Lovely • The Originals [4]

TWENTY-THREE

|23.| SHOULD HAVE
KNOWN BETTER

THERE'S NEVER ENOUGH. There's never enough of tragedy to hit the city, friends, and family. Sacrifices made for said things, but at what cost? It's a never ending rollercoaster ride that no one had asked for and seems as if there's no way of stopping it.

Melody quietly gets ready for the day in her room, only putting effort since she is going out to pay her respects to the man that was killed just last night, his death triggering Hope's gene. Oddly enough, Melody's skin heated up and her bones ached watching her sister feel that pain of the trigger, like she was experiencing the first time she triggered her own gene once again. It was, weird.

A soft knock on her door interrupts her thoughts and she turns around to see Koen standing in the doorway with a small smile on his face.

"Just came to check on you, uh, to make sure you're okay," Koen stumbles a bit with his words since he is not one to openly show how much he cares.

"You should be asking Hope," Melody sighs and ties her hair back into an half-up half-down hairstyle. "Just last night, we nearly lost Luke because of me, the poor man who died was because of me, and Hope ended up triggering her gene, also because of me. Now she's scared of what it will be like once the full moon comes and-and I wish I could just—"

"Mel." The tribrid stops in mid-sentence and closes her mouth, knowing Koen will continue. "It all happened, okay? There's nothing else we can do now. But what we can do is make sure you're better because it seems to me that you're not doing too good."

Melody glances back to see her brother staring at something below her eyes, so she looks down at her arm to see the same lines appear where they were before. She blinks a few times and crosses her arms so that he doesn't see the lines, not wanting him to worry right now. Not now.

"I'll be fine, Ko." She grabs a flower off her dresser and turns towards the door. "If you'll excuse me, Hope and I are going to pay our respects."

The young tribrid takes a step to the side to let Melody walk past him and out of her room, leaving Koen to stand there and remain worried about his sister. He's not entirely sure what the lines on her arms mean, but from the looks of it they're not good at all.

-

The twins walk inside of the cemetery meant for the humans, seeing a table next to Bill's tomb with a portrait of him and a dying rose in a small vase next to the frame. Melody unravels her arm from Hope's, nodding her head for the tribrid to place her flower down. Hope replaces the dying flower with a white rose and Melody places her yellow rose next to her sister's. They stand beside each other in silence, trapped in their own battle of thoughts, and Klaus slowly approaches them.