Supernova

Chapter Ninety Four - Stronghold Family Values (The Reprise)

Melanie had gotten a kick out of the necklace. Her and Blueflame and Bloodgirl got a big kick out of it and I let them. It was such a fucking eyeroll.

"This was the best you could do?" She laughed, clicking the button on the back over and over, making our matching necklaces glow.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," I scoffed.

"This is so cringe!" Bloodgirl mocked, giggling gleefully.

Whatever that meant.

"Hey," Blueflame said between his own bouts of laughter. "Let's cut her some slack. It does the job, right?"

"This was the best I could do on short notice, okay?" I spat at them. The last thing I needed was him defending me. I could stand up for my damn self. "Besides, it had to be something that both Momo and Heir Claeson would buy."

"Momo?" Melanie asked, her laughter dropping.

Shit.

"Forget I said that."

"You're still friends with her?"

"Forget I said that!"

"I haven't thought about her in so long," Melanie said, surprisingly wistfully. "She was always a smart cookie. I bet she's sure something these days, especially with that quirk of hers."

"Yeah," I said, and nothing else.

"Wait," Melanie said, yanking the necklace charm back up to her eye. "Did Momo make these?"

"Don't worry about it."

"The craftmanship is insane," she said, admiring the necklace anew. There was no more mockery. "The details and associated tech are insane, especially to make from scratch."

"Look, so the glow button will be the signal. It'll mean safe or yes, okay? Nothing else," I started getting back to business. "No signal means unsafe or no. I don't want to deal with any patterns or morse code bullshit or anything like that. It's too risky."

"Got it," Melanie agreed, looping the necklace around her own neck and tucking it into her shirt.

"Got it?" I asked her good for nothing confidants.

"Got it," they responded obediently.

"Where's my shirt, by the way?" Bloodgirl asked, pointing a knife at me, a few inches from my face.

I swatted it out of the way. "I'm working on it."

I was lying. In truth, I had completely forgotten about it.

"Good," she said with a sigh. "I can't waaaaaaaait. I'm going to put it on a pillow and sleep with it every night."

"Gross," Blueflame said.

"Agreed," I said, without thinking.

"Oh, shut it!" She snapped back. "Like you two are sooooo slick sneaking into each other's rooms every night. I can smell your blood even from inside your bodies, you know! You aren't fooling anyone."

"Gross."

That was me this time. Melanie smacked my arm.

It was playful and thoughtless, but the action itself was painfully familiar and had me swallowing hard and blinking the blurriness out of my eyes before anyone might notice. I wondered who we'd be if I could have clued in and protected her earlier. I wondered where we'd be, and what we'd share, if there weren't all these unavoidable roadblocks that had piled up between us in all the time I'd been so naïve.