."
Upon hearing that, Melanie's expression was unreadable, though inwardly she was screaming out a string of colorful curses. Finally, she said: "Well, this sucks."
"Language, young lady," Joan snapped at her. "Watch it."
"Well, what do you want me to say?" The small blonde retorted. "That it's peaches and fucking cream?"
"Final warning," Joan fired back. "I understand that you're upset, but that is no excuse for not watching your language. One more time, and your trip to town tomorrow will be revoked."
"Oh, you understand?" Melanie rolled her eyes. "Well, that just makes the fact that we're all going to become social lepers that much better."
"Speak for yourself, runt!" Jaclyn said. "Not everyone is like you!"
Melanie was about to lose her field trip privilege the next day, but Zoey beat her to the punch before she could rip into the brunette. "And not everyone is a pussy who folds like a bitch and sucks up to Regina because they can't handle a little heat!"
"Zoey!" Joan snapped, pointing a cautionary finger at the girl. "Consider this your last warning, too. In fact, if anyone else uses foul language for the rest of our visit, you will all have tomorrow's field trip privilege revoked!"
An uncomfortable silence fell over the office. The entire time, Dr. Culverson had been fidgeting behind his desk. So Joan told him: "I'm sorry, doctor. Please tell us what the next steps are for giving my children the best care possible."
His cheeks a little flushed, Culverson gave a nervous cough and said: "Well, I… need to refer them to a colleague of mine. He's an orthodontist, and better qualified for this. But fortunately, his practice is in the same building as mine."
"Well, isn't that convenient?" Melanie muttered.
"Melanie…" Joan raised a stern finger.
"What? Did I swear? I'm just saying it's a… um, heck of a coincidence that he shares an office building with someone who does braces. I smell a scam. How much is this costing you?"
"That doesn't matter, child," Joan snapped. "You know that money is no object where the welfare of my girls is concerned."
"Welfare, my, um… something," Zoey muttered, noting the headmistress's icy glare. "This is just gonna make Regina wail on us even more."
"Well, she won't be on all of us," said Jaclyn. "Just those who were dumb enough to get on her bad side."
"Better than being a suck-up, Amanda junior," Melanie fired at her.
"Will everyone chill out?" Olivia asked them. "I'd like to be able to come to town tomorrow."
The dentist continued to try and sound helpful, which made Melanie's trust in him drop below zero. "The orthopedist will be able to give you a more accurate time table, but I estimate, based on what I've seen in the x-rays, that these girls will only be wearing them for, I'd say, two years at the very most. But I'll send him the films and let him make that decision."
"Please do, doctor," said Joan. "And if you'd be so kind to provide me with a card, so I can begin making arrangements as soon as possible."
"Of course, ma'am," the dentist said in a cordial tone. "Dr. Lambert is well aware of everything your organization has done for our town, so I'm sure he can make room on his schedule for your girls sooner rather than later." He handed the matriarch a business card, which Joan accepted and slipped in the pocket of her pressed brown blazer.
"Thank you, Dr. Culverson," she said with a curt nod, the rose from her chair. "Come along, ladies."
Though the girls had plenty more they wanted to say, especially Melanie, they also got up and followed Joan out of the office. With the exception of Jaclyn, each girl's thoughts remained dark. None of them were looking forward to what was to come, least of all the smallest girl there.
Runty, still flat, no pubes, no period, and now I'm gonna have metal mouth, Melanie thought grimly. This day started bad, it just got a hell of a lot worse...
Friday, June 11th
"Ow! God damn it!" Melanie was seated on a blanket on the practice field, trying to take a bite of her dinner, and winced from the stabbing pain that shot through her teeth. Field Day's closing ceremonies had just been wrapped up, and it was now time for the cookout. Normally, the small blonde would have been looking forward to that, but this year, the beautiful smoky aroma that filled the Quad while Joan Landy gave her closing speech did nothing for Melanie.
She'd gotten her braces put in on her top teeth at the start of the week, and that first day had been okay. Then the hardware started to do its job of the subtle relocation and alignment of Melanie's choppers, so when she'd awoken the next morning, her upper jaw was in agony. She'd been sticking to soft foods whenever possible, as trying to eat anything crunchy only made the pain worse, but even with her dietary restrictions, the other girls at the school still needed to hear her moans throughout the day, and all the days after.
The pain had been so distracting, that Melanie hadn't won any medals today, and she'd dropped out early in Capture the Flag, after her complaints had given away the position of her squad to the Blue Team. It was only made worse by the fact that Melanie's dinner plate looked different from past Field Day cookouts. She'd gone with a hot dog as there was less likelihood of food particles getting caught between her teeth, because flossing around the hardware was now a major, time-consuming chore. It was for this reason she'd also had to forego grilled corn on the cob, one of her favorite things about these dinners.
Even the other girls who'd been fitted with braces were growing annoyed at having to listen to the small blonde's groans. The only other person sitting on the blanket with her was Kimberly, and though her roommate had tried to be sympathetic, her seemingly bottomless patience was being stretched to its limits for the first time since she and Melanie had become friends.
Melanie swallowed the mouthful of potato salad, and rubbed her jaw. "How's the corn?" She grumbled at Kimberly.
The dark-haired girl shrugged as she munched her way down the cob, row by row. "It's okay. I think Nikolai burnt it."
"Doesn't look that way to me."
Kimberly rolled her eyes. "What do you want me to say, Mel? That it's sweet and buttery and delicious? Because I don't think you wanna hear that."
"You could have just not gotten it."
"So what, then? I'm supposed to stop eating certain foods I like just because you can't eat them?"
"No, I'm just…"
"Really? Because it sure seems to me like that's what you're saying, Melanie. Fine, then." Kimberly tossed the half-eaten corn cob over her shoulder, and started on her barbecued chicken thigh.
Melanie sighed and took another bite of her hot dog, trying not to wince while she chewed. "You didn't have to do that."
"You sure?" Kim shot back with her mouth full. "Because you made it seem like I have to. If Melanie can't eat corn, her friends shouldn't either. Is that it?"
The blonde girl took a sip of her Snapple pink lemonade. She'd normally be drinking soda with this meal, but even carbonation was irritating her teeth. "Look, Kim, what's your problem?"
The question actually made her laugh. "What's my problem? I should be asking you that."
Melanie rolled her eyes. "Well, where do you want me to start?" She began ticking off her fingers. "I've been in agony ever since these braces were put in my mouth. And they've made me even more of a target for Regina and her crew. And I'm surrounded by girls who are getting their periods and growing their tits, while I'm still the same runt I've always been. And I only grew a fucking half-inch this year!"
Under normal circumstances, Kimberly could be more patient about Melanie's puberty woes, but her friend's non-stop moaning all week about the pain in her mouth had been wearing her down. "This again, Mel? Look, I told you, you've still got some years to grow."
"Easy for you to talk," Mel grumbled, gesturing to the small bumps that could be seen through the fabric of Kimberly's two shirts. Not as pronounced as Regina or Amanda, but a start, just enough that the dark-haired girl had started wearing bras. She also couldn't help but notice that Kimberly's hips were still getting broader.
"Mel, we both know I don't have any control over this," Kimberly insisted. "You wanna know the truth, I'm a little annoyed by these. They kind of hurt. Like, even putting on my bra makes them hurt. Both Gladys and Landy have told me that the pain comes and goes, and it'll pass once they've stopped growing, which hopefully will be soon."
"Oh, don't tell me you wouldn't like a big pair of milk jugs."
Kimberly shook her head. "Not really. I already don't like some of the attention I'm getting. I've gone out of my way to avoid the Jones Family General Store, because I don't want to have to talk to Des. Then there was this total creep in the mall last week who kept asking me to read him what I had written on my T-Shirt. The second time he asked, I caught on to what he was doing. Sorry, Mel, but so far, I think these things are overrated."
"Fine. I'll take 'em if you don't want 'em. When you get your first period, I'll trade places there, too."
There was a frustrated sigh from her roommate. "Well, I didn't want to say, but seeing as how we room together, you're gonna find out eventually, so I might as well just tell you."
Melanie rolled her eyes and groaned. "You didn't…"
"Happened two days ago. It was during the night. You were asleep. Zoey was right. It's honestly not as great as you think."
The blonde girl grumbled, pushed her food around on her plate. "Yeah, how unlucky for you. It still actually happened, meanwhile some of us just get a mouthful of hell. I'm so sorry your hormones actually seem to be working."
The sarcasm there was a bit heavier than Kimberly usually liked. "All right, that does it. I've tried to be patient with you, but if you wanna keep being miserable, be that by yourself. I think you'd rather have it that way." She gave a sigh of defeat, picked up her plate and rose from the blanket.
"Where are you going?" Melanie asked her.
"Anywhere but here," was the answer. "Sorry, Mel, but… I just need a little space from you right now. I'm gonna go see what the other three are up to."
Melanie already knew that Niko, Zoey and Layla had found their own blanket to sit on because their patience had also been worn thin by her unending stream of dental and puberty grief. So she called after: "Fine! Go sit with the other girls! Now that puberty's actually being good to you, I guess you can't be seen with a runt!"
"If believing that makes you feel better, go ahead," Kimberly muttered just loud enough for her friend to hear, and kept walking.
"Good, then," Melanie grumbled. "I don't need you anyway." The small blonde turned back to her plate, but now found that she lacked the appetite to do it justice. Finally, she got up and started to carry her food to the trash.
"Nice job today, Tin Grin!" A familiar voice called. The blonde girl turned to her left and saw Regina sitting on a blanket with her crew. "How's it feel to come up empty?" She was of course referring to the fact that Melanie was not wearing any medals around her neck, whereas every member of the Alpha clique all wore at least one.
"I don't know. How's it feel to be the queen of all cunts?" Melanie muttered, and kept walking.
Regina's hearing, however, was better than the smaller girl gave her credit for. She was soon on her feet and standing in her rival's way. "What was that?" She growled.
Melanie tried to look her in the eyes, but found herself too battle-weary after everything that happened in the last week, and so looked down at her sneakers instead. But Regina was getting harder to look at. In addition to the development on her body, Mel's nickname of "horse face" was starting to fit her less and less, as her cheekbones were becoming more pronounced, making her visage appear slimmer.
Puberty's always good to the people who don't deserve it, Melanie thought to herself.
Regina took her silence as complacence. "That's what I thought," she said with a sneer of triumph. "Always remember your place, you flat little runt. Especially now that you look like even more of a freak with that hardware."
This was met with laughter from the clique. The small girl ignored it, and gave an indifferent shrug. "Well, at least my nose isn't bleeding."
Regina cocked her head to one side, leaned in slightly. "What? What is that supposed to…"
Moving with that speed that seemed to come naturally to her, the plucky blonde got up on tiptoes and gave her rival a headbutt, her forehead slamming into Regina's nose. She staggered backwards a few steps, but recovered quickly, though blood still dripped from her nostrils. "Big mistake, Bra-less," she snarled, and started forward. Melanie dropped her plate and assumed a stance.
"Girls!" That familiar voice of authority snapped from another part of the field. Both turned to see Joan Landy striding towards them. "I saw that, Melanie! That will be three days detention!"
"Whatever," Melanie grumbled. Her opponent, meanwhile, had stopped moving towards her, but their fist was still raised.
Joan had stopped a few paces away, arms folded across her breast. "Regina, walk away from her! If you strike her, you'll get the same punishment."
The taller blonde lowered her fist, and then turned as if to obey. But with sudden speed, she spun back around to face Melanie, and slammed her fist into the other girl's face, knocking her to the dirt. "Worth it," she said to the headmistress, and then wiped her nose on her shirt sleeve and walked back to her blanket.
Joan did not appear amused, and pointed a stern finger at the Alpha. "Put your plate down, Regina. You're done eating. I want you and Melanie to visit the infirmary if needed, then go straight to your rooms." With that, she started back towards her own table.
Mel did not speak to anyone for the rest of the day. When she got back to the dorm, she showered and then went to her room. When Kimberly came in much later, the blonde girl rolled over in bed so her back was facing her roommate, but it didn't seem like Kim was interested in talking, anyway. So they spent the time before lights out in a tense silence. Kimberly looked like she wanted to say something, but was preferring to let Mel make the first move.
An hour after midnight found Melanie outside the fence, working in her shed. Part of her regretted not apologizing to Kim. Deep down, she knew it was stupid jealousy that made her go off on the other girl. But more than that, it was fear. If she winds up being bigger than me both in height and in her boobs, is she even gonna want to waste her time on a runt with a little cutting board chest?
Part of her said this was irrational, given everything Kimberly had done for her since she got here, but a larger part of her, which had never been secure about her size, kept drowning out the voice of reason. So Melanie simply allowed herself to become lost in her work. She'd taken to it more these days since the weather got warmer, and she felt that she might actually be close to figuring something out.
She was so absorbed that she almost didn't hear the shattering of one of the windows. She turned her head slightly, brow raised in confusion, and then the light from the oil lamp was snuffed, throwing the shed into darkness.
"Who's there?" She called. No answer, nor did she see anyone sneaking through the gloom. "Kim, is that you?"
Another window, this one closer to her, shattered inwards, and Melanie saw something cylindrical land at her feet. There was a hissing noise, and then thick white smoke began spewing from both ends of the canister, quickly filling the small space. Melanie could feel it, an acrid burning in her eyes, nose, and mouth. She burst into a fit of explosive coughing and, squeezing her eyes shut, tried to feel her way towards the door of the shed, the cool, clean air of night outside.
She estimated she was halfway there when she bumped into something. Or someone. She risked opening her amber eyes a crack, and through the tear-stained haze of her vision, she saw a man dressed in black, his face obscured by both a breath mask and a pair of night-vision goggles, making him look like some otherworldly creature.
One arm shot out, grabbed Melanie by the wrist. The small girl struggled and tried to kick him in the crotch several times, but he appeared to be too well-armored to feel it. She somehow managed to focus through the gas, and saw that he was only holding her one-handed because his other hand gripped a semi-automatic, which he was trying to shoulder. So she unsheathed her knife and stabbed downwards, plunging the blade as deep as she could into his foot. He gave a cry of pain through the mask and released his grip on the coughing blonde.
Melanie managed to run past him and through the door… right into the arms of another black-clad figure. This one grabbed her with both hands, and spun her around, pinning her arms behind her back. She tried to smash the back of her head against his chin, but he too was wearing a gas mask, so she gave a small yelp of pain as she met resistance. Her captor then kicked the legs out from under her, bringing her to her knees.
Tears still stung her eyes, and she still coughed as her lungs tried to expel the last of the tear gas. Though she struggled helplessly in the man's grip like a landed fish, her mind was reeling. Fuck, what the fuck is going on? Is this some Deliverance shit? Who the fuck are these guys? What do they want?
More footsteps could be heard rustling the carpet of dead pine needles on the forest floor. Behind her, the man she'd stabbed was limping towards them, leaving a small trail of blood in his wake.
"Get a dressing on that!" Snapped the man holding Melanie, voice slightly muffled by the air filters of his mask. "You're leaving evidence!"
"Right!" The other man muttered, then reached into one of the many pockets on his belt. After procuring the necessary supplies, he crouched down and started tending to himself.
The other set of footsteps was coming from in front of her. Melanie raised her head, saw another figure striding towards her, this one dressed in a black trench-coat, with a wide-brimmed fedora. The young blonde blinked her eyes several times, trying to clear them, but still was unable to get a good look at this woman, as the hat concealed the top half of her face. "Hello, Melanie," she said softly when she was close.
Even though every sense was reeling, Melanie's survival instincts were still going strong. Enough that she recognized the voice. "Wait," she rasped. "I know you!"
"I'm sure you do," the woman said, with none of the vapid cheeriness that Melanie usually heard in it at the dollar store in town. Keiko got down on one knee in front of the small girl, and then Melanie felt a damp rag being roughly jammed against her mouth. There was a horrid taste on it, and an odd sweet and sour smell drifted up to her runny nose. Odd, but familiar. Something she'd smelled before, but not since that day which seemed like a long time ago now, when Joan Landy had taken her off the streets. In particular, the hotel room. Joan's briefcase…
As they had that night, Melanie felt her eyelids start to grow heavy. The world around her seemed like it was slowing down. She managed to stay awake long enough to hear the woman say one more thing, though her voice sounded like it was a mile away. "Your mother knew me, as well. And soon… she'll know how it feels to lose her family."
For the first time all week, the pain of her braces was forgotten. Her mind screamed silently with dozens of questions at hearing those words, but she was powerless to stop the laws of chemistry, or to talk. A few seconds later, the chloroform took total hold of her, and Melanie spiraled into blackness...
ADDITIONAL NOTES
By age thirteen, most children have all of their permanent teeth. And biologically, human females mature faster than males. So I don't think it's a stretch that these girls would have lost all their baby teeth shortly before their thirteenth birthday.
And as someone who had braces growing up, the first week that they're in, they hurt like fucking hell. The pain does go away, and then you can start eating crunchier foods, but for the first week, I could pretty much only eat soft foods. Of course, I'm a child of the nineties, so we still had the old metal hardware back then. Today, we have things like Invisalign, so most kids will never know the horrors of the old metal braces. ( ;
And that's it for now. What will become of Melanie? Hopefully, you'll know sooner rather than later. I expect to have the next chapter out sooner than it took me this one.
