Victim (Valan)

 “You haven’t seen Anna have you?” Issy comes up to me sounding rather worried “No. why?” She looks down and mumbles something “I was supposed to keep an eye on her today and I might have lost her.” My eyes widen. “That’s...not good.” Yuuri comes along, dragging Yuuto in tow. “What were you doing in the red light district?” Yuuri asks him, he shrugs. “I didn’t know.” Yuuri gestures to the gate and the lights that illuminate the entrance to the area “It’s pretty obvious.” Issy asks Yuuto the same question, and he replies he saw her earlier. “Where?” She asks walking over to him, he points in her direction and Yuuri sighs. In the red light district. “That’s bad...thats  very bad, we have to go find her.” Yuuto sighs “I guess I’ll go make cookies.” He turns to walk away but Yuuri grabs him by the arm “Oh no you don’t you’re going to show us where you saw her.”

“This is like Bravil but less smelly…and surprisingly, less drug addicts” Issy notes as Yuuto leads us through the streets, stopping at a building. “I saw her in the window...she’s not there anymore.” He kneels down and listens to the ground “She’s in the basement.” We hurry inside, Yuuri talks briefly with the manager and gets us access to the basement. We listen waiting on the stairs. “Can you hear anything?” I ask Yuuto. “Some I can make out via cognates. It’s two men speaking.” I hear a rustling from behind a curtain and pull it back. “Teldryn Sero? What are you doing here?” Issy pokes her head out to take a look “Issy this is Teldryn he used to work for Eno and still does from time to time, and works for the police.” Teldryn waves slightly and shows his badge “FBI really, but yes I work with the police.” He whispers. He comes out from the curtain. Yuuto looks at us worried “They took her to the boiler room.” Teldryn and I quietly go down the stairs and into the other room, killing the would be perpetrators in their tracks while Yuuri frees a very shaken Anna and picks her up, trying to calm her. “Now what?” I ask. Teldryn thinks for a moment “Bring her to Neloth’s, I’ll get in touch with the authorities.”

“What’s all this ruckus?” Neloth asks incredulously “You’ve interrupted some of my most important work! I can’t get back precious time you blithering idio- oh my poor girl, what on earth happened to you?” One of the few people Neloth seems to have actual care and regard for is Anna. Yuuri sets her on a bed and wraps her in a blanket. “Can you tell us what happened?” He asks kneeling down to eye level. Anna just whimpers and begins to cry. Yuuri stands up “It seems like she’s regressed and temporarily lost the ability to speak. I’ll see if I can get her to say a few words at least or sign at all. It’s not uncommon in victims with developmental disabilities.” He explains with a sigh. Teldryn shows up with a friend of ours in tow. She kneels down to Anna and introduces herself “Hi Anna, my name is Ling. I’m a detective.” She shows Anna her badge “Do you know what happened and how you got here?” Anna nods but says nothing, chewing on the collar of her dress. “Has she been to the hospital yet?” Ling asks standing up and moving us further away while Yuuri tries to calm Anna. “No, she wasn’t assaulted but it was close. There’s some tears in her clothing and some fluid, but it looks like glue from the broken boiler. We killed the would be assailants before they had the chance.” Teldryn explains. “We should get her to the ER just in case there’s any DNA on anything. A rape kit shouldn’t be needed, if it is I’ll have the doctors sedate her.” Ling looks back at Anna “She looks pretty rattled.” Teldryn shrugs “You would be too if you regressed to the developmental level of a three to five year old.” Ling has Yuuri explain the situation to Anna and holds her hand the entire way to the ER.

Ling insists on Sammie and I acompying Anna to the ER, Teldryn comes for standard procedure, as any officer involved in a killing needs to be checked out. Ling goes up to the attending guard at the door and shows her badge “Detective Fa Ling, Special victims unit, I’m here with a victim that will need specialized care. Please page whoever here works with people with developmental disabilities or pediatrics.” She points to Teldryn “That’s Teldryn Sero, forensic psych.” The guard makes a call, screens us to make sure we’re ok to go ahead, and let’s us by. A doctor meets us inside and takes us back to a room, Teldryn and I explain the situation before he heads off. “We have been here way too many times ourselves” Sammie whispers to me.

“Well I was right, no kit needed just the clothes and patching up some cuts and bruises. Yuuri, Teldryn, now your expertise comes in.” Ling recaps the ER events to Yuuri and Neloth while Sammie goes to give Anna a much needed bath. “I’ve had a suspicion of this for awhile now- it seems like Anna has an atypical form of Rett’s syndrome. Regression usually occurs after trauma but this fits the picture, with the exception of loss of hand control like in normal retts.” He explains “With time she should be back to normal or near normal.” A reassuring fact. Teldryn gives his psychological analysis on the perpetrators and concludes it’s likely group activity rather than an isolated incident. They targeted a foreigner who happens to have a developmental disability who was wandering around, easy prey. Yuuto comes over to our little group in the corner “One of the guys dropped this on the way down.” He holds up a USB “I’d run it but it’ll give my computer viruses most likely” Ling holds out a plastic evidence bag and has him drop it in. “I’ll go drop this and the clothes off and start working on a plan. Teldryn you coming?” Teldryn shrugs and agrees, going to gather his things. Ling goes to call Farkas with Issy, who feels thoroughly guilty, though without reason for much of it. Anna wanders, things happen, no one expected this.

Sammie comes back with Anna, having had a bath and change of clothes, now wearing some of Sammie’s pajamas, she looks much better than she did...but still is in a traumatic state, and refuses to eat. Talvas taps me on the shoulder “I made some extra pasta, should we see if she’ll eat it?” He asks holding out a small bowl. I take it and a small glass of water “We can try.” Sitting next to Anna I hold out a spoon with some pasta on it “Talvas made you pasta, are you sure you don’t want any?” Anna whines and pushes the spoon away, I sigh and put it out again “not even one little tiny bite?” Anna frowns but hesitantly eats it. I hold out another spoonful and go through the process again. “Good, two bites down. One more and I won’t make you eat any more if you don’t want to.” Anna eats one third final bite before pushing the spoon and the bowl away. I give her the glass of water, but her shaky hands cause it to spill. Ling comes back and seeing the spilled water looks at us as if deep in thought “I just have to go tell Lin I won’t be home tonight then I’ll call Teldryns sister and see if she has any ideas on how to make cups less of a spill hazard, afterall she does have an 18 month old with a motor delay.”

In the meantime we try to keep Anna relatively entertained and calm as we can, Issy comes back far less pale faced than she left and breathes a sigh of releif. “Well, Anna wasn’t the only one who ended up in the ER today they had to take Vilkas in earlier, that’s what their meeting was about. Luckily Farkas is generally much more forgiving than his brother, and was happy to hear that 1. We found her and 2. She’s about as safe as we could get in the scheme of things. Is he still mad? Probably, but I’ll take it over fuming with rage.” Neloth continues his work in the other room, poking his head in every so often to check in. “Quite the little party we have here.” He mumbles before going back to work. “I hope she’s alright in the end.” I hear him very quietly say to himself, Neloth isn’t exactly one to make outward expressions of kindness. But I do find him sitting next to her at one point, watching over her as she sleeps.

“Alright, I just came from looking at a double homicide, when Ling here tells me I need to drop everything and bring whatever unused sippy cups and soft toys I have laying around at home, so what the hell is going on, it’s two in the morning!” Ling stands in the doorway, slightly behind Teldryns sister, Qin.

Talvas waves hello to her and she smiles and waves back “Hi Talvas, how are you?” She asked setting down a bag and chats with him for a second. “Is my brother continuing to get into mischief and make blatant innuendo?” Talvas nods and Qin sighs “I still don’t understand how you ended up his boyfriend.” She laughs. “You’re quiet and reserved and well, Teldryn is Teldryn. If he’s not making murder jokes or crimes references he’s likely up to something he shouldn’t be.”

Ling interrupts with a still rather heated sounding “He stole my handcuffs!” Talvas struggles to hide a chuckle “Sorry about that, I’ll make him give them back...eventually.” Ling rolls her eyes “After where they’ve been? I don’t want them back...I want a new pair!” Sammie waves her hand to get their attention “Hellooo can we stop arguing or whatever you call that about Teldryns questionable decisions and go back to the matter at hand?” She points to Anna, who is caught up with playing with a spare teddy bear that was laying around. “Right…” Qin turns on her heel and goes over to her bag “I went through the cupboards and Xu’s toy box to see what she’d never used. It’s a good thing my sitter works nights, Xu might be sleeping but you never know. The first couple of weeks I barely got any sleep at all, never doing that again.” She pulls out a stuffed oval, almost rock shaped plush rabbit and puts it on the bed. “Hello Anna, I’m Mr Rabbit and I’m here to be your friend.” Qin makes the rabbit talk. “I like your PJs they’re so pretty, do you like my fur? I just brushed it!” Qin continues and gets a small giggle out of Anna who reaches out to pat the stuffed animal, Qin bops her on the nose with the rabbit “Do you think it’s about time for bed? I’m just soooo tired.” She mimics the rabbit yawning and puts it in Anna’s lap. Anna nods and hugs the rabbit. “You wanna go to bed?” Sammie asks and Anna nods again, rubbing her eyes. “Ok, can you at least have your medicine and a little water or milk first?” Qin hands Sammie a sippy cup of warm milk “It should help keep her asleep.” She points out. Sammie gives it to Anna, who remarkably drinks the whole thing and eats a small bit of applesauce with her meds mixed in before laying down clutching the stuffed rabbit and quickly falls asleep.

“Thank you for getting here so quickly, both of you.” Sammie thanks Qin and Ling. “It’s my job.” Ling points out “And Ling has the super power of convincing me to do things.” Qin laughs. “She can keep the bunny by the way, if she wants to. Trying to clean out things at home. If not, Talvas will gladly take it.” Talvas blushes slightly and goes back into the other room. “Do you think she’ll be ok?” We ask Ling, And Yuuri who has returned from his discussion with Teldryn and doing a few errands. “In time, yes I think so. Will it be a long road? Most likely yes, but she has a good support system and luckily didn’t have to experience the actual assault, so those are better odds than most people we see.” Ling explains,

Yuuri gives his thoughts, which are in line with Lings, and goes to research counselors in her area for her to get in touch with. Oddly enough, my mind goes to Sarah, who’s experience much more likely falls among the group Ling’s unit usually sees, and it makes me sad, until I remember how well she’s doing now, with the proper support and time. I look at Anna, who finally seems to have fallen into a deep sleep, and feel a thing of hope. I think in time, she’ll be just fine...