The Girl With Metal Claws

Unchained Melody

GABRIELLE

"I can't believe I'm stuck with you, of all people," Gabrielle sighed. She had been in a constant state of restlessness for the last few days but she somehow managed to take a deep breath.

"I'm not too happy about it either," George said. She noticed the grin on his lips that he tried to hide. He really was a naive man.

Once they were out on the streets, Gabrielle looked to her side to see quite a few cars parked side by side. But among those cars, she spotted a cyan car that stood tall but wasn't too broad. It was a 90s vintage car which might be of some emotional value to George as she expected from an unmarried old man who had a habit of holding onto things, no matter how old they were.

"That's your car, I'm guessing?" She said, pointing to the car, starting to walk towards it when she heard him chuckle proudly.

"Look to your left," George said. As she looked to the opposite side, she immediately spotted a white car that had turned brown with deterioration. He walked past her and opened the car door. It rattled, almost falling off, and George unhesitatingly called her in.

Gabrielle was wrong. George held on to things too long but he never cared about them. She found herself smiling as she entered the car. The floor creaked as she stepped inside, her head touching against the ceiling. She crouched down, adjusting.

The car started after the third try, which was to be expected from an older-than-time vehicle. A few minutes passed by on the road to Swain Street. Gabrielle had been holding on to the note from Meredith, knowing she knew something that Gabrielle had to know as well. It was tougher than she anticipated.

But strangely, the fear of being constantly watched never left her.

"You never told me you had a son," George asked. Even if he meant to ask it casually, she recognised the anticipation in his voice. If she still knew him like she used to, he had been meaning to ask the question for days.

"There's a lot of things I didn't tell you," she said.

"You don't owe me anything. It's only natural that-"

"That's not why...", She let out a cloud of breath, suddenly finding no right words. "After Richard died, Max was all I had. I didn't give birth to him but he was everything I could've asked for in a son."

She knew he would get her to talk about her dead husband and dead son somehow.

"I knew about Richard but Max..?" He asked.

"20 years ago, the case of Martha Regan... Max was her son. After the voices caught her, exorcism was the only way to save her. She couldn't survive, she couldn't take it. That day, inside her house, we found Max. He was 3, terrified, hiding behind the kitchen counter. He was so small, so isolated, I couldn't let him go," Gabrielle took a deep breath, pushing back the tears. She was over it, she told herself. She had to be strong.

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't be," Gabrielle stopped him, "he doesn't need pity. He needs revenge and justice and all those words people want to claim. Tell me, George, is there anything you could do except be sorry?"

Gabrielle's gaze was challenging and rough. The harsh realities cannot be portrayed, the struggles cannot be portrayed with mere invaluable words. He scanned her face, understanding what she spoke about. George looked back at her with the same impenetrable eyes.

"Yes," he said.

~

71 Swain Street reminded Gabrielle of herself. Old but thriving. People crowded the streets and the shops were antique thrift shops. Everyone had jute bags hanging from their arms and a rushed body language. More people filled in than those who left.

"Where now?" She asked as George came up beside her after parking his car.

"To some woman named Carla," he said, unsure.

"Which way... I asked," she shot him a bored look and smirked, "but I guess you're more interested in that woman."

"You still didn't change," George shook his head and laughed.

"I wasn't the one who needed to change," Gabrielle let out, glancing at his face which refused to meet her eyes. She knew even after all those years that followed after the both of them separated, were way more vivid in her mind than she imagined. But it was long gone. She sighed and started walking. "Follow me."

"No," George said, walking past her and looking back to her, "you follow me."

So she did.

The crowd didn't part the way as they walked into the congested and noisy streets, in return, they enclosed together. The crowd was jostling, arming each other if needed. As Gabrielle pushed through the crowd, a hand found her hand, clutching it into safety. The hand started leading her through. She looked down at the hand holding hers and the person walking in front of her.

And suddenly, it was the George she had met 23 years ago. The same desperate and passionate detective with a small agency, two employees and dreams in his eyes. She loved him. She loved the his weird mind.

Once they were out of the busiest intersection, they reached an area with three-storey shops all around. People all around, all frowns. They never stop moving.

"That one," George said, pointing at the topmost floor of the shop in front of them. The tilted wooden board at the head of the door had "Carla's" written in a dragged font. Gabrielle and George headed inside.

The stairs led the way up. Men with seductive women clinging onto their arms walked down the stairs, entering the vacant rooms together. Gabrielle sighed at the sight, knowing that it wasn't just a thrift store. It did have side businesses that justified the crowd. It was a cheap motel as well.

Gabrielle wondered what Meredith wanted her to do here, in such an open area where people seemed to spill all their secrets, lie open in the dark where no one cared.

Soon, George pushed open the door to the third floor and entered the room. A counter stood in the middle of the room with antique statues, props, clothing, accessories and various other things that were sold at very cheap rates. The woman, namely Carla, stood at the reception, filing her nails.

Gabrielle didn't know how she needed to tell the woman the reason for their arrival or what she should say to make her understand what she meant.

"What do you need?" Carla said, chewing on something that made her lips look red. She was a woman in her 40s with a slight accent. Her tone was rude and unwelcoming. Carla looked up at them and a smirk appeared on her face, "at this age, seriously?"

"What do you mean?" George asked.

"There are no empty rooms yet, wait for a while," Carla's eyes trailed back to her nails. Gabrielle and George glanced at each other with shock.

"No, we-"

George placed a hand on her shoulder to stop her from protesting. She stared back at him with a confused expression.

"Yeah, that's fine. We'll wait. But we would like to specifically take room number 202," George smiled at the woman who eyed him back. Then she nodded. He took Gabrielle's hand and led her to the nearby couch and they sat in silence.

"What was that?" Gabrielle whispered, suddenly annoyed at her lack of understanding of his actions. George said nothing but he quietly pointed at Meredith's note that sat on her palms.

She looked at it, turned it around but found nothing new. She looked up at George, waiting for him to explain. He leaned a little closer to her and whispered.

"Hold it up against the Sun," he said and she did. Just when she held it out against the open window, numbers appeared at the edge of the paper. She could see the numbers, 202, written in a bold font.

They waited for almost an hour when finally Clara signalled to them, letting them know that their desired room was available. Even if Gabrielle felt embarrassed walking into a motel with George, of all people, she followed him inside.

Once the door was closed behind them, George quickly turned to her and smiled at her. She frowned.

"You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I can't wait to spend some quality time with you," George spoke with a straight face but Gabrielle winced at how pretentious they sounded. He leaned in and brought his face to her ears, "someone's outside eavesdropping."

"Oh.. my dear, George. You're the best human walking this Earth's surface. Our constellations match just right-", suddenly, she heard footsteps from in front of the hotel room, walking away. She sighed.

"You're too bad at this," George snickered. She glared at him.

Then, George told her that Clara might've found them suspicious and sent people to test their genuineness. He rushed to his feet, toppling over things and searching every corner of the room.

"Search for something, anything," he ordered.

But what he didn't know was Gabrielle didn't need searching. All those 23 years that George had run around aiming for his dreams, Gabrielle hadn't been locked up in her cage.

She closed her eyes, stretching her palm and holding her hands out. She took into her surroundings, slowly becoming aware of everything around her. The room was filled with different vibrations, most of them unharming. But as the atmosphere of the area settled in, a single vibration kept growing. Larger and larger.

It was dark, negative and deep. Gabrielle decided to follow its sensation. She followed her impulses that led her to the corner of the room. George came up behind her, scanning her every move.

She knelt on the floor and placed her palm on the wooden floorboards in the corner. Then she gripped the edge of the wood and pulled roughly on it. The wood snapped out in one go and uncovered a small carved area under the floor.

She pushed her hand inside the small dark pit and her fingers touched a box. She carefully pulled it out and held it against the light. The golden box seemed to take the shape of her hand, dull and decaying. She turned the box around to see a small keyhole.

George held out the small key and Gabrielle took it from him. She inserted the key and turned its lid open. A small ballerina figurine rose from inside the box, her outfit more grey than white. She noticed a small handle. Her fingertips touched the handle and she started turning it around. After a pause, a shrill melody started playing from the music box as the ballerina started rotating.

Suddenly, a vision boomed in Gabrielle's head.

A long table, a woman at the head of the table and thirteen kids sitting with cutlery in their hands. Twelve of them sat with their eyes straight ahead, and one of them sat unmovingly. Dead.. always dead.

Gabrielle's eyes snap open, like waking up from a nightmare. She turned the box in all directions, searching for something desperately.

Finally, she turned the box over and her eyes fell on its surface. A name was carved at the bottom with something sharp.

"Asami," the name said.