Melody

35

Daddy?" Melody felt she was staring at a ghost. It was her father, but she hadn't heard any footsteps approaching. Just suddenly someone was undoing the locks on the other side of the door. The locks were undone much more quickly this time. Inhumanly quickly. Melody's calm mantra fled her mind, dread filling her veins until she felt it in every part of her body.

Her eyes were wide as she stared at the figure in the doorway, harshly backlit from the glaring fluorescent lights in the hall. Sharp dark shadows obscuring his face. She knew that outline, knew that face even if she couldn't see it clearly. "Daddy?" her voice a broken whisper. It looked like her father, but she was feeling something wrong. Horribly wrong in every way. Her whole body was telling her to run, to hide, her heart didn't feel better seeing her father here. She was terrified.

She had thought him abandoning her, the move, all she had faced this year was as bad as things could get. This was worse. She was shivering, pressing back as much as she could into the wall as he smoothly walked towards her, more graceful than he had been. He leaned down towards her, Melody flinched back slightly as he reached his hand slowly towards her, a cold finger nudging her chin to the side. Exposing her beautiful scar. He sighed deeply. "So it is true then." He stood back up and turned, walking away with a stride that was all wrong and too quiet in the almost hollow room where she felt like even her heartbeat echoed.

"What are you?" It was barely a whisper, she barely heard it herself over the pounding pulse of her racing heart. Her father's eyes were wrong, they were empty, void of everything that had made her dad himself. Like there was nothing at all behind them anymore. No sparkle from his dark sense of humor, no recognition, no desire to help her even though she is trapped and chained up.

"Vampire" Melody had no idea where the woman came from. She was pale, eyes dark in the dim room. "Come along dear" she was looking at Melody's father, crooking her finger like she was calling a dog to heel. Melody watched, speechless, frozen in place as her father trotted over to the strange woman, staring at her adoringly. "He is mine, I made him and until he comes into his own as a vampire he is my pet." The woman reached up and patted her father's hair, rearranging the longer pieces to the front just a bit. "He heard it was you, who mated to the alpha I was hired to locate." She made an exaggerated pout with her lips, while looking into Melody's father's eyes, "My poor pet, his only daughter willingly spreading her legs wide for a mongrel. The shame of it." The evil vampire caressed Melody's father's cheek, he leaned into her touch.

"He would want you to know that he didn't leave you." The smirk on the vampires face was a mask from a monster in a nightmare, "He was out at a bar drinking until the lights came on. He was slurring about heading home to take his baby girl away from her whore bitch of a mother so they could both start again. It took me a week to break his mind and give up on you." She looked at Melody expectantly, watching for her reaction. Wanting to see the pain she wrought. "He really was beautiful while being tortured, so strong for his beloved baby girl." She grinned, fangs descending from her gums, "I always get what I want." Her father just stared at the female vampire, adoringly. It made Melody feel sick to see him like this.

Melody heard herself growl low in the back of her throat, face contorted in a teeth baring snarl. Insulted and enraged at Alexander being called a smelly dog, while an ache opened deep in her heart thinking of her father, his last moments before this monster took him away from her. "Ugh she's already more like a dog than human. She reeks like one too."

"John, take a taste of your Daughter and fed her some of your blood. Just in case those animals kill her. I could have lots of fun with a daddy daughter pair of pets." Melody's eyes went wide with fear as her father appeared beside her. Moving so fast she hadn't able to track him with her eyes. He grabbed her splinted hand pulling her wrist to his lips and bit down hard. Fangs breaking the skin, sinking deep between the delicate bones of her wrists. Melody screamed loud. It hurt, it hurt so much worse than when Alexander had bit her. She could feel her blood being sucked from her veins. Unspeakable horror watching as her father drank in her life like he used to drink whiskey. He dropped Melody's hand. Dragging one of his nails over his own wrist, opening the veins. Dark almost black blood slowly oozed from the wound. He forced it to Melody's lips. Plugging her nose with his fingers until she had to open her mouth to take a breath. The cloyingly sweet vampire blood made it's way past her lips and down her throat even though she tried her best to stop it. Once her father was certain some of his blood had made it into her. He got up and walked back to his master.

The woman was already walking away, her father not even looking back at her. His eyes locked on his master. Melody heard them lock her back in. silently leaving her in darkness again as she cried silent tears over losing her father all over again. Watching as her wrist slowly stopped bleeding, healing over far too quickly with eyes that couldn't believe what had just happened.

Melody sobbed, loud, echoing choking sounds filling the room that held her. She couldn't hold it in anymore. This year had been too much, she was breaking apart. She could feel it, the darkness was coming for her, and she didn't know if she could resist its pull any longer. Melody was sobbing so hard she didn't hear the footsteps approaching her cell, or the first couple locks being slowly undone. She was caught off-guard, wiping her snotty nose on her sleeve. An obvious string of mucus connecting her face to her sleeve, her eyes red and puffy from sobbing when the door swung open and it was the food tray guy again. This time he was holding a bundle of fabric in one arm, and another tray of food in his other. Something on the tray smelled sweet.

Melody hastily wiped her face again, hiding the snot as best she could, while her face turned red with shame. Adding to how low she felt right now. The guy in front of her looked to be about her age, thin and waif like though. Almost delicate looking. He unrolled the bundle under his arms revealing a knit blanket and a pillow. He lowered the other tray in front of Melody, within touching distance, there was bread, cheese, some kind of soup and hot chocolate in the steaming mug. Now that he was closer, Melody thought she recognised him.

"I know you, you're in my math class?" Melody looked in his eyes, they were a golden hazel color, shining in the dark in his thin, elfin face. He looked startled as Melody continued to stare at him. Certain she wasn't wrong.

"I brought you some extra food, and something to help you be more comfortable for now" he wasn't looking at her, he pointedly refused to look at her. "I'm sorry" he mumbled before turning to leave her alone again.

"Whats going to happen to me?" She asked, hoping against hope that he would tell her something. Alexander was nearby. She could feel it. She needed to learn all she could before hell broke out here. She saw the muscle and support the pack had sent to extricate her from her human home. She had a pretty good idea that it would look like an action movie exploded to life in here any minute now.

"Cackle leader has a plan to restore our numbers, with Alpha mates. You're already marked though, so they will probably feed you to the vampires." he practically ran back to the door, stopping for a moment to say sorry again before locking Melody in again.

Melody slumped against the wall. Broken and defeated. Something was wrong with her mind. She was frozen inside herself. Her thoughts racing, too quick for her to manage the hundreds of fears and fragments running through her head. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused as she sat against the wall. Numb and unmoving. Letting the darkness have its way and wash up over her.

There was a commotion from somewhere in the building above Melody, the sound barely made it to her ears in her concrete cell. She didn't react either way. She was locked inside herself. Trying to pull her fragmented self back together. She was flailing against a roaring tide inside her mind. And she was losing.

Heavy footsteps in tight formation ran down the hallway, sounds of doors being smashed in echoing down towards Melody. She stayed wrapped up in the blanket, sitting on the pillow. Gently rocking back and forth, her lips moving without saying anything, eyes unfocused and jittery in her head. Her broken arm hung limply by her side, the other wrapped tightly around her knees in front of her. Her wrist had strangely already healed, faint pink marks showing where her father had bitten her.