Broken Toys

Chapter 01

TK: Babe, are you at the station or are you still on patrol? We found a boy. He doesn't want to go to the hospital even though he looks like he's been abused. Can I bring him to the station? I'm sure if you talk to him it'll take you five minutes to gain his trust.

Carlos: Abuse? What kind?
Sorry, I haven't seen you all day and I haven't said hello.
How's your shift going?
About the boy. What kind of abuse?

TK: He's a teenager and has marks on his wrists from being tied up and won't let us touch him. He'll barely say two words and only Vega has gotten him to look her in the eye.
I've seen some force marks on his hips and, I don't know, but instinct tells me that... someone has raped him and not just once.
You usually deal with these kinds of cases, don't you?

Carlos: Yes, I am concerned about boys who are abused.
Bring him in, I'll wait for you outside the police station, I want to talk to him somewhere he feels comfortable.

TK: You're the boss babe.
We'll be there in ten minutes.
Are you okay? You sound weird.

Carlos: Easy tiger, everything is fine.
It's been a long week with double shifts.
I miss you.

Carlos plopped down in his chair and looked at the computer screen. He had opened one of his personal folders. Like all cops, Carlos had cases that he investigated on his own, that he spent more time on, or that for some reason he was more interested in.

He had never told anyone about his personal project with troubled teens. He would not be given any special award for getting underage prostitute girls off the street, nor very young drug addicts, nor that which put him in the worst mood, protecting children and adolescents who suffered some kind of sexual abuse or who fell into the hands of any kind of organization.

He ran his hand over his forehead. His head ached, he had spent the whole week patrolling with Mitchell as usual and at the same time investigating a couple of cases that had set off all the alarms.

He put two photos on the keyboard. Two boys, two teenagers who had hopefully turned fourteen. He had found them outside the center, wandering the streets, nervous, scared, running away from something and above all someone. They avoided physical contact and felt lost.

It was not a feeling of loss in the physical sense. They didn't care about the street they were walking down. It was their mind that was lost, as if they had just woken up from a very long period of amnesia.

They were both the same, both had been located in a very close area. They had their clothes on wrong, like someone who had dressed too quickly so they could run away.

Seeing them made his stomach clench and for a moment he was tempted not to stop the car, to pretend he hadn't seen them. It brought back too many memories and he wished he were different, that he cared less, that it hurt less.

But his father had always told him. "You have too big a heart to be one of those cops who are only on the force to collect a paycheck. You care about people, it's your way of giving back to fate for everything you've been through."

He soon lost track of time between memories and the onset of a panic attack that always knocked at the door of his being. He had learned to master it, to stand up to what he had experienced and had told himself that the past remained just that, the past.

TK didn't know he suffered from panic attacks, even though the house fire had been about to let out that dark monster that had long eaten the beautiful part of the world around him.

"When you look like that, I know there's something wrong with you." TK's voice brought him back to the real world.

He lifted his face and seeing TK in front of him warmed his spirit a little. It was one of his boyfriend's talents, to make him feel good, even in the worst of times.