Melody was grinning as they walked away from the cell block. "You handled that well. I didn't even know you could be that scary. But this way, there's no lasting damage."
"I would have preferred not to be in a cell in the first place," Lukas said.
"You antagonized him in your first meeting, so you're the one who created this whole thing in the first place," Akira pointed out, her tone carrying no particular judgment about it.
"I know." He didn't dispute it. "But think about what he told us himself. It shows that he enjoys having power over people."
"If I had backed down in that first meeting, he wouldn't have stopped there. He would have kept pushing and kept finding small ways to make things difficult, until eventually I did something worse than this. Like attacking him."
He glanced at them both. "Trust me. This is the best outcome we can get out of this."
Melody considered it. "I suppose that's true."
