Bloody Shadows

A/N: Okay, so this is the second(ish) time I’m attempting to post this challenge fic. I had well and truly relegated this fic to the abyss of ignored e-mails. However, at the behest of Harahetta-Saru, I have decided to make another attempt.
So, I invite everyone to take a glance through what will most likely be one of my shortest chapters of the fic. Hope you enjoy it.


Chapter 1

“So…why am I here again?” A boy with soft, chocolate-brown hair and wide golden eyes asked bluntly, staring at the man sitting across from him at the table.

The man groaned, dropping his head to the table in defeat. Why, out of all the people in his department, did it fall on him to talk to THIS kid? He sat back with a sigh, gathering himself as he absently straightened out his uniform.

“Listen, kid,” he said gruffly, deciding to start from the beginning. Again. “Do you even realize where you are?”

“Sure!” The boy said with an easy grin as he dug through his pockets for that candy bar he was CERTAIN he’d put in there at sometime. “I’m at West Central’s Police Department. I’m here ‘cause I ran away from that orphan place.” He gave a small, delighted cheer when he finally found the half-melted chocolate bar.

“For the sixth time in a row!” The man snapped.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” the boy grumbled absently, carefully peeling back the wrapper. “I mean, it’s not like they wanted me around anyway, and I don’t hurt anyone. I take care of myself just fine!”

The officer’s anger died with the coming of a sigh. “I know, kid,” he admitted reluctantly. “I know you don’t bother anyone.”

The truth was, the man thought with a scowl, it was ridiculously easy to find the boy when he ran away. All they had to do was wait for a surrounding area to drop drastically in crime rates, and the boy would never be too far away. In his book, that was more than enough reason to let the kid stay on the streets.

“But the law is the law,” he finished with an unmistakable note of finality. “And you, my young friend, have broken this law six times now.”

“So?” The boy licked the remaining chocolate off his fingers with a smack of satisfaction. He grinned eagerly at the officer. “Let’s try for lucky number seven!”

The officer gave him a withering look. “Let’s not. We warned you last time, kid, right?”

The boy nodded reluctantly, starting to look upset. “But—“

“What did we say? Get caught again, and we’d ship you off to Shangrala’s Juvenile Detention Center, right?”

For the first time since the boy had been arrested, detained, and locked in the interrogation room with the officer, fear slid through his bright gold eyes, making them dark. The officer felt a stab of remorse from the knowledge that he was the one who inflicted that look onto the boy.

“I don’t want to go back there,” he said in a small, quaking voice as he huddled in his small metal chair.

The man looked down at the folder in front of him and briefly flipped through it. “That’s right. You spend a short time there before. Six months, wasn’t it?”

The boy nodded jerkily, his eyes gazing at nothing on the desktop in front of him. The officer took note of the tremors racing through him and the unhealthy blanching of the boy’s formerly sun-kissed skin.

“Didn’t have fun there, did you?” He commented dryly.

The boy shook his head, tears gathering in his eyes as he looked back to the officer. “Please…” He whimpered. “I can’t….Don’t make me go back there…”

The officer’s heart gave a funny throb before it dissolved into mush. This was how he got the other police officers to let him go, the man thought with a sad shake of his head. No one with a heart could possibly say no to that face.

“Okay, kid. The way it’s going to go is like this,” the man said, rubbing at the persistent headache he had gotten when he started this whole thing over five hours ago. “You have two choices—“

“The second one!” The boy cried, the tears vanishing as his eyes lightened with renewed hope.

“The…what?” The officer stared at the boy, confused now.

“I want choice number two!” He insisted eagerly.

“You don’t even know what it is!”

“It couldn’t be worse than that other place,” the boy argued stubbornly.

The man snorted. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, kid,” he cautioned. “There’s this boarding school I know of. It takes in kids like you. The ones that are one step from Juvenile Hall. They take you in, and it’s a little bit like a reform school.”

“That sounds like fun!” The boy grinned. “They’ll put me up, feed me, AND teach me stuff?”

The man nodded. “That being said, the school’s filled with gangs, murderers, rapists, and general low-life scum. Half the kids I enroll in there drop out ASKING for the Juvenile Detention Center. Something about it being safer.”

The boy shook his head firmly. “I want to go to the school! Anything but that other place!” His eyes grew wide and soft, and his bottom lip trembled. “Please? Please, please, please, plea—“

“Alright! Shut up already!” The man roared, flinging a small packet at him. “Here’s the damn enrollment form! Fill it out and we’ll go take your placement test.”

“Yeah!” The boy cheered, grabbing a pencil quickly and bending over the papers.

The officer hesitated, eyeing the boy. “You really hated juvie that much, kid?”

The pencil froze, but the boy’s eyes stayed hidden beneath his hair. Hesitantly, the head bobbed up and down in agreement. “I…
It’s just that…in jail…there was never any light,” he murmured, flushing a little. “Everything…Everything was always so cold. I missed the feeling of the sun.”

Somehow, coming from this gold-eyed boy, the man couldn’t bring himself to laugh. He sighed and sat back. “You are one strange kid, Son Goku…”


A/N: Yes, I know. Too short. Too bad. I have about two other chapters waiting for beta-ing, since I work too much. Thanks for everyone’s patience in this!