"Melody would like to speak with you."

I sprung up with twitching ears when I heard Jennifer's voice. They'd left me alone for so long that I fell in a trance, watching the fire flick to and fro on the logs.

The blanket spilled off my body and crumbled to a heap at my feet as I stood, my eyes locked on her dark brown ones.

My stomach twisted as I trudged around the couch, knotting and turning faster and faster the more I closed the space between us. I hadn't seen Melody since they carried her to Rachel's delivery truck, and though they claimed she'd been getting better, I thought it was a lie. Each time they mentioned her bettering health was in Annabelle's presence.

I don't know what I expected to see when I stepped through that chipped door. Maybe her body wrapped in a cast. Maybe her in a comatose state, only able to communicate through faint hand squeezes.

To my surprise, she looked nothing like anything I imagined. She laid upright against the headboard in a baby blue gown with Annabelle curled up close to her, laying on her like a cat.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi." I pursed my lips and looked around the spacious room. I didn't know whose house we found shelter in, but they left it fully furnished and decorated with pictures, china, and porcelain figures.

"I just wanted to see your face. You hadn't come see me at all." Jenny excused herself and shut us in the bedroom. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall adjacent to the door. "Too 'shamed?"

"'Shamed of what," I asked with my brows drawn in. Melody flicked her eyes at her disposition without turning her head, and my expression softened. "I'm sorry." I whined for a moment and it shocked me. I cleared my throat and stared at the dusty floor long enough to gather myself. When I met her gaze, mine drifted onto the window by the bed. I watched the drapes flow with tears teetering onto my lashes. "Jesus, Melody, why'd you have to stick around? You could've been walking about and talking to that -- thing." I motioned to nothing in particular, but meant the figment of her imagination. I hung my head when I mumbled, "Cody could've been alive."

"He's dead?" She jutted out her head and her eyes widened. My heart dropped. I didn't know why I said it. I couldn't have thought for a moment that Jenny or Austin told her, but maybe it was finally starting to hit me that my cousin was gone.

We sat in silence, listening to Annabelle's purrlike snores and branches scratching the glass. I could hear Austin and Jenny conversing in the living room, but couldn't decipher what was being said.

Eventually, I said, "I don't blame you for him. He would've went to the ends of the earth to be with you, so it's no ones fault but his own," and I could tell it eased her a bit, because her tense shoulders sunk a little.

"It's not his fault either. When I get out of here, I'm finding the real culprit." Melody's voice quivered as she vowed to seek vengeance for her friend-turned-spouse. I planned to migrate to Palm Beach, Florida or Tampa, but beforehand, I might've ridden with her. She squinted and shook her head when she rhetorically asked, "What kind of man shoots children?"

"One who's out of his gourd," I muttered, looking down at my sock-covered feet.

"Evidently so," she said with an incredulous scoff. Annabelle fidgeted on Melody's lap, her long hair in a big plait with frizzy ringlets across her freckled face. Melody winced as she too attempted to refind comfort on the bed. Watching her grip her aching side, I asked if she was okay. "Yeah, I'm okay. Jenny and Austin've been giving me painkillers. Morphia."

"But is it doing you any good?"

"I'm no more of a doctor than you." She gave a smile that didn't linger long enough to reach her eyes. "If you're asking me if I see a white light, then no. I'm just -- tired all the time." I nodded, though I didn't like the sound of that. Before my grandfather died, he showed signs of his health dwindling. Pale, clammy skin. No hunger or thirst. He slept more than he spoke, and when awake, his droopy eyes held circles and bags. I saw all of it on Melody who was admiring Annabelle. "I'm just glad she's okay. I don't know what I'd do if she was hurt."

"What if something happens to you," I asked with genuine worry, and she whipped her head to me so fast her bonnet bounced. With a few lines formed between her brows, she whisper-yelled at me, asking why I would ask such an offensively ridiculous question. "It's an important thing to discuss and ponder, Melody. I know what it's like to not have anyone. I don't know if she'll manage it any better than me."

Her face relaxed when I confided about my abandonment, and her gaze drifted toward the end. She must not have thought about it, as I suspected.

"Well, if Cody was here, I'd ask him to look after her, since he'd have been eighteen soon." With her arm around her faux sister, she combed the ringlets off her face and gathered them behind her small ears.

"I'm here," I reminded her, and her hand froze. She looked at me from the corner of her eye like I wasn't to be trusted or mature enough. "I promise I won't abandon her." Melody glanced again at her side, bandaged under the loosely fitted gown. I made my voice more stern, needing to regain her trust. "Not again."

She stared at me and I her. The moonlight and oil lamp on her bedside table illuminated us, so we wouldn't be completely shrouded in darkness.

"Thank you," she told me, and I exhaled the weight off my shoulders. I nodded and bid her goodnight before exiting the room.

Melody

I looked at my little sister as she slept away stress that I couldn't. I was truthful when I claimed to not see a white light, but I wasn't foolish. I'd been around death long enough to know when it was on the other side of the door, listening and waiting.

I didn't let myself think about it. I couldn't. If I did, it'd mean Annabelle would be alone and that would mean all my hard work was void.

As I stared at the faint scarring along her head from when I attacked her last year, I couldn't help but mentally punish myself.

I should've let her go home when she had the chance.