[Milliways: 2286]
She's not sure if she made the right decision.
She's not even sure if Makita made the right decision: if all those people who paid for the room ever decide they want something of the pretty little girl with the fierce look in her green eyes...
...well, then, Mel wonders if she should be around to make sure they don't. A thought which is summarily dismissed. It's toy. Mel can't protect anyone, she should know this. She couldn't even protect...
Makita can look after herself. Melaka can't handle what would happen if she fought for her and failed again.
But she's still not sure if she made the right decision.
Mel still hasn't found somewhere to sleep. She's worked out that she can eat as much as she likes in the bar, and even take food back with her. The amount she grabs simply by picking her victim well more than pays for the food. So the rest of the solid is worn unobtrusively as she saves. But she's still sleeping where she drops: a reputation for being able to fight about anyone in the warrens means she rarely has to fight for a good spot, but she's not ready to try and break into a room. So she sleeps on her own on the streets
And when she awakes screaming in the night, fresh from a dream about her brother being murdered in front of her, when she's soaked through in cold miserable sweat, when she curls up in a foetal ball of quaking misery, sobbing into her knees as she longs for the days when it was her soothing him after a bad dream. When the only good thought she has to hold on to is the reassurance that everyone thinks she's strong and no one was around to see her like this...
...then she knows she belongs out here. On her own.