[Jaykobell]

After the events that had transpired at the farm, the two children had been taken away from the area and the dead bodies had been collected by the morgue. Considering the scene they had found and the circumstances, the police had decided to keep the boy in custody until the officer in charge got to interrogate him on what had happened at the farm.



Needless to say, the boy was a bit confused when he awoke in a small prison cell.

Denzil woke up to find himself in a small round, laying on a small bed. He took a look around the cell, confused by these new surroundings. There was only the bed and a toilet, along with a single window at the very top of the wall at the far back of the room. He was also dressed in nice clothes, a sort of one-piece jumpsuit in a bright orange color. Compared to the rags he'd worn for all those years, it looked like a designer's brand to the child.

"Eunice?" he eventually called out shyly, realizing that the girl wasn't with him. For a moment, he was confused as to why he was even here, alone, but then quite suddenly, it all came back to him. He'd been living on the farm, he'd killed the two cruel caretakers, and he'd been trying to wake Eunice up when he, too, passed out.

So now, where was she?

Now in a panic, the boy got up awkwardly and made his way to the door of the cell and started banging on it loudly with his fists. "Let me out! Let me out!" he yelled from inside with the hope someone would hear him and get him out of here. He eventually turned around to take another good look at the room, wondering if maybe, just maybe, the girl was just hiding in plain sight.

[Jaykobell]

Outside the small prison cell was a police guard, whom turned around to take a look through the small door window when he heard the screams and pounding on the door. Seeing that the boy was awake, he turned to his communication device and called out to the main offices. "Cell guard here," he started with before pausing for a brief moment. "The boy they brought back from the farm woke up. He seems pretty agitated, too. Please tell officer Alpha to come over to interrogate."

Hah, his name was funny because his last name was Alpha but he wasn't really one of the best. Right?



It honestly didn't take too long for the requested officer to appear in the small row of prison cells. Wearing the same fancy black suit and with his short blond hair combed wonderfully, he made his way to the prison cell of the boy he'd brought back from the farm incident.

Prison guard saluted the officer respectfully. "Officer Alpha, sir," he greeted as he moved aside so the officer could take a look inside the cell. "He woke up just recently. Seems pretty agitated, too."

"You already said that," the officer pointed out as he took a peek through the window. "Good. Do you mind opening up?" He could only hope that the child would cooperate with him. He seemed rather young — not older than twelve, if that much — so the officer had honestly no idea how the child would react to being questioned. He, personally, had never interrogated a child as part of a murder case.

Without hesitation, the prison guard took out his keys and proceeded to unlock the door and then invited the officer inside. "Sir," he motioned as he once again stepped away so the officer could step inside the cell.

[Jaykobell]

Slowly, the officer stepped inside the small prison cell. He immediately noticed the peculiar boy, whom seemed to be looking for something in the cell. He wasn't surprised; after all, they had found the child on a farm that ended up being the scene of a double-murder. Not only that, the couple was known to the police for previous criminal acts. That was a reason why he needed to interrogate the child; he wanted to know everything that had happened to those two children on that farm.

Before the officer had the chance to get the child's attention, Denzil eventually turned around by himself and ended up face to face with the officer. The officer blinked, whereas Denzil looked doubtful of the older man. "Hi, there," officer Alpha started with, raising a hand to greet the child. "I'm—"

But the child didn't let him finish his sentence and soon enough, Denzil was trying to, literally, assault the officer. He latched onto the man and looked up at him with both anger and panic in his eyes. "Where's Eunice? Where's my friend?" he questioned as he continued to latch on, even though the officer was trying to step back and shake the kid off him.

"What?" He was surprised at hearing a name, but he figured that perhaps Eunice referred to the girl they'd found alongside the boy. He did refer to her as his friend, so it was a safe guess. "We—"

"What happened to Eunice?" he continued to question, his voice getting louder as he kept on asking, until eventually tears started to appear. "Where's my friend?" He needed to know if she was all right, if she was even still alive. He remembered the steak knife deeply planted into her back, staining her dirty rags with blood. If she wasn't with him in this cell, was she in another? Where was she? He didn't care about anything else, he just wanted to know where she was.

[Jaykobell]

The officer started feeling awkward — and somewhat inadequate — when the boy started to tear up. He had a feeling that this wouldn't be so easy, after all. "Calm down, little man," he said as he held the boy by the shoulders. "If you mean the little girl we found with you, she's doing just fine. She was injured, so we transported her to the hospital. Don't worry, she's—"

"I want to see her!" Denzil blurted out loudly when the officer said she was fine. "I want to see her!" he continued to yell, even trying to pound at the officer like a child throwing a tempter tandrum. Eunice was alive! He couldn't be more relieved, but the fact remained that she wasn't here with him. She was in a hospital? But to him, it didn't matter where she was; what mattered is that he wanted to see her.

"Ow, ow, stop that!" the officer complained as he winced a little from the child's poundings. He tried to get a better grasp on the boy's shoulders in an attempt to keep him down. "Hey, calm down, calm down." What had he gotten himself into? He was used to tattooed serial killers, but he hadn't particularly been trained to handle panicky children. He wasn't a father, either, so that didn't help him keep the boy under control. "We found you and your little friend on a farm. The couple there was murdered, and we want to know what happened. Your little friend was injured, so you're the only one we can talk to."

Denzil blinked at the officer when he started explaining everything. "Mur... dered?" he echoed slowly, blinking confusingly at the word.

"Yes. It means they were killed," the officer rephrased, since he figured the child was asking because he didn't know the meaning of the word.

At the rephrase, Denzil seemed to calm down. "Oh," he said quietly, something the officer had barely managed to hear. "But I... I want to see Eunice," he insisted, this time in his usual quiet voice.

"I... Hm." The officer looked down at the boy for a while, pausing for a minute as he tried to think of an answer. "Hey, here. If you're willing to tell me what you know, I'll take you with me and we can go see your friend. Okay?"

Denzil blinked and stared at the officer, and for a moment, he thought the boy wouldn't comply. To his relief, however, the child just looked down and nodded quietly. "Okay."

Sighing with relief, the officer straightened up. "Great. Come with me." He guided the child out of the cell, and he was glad to see that the boy was indeed cooperating and following him quietly. What a relief.

As he passed by the prison guard, he noticed the bulky man grinning a little. "Told you he seemed a little agitated."

Officer Alpha was dying to call him a smart ass, but he figured it might not be appropriate vocabulary for the child.

[Jaykobell]

Out the prison hall they went, and the officer lead the small child all the way to the interrogation room, which wasn't all that far away from the cells. You can't start dragging criminals all the way to the other side of the police station, now, could you? With respect to the child, they hadn't bothered to even cuff his hands; the office could only be grateful that the boy wasn't violent or dangerous. They still had no idea who had killed those caretakers, and considering the boy was a shapeshifter, they had to consider all the possible scenarios.

The officer opened the door to the small, dark room and Denzil stepped in slowly, a little reluctant considering the inside of the room. "It's dark, but there's nothing dangerous in here, promise," the officer assured the boy, whom didn't reply to his comment. The fact that the child was alone seemed to be making him feel rather insecure and unhappy. "Sit down in the chair over the table, all right?" the officer instructed, and again, the boy listened without saying anything. The officer didn't know whether he was supposed to be relieved the child was cooperating so easily, or if he should be feeling awkward that the boy was so passive.

Once everything was in place, the officer closed the door and joined the boy at the table, on which was a thin file simply labeled "Farm Incident". "All right, let's start from the beginning. My name is officer Richie Alpha. I'm a police officer here," the officer introduced himself, since he hadn't had the chance to do it earlier in the prison cell, considering the child's tempter tandrum. "Will you tell me your name?"

Denzil had to admit he wasn't particularly happy to be here without Eunice, but this "Richie" person had promised he could see her if he talked, right? "Denzil," he replied quietly, looking up at the officer with a somewhat uninterested look.

[Jaykobell]

Richie wasn't sure how to feel about the look the boy was giving him, but he seemed to be willing to be cooperative. Perhaps if he dwelled on the topic of his little friend, Denzil would speak more openly about what had happened on that farm for all those years. To think that the couple had planned everything so no one would know they were keeping two children in their barn just to work them like cattle.

"So I can get a better understanding of what happened, can you tell me everything you know, from the very beginning?" Besides knowing that the two children had been kept in captivity, there wasn't really any way to know what had happened, except from getting actual testimonies from those who'd survived it. The two caretakers had been killed, the girl had been injured, and so only the boy was left to question about it.

At the question, he tilted his head a little. "You want... from the beginning?" he asked curiously, just to confirm, since there was certainly a lot that he could say about those caretakers.

"Yes, from the time you first got there, until now, before we found you," the officer clarified, wondering why the boy seemed to be surprised at the question. Then again, he had probably never been questioned, so maybe his idea of the whole interrogation process had been entirely different.

"Oh... Okay. Sure."

The officer blinked again at the willingness of the boy to talk about everything. He would've expected him to be traumatized or extremely reserved about it so he could eventually forget about it all. Nonetheless, the officer wasn't about to complain. "All right. Can you tell me when you got there?"

"I don't know. It was a really, really long time. It was a few years. I was there before Eunice, and then they got her, too."

"Do you remember how you ended up being adopted by the farmers?"

Denzil blinked and tilted his head. "Adopted?" He shook his head at the officer. "They bought me. I had a mom and a dad, but they gave me to the caretakers."

"I... see." Richie couldn't deny that he wasn't surprised by the child's story. Not only was it becoming more and more common for human parents to sell their children for some money, but it was even more common among crossbreed and shapeshifter families. It was all depending on the area you lived in — certain shapeshifter communities were extremely well-off — but the stats proved it.

[Jaykobell]

"What about your little friend? Do you know how they got her?"

Denzil frowned as he tried to remember. "She said her mom and dad died. The caretakers adopted her after."

"Ah, so she was adopted, and you were sold to them." How heart-wrenching. In Eunice's case, the girl didn't even have any family left, with her parents passing away. Denzil, while his parents were probably still around, probably didn't want to have anything to do with them. "Can you tell me what they wanted you to do on the farm?"

"Just me?"

"No, tell me everything you know. What did you and your friend have to do?"

"Chores," Denzil replied somewhat angrily as he frowned a little. "I worked with the husband. I had to plough the field and plant the seeds. Sometimes I worked with the animals. Eunice worked with the wife. I'm not sure what she had to do. She said she had to cook and clean the house every day for them. She brought back things from the house sometimes." In passing, he wondered if these people had taken anything from the barn or the main house back on the farm. What had happened to their dictionary and books? Their broken toys? They were probably lost already, left there forever.

While the boy was talking, Richie made sure to take down as many notes as he needed. So far, everything was pretty tame, with the simply story of two unfortunate children given shelter by an old couple on a small farm, on which they both had to work. Of course, that wasn't the entire story. "What about the way they treated you? It might be a strange question, but I need you to answer me." He obviously wasn't expecting the boy to say the couple were nice people to either of them, but the officer wanted more details.

Denzil narrowed his eyes at the officer's question, and for a moment, Richie felt extremely uneasy. Something about the child red eyes was just unsettling, but that quiet voice was so tame and calm that the officer couldn't believe that this child could hurt anything. That boy was the very definition of the expression, "don't judge a book by its cover."

[Jaykobell]

With the look he'd received, Richie first thought the boy wouldn't feel like continuing, but he did eventually hear Denzil reply to his question.

"It was the same every day. He always had a whip with him. He watched me all the time and insulted me. Even when I did the work well, he insulted me. If I stopped or slowed down for too long, he would whip me. My... my back really hurts."

"Your back?" The officer suddenly noticed the small scar on the boy's cheek. "Is the injury on your cheek from that whip?"

Denzil nodded slowly. "They got worse every day. They would sting me really bad at the end. I bled a lot because of the whip."

"Did he do anything else to you? Did he physically hurt you?"

Denzil narrowed his eyes. The whip was the most memorable thing about that farmer, along with his insults. Was there anything else? "He grabbed me roughly sometimes. He would grab my arm and shake me. Sometimes he slapped me. He punched me before, too." Thinking back on it, that farmer had pretty much done everything you can possibly do to a child.

"So it was mostly physical violence, then? What about your friend? Did she get hurt like you?"

"She was okay. The woman wasn't as mean. Oh..." The child put a finger to his chin as he seemed to realize something. "She got a black eye from the woman, once."

"What happened?"

At that question, the boy went quiet for a moment and looked down. "It was my fault... I wanted to know something, and she looked at the books the woman had. She got her and hurt her." His expression worsened as he told the story. To think that the event had happened almost over a whole year ago, but he still felt bad about it, considering the black eye had been one of Eunice's biggest injuries back on the farm.

Richie blinked at the boy's story. "Your friend got hurt because she was reading?"

Denzil basically blinked back at him, equally surprised by Richie's amazement at the tale. "Yes. Anything we did without permission, they punished us for it. They weren't our books, so Eunice couldn't touch them."

"I see," was all the officer said as he tapped his pen on the table thoughtfully. Basically, both children had had to walk on eggshells constantly around the couple. That wasn't even accurate; according to Denzil, he was in the worst position, considering the farmer was constantly unimpressed with him, whipping him and beating him any occasion he got.

[Jaykobell]

From the sound of it, the issue was mostly with constant physical violence. Looking at the child, Richie could also see that they probably didn't get a lot of food, either. "Can you think of anything else they did?" There was something else the officer wanted to confirm. A certain "genre" of crime where adults found it pleasurable to... abuse children in a manner that was slightly different from just plain physical violence.

"Not really," Denzil replied as he tilted his head a little. "They threatened us often, or they insulted us. He cut my food often because I never did the work well enough. Eunice always got food at night, and sometimes she would give it all to me, because I often didn't get any food..."

"What about her? Didn't she get hungry by giving you her food?"

The boy shook his head, and the officer could see something beaming in the child's facing now that they were talking about his friend. "No. She told me she could eat more than me if the caretakers didn't eat their whole plate. She didn't mind giving me her food since she could get more than me." As he spoke of the girl, Richie could hear something in the boy's voice that was different. He spoke softly, and while it wasn't admiration, there was certainly something about that girl.

"So you two were close?"

Denzil nodded. "Really close," he confirmed without hesitation. "We couldn't see each other during the day, but we played together during the night. She brought back things from the main house, so we had a few broken toys and some books. She's a really good reader, so she often read the dictionary. We got to learn a lot of words from it. We shared everything together."

[Jaykobell]

While he didn't particularly mind the child talking about his friend, there was something else Richie wanted to confirm with the boy. "That sounds great. While we're talking about your friend... I still need to ask you a few questions."

Richie felt a little bad when he saw the child's mood drooping in a millisecond. "Uh... okay."

"You mentioned that they were violent towards the two of you..." He paused there for a moment, trying to find a way to word this so the child would understand his question. "I want you to tell me — and I need you to be honest — if they ever... touched you?"

Denzil blinked curiously. "Sure. They touched both of us all the time."

There was a long, awkward pause as the officer realized the child simply couldn't have understood his question correctly, to reply so casually. "I... Ah, no, Denzil," he replied awkwardly, trying to find a way to explain this for a second time. "I meant... Did they ever touch you somewhere... they shouldn't have touched you? Did they ever put their hands anywhere near... between your legs, for example?"

The boy seemed confused for a moment, but he suddenly seemed to get it. "Oh. No, they never did anything like that. They never touched me there."

"What about when you had to take a bath or a shower?" God only knows that maybe those folks were the ones washing the children by hand themselves.

But to the officer's relief, the boy shook his head. "No. They gave us a small bucket and a towel, and we could wash ourselves. We... didn't do it often," he admitted as he looked away, rather embarrassed to tell the officer about the lack of hygiene.

"And they never touched your friend?" Boys often didn't get the sexual treatment — although it didn't mean that they never got it— but Richie would be a fool to believe his friend was never in danger.

But to his surprise, Denzil once again shook his head without hesitating. "No. She never told me anything. She was really afraid of them, so if they had done something to her, she would have told me." While he had his doubts it could be as simple as that, the officer couldn't help but to believe the boy.

[Jaykobell]

Well, at least it crossed that off the list. "I see. I think that's enou—"

"Can we go see Eunice now?" the child blurted out even before the officer had finished his sentence.

Richie saw the child almost leaping at him from the side of the table, and he again felt bad when he had to burst the kid's bubble. "Ah, no, we're not done yet. I need you to tell me what happened when the two caretakers died."

Denzil's expression changed, and he just slumped back in his chair. "Okay..."

How was it possible that interrogating a child was almost harder than interrogating a toughened, seasoned criminal? "I need you to tell me everything that happened that time. Do you remember what happened?" For all he knew, the child's memory could have already suppressed everything.

The child hesitated before finally replying. "Yes. I saw someone walking on the path ahead of the farm. I wanted to get help... I stopped working and the old man started whipping and hitting me. I... I angered him so he would hit me."

Considering the circumstances, the officer was surprised. "You purposefully wanted to get hit? Why?"

"Because I thought I could help if they saw how they always hit me. I couldn't scream or wave at the person..."

"I... see. So you saw someone walking a little ways away, and you wanted to get help from them, so you forced the farmer to start hitting you. What happened after that?"

[Jaykobell]

"He got really angry. He hit me harder than before, and he was just whipping me constantly." Denzil looked down as he remembered the events in order, clenching his small fists under the table. "He said... he said he was going to kill me..." He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists tighter, latching onto the fabric of that orange one-piece he was wearing. "I hated him... I really hated him..."

He suddenly raised his head, and Richie got to see the distressed, yet angry, look on the child's face. "I always hated him! If... if he was going to kill me... I-I didn't want to die. I..." The child narrowed his eyes as he tried to remember how the next event happened. "I... I transformed... I didn't want to die. He tried to hit me even when I was an animal... so I hit him back. I hit him back!"

As he continued to tell the whole story, the officer noticed the change in the child's voice. He was still relatively quiet, but he couldn't ignore the hate he could hear from his voice. After years of abuse, the farmer had finally pushed the child beyond his limits. Richie wanted to ask the child something concerning the transformation, but he found himself unable to interrupt the boy.

"He... H-he died... And then... And then, I went to the house, because I wanted to save Eunice, I wanted to go away with her." At that point, the child's eyes started to tear up, and the officer could only imagine it was because he was talking about his friend. "Eunice knew it was me... She could tell it was me, she could tell I was the fox. And... and then... th-then..." The tears started to fall, and the child choked on his emotions as he tried to continue.

"And... then?" Richie tried to press lightly after a short pause from the child who was still trying to continue.

"She hurt her!" Denzil screamed out after chocking again, and from then on, the child started to moan and pant as he told the story in-between sobs. "She took a knife and she hurt her! She hurt her because she's my friend! I... I killed her too! She was going to kill Eunice if I didn't kill her!" The more he went on, the more high-pitched his voice got, and the more he sobbed and chocked. His eyes flared up and became puffy from the tears, but they wouldn't stop streaming down. Denzil eventually bent over and buried his face into his arms on the table as he screamed and sobbed loudly.

Dumbfounded, Richie got up from his chair and went to the child's side, even though he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do to calm the child down. "It's... it's okay, Denzil," he started with, slowly and gently putting a hand on the child's back, with another on one of his arms. "Your... friend is okay. It's okay."

"She got hurt because of me! It's my fault!" Denzil screamed through his arms, not particularly caring if the officer heard him or not. "She got hurt because of me!"

[Jaykobell]

It took a long time for Denzil to finally calm down. Richie tried everything he could of to calm down the child, but he wasn't used to children, so most of his efforts had been futile. He'd just stayed beside the boy as he continued to cry and sob loudly. The officer had to admit he had never really considered their deal very seriously, but after seeing the child having a nervous breakdown over what had happened to his friend, there was no way that he could trick the child out of his promise.

Eventually, Denzil calmed down and stopped crying and screaming. He continued to sniffled and sometimes got a few stray tears to stream down his cheeks, but he just wiped them away with his sleeves.

Richie felt bad for putting the child through even more stress, but fortunately, they were almost done, considering Denzil had openly admitted to have killed the caretakers. "I have just a few more things to talk about, and then we can go see your friend. Okay?"

Denzil nodded quietly as he sniffled some more.

"I want you to tell me why and how you transformed. I also want you to tell me how you felt."

"I don't know," Denzil replied right away, wiping a few tears away. "I-I don't know how to shapeshift, it just happened on its own."

"Did you understand, as a fox, what you were doing? Did you understand that you were hurting and killing the farmer?"

"Yes," Denzil replied without hesitation with a small nod.

"And so, you openly admit that you did kill the two caretakers?"

"Yes."

"You understand what killing means, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Since you understand what happened and what you did... Do you regret killing your caretakers?"

There was a short period of silence that felt like eternity to Richie as he waited for the child to reply. Denzil seemed to hesitate for a while, but he did eventually answer the question. "No."

[Jaykobell]

As an officer, Richie was unnerved at the honesty of the child, whom had just admitted that he'd killed the caretakers. As a regular person, however, he couldn't really help but to relate to the child. For years, Denzil had been abused every single day for seemingly no apparent reason, and finally, he had had the chance to retaliate.

After a long pause, Richie eventually stopped writing notes and put everything in the folder. He sighed as he wondered what he was going to do with this case, now that the child had admitted to killing the two victims. It wasn't as simple as to accuse the child of murder; there was a lot of factors to consider.

As he was pondering about what he was going to do, Denzil eventually spoke up, albeit quietly. "Can we go see Eunice now?"

Richie blanked out for a second as he started to decode what the child had just asked. "Oh... The hospital. Let me... hand over this file, and then I'll drive you there, okay?"

The child looked confused at his last statement. "Drive?"

The officer looked equally confused at his question. "Yes. Have you never seen a car?"

That didn't help the child at all, as he continued to repeat the words he didn't understand. "A... car?"

To Richie, it was almost impossible for someone to not know what a car and driving were. However, considering the child had been confined to a barn almost constantly for years, his guess was that he didn't remember seeing a car before, or he just really hadn't seen one before. "You'll see. Just wait for me here, okay?"

[Jaykobell]

Richie didn't get to dress the child into more appropriate clothes, but it didn't seem to bother Denzil. He was itching to get going to see Eunice at the hospital, so Richie try to avoid dwelling on trivial details.

When they stepped outside the police station, Denzil became completely unable to focus in any way, shape, or form. Everything had a different look to it, everything was completely unfamiliar to him, and everything was like an adventure to him. When Richie showed him the car, the child got even more fascinated, touching it and making faces at himself on the car, like you would make faces at a mirror. Richie grinned a little before unlocking the car doors and urging the kid to get in. "Come on, get inside."

"Woooow..." the boy whispered in awe as he wiggled his way into the passenger's seat. Once inside, Denzil noticed that there were even more new things to look at in this car. "What does this do?" he asked, pointing at the control board, once Richie had gotten into the car as well.

The officer fastened his seatbelt before turning to the child, whom obviously hadn't fastened his own. "Ah, wait, you need your seatbelt before we can leave," he said as he leaned over and fastened the belt for the child, whom didn't seem to understand why they had to be attached to the seats. "It's going to make a loud noise, but it's normal," the officer warned before turning the key in the ignition, and as intended, the car started to rumble loudly.

"Oh!" the boy exclaimed as the engine started, leaning forward to try to see just what was making the noise.