"Do you feel any differently this time?" Melissa murmured to Gavin, voice barely over a whisper to the point she was forced to stand impossibly close to him out of fear of being heard. Under the dimmed lights of the vault, one could almost mistake it for a private chamber of another sort, silent except for the occasional rhythmic breathing of one of her fellow colleagues being asleep.
Not Melissa - not the secretary; even if her body ached in a way she had never experienced before and a dull, continuous pain irradiated from her lower back. The brunette remained kneeling on the floor, facing her captor attentively - he looked different without the wig used to pretend to be someone else. With sunglasses and fake hair gone, there was a sincerity in his eyes that had been growing more and more intense over their shared hours.
"About prison, I mean. Do you think we will make it?" the question went out before she could process it properly, gaze lingering at his mouth - only to realize what she had been doing and to tilt her head back up, staring back into his eyes, "All of us?"
ā from @stingslikeabee, unprompted.
Gavin's voice was soft, but not any less incredulous as he looked down at Melissa's face. "'All of us'?"
He couldn't lie-- the question made his heart flutter. He'd already told her the plan his sibling cooked up, that they were hoping to take all their hostages, including the "corpse" that Melissa had become, but the story always ended with goodbye.
Do you think all of us will make it? implied Melissa would stay even beyond their hypothetically successful escape. The thought of having her for longer thrilled him like nothing else, so much so that he had to swallow the joyous noise bubbling up his throat.
What a world it'd be if she chose him, in the end.
"The plan makes sense," he said then, which wasn't much of an answer, but was all he could give. "The only thing missing now is whether the cops'll hold up their end of the bargain.
"Are you worried?" Delicately (because Melissa was already hurt, because she wasn't supposed to be hurt, because she told everyone Gavin wasn't a monster and meant it all the same), his fingers tucked the few locks of hair out of place behind Melissa's ear. "You don't have to be. I'll protect you no matter what."










