A simple shopping trip for a few groceries had quickly escalated into witnessing an assault and battery of a young alpha boy. Now he was standing in the office of the local market and reviewing security footage, at least what little of it that hadn't been scrubbed. As he took notes, he waited for the young boy he had saved from being further battered to talk to him. His officers had been called in and were interviewing the rest of the patrons and staff.
The young alpha boy looked somewhat familiar, but it was hard to tell with his black eye that was swollen shut and half of his face covered by a bag of frozen vegetables purloined from the freezer section. Thankfully, the gash over his eye wasn't deep, but it was long and jagged running the length of his eyebrow.
"Can I go? I swear I didn't steal anything!" The boy had yet to provide him with a name and this was the first he had spoken in the half hour he had been in the office.
"I'm afraid not. While I believe you are innocent, I still need your statement as the victim of a crime. And since you are obviously a minor, I will need your parents to be aware of what happened. You have yet to provide me with any information that I can use to help you. Your name is a good place to start. Your age and your parents' names will also be of help to me. Last, an address so that I can call upon you if I have further questions at a later time." Leon glanced over at the boy, who shrank away at the request of his identification.
Erik was terrified. He didn't know he had ended up in this situation. All he wanted to do was to get rid of the nasty headache he had and go home. The man that kept asking him questions had given him basic first aid, so now he had an awkward bandage over his eyebrow, but at least it was no longer bleeding. His right hand had a bag of frozen vegetables and another sitting over his left ankle. But the man had told him he needed to be checked out by a medical professional.
Leon sighed. The owner of the grocery market was an old family acquaintance and had been notified of the incident. The man was on his way back to the city, but had been semi-retired for years, leaving the store to the manager. That man was now in EEA custody and being interrogated in the staff break room while he tried his best to work with the young victim. He knew nothing about this young man that could help identify him with his help, so that left him no choice but to search for his employee file.
Rummaging in the messy office that looked like a pigsty with crumbs and trash everywhere made the search difficult at first. The file cabinet that should hold documents relating to the store and staff had been stuffed with junk food instead of files. A desk with the security footage monitors looked like the desk of a messy teenage gamer rather than the professional space it should have been. The computer that would have digital files had been so corrupt with who knows what viruses was unusable, but what little he had searched of it before it had glitched out was just a bunch of games that probably had been pirated along with quite a bit of adult content that was not for the faint of heart.
After several questionable half eaten foods had been cleared from the desk, Leon finally uncovered a small stack of files. The folders had been doodled on with unkind messages in a sloppy script. Opening them one by one to find the boy's file resulted in more unkind things scrawled directly on the papers. Finally, finding the relevant file, he sighed in frustration as the employee photo had been drawn over with childish markings, making the individual difficult to identify, but if he ignored the markings, most of the image was still identifiable and matched the boy closely enough.
"Is your name Erik Norman?" Leon asked as he turned to the boy with the file in hand.
Erik had no choice but to nod. His fear was deepening and flashbacks to police officers sneering down at him and accusing him of being the aggressor or the criminal raced through his mind.
"You are seventeen; birthday of July fourth?"
Nodding again, Erik tried to look away, but the throbbing in his head made any movement painful.
"Guardian is one Julie Norman, aged 34?"
Not wanting to nod again, but felt that if he didn't comply, he would be punished. Based on experience, Erik nodded with difficulty as the throbbing intensified.
Leon rattled off an address that was at the edge of town, but the boy was looking pretty pained by this point. The paramedics he had called were backlogged with non-emergency calls so it could be awhile before they got here to treat the poor kid. He got confirmation of his address before the kid emptied his stomach on his shoes. That did it for him. He couldn't let the boy suffer because of the lack of medical professionals available to respond to non-emergencies. He took out his phone and made a quick call.
Erik's throbbing head intensified with each nod and before he realized it, he had been sick all over the fancy dressed man's shoes. He barely had the thought that he was going to be further punished for that misdeed before he passed out.
The call Leon made was to his lovely mate, who had been home on her only day off, enjoying the day with their children. Although Leona had been upset and locked herself in her room most of the time these days, their younger children still enjoyed spending time with her.
"Vi? I really hate to bother you on your day off, but here's the situation…" Leon briefly explained to his mate. She readily agreed to come down and look the boy over. Even though she didn't specialize in general medicine, she was still a doctor and could administer better first aid than he had. She would be here much faster than the paramedics could be.
In no time at all, Vivian had arrived with her medical bag in tow and was checking out and administering aid to the young man, who really appeared to be much younger than he was. As his wife examined him, her sensual lips pursed as she kept a running dialog of her findings, which he noted. Underweight; malnourished, and likely stunted growth. Along with the current problems; which was a concussion, broken blood vessels resulting in the black eye, the cut above the eyebrow, a broken wrist, and a likely sprained ankle.
Leon was downright worried and furious at the state of this young man. Just what had led to the malnourishment? State assistance for food was readily available to those that qualified and for those that didn't, there were select charities in their area that could help in those situations.
"Vi? Is this something you think is recent, or do you think it's a long-term problem for his malnourishment?" Leon had to know to investigate properly. He never went off half-cocked and made sure every I was dotted and every T was crossed.
"I'd say long term for now, but it's difficult to say with his build. He is certainly very much underweight for his age and secondary gender. He appears to have had a brief period of nutrition, which allowed him to amass some muscle, but judging from his current condition, it looks like he hasn't had a decent meal in some time. His vomit is mostly bile and has very little in it to suggest that he has eaten anything substantial in the last twelve to twenty-four hours."
"So, in your professional opinion, this is serial neglect?" Leon was very unhappy.
"Not necessarily, but it is worth looking into his home environment to be sure."
Erik heard voices before he barely opened his eyes. Everything was dim and blurry but there was a pink aura in his vision and a woman that looked like his beautiful mate, so he mumbled and reached out for her, "Lia… You came… lunch?"
"Lia? Do you mean Liona?" Vivan cradled the boy in her arms.
"Liona… Mine… Friend…" Erik mumbled, thinking that Liona was with her friend. His head was very muddled, and he couldn't think clearly with the pain in his temple.