[Candidate #12, Cerulean City Outskirts — GO Challenge Day 18]
"I'll be right back for you," Spark said, shouting over the thundering downpour. He slung Blanche's limp body over his shoulders fireman style, and hopped on his bike as effortlessly as if he was only carrying a burlap sack. "Try not to move too much, okay?"
"Just hurry." Candela's voice was dull with exhaustion. Wartortle handed Spark the twins and she watched them disappear into the rain. She stood slowly, her muscles aching with every tiny movement.
Candela touched her cheek where it had swollen and looked down at Blanche's pokemon.
"I'm going back for them."
Wartortle grunted angrily at her and she nodded once, taking Blanche's backpack from him. As modest as ever, Blanche's Poliwhirl stood to the side, waiting patiently for her instructions. Candela thought back to her time helping Blanche prepare for the Pewter gym.
"Poliwhirl doesn't need Protect if Wartortle has it."
I was so fucking wrong. She might already be dead because of me.
Candela shut her eyes tightly and shook her head. Then, careful not to disturb Blanche's precise arrangement of blankets and pillows any further, she rummaged around in the other pockets and pulled out four lavender spray bottles.
"Remind me to replace these for her. She'll be pissed if I forget." Candela's voice was quiet as she sprayed Wartortle and Poliwhirl's scrapes and bruises with two of the potions. After unscrewing the top off of the third, she chugged the bitter blue liquid and stretched her muscles, then returned the empty bottles to the bag to dispose of later.
The pain and soreness in her muscles didn't go away completely, but after a few minutes it became muted enough for her to ignore for the time being.
The fourth potion she used on one of her two remaining pokeballs—Delta had been moderately injured during their encounter with the thugs in the cave, but the potion would just about bring her back to full health. Fortunately, Spike was perfectly ready to fight.
Wartortle growled insistently, jabbing his little claws behind them, towards Mt. Moon, but Candela was too lost in thought to pay him much attention.
Blanche and I rescue a group of scientists and are nearly murdered for our trouble. Then as soon as we make it out of that hellpit there are Rockets on the other side, ready to rob us. There's no way that isn't connected.
Shaking with anger, Candela stripped off her soaking wet red and white coat and tossed it to the ground—even in the dark she could tell that the bloodstains would never fully come out. The thin fabric of her black bodysuit was soaked through immediately, and she shivered as she got used to the sudden cold.
And I just handed Buzz and Peaches over without hesitation. Without a fight. Unforgivable.
"You two stay here." Candela rubbed rainwater out of her stinging eyes with the back of a gloved fist. Wartortle shook his head vigorously, and Poliwhirl thrust her own fists into the air in agreement with him, uncharacteristically fired up. Candela shook her head, already turning to walk away. "It's my battle to fight, and you aren't mine to risk."
Before Candela could take another step she felt Wartortle insistently tugging at her legs. Candela said nothing more, her throat too tight for her to speak, and the three of them took off running back to Mount Moon.
The Rockets didn't see them coming, too deeply engrossed in their operation and distracted by the heavy rain to pay much attention to their surroundings. They hadn't left the spot where Candela was mugged, and obviously hadn't been expecting any retaliation. Delta and Spike flanked her alongside Blanche's pokemon, almost as enraged as she was.
"Be careful with those! They're priceless and you're letting them get soaked, you lackwits."
The man who'd taken her money was nowhere in sight, but the woman who'd wanted Blanche's wartortle was shouting orders at two grunts off to one side, while some of the various pokemon she'd seen earlier now had their hands full loading up their haul. The others, along with the rest of the Rocket grunts were nowhere to be seen.
Candela was close enough to vaguely make out the woman's facial features, and that she had bright scarlet hair tied into a ponytail underneath her black cap.
I bet she still has Peaches and Buzz on her. These guys were probably working with the ones who stabbed Blanche.
As the thought crossed her mind, a blinding, white-hot fury bubbled up inside her chest and she abandoned all prior notions of being subtle or sneaky.
She didn't care what they'd been doing, or why.
She wanted blood.
The Rockets were busy packing up whatever setup they'd had outside the cave. Candela hadn't noticed earlier, but a bunch of large duffle bags indistinguishable from the ones the thugs used at the dig site were being loaded onto the back of a small black pickup truck.
There were only three people and five pokemon in total, half as many as were present during the mugging. The woman's back was to her. Candela sprinted forward with nothing resembling a plan.
"Operator, behind you!"
At the same moment that the woman's stone grey eyes finally met her own, Candela threw a wild right hook with all her might.
The suckerpunch would have hit the woman square in the jaw, but a solid wall of purple goop appeared just in front of her, completely absorbing the blow. Candela took a step back, ripping her hand out of the goo before it could suck her in. The stench of the pokemon stayed with her even after she shook the slime off her hand. She was suddenly glad she was wearing a thick pair of gloves.
"Well done, Muk," the woman said, her shocked expression turning dark. Rainwater dripped off her chin to splatter the toes of her boots, and she tapped her left ear. "Opera 3, midnight check-in. Cargo processing may be slightly behind schedule. Red trainer on site, five pokemon. Threat level is yellow."
"Just keep 'em busy. GO RAISE HELL!" Candela shouted, and the four pokemon at her back bounded towards the trucks. Delta stayed by her side, bluish white flame coiling around her sharp teeth. The large, lumbering slime pokemon 'muk' slid protectively in front of the woman.
What is that thing? Poison Type? Doesn't matter, I'm just going to wing it.
"I'd heard Valor aspirants were impetuous, but this is pathetic." The red haired woman glanced behind her, watching as Blanche's wartortle fearlessly engaged a raticate and parasect. As she turned back to face Candela she signaled for the nearby Rocket grunts to approach before taking a half step back. "You really expect this to go well for you, somehow."
"Give me back my teammates and I'll let you walk away." Candela stepped forward, her fingernails digging sharply into the palms of her clenched fists through her gloves. Even in the rain Delta's tail remained brightly lit, and as she lashed it back and forth Candela could feel the temperature rising around them. "I don't care about anything else, and I won't ask nicely a second time."
"Yes, understood. I'll evaluate them now," the Rocket said after touching her earpiece again. She was still staring at Blanche's wartortle. A short distance away, the Rockets' pokemon were fully occupied in battle, while the two men casually sauntered up behind Candela. "Take care of the brat for me. Muk and I will round up the rest of her team."
"Oh, we'll take real good care of her, don't you worry," one of the men said before lunging forward with a left hook. Candela spun to the side and the blow only grazed her shoulder, but it still stung. "Maybe that dumb mankey will listen to me after I teach her old trainer a lesson!"
The group's leader began to walk away, and Candela saw red.
[Candidate #2, Cerulean City — GO Challenge Day 19]
Spark pedaled hard. The heavy rain made the path slick, but skidding was a risk he had to take.
Although his clothes had quickly gotten soaked, he could feel Blanche's warm blood running freely down his jacket. She was completely limp, and he couldn't tell if she was still breathing.
Whatever happened to them at Mount Moon had been rough.
The nurses he'd eavesdropped on earlier met him just outside the entrance to the city's pokecenter, a large building that doubled as a human hospital. Though the growlith was still with them, the Officer Jenny was nowhere in sight.
"Where's the other trainer?" the head nurse asked as he let his bike topple over and rushed towards them.
"I'm going back for her now." He pulled Blanche off of his shoulders and thrust her into the nurse's arms. The eevee twins awoke as he handed them to a different Joy, and began crying immediately. "Where's Officer Jenny?"
"Getting help from someone competent," the nurse said, her eyes flitting over Blanche's injuries. "It's been crisis after crisis since she got here. Criminals running amok. This is a bit much for her first week."
"This is a bit much in general," Spark said. Even for Team Rocket, random murders were out of the ordinary.
None of the Joys had any further questions for Spark as he helped them lift the unconscious girl onto a stretcher. The head nursed barked orders at the others, who worked rapidly along with a team of chanseys to secure her and carry her inside.
"Don't just stand there looking concerned, help us apply pressure before she finishes bleeding out."
Aw crap. It's just a skeleton crew tonight.
Spark left his bike where he dropped it. He really hoped Candela was still right where he'd left her. She hadn't seemed like she was in any condition to move, but anything could happen.
When he'd done all he could to help, he watched the small team wheel Blanche into the ICU for surgery. Then he picked up his bike and rushed back to the edge of the city.
[Candidate #12, Route 4]
"What was all that about 'taking care of me,' again?"
Candela wiped her mouth with the back of a closed fist. The mostly white glove came away with bright streaks of red, and she grinned broadly despite her badly split lip. The storm had passed its apex and the heavy rainfall had finally begun to falter, so she was now able to easily make out the darkened expression the Rocket 'Operator' was wearing.
She had cuts and bruises everywhere and her limbs were painfully stiff, but there was enough adrenaline rushing through her veins to make her think she could bench press an emboar.
Beside her, Delta was still itching to sink her teeth into anything that came too close. At their feet lay the two Team Rocket thugs, groaning and heavily bruised. One of them had a broken nose and quite a few missing teeth, and the other guy's face looked like hamburger meat, but they were both still breathing.
At the cave entrance, Candela's nidorino and Blanche's wartortle, poliwhirl, and nidorina were all locked in combat with at least one other pokemon. Without trainers to supervise their battles, the Rocket pokemon were hard pressed just to remain conscious. From what she could tell they were mostly at a stalemate, which was fine for the time being. As long as they could still fight, the tides would turn completely once Candela got the chance to direct them.
At least, she hoped so.
I just have to take the leader out and I'll have Buzz back, too.
"Are those guys actually on salary, or was this like an unpaid internship?" Candela's grin morphed into a scowl as her other hand tightened around the now-muddy pokeball she had ripped from the grasp of one of those thugs. Delta's fire attacks will be severely weakened by the rain. This will be tough. "So here's what's going to happen—"
"I'm not humoring this nonsense." The woman gestured at the purple slime pokemon beside her. "Muk? Sludge Wave, please."
"Delta, dodge and then... !" Candela froze, realizing the attack's full scope a moment too late. True to its name, the attack hit her like an actual tidal wave, rushing over everything in its path including the Rocket grunts. While Delta deftly jumped out of the way, Candela was swept backwards off her feet and engulfed by the torrent of noxious ooze.
When the attack subsided, Candela struggled to her hands and knees, hacking and spluttering. While she resisted the urge to wipe at her burning eyes with her now filthy gloves, she couldn't stop herself from retching into the mud. It felt like she'd been bathed in waste, and the taste and smell of rotten garbage and sewage coupled with the burning, stinging sensation on every inch of skin the sludge had touched overloaded her senses.
Being directly targeted had caught her off guard, and she hadn't thought to close her mouth and eyes until it was too late. She ripped off one of her gloves with her teeth and tried to wipe the rank, sticky gunk out of her eyes, but only succeeded in smearing it around even more. Even the shallow puncture wounds on her back where she'd been bitten by a Golbat's long fangs burned like hell, but worst of all, the smell was bad enough to make her feel faint.
"Opera 3, checking in. The recruits didn't pass. We're green, still on schedule." Candela breathed in through her mouth. She could hear the sound of Delta shooting off a Flame Burst nearby and felt a rush of heat on her face, but the Rocket's flat tone sounded unconcerned. She lifted her head to the sky, hoping the rainwater would rinse out her eyes somewhat, but the downpour had calmed considerably. "The Valor brat? ...Yes, understood. I'll be arriving shortly."
"You aren't going anywhere." Candela spat, and spat again, and forced her eyes open despite the intense stinging pain. Though she couldn't quite manage to pull herself up out of the sludge, Delta was poised to strike at her command. Once again, she tightened her grip around Peaches' pokeball. "Not until you hand over my beedrill."
"Actually, you aren't going anywhere." The Operator was completely at ease, and adjusted the brim of her hat as she approached one of the motionless grunts, prodding him with a muddy white boot. He didn't move. "I don't care about your pokemon, so don't take it so personally. These bug types are a dime a dozen, that's what makes them so useful in bulk."
"What are you talking about?" Candela asked, a sudden burst of fear breaking through her haze of fury and pain. She tried to stand up again but found she could only move so much before the sludge forcefully sucked her back down. Her eyes widened as she realized that the muck she was covered in was the body of the Sludge Pokemon itself.
"You do seem to have some potential. With some training and a little less naïveté, you could be useful for us later." The Rocket tapped a pokeball that was hooked to her belt to draw Candela's attention, then pulled a pen and notepad from her coat pocket. "So here's some incentive for growth. Do you want your pokemon back? Silly question, I imagine."
Candela could tell at a glance that it was Buzz's pokeball. Delta lashed her tail furiously, and looked back at Candela for instructions, but she couldn't manage to speak through her rage. She pulled violently against the sludge, desperate to free herself, and nearly yanked her left arm out of its socket in the process.
"Muk, Harden please. Hold her still." The goop solidified dramatically, and Candela felt like she was encased in wet concrete up to her neck. Delta chirped at her in concern, still waiting to be told what to do. "What's your name? Lying won't do you any favors, just so you're aware."
"Like I'd tell you—"
"I don't have all night. Muk, Acid Armor."
Candela grit her teeth to keep herself from screaming as the pokemon's body liquified into a bubbling soup. It really did feel just like acid, and it slowly ate through the parts of her clothes where the fabric was the thinnest.
She lasted nearly a minute before cracking.
"It's Candela, you asshole."
"Thank you. Muk, Harden again." The woman glanced from Candela to her Charmeleon and back again, then scribbled as she spoke. "Resilient, but cocky. Decent trainer, bad judgment. How old are you? What region are you from? Johto? Alola?"
"I'm seventeen. From Unova." Candela's voice was strained. Her skin still stung all over, and the sludge had hardened so much that she could only take shallow breaths. The very last raindrops fell, and the sounds of battle from further off became more distinct. "Why is Team Rocket here? What do you want?"
"I'd just like to talk for now, little Valor." After returning the notebook to her coat, the woman made a show of unhooking Buzz's pokeball from her belt, tossing it up a short distance with a flourish, then catching it again. "Level 30 male, Adamant nature, good Effort Values. When I scanned it earlier I was fairly impressed that we found such an ideal specimen for our project. Did it have a nickname?"
"Let me out. I talk a lot better with my hands," Candela snapped, frantically trying to dislodge herself from the pokemon. The burning sensation was beginning to lessen, but she felt more nauseated with every passing second. "What does his name matter to you, anyway?"
"Well, I'm not very creative myself. I am a bit sentimental, however." The Rocket slowly drew something on Buzz's pokeball, then returned it to her belt with a small shrug. "I'm going to request to keep this pokemon for personal use when our scientists are finished with it. But I'll tell you what: once my request is approved, let's have a battle. If you win, you can have it back."
"LET HIM GO YOU BITCH!" Candela shouted, violently thrashing her body as much as she could manage. The Rocket commanded Muk to harden once again. "Fight me right now, fair and square!"
"It's pretty high level, but this Muk isn't even mine. You'll have to wait until I'm authorized for a full team if you want that battle." The Rocket operator shrugged, but took up a defensive stance, as if she were expecting a sudden attack. "If you don't like that idea then you'd better do something about it right now."
The rain finally stopped completely, and the sounds of Blanche's pokemon and her own nidorino battling the Rocket's pokemon unsupervised came back to her more clearly. She couldn't tell if they were still holding their own, or if any had fainted.
Candela could barely wiggle her fingers, and had to gasp for every breath as she realized her only options.
"Delta, Metal Claw! Get this thing off me."
We'll have to risk it hitting my body too. Otherwise...
"Flame Burst, then. Fire Fang! I'll be fine, come on, hurry up!" The charmeleon chirped in indignation, not willing to risk damaging her trainer. The Rocket scoffed as Candela tried to argue with it to no avail. Angry, stinging tears welled up in Candela's eyes. "Why won't you listen to me!?"
"That was cowardly, especially for a Valor." The Rocket's gaze snapped up to something behind Candela, and she immediately turned on her heels and began to walk away. "I'm sure the correct choice was obvious, you just lack the nerve to do what needs doing. You'll never get what you want if you can't give something up."
"Is that you, Candela?" Spark's voice was approaching from behind her, but still sounded a ways off. "Who's that with you?"
"Muk, use Poison Gas, then come along. I have what we came for." Candela cursed, then took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She knew enough about poison types to know that inhaling too much of the stuff at once would likely kill her. The shell keeping her trapped crumbled, and she tried her best to scramble backwards out of the cloud.
"Meet me at Silph Co. in one month! If you grow a spine by then, we'll have that battle."
"Beaks, give us a Whirlwind!" Candela felt a rush of cool air and risked opening her eyes. She just barely caught a glimpse of the woman's back disappearing into the same narrow side tunnel she and Blanche used to exit the dig site. Candela stood up abruptly and staggered forward, and Spark grabbed her by the arm to steady her. "Are you alright? Okay, dumb question, you look like crap."
"C'mon, let's go. We can still catch her if we hurry." Candela's legs trembled and buckled beneath her as soon as she successfully untangled herself from the blonde. She was stiff and sore and felt like vomiting again. Everything stung, and she could only fight through the pain so much before her body gave out. "Whatever, just go without me. Don't let her get away!"
"We can't chase her," Spark said, his voice soft. He put a hand on her shoulder, then leaned down to help her stand up again. A giant, angry bird pokemon stood behind him. "It's ass A.M., you're badly poisoned, and aren't those Blanche's pokemon beating up those others? We should make sure they're okay, and tie up those two guys over there just in case. The police will be here soon."
"... Yeah. I guess you're right." A soft nudge at her leg made Candela's throat tighten, and she recalled Delta without looking at her.
"I dunno what happened here, so maybe it's not my place to say anything," Spark began as they walked towards Blanche's wartortle. He was currently chomping down on the tail of a whimpering ratticate. "But, you did your best here. What you did took a lot of guts."
Candela bit her lip, and said nothing.
[Candidate #17, Cerulean City General Hospital — GO Challenge Day 23]
"I'm sorry, sir. That's all I can remember."
"Contact us immediately if you think of anything else." The moment Blanche had regained consciousness after her surgery there had been an International Police agent insistent on privately questioning her about the Mount Moon incident. "An officer will stop by later to take your statement for the Cerulean police."
"Of course," Blanche said. The eevee curled up in her lap snored softly as she stroked her fur. "I wish I could have been more helpful."
The agent stood and made his way to the door, nodding curtly in her direction. He was of middling age, with dark hair and a fancy beige hat that seemed to cover his eyes whenever he'd glance down at his notes. Blanche settled back, trying to make herself comfortable, and reached for the tv remote attached to her bed's arm rests. She could feel the sharp edges of pain from her stab wounds beginning to creep back into her body along with the dull ache of a completely empty stomach, and eyed the "Call Nurse" button warily.
"Ah, one more thing." Blanche didn't look up, expecting a casual remark about her health. "Would your pokemon ever listen to another trainer?"
"Only that Valor candidate I told you about. As I mentioned earlier, she directed my team briefly while I was engaged with the young man who stabbed me." Blanche frowned, looking up at the man as he lingered in the doorway. She didn't like the expression on his face. "Candela helped me train them for the Pewter gym, and they respect her quite a bit."
"Are you close?"
"...Not particularly." Blanche noted the way his eyes narrowed at her response, and crossed her arms. "We've only met two weeks ago. Why do you ask?"
"That's all for now."
Blanche checked the clock above the door and pinched the bridge of her nose. 11:40 A.M. I've barely been awake for two hours and I'm this exhausted and irritable. He's just doing his job. According to the nurse who'd been attending her that morning, a little over four days had passed since her injury and subsequent emergency surgery. While the medically-induced coma had sapped her strength, it also spared her the worst of the pain as her body healed.
Though Spark had been there with her eevee when she'd woken up, she hadn't yet been brought up to speed on anything that transpired after she'd passed out thanks to the pushy Interpol agent. He had been waiting for her to regain consciousness for some time, and insisted that she file a report with him as soon as she was awake. In the end she couldn't recall anything that she imagined would be useful to the investigation.
She did remember Candela's worried face shouting for her to stay awake. She also remembered watching Candela fight for her life, get punched in the face, her jacket being slashed open—it was a swirl of violent images that she had a hard time piecing together chronologically.
"Thank you for letting me speak with your patients." The agent was still standing in the doorway, chatting with her nurse. She looked away, not wanting to eavesdrop. "I'll show myself out."
Blanche sighed quietly. The hospital room was sparse, with four white walls and little decor. There was one small table and chair across from her bed for visitors, a small tv mounted on the far wall, and a single painting of a nondescript landscape scene by the door. The chair that the agent had been sitting in, pulled right up by her bedside—by Spark, she presumed—looked terribly uncomfortable.
At the very least, she had a window with a pleasant view of the beautiful waterway nearby, and she absentmindedly watched a little fishing boat chug along it. She heard the door close gently with a click, and brushed her thumb across the Call button, wondering if she should see about getting something for the rapidly intensifying pain in her chest and back at the very least.
Perhaps I should ask for some water.
It was sunny, with a deep blue sky and no clouds to speak of. Nothing at all like the dreary, stormy weather they'd had in Pewter on the afternoon they'd decided to take on the cave. Cerulean was a beautiful city, and Blanche found herself smiling despite her discomfort.
She's probably been out there training for the next gym. Hopefully I haven't fallen too far behind.
"Hey."
Blanche's head whipped around at the familiar voice. Surely enough, Candela was standing there leaning up against the door in a white tank top and baggy black shorts. One of her hands held a very alert baby eevee while the other was hidden behind her back. Blanche's eyes glanced over her heavily bandaged arms and legs before lingering on the cuts and scrapes smattered across her neck, chest, and forehead. The hint of a smirk crossed her lips, but it seemed strained.
A dark purple bruise covered her entire left eye, and her cheek was slightly swollen.
A hesitant, "Candela?" was all the white-haired girl could manage to say. Silence settled back over the room until Candela's eevee slipped out of her grasp and hopped onto the bed to join her twin with a small bark. Candela broke eye contact by closing her eyes and stretching, but even doing that much was obviously painful judging by the way she grimaced and hunched over slightly afterward.
"I meant to sneak these in here while you were still knocked out," Candela said as she stepped forward, revealing the small floral arrangement in her other hand. Lavender roses, and some violets. "Flowers aren't really my style, so Spark helped me pick these out. Sorry if they're a little tacky. There's a card from him and the archaeologists in there, too."
Candela dragged her feet like it hurt to lift her legs all the way off the ground. She placed the vase on top of the table beside Blanche's bag, but kept her back turned to the other girl.
"How are you holding up? You were still critical last I stopped by. We were all pretty worried."
Blanche's eyes were drawn to the outline of a thick patch of gauze just above Candela's right shoulder blade. The longer she stared, the more injuries she found. Another beat of silence passed between them before the other girl spoke again.
"You're probably starving." Candela rubbed the back of her head and grinned. "I'll grab ya something from the cafeteria downstairs. The food they serve patients is absolute sh—"
"Are those burns? What the hell happened?"
"Awh, not you too," Candela said with a small, humorless laugh. When she turned around again she wasn't smiling. "That Interpol guy interrogated me for a good two hours right before I was discharged two days ago, and don't even get me started on the head nurse. She's worse than my mom."
"I'm not trying to interrogate you. Are you alright?" Blanche tried to keep her tone even, but her throat felt far too tight for her to steady her voice properly. A sinking feeling had settled in the pit of her stomach. "You look like you can barely walk, and you don't usually beat around the bush like this."
"I lost a fight," Candela said with a small shrug. Her tone was clipped, and her fists clenched and unclenched slowly as she continued. "It happens, just, not usually to me. I got poisoned pretty bad and have a few acid burns, but I still wasn't half as hurt as you were."
"Acid? What happened?" Blanche repeated, her voice rising in volume. She took a shaky breath and tried to calm herself when the pain in her chest flared back to life. "There's no way that's healed properly yet."
"Don't worry about me, dumbass," Candela snapped suddenly. She gripped the bed's railing hard enough to leave indents in its malleable plastic cover. "The hell were you thinking? You were like centimeters away from drowning in your own blood from a punctured lung. I thought I was dragging your dead body out of that cave because you couldn't just... just..."
"I couldn't just what? Run away? Sit back and watch you and the others die?" Blanche felt her throat tighten again and turned away sharply when she noticed Candela's eyes were glistening. No. I'm being irrational again. She took a deep breath and relaxed her death grip on her bed sheets before continuing. "I'm sorry. Whatever happened to you after I fainted was probably due in no small part to my recklessness. I should have listened to you and gone for help. Thank you for saving my life."
"Don't say stupid shit like that," Candela said, gently shaking her head, and plopped into the chair. She ran a bandaged hand through her short hair, then placed her other hand atop one of Blanche's closed fists after a long sigh. Blanche did not turn back to face her. "It was a big operation, and there were a bunch of Team Rocket jerks waiting right outside. You saved me. So, thanks."
"Ah. Yes, well, it's like I said." Blanche cleared her throat, and released her vice grip on the hospital remote so she could pat the back of Candela's hand twice in quick succession. When she turned to meet Candela's eyes again the tips of her ears burned hot with a sudden rush of blood. "Anyway, are you going to tell me about that fight you lost, or not?"
Candela visibly stiffened, but answered smoothly. It was shocking how fast an expression could lose all its warmth.
"Sorry. I would if I could." The door swung open with a quiet creak, and Candela stood slowly. Two female police officers, one with bright teal hair, the other a brunnette, and their growlithes wordlessly entered the small room. "Are you here to take her statement?"
"Are you G.O Candidate #12?" The officer that spoke conspicuously placed her hand on her belt. The other seemed to watch Candela's every twitch.
"That's right," Candela replied flatly. "Are you arresting me?"
"Yes." The teal-haired officer nodded her head at her partner and the other woman stepped forward with a pair of silver handcuffs. Candela said nothing more and stretched her arms out in surrender, but Blanche's jaw dropped in disbelief.
"You are under arrest for the murder of two men on Route 4 on the night of May 18th."