[Jaykobell]

The hospital wasn't too far from the police station, but the small trip that usually lasted a few minutes felt like a few hours to Richie. It was in a good, but tiring way, as Denzil restlessly assaulted the officer with questions about literally everything in the car.

"What does this do?" the child asked as he pointed at the radio screen.

"That's a radio. It plays music when you put it to the right channel. Like this," Richie explained as he turned the volume up a little and tuned in to a generic music channel. He noticed the child staring curiously at the radio as he tried to understand how the small thing could create sound.

But he was barely done explaining what the radio was, that the child had already started focusing on something else. "What about this?" Denzil asked as he pointed at the air conditioning vents.

Richie turned the volume of the radio down before moving on. "That's for air conditioning. It blows cold air when it's hot outside. Like this," he explained as he also turned on the AC slightly to show the child how it worked.

When cold air started to blow out of the vents, the child looked fascinated. "Oh! It's cold!" he squealed as he leaned forward and tried to literally stick his face against the vent closest to him. "I wish I had had this back at the farm, it was always hot and nasty," he commented as his voice rumbled from his face being so close to vent. The child noticed it also and blinked at the vent. "Hey, my voice is all weird."

"That's because you're close to the vent. Oh, look, there's the hospital!" Richie pointed out as he stopped at a red light, at a rather big intersection.

[Jaykobell]

Denzil looked confused as to why Richie had stopped the car. "Why did you stop?"

"See the lights? When it's red, you can't cross the street." Something that was obvious and self-explanatory to basically anyone who lived in a big industrial city, but the child clearly had no idea.

"Oh. That's weird."

When the light turned to a green color, Richie stepped on the pedal and the car started running again. "See, when it's green, it tells you you can drive again. There's a third color — yellow — that warns you to start slowing down, because it'll turn red soon."

Denzil stared at the light box as it went past above their heads. "Wow. You know a lot of things."

Richie chuckled sheepishly at the boy's compliment. He didn't really know that much, it just so happened that every question the boy had asked were really self-explanatory and well-known things. Still, the officer wouldn't turn down praise of any kind.

He eventually took a slow turn into a parking lot and proceeded to turn around a little until he got a nice parking spot in front of the hospital. "All right, like I promised. Your friend should be in this hospital. You ready?"

[Jaykobell]

"I'm sorry, sir, I believe we don't have any patient under that name."

After dragging the child away from all the new, mysterious, distracting things outside the hospital, Richie had inquired at the front desk where they could find the girl they'd rescued from the farm. He had first asked by giving them her name, but even the officer learned the girl's name after he'd found the children.

Denzil's mood drooped when the nurse said they didn't have a patient by her name. "That's a problem... Well, did you get a young shapeshifter girl in recently?"

"Well, a few young girls have come in, yes. This hospital treats all three species, so I'm afraid that doesn't help me."

Richie grumbled slightly; he had to think of something fast, or else they wouldn't be able to find her, and only God knows how the boy would react to the news. And suddenly, the officer had a flash. "Oh, I know! Did you get a patient from the police recently? It's a young shapeshifter girl whom was saved from a farm." How could he have forgotten? They didn't hand in patients very often, so if someone had gotten in from the police station, they would probably be able to tell.

"Hm..." The nurse narrowed her eyes as she tried to look through the records on the computer.

"Hey, I saw some officers wheel in a patient earlier this morning," another nurse mentioned suddenly, walking over to the front desk. "Shapeshifter with long, brown hair? I heard she was stabbed, or something like that."

"That's her!" Denzil confirmed confidently as he latched onto Richie's pants.

"If you take the elevator all the way up to the sixth floor — that's the patients' floor — and follow the instructions down the halls, you should find her in room 418D."

[Jaykobell]

"Look up to avoid getting sick in the elevator," Richie instructed the boy as they stepped inside the elevator and pressed the button to go up to the sixth floor. Denzil was barely listening to the officer as they reached the elevator, which was yet another new thing for the boy. The officer couldn't even believe how curious the child was, asking literally about every single thing he saw that just so happened to intrigue him.

It didn't take long to reach the sixth floor, and the panels on the walls were easy to understand and follow. Denzil wasn't so young that he hadn't learned how to read, so once he figured out the panels could lead him to Eunice, the child darted off and went down the hall. "Hey! Wait!" Richie called after him as he, too, started running down the hall. "You have to stay close to me!" In the back of his mind, the officer couldn't even begin to imagine what would happen if the boy was actually playing an act. If he had just lost track of a potential serial-killer-to-be, Richie would get fired in a millisecond.

Thankfully, he managed to keep up with the child, and soon enough, they reached room 418D. Throughout the chase, Richie could only smile sheepishly at the few nurses who turned around and grimaced at their lack of ethics. It was like at the swimming pool: you don't run in a hospital. They could forgive the kid, but a grown man — and a police officer, at that? Obviously, he should know better. But no matter, it was either the looks or potentially losing track of the child, and Richie didn't want the latter to happen.

When they reached the room, Denzil stopped dead in his tracks and Richie almost bumped into him.

The room was a single room, and a nurse was already inside. There was a small girl in the one bed with long brown hair, whom had her back turned to the door. The nurse was standing on the other side of the bed, with a food tray over the bed. The food was untouched, and the nurse seemed to be trying to get the girl to eat. "Won't you eat something, dear? You won't get better if you don't eat a little something."



With a blank stare on her face, the girl just shook her head slowly. "I'm not hungry."

Before they were done talking, Denzil stepped further into the room. "Eunice!"

Hearing her name being called out, the girl slowly looked over her shoulder, grey-blue shapeshifter eyes glowing with both disbelief and hope. "Denzil?"

[Jaykobell]

When he saw her react to her name, Denzil dashed towards the bed while Eunice shifted around in it to face the door. "Be careful! Your stitches are still fresh!" the nurse warned the girl, but she could care less about the stitches.

When he was close enough to the bed, Denzil jumped a little and latched onto Eunice, whom also held onto him, and the two kids embraced each other tightly. Eunice was the first to start crying, but Denzil followed soon after him. "You're okay!"

"Eunice, I'm sorry!" Denzil cried out right away, hugging his friend even tighter. "You got hurt because of me! I'm sorry!" He had no idea what stitches were supposed to be, but he could only hope that it wasn't anything too bad or serious.

Eunice shook her head at the boy's apologies. "It's not your fault. I'm okay," she assured him, the two of them still not letting go. "The people here fixed me up. I'm okay now."

The nurse took this as an opportunity to interject. "You will be okay if you eat, dear."

Even though she had to turn around to look at the nurse, Eunice still didn't let go of Denzil. The two children loosened their hug, but they were still latching onto one another, as if they were afraid to get separated again. "But the food doesn't taste good," Eunice complained as she made a sad grimace at the food on the tray. "Here, Denzil, you try it and tell them it doesn't taste good."

"No no, dear, the food is for you," the nurse clarified, and while the girl pouted a little, she didn't argue further.

"It's okay, I'll watch over them and make sure she eats a little," Richie told the nurse as he stepped a little closer to the bed.

"And you are...?"

"Officer Richie Alpha from the police station. The boy is under my custody at the moment."

"I see. If there's anything, just call a nurse, and we'll try to come as soon as possible."

"Thank you," Richie thanked as the nurse head out the room door and left the three of them alone.

[Jaykobell]

Eunice sighed with relief when the nurse finally left the room. Once they were alone with the officer, the two kids resumed their hug, as if the first time hadn't been enough to fill the void their short separation had created. For Richie, whom was watching the two kids, found it hard to believe that the boy could've been the killer behind the incident. Was it possible to push someone's limits so far that even the kindest person could snap to the point of no return?

Staring at the two eventually attracted Eunice's attention as she turned to the officer, surprised to see him. "Who... who is that?" She sounded a little doubtful — perhaps afraid — but if Denzil seemed okay with the man, then he had to be a nice guy, right?

"His name is Richie," Denzil introduced the officer, turning back to the officer as well. "He got me here after he asked me questions about the farm."

Eunice blinked as she stared at the officer, and she eventually turned to Denzil. "The farm... What happened? The... the last thing I remember is getting stabbed by the woman." As if it were a trigger, Eunice winced slightly as she felt the injury sting.

Denzil pulled away a little, although not letting the girl go entirely. "Are you okay?"

He felt bad for stepping in on the two kids' reunion, but Eunice had asked a question. "Hi, I'm officer Richie Alpha. I'm the one who found the two of you on that farm," Richie started as he waved a little at the girl. "A farmer calmed the station to warn us about an old farmer hurting a child, and I happened to be the one who got dispatched there. I'm glad I got there when I did... your pulse was really low. If we'd waited much longer, I'm scared to think of what could've happened to you." He'd worded it a little tamely, but what he really meant was that, had they found Eunice a while later, she probably would've died from blood loss.

Denzil seemed to understand the meaning or, if anything, he got a good idea of what Richie had meant. He latched onto Eunice tightly, his eyes tearing up a little, still feeling guilty that Eunice had gotten so badly injured because of him. Richie smiled a little, sheepishly, feeling a little bad for mentioning it. Maybe he'd said too much?

[Jaykobell]

Eunice returned the hug, and for a long time, it felt like the two kids were never going to let go. Richie was just standing there, in front of the bed, unable to break them up. To think that seeing the girl was so important to the boy; Richie thought the boy had just been really agitated after killing the two caretakers and being thrown into a prison cell. Watching the two embrace each other so tightly, the officer could've believe the two had been separated for years.

He eventually noticed the food still sitting on the tray, which Eunice had refused to touch. He walked over to it and took a look at the menu. The tray had generic foods on it: a small chicken breast with some mashed potatoes, along with a tiny piece of white cake for dessert. If anything, the officer would think the girl would eat the dessert. After eating so very little while at the farm, he would also think that anything would look — and even taste — delicious to the girl.

Richie picked up the fork and cut a little piece of the chicken breast. "Eunice... Right?" he called out to get her attention. "Won't you eat a little? Even if it tastes bad, you won't get better if you don't eat."

Eunice let go of Denzil slightly to look back at Richie before looking away shortly after, embarrassed. "I... I actually didn't try the food at all," she admitted quietly, her eyes glancing this way and that. "I... wasn't hungry." She had been so emotionally-shaken by finding herself in a completely different setting; finding out Denzil wasn't with her had made the whole experience even worse. "I don't mind trying it, though..." She finally let go of the boy so she could turn around slightly on her bed so she would be able to eat. Despite that, Denzil didn't move a single inch away from the side of her bed.

"Want me to help you?" Richie offered, fork still in hand.

Eunice blinked at his offer, seemingly a little confused. "Uh... okay."

Picking up the breast piece he'd cut just now, Richie lifted the fork and put it a little ways away from Eunice's mouth. "Open up, the plane's coming in," he said, trying to use whatever knowledge he did have about kids to make this easier.

Despite that being a typical saying to help children eat, Eunice just got even more confused. "That's... Isn't it a fork?" she asked confusingly, tilting her head to the side.

Denzil agreed with Eunice and even got a small attitude. "Yeah, Richie. Even I know that, and she's smarter than me."

Richie felt embarrassed at being "corrected" by both children. "I-I know it's a fork. It's just... never mind. Open up!"

[Jaykobell]

After being embarrassingly corrected by both kids about the plane analogy, and after getting Eunice to eat the whole tray, Richie settled in the guest chair in the room and left the two kids to each other. He just watched them interact with one another; how they talked, how they acted, both towards each other and towards other things. It was fascinating, to him, to see how the two kids were so tightly connected to one another. The more they talked, the more Richie feared the time he would have to drag Denzil back to the police station, which would separate the two again for an undetermined amount of time.

Eunice told Denzil about the stitches — and even showed them to him, which unsettled Richie at first, the two being different genders and all — while Denzil told Eunice about the police station. He even flashed his orange one-piece which, to Richie, was far from being a good thing to wear. Eunice flashed her own hospital gown, the two kids fascinated by those fancy clothes that they got to wear, for once.

Being that the children were keeping each other company while he remained quiet in his chair, Richie eventually asked if the hospital had anything to pass the time. One of the nurses gave him a few books to pick from, and so the officer settled for some unforeseen reading while the children continued to talk. He sometimes glanced over his book to check on the two, but they never did anything alarming. Only when they started to pipe down would Richie check on them more often, but the further he got into the book, the more he forgot about keeping an eye on them.

He eventually looked up to see the two children snoozing on the bed, not quite hugging, but keeping each other warm, for sure. Blinking, Richie looked up to check the clock, which was already pointing to almost midnight. Had they honestly been here all day?

[Jaykobell]

Richie put the book down on the small desk as he stared at the two children for a little while. What was he supposed to do...? Denzil was still considered a threat due to the incident, but if he tried to get the boy away from the girl, both children would end up throwing a massive temper tantrum. Even though he didn't really want to separate the two, the officer didn't have a choice.

"Denzil?" he called out from the chair, but the boy seemed so deeply asleep that Richie had to get up and go shake the child. "Denzil," he called out again, shaking the boy lightly.

The boy wiggled a little and tried to shake Richie's hands away, grumbling groggily. "Lemme 'lone..." the kid mumbled awkwardly as he snuggled against his friend even more.

That really wasn't making it any easier for the officer. "Denzil, it's already really late. We have to go."

At the mention of going and leaving Eunice behind, Denzil perked up immediately, as if the child had never been asleep. "No! I don't want to leave!" he whined as he latched onto Eunice's arm, making the girl wiggle from the ruckus.

Richie put a finger to his mouth. "Shh, you'll wake her up," he warned the child, whispering and bending down a little. "I understand you don't want to leave, but I have to br—"

"I won't leave!"

"Denzil—"

"I won't leave!"

Richie sighed as he straightened up, scratching the back of his head with exasperation. What was he supposed to do, with the child being so uncooperative? Promising him they would come back tomorrow would be unfair; who knows what they were going to do now that he'd submitted his interrogation notes to his boss. But thinking of his boss, Richie's eyes widened a little as he suddenly thought of something. "Fine. Let me get a nurse to watch you two, and I'll be right back."

He pushed on the red alarm on the wall, and shortly afterwards, a nurse entered their room. "Yes, sir? Is everything okay?"

"Can you just watch them while I go make a phone call?"

[Jaykobell]

"Where the fuck are you?!"

Richie winced as the voice at the other end of the line screeched right through the phone. "I-I'm telling you, I'm at the hospital with the ki—"

"I heard you, you fucking dimwit. What I'm asking is what the hell you're doing with the killer in a hospital."

Since Denzil was refusing to leave, and Richie had the responsibility of watching over the child, the officer figured there was only one way of getting the kids to stay together. Maybe, just maybe, if he managed to convince his boss that the boy was relatively harmless, he would relieve Richie of that particular responsibility and let the boy stay at the hospital with Eunice.

Of course, convincing his boss was the keyword. Richie could imagine the semi-bald man with a beer belly smoking a think cigar as he yelled into the phone at the other end. "Ah, so... You read the notes?"

"Damn right I read them. If that kid killed those farmers, then he's fucking dangerous, Richie. Are you retarded?" the boss asked harshly at the other end, letting his vocabulary go in varying directions.

"I... I doubt he's really dangerous," Richie replied, hunching over slightly while holding the phone. "You haven't seen him with that girl. It's like he's a teddy bear; he wouldn't hurt a fly."

"You're too fucking naive, Richie. Your heart bleeds too fucking much. That's your biggest weakest and it's gonna get you killed one day, Richie."

While his boss couldn't see him, the officer grinned a little. "I'd proudly die if it meant helping someone who needs help. You know I wouldn't hesitate."

"Yeah, which is why you didn't hesitate to bring a killer to a hospital."

Richie sighed quietly at his end of the line. "He's not a killer," he insisted passively, not really trying to argue that fact. "Please, just let him stay at the hospital. He just wants to be with his friend, nothing more."

"Oh, sure, I'll let him stay there if you stay there to watch over him." There was an awkward pause for a while before the boss spoke again. "Want me to send you a sleeping bag?" Even though he couldn't see the man, Richie could easily imagine him grinning a cocky smile, proud of his funny joke.

Richie wanted to call him a smart ass, but instead, he just settled for bashing the phone shut on its base.

[Jaykobell]

Frustrated, Richie immediately went back to the room without even bothering to call his boss a second time. He had two options: one, he could grab Denzil and force him to go back to the station with him; or two, he could stay in the room the entire night in order to let the kid stay at the hospital.

When he came back into the room, he nodded to the nurse weakly and thanked her for taking her time to watch the two of them. It seems like Eunice was still asleep, and while Denzil seemed to be sleepy, he had been waiting for Richie to come back into the room. He noticed the child being tense and giving the officer a wary, doubtful look. Considering his upbringing, he couldn't really blame the kid for being careful around everyone.

Richie sighed and plopped down in his chair, resting his head in his hand, propped on the armchair with his elbow. He didn't say anything for a while, as he was trying to make a decision. Force the kid back with him, or stay the night here...?

"We're staying here, right?" Richie heard Denzil pipe up, and the boy had been so quiet that the officer hadn't heard him at first.

The officer turned to look at the kid, whom was still tightly holding onto Eunice's arm. He didn't want to spend the night here, but was it really worth the hassle to drag the kid away, and then drive all the way to the station and then drive home? Half-heartedly, Richie sighed deeply. "Yeah. Yeah, we're staying here."

He'd somewhat regretted selecting that option, but Richie felt better when he saw the boy's face light up. He watched as the boy shifted a little on the bed and started falling asleep again right next to the girl.

With another sigh, Richie slumped a little in the chair, wondering how in the world he was going to get any sleep tonight.

[Jaykobell]

At first, Richie thought leaving Eunice and Denzil together would make it easier to eventually separate them. After a while, the two would be comfortable enough to leave one another, and they would understand that neither of them was at risk of anything.

Unfortunately for Richie, the same thing happened every night. Whenever it was time to consider going back to the station, Denzil would start arguing with the officer and would insist that he wanted to stay with Eunice at the hospital. The officer had thought the boy would eventually give in if Richie persisted long enough, but the longer they argued, the more determined the boy got. If his first answer was a straight "no", then all subsequent answers would be "no" as well.

And so, every single night, he had to argue with the boy, and then he had to argue with his boss to stay at the hospital for another night, another day. His back was crying with aching pain, cracking every time he tried to move around from snoozing in that uncomfortable chair. "He won't leave the hospital."

"The fuck do I care?" his boss asked harshly from the other line. Richie could almost imagine the cigar smoke floating in the air all around his office. "You're potentially putting the whole place in danger. He's just a child, drag him the fuck back here."

And so, every single night, Richie had to argue that Denzil wasn't a killer. He put his forehead against the wall, feeling another headache coming. "He's not a killer. How many times do I have to argue about this?"

"Richie, I read your file and that kid killed those farmers. Don't give me that bullshit excuse that he's just a kid."

"You haven't even talked to him," Richie argued, feeling more and more frustrated that his boss was being so judgmental when he hadn't even met or talked to the boy.

There was a pause until the officer heard his boss laugh loudly at the other end. "Hah! Of course I didn't talk to that kid, you've been keeping him at the hospital all this damn time, Richie. What, you planning on adopting them?"

[Jaykobell]

Richie blinked as he heard that response coming from his boss. Not only was it unexpected, but the officer hadn't heard his boss laugh like that in a while. "Yes, well... Like I'm saying, he won't leave the hospital, no matter what I say," Richie replied somewhat defensively, ignoring the comment about him planning to adopt them. It hadn't even been only "him" to refer to Denzil, but actually them, which Richie could only imagine referred to both children.

"Yeah, well," his boss started again, seemingly shuffling some papers in the background while he was talking. "You've been there an entire week. You do know your vacation's all gone, right?"

Richie felt a chill going down his back. "Wait, what? What do you mean my va—"

"Yeah, well, you've been sitting on your ass all week doing absolutely nothing," his boss explained somewhat passively, as if he had expected the officer to know the fact. "Sounds like a vacation to me. Even if you are letting a killer stay in a hospital."

Richie wanted to argue that decision, but he just settled for a tired sigh instead. "Whatever, we weren't even talking about that."

"Give me a good reason why you think he's no killer, that kid," his boss invited, the sound of shuffling papers still resonating in the background.

"Are you looking at the file?"

"Answer the question."

Richie grumbled quietly as he scratched his head. "Again, you haven't seen him. I wrote it all in the file, didn't I? Both kids were abused by those farmers. They had a criminal history as well, didn't they? He reacted to a threat: it was either him or that farmer. The girl was stabbed by the wife of the farmer, and so she died as well. If you talked to him... I know you'd understand what I'm saying." Despite Denzil killing both farmers, Richie couldn't feel or even see a killer in that boy. Maybe it was ridiculous, but the officer was convinced what had happened was just the result of extreme physical and emotional abuse that should never have happened to the child to begin with.

[Jaykobell]

After his somewhat unconvincing explanation, both Richie and his boss were quiet. Only the background noise that manage to slip through the phone could be heard, along with each other's breathing or coughing.

"You wanna blame an actual animal?"

Expecting a completely different answer, Richie was taken aback when his boss replied what he did. "What?"

"Yeah, those farmers had a criminal record. From what I understand, the background check brought back absolutely nothing. No family, no children, no parents, no nothing. If anything, nobody knew about them. Those have no family and yeah, okay, I'll give you the argument that they were abused," his boss started to explain as the papers started shuffling more clearly in the background, which told Richie that his boss was looking at the file as he spoke.

"What are you getting at?" Richie asked quietly, turning away so no one could potentially hear him.

"I don't know, Richie, you sound pretty fucking sure that kid isn't going to kill again. You're talking as if he were a fucking angel or something stupid like that."

"He is," Richie insisted, turning around a little to face the door that lead to Eunice's room. "He's always latching onto his friend, they're constantly sharing, he's the one who wants to hug and cuddle..."

"Yeah, exactly. Sounds like a sissy to me," his boss commented as he laughed whole-heartedly again. "Anyway, you sound... sure enough. Nobody knows what was said in this file, or what the kid told you in that interrogation room."

[Jaykobell]

"What are you getting at?" Richie asked again, his heart starting to beat faster.

"If you shut the fuck up, I'd tell you what I'm getting at," his boss complained somewhat passively, just to get Richie to keep quiet for just five minutes. "I'll give a final report to the higher-ups and say that based on the kid's testimony, we figured out that the best answer we can come up with is that an actual animal did it. It saw the kid, chased him to the house; when the two girls open the door, the woman tried to attack it and in the action, the girl got stabbed. The knife scared the animal and it ran away."

Richie started looking all around him in the dark hospital corridor, getting more and more uneasy. "You're saying...?"

"I'm saying I'll fuck the file enough to clean the boy from any responsibility in the double-crime. Nobody's gonna know but you, me, and the two kids. If you shut up, I'll shut up too. The kid will be cleared and nobody will doubt he even had anything to do with the crime."

"Isn't that... illegal? You're going to falsely the whole story?"

"I thought you were the one preaching that you shouldn't hesitate," his boss retaliated, closing the document in front of him. "The law isn't supreme, Richie. If you feel like it wouldn't be right to stick that kid in jail for a crime that was committed out of extreme circumstances... Then I'll help you and make it happen that the kid won't go through shit like that." He was far from being an easy man, but he valued the opinion of his employees, and he knew he could put his whole trust into Richie's judgement. "Well? What's your answer?"

"I..." The whole time, Richie had just stared at the wall as he listened to his boss speak. This whole thing depended on Richie's judgement and evaluation of Denzil's behavior. If the boy was at risk of killing later in the future, Richie would be the one at fault. What if the child really wasn't a killer, and he ended up rotting away in a prison cell where he absolutely didn't belong?

"So now you keep your damn mouth shut," his boss pressed, teasing him in the process. "Richie, I ain't got all fucking night. Give your answer. Don't hesitate, right?"

Taking a deep breath, Richie put his forehead against the wall again. His mind was going a few miles a second, and his heart was beating faster than ever. Taking another deep breath, he finally answered. "I'm in."