Dangers in the Dark

The Mayor's Intentions 2.4

A couple hours later, Ed and I had worked our brains to the limit as after doing over an hour of riddles, he managed to help me with this stupid chemistry booklet. I mean, who knew that water was the colour of liquid oxygen? I definitely didn't.

By the time that I had finished the booklet, Ed had had to go and do something on the orders of Captain Essen. I just used that as my time to scroll through my phone and look on Instagram.

I hadn't been doing that for long before I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"That doesn't look like schoolwork," A voice commented, making me swirl the chair round to face them.

"I've done my work, thank you very much. You, on the other hand aren't getting paid to wrongly accuse your daughter of laziness," I countered.

"I should be," dad muttered.

"Did the leads get anywhere?" I asked.

"Yes, they did actually. Look..." I followed dad's vision and saw five teenagers, two I immediately recognised from that night, standing over by the wall.

"You found them?" I smiled.

"Yeah. We saw the people who took them, too but they got away," dad admitted, and I could sense that he was pretty annoyed about it.

"Hey, don't worry. You'll catch them, and anyway. This... this is progress," I said.

"I guess. At least we saw what the woman looked like," dad agreed.

Just then, the doors of the precinct opened, and a dozen news reporters came bustling excitedly into the room. Along with the press was Mayor James who looked relieved that the kids had been found. Well, that's what I was guessing. Who knows why he was actually happy?

"You know, I think I'm gonna move over to the side. Let you and Harvey deal with this," I said to dad before patting his shoulder and moving over to the side.

I noticed Ed standing at the side, watching so I went and stood by him cause at least he was friendly.

"Exciting isn't it?" Ed smiled.

"Extremely," I sighed.

I watched as dad, Harvey, Captain Essen, the Mayor, and all of the homeless kids that they had saved were moved into the middle of the room for the press to get a perfect angle of them.

One of the girls, who I saw at the abduction, looked over at me and it was clear that she too recognised me. I raised a hand to wave and gave her a small smile. She replied with a wry smile as a small man moved her to get a better view of the mayor.

"On behalf of all the citizens of Gotham, I wanna thank you gentlemen. From the bottom of my heart," Mayor James said to dad and Harvey before turning to face the homeless teenagers. "And I wanna promise you, kids... we will take care of you as if you were our own children. But here's the thing. The people who victimised these kids are still out there. And hundreds of vulnerable youngsters are still living rough on our streets. Alone. Unprotected. And let's face it, that's the real crime here. So, what are we gonna do to help these kids?"

"Yesterday, I made a phone call to juvenile services and the G.C.P.D... to initiate a humane but tough love program to get these kids off the streets... and into the loving arms of juvenile services."

I looked over at my dad when he said 'juvenile services' and saw that he too didn't look happy. Juvenile services makes it sound like these kids have done something wrong when they are just the victims.

Everyone went off to do their own things and all the press left the precinct now they had got what they wanted. Now that he was free, I went back over to my dad.