IN BETWEEN IT ALL✧･ BARNES✔

˙oʍʇ-ʎʇuǝʍʇ

She brought me back to the table inside. I unwillingly sat beside her and crossed my arms over my chest. It was just her, Melina and myself sitting and staring at each other in silence. The air was tense, and for me, it was because Melina was still working for the people that had done this to all of us. 

Eventually Mama abruptly stood to her feet. As soon as Melina heard my mom's chair scoot back she lifted her eyes and they followed her as she walked out of the room. 

"Where are you going?" Melina questioned as if she was tired of my mother's attitude. If I was being honest I had been tired of it this entire trip. Melina shook her head at my mom's antics as she responded. 

"To do this thing myself. And you can stay here," she bit the last part with anger, pointing her finger accusingly at me. I narrowed my eyes at the sudden tone she spoke with. I grimaced at the sudden anger she displayed toward me. I hadn't done anything wrong. 

"Don't. You won't survive," Melina reiterates. She continued to shake her head at my mother's absurdity. If I wasn't so confused by the way she had just spoken to me, I would have done the same. This wasn't a job for one person. Never would one person be able to take down that organization that made us all into what we are today. 

"I wish I could believe that you cared," my mom continued as she disappeared into the hallway. I could still hear the heavy stomp of her feet. She stopped in another room and I heard her mutter another set of words. "But you're not even the first mother to abandon me."

She said it like it didn't even phase her anymore. 

"No, you weren't abandoned," Melina said as she stood to her feet and followed my mother out of the room. I became curious and followed her once I was out of her line of sight. I leaned against the nearest door frame and listened in on their conversation. I could tell by the silence my mom responded with that she was interested enough to hear what else Melina had to say. It sounded like Melina knew more than my mother did. 

"You were selected by a program that assesed the genetic potential in infants," Melina continued almost like she was afraid to say it. Judging by my mom's silence, maybe she should have been. i couldn't tell if my mom was going to be infuriated by the words, or if she was considering them. And listening to them. That wasn't something that she did well, or often. 

"I was taken?" My mom asked for clarification. She was questioning her own words as they came from her mouth. She whispered them with another sudden change of emotion. But I was less angry about this change in her mood. For some reason I felt more sympathetic towards it. She had changed her attitude in an instant, but this felt more appropriate. And it was a genuine reaction of shock and sadness mixed together. Maybe her anger had been misplaced earlier, but this sadness, I don't think it was. 

Melina was quiet for the next few moments. like she didn't want to hurt my mother any further. 

"I believe a bargain was struck, your family paid off," she was breathing heavily as she said the words. It was like they had haunted her, having to hold them away for so long. Finally saying them was relieving. "But your mother, she never stopped looking for you. She was like you in that way...She was relentless," Melina said quietly and gently in response to my mom's reaction. Due to how quiet she had been I could feel her sadness. I didn't even have to see her to know it was there. 

She quietly whispered, "What happened to her?" The words hardly even made it to a whisper. They were words of curiosity, but also words that were afraid of knowing the truth. The darkness behind the way she had said them made it clear to me that she didn't really even want to know.

But i wanted to know too. I had never had a grandparent and I knew that that was something that most kids had. I didn't have a lot of the things that most kids did, like a chance to even get to know my father when I was younger. Or maybe even a normal father that didn't get instructed to beat me as a baby. I didn't get a lot of things. And I know I didn't get grandparents, but maybe knowing what happened to one of them would fill that void?