The Everburning City

Interlude 8, Red Does Not Come Clean, Part 2

Douglas

Gwen looked older. Which shouldn't have surprised Douglas as much as it did, since it had been six years and a renounced life since he last saw her. But part of that surprise was in just how much older she now looked.

Her hair was still shaved right up to where her hat sat, about halfway up the forehead. Above, it was long enough that she had tucked it behind her ears, and beneath her white scarf. It was the same haircut she had adopted when she came back into his life six years ago, though back then she tucked that long hair beneath her hat.

She was taller, though not by much. Still wiry, though the veins on the back of her hands and the fact that her cheeks weren't as gaunt as they had been, along with the darker shade her skin had turned, all spoke to a life working in the fields. What made her look quite a bit older was the level, forceful way she met his gaze. Unflinching, direct, with all the intensity she had carried, but worn like a weapon as much as the salamander on her shoulder.

"Aranhall," Douglas started to say. But his thoughts wouldn't collect themselves into a sentence, he didn't even know what he wanted to say to the girl she had been when she upended his life.

Should she hate him? Should he hate her?

"You made it out of there," Gwendolyn Aranhall said, and she smiled. The sight took Douglas' thoughts back further, past those six years, and right back into a life he hadn't touched in entirely too long. That smile of hers looked exactly the same as it did when she was a child; the same warmth, the same gentle intensity.

"So did you."

"Aranhall, you know this man?" Captain Raeth asked.

"I do, sir. For most of my life, though I never knew him as a farmer. He was Inspector Douglas Marrel. Fourth precinct, Mireshed District. And sir, if this is about what I think it is, I'd like you to know he saved my life."

"The Irondrome Proprietors incident. Aranhall, were you one of those children?"

Even Captain Dremora, killer that he was, had some issues he would step carefully in. When the man said 'those children', he was struggling for as bland a moniker as he could find, to describe girls, and a few boys, as young as twelve being pimped out to gang bosses, politicians, high-ranking members of the City's different bureaus, and a couple of Crafters. Untouchable, even for an Inspector in the City's orderlies. Untouchable, until a night of thunder and rain, and a thirteen year old girl ready to to what the City wasn't willing to.

"No, but it was close. I had friends who were picked up in that life, doted on by older peers and given gifts, pressured into prostitution and chained by debts and threats."

She had avoided that attention by shaving off her hair, and hiding the rest under that hat. Douglas knew she would never admit that was the reason, nor would he have ever asked. But he knew, because it happened the day after he suggested she do it.

"Aranhall. Gwen, you don't need to talk about it," Douglas said. He meant it subtly, a warning he hoped was enough to sink in, and discreet enough to slip beneath the captain.

He ended up one for two. "Corporal," Captain Dremora said, the hard iron returning to his voice. "Whatever it is this man doesn't want you to talk about, I'm going to need to know."

"What Inspector Marrel did on that day, sir. He did it so that I wouldn't."

"Gwen," Douglas began, hoping to get her to stop.

"I spent half a year stealing demolition charges and salamander ammo, stockpiling it under their headquarters. He found out about a day before I was going to do it, and did it so that I wouldn't," Gwendolyn admitted. "He saved my life that day."