The Lost Vampire Prince

Life Changing

The sheriffs wife examined both children, and as Tim promised, she didn't divulged any information to anyone outside her husband, his deputy and Andy.

Natalie was perfectly fine, aside from a few abrasions and bruises. She wasn't wasn't even admitted fully. The boy however, was in dire need of treatment.. or so they had thought.

Tim's wife had ran a blood test in order to blood type him for a transfusion. But she realized pretty quickly that she wasn't dealing with human blood. This only confirmed what the men already knew though, that the boy wasn't human. This initially caused a great deal of alarm, they assumed that without a blood transfusion, the boy would die from his injuries. But after checking on him again a while later, they found that his wounds were healing at an unprecedented rate. They appeared to be weeks old rather than hours. His pulse was slow, slower than normal and every blood sample pulled, his blood ran black instead of red.

As these revelations came to light, Andy, Tim and the deputy sat down with their wives to go over what happened in the cabin, and to figure out what to do next.

"Has there been any luck locating his family?" Bonnie asked. The sheriff shook his head.

"No, all we know is that he told your daughter his name is Locien and that he doesn't know where his parents are. He wasn't even with them when he was taken. He was with a truck driver a few towns over. They found the driver dead at a truck stop early this morning and so far there doesn't to seem to have been a connection between them. We won't know more information until he wakes up."

"What about the reports? What do we tell people happened?"

"I wrote up that we found them mauled by an animal. That it had gotten into the house and they fired at it but nothing was fatal and that the boy was shot by accident. That will explain the blood at the scene that isn't human."

"And I falsified the bloodwork and labs I ran. There will be nothing in his file to indicate that there is anything special about him."

"What I don't understand is why we are going through so much trouble to cover up what he is." The deputy said. His wife immediatley smacked him on the back of the head. "What, it's not like he's a helpless child, you boys saw what he did. He's dangerous."

"He saved our lives, if he had wanted to hurt us, then he certainly would have. Instead he neutralized the men that were intent on killing us. He ensured we would all go home to our families, what kind of people would we be if we turned our backs on that?" The sheriff asked, taking his wives hand as she smiled lovingly at him.

"Without that boy, I'd be raising our kids alone, and burying you tomorrow. I owe him everything Chip and so do you." The deputies wife whispered. He stared at her moment before nodding.

"You're right." He whispered back, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close. After a moment he looked around. "So, what do we do if we can't find this kids family? What do we do if we can?"

"A child needs their family. I doubt that would be any different for someone like him." Andy said. "If we find his family, then we have to ensure that he can make it home to them."

"And if we can't? It's not like you can just hand a boy over like that to the state."

"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, let just see how his recovery goes and then go from there."

Over the next couple of days, The sheriff and deputy chased down every lead they could find on who the boy was and where he came from, but found nothing. According to the drivers employer, he had not been traveling with a child and the drivers wife knew nothing about the kid either. The initially theory was that the boy had been abducted twice, but seeing as the boy felt the need to avenge his murder, that didn't seem likely.

Natalie was insistent with her parents to let her go see him while he was in the hospital, and once she was by his side there wasn't anything that could get her to leave him.

"I have to stay here until he wakes up. What if he wakes up late at night when no one is here and is all alone. I can't let him be alone. He needs me." though her father was pretty certain that the boy didn't need anything from them, he allowed his daughter to stay. The both of them slept at the hospital waiting for the child to wake up.

By the fifth day, all of the injuries the boy had sustained had been completely healed, though he still hadn't opened his eyes. Tim's wife took him for several scans and tests, which provided interesting results.

"I can't be sure, but it appears to be a sort of sleep."

"Like a comma?" Bonnie asked in concern. But the doctor shook her head.

"No, there would be less brain activity with a comma, this is more like a deep sleep. It's similar to scans on people with rare sleeping disorders that can sleep for days at a time, but there are parts of his brain that are active now that wouldn't be in a regular person."

"What parts are active?"

"Well, thats just it, his brain scans show that it's not like yours or mine, his seems to have more sections in his brain than we do in ours, though I can'tbe sure. And it's those sections that show the most activity. I wish I had more answers but his phsiological make up is so different from ours that I really don't have any. From what I can tell though, he's almost completely healed from his physical injuries. It's quiet possible that this prolonged unconsiousness is just due to stress and trauma. He might just need time."

Time was exactly it too, not twenty four hours later, Locien finally opened his eyes. Much to Natalie's excitement. The Sheriff sat down with him and asked him many questions. But his answers didn't make much since. He didn't knw his parents names, and the place he said he was from simply didn't exist. When they asked how he came to be in that cabin, and with the truck driver he was taken from. He said he didn't remember, but his hesitation made it seem like he wasn't being entirely truthful. Given what they knew of him so far, they couldn't blame him.

"Well, what do we do? We don't have a last name, we don't know where he lived and I've cross check his picture and name with every missing kids cases in the country. There's nothing. Deputy Chip said, discouraged at their lack of results.

"Could he maybe be from another country?"

"I could try to reach out to the FBI, but I don't think that kind of attention would be a good idea if we want to keep what we know a secret." The sheriff couldn't argue with that. So the men and their wives all sat down again to talk about what to do next.

"Well, we can't let him go into the system, he'll be found out, and then god only knows what will happen to him." The sheriffs wife said. In the time she had been caring for him, she had grown attached. Her heart ached for the child whose family seemed lost.

Andy looked to his wife, there was no way he could let the boy go into foster care. They owed him so much. Not just for saving their lives, but for how adamantly he had protected Natalie. Tim had told him that he had seen the boy standing protectively between her and their gun weilding abductors. They had to repay that to him. The look on his wife's face told him that she felt the exact same way.

"What if we took him in?" Andy asked and every head turned to stare at him while his wife smiled warmly at him. He turned to the rest of the table. "We know he isn't normal, we could keep his secret. Keep him safe until his family is found."

"If they're found, if they are ever found." Chip clarified.

"Andy, are you sure? There is no garuantee that we will find his family, if we don't you would be taking on that responsibilty indefinitely."

"What's that worth in the face of what he has done for us? I make decent moeny, it's not like we can't afford it."

"We would have to make it look as legal as possible. Get you registered as foster parents and get documents for him."

"What ever it takes, as long as he comes with us." The sheriff thought it over before nodding.

"It's settled then, we'll get your paperwork submitted. I'll see about getting him the necessary identifying documents. A social security card, birth certificate."

"Wouldn't all of those things need to be forged?"

"Not necessarily, he's a lost kid with no family, and we've exhausted all resources to find them. He'll become a ward of the state. And they won't say no to two parents who already want him. Hell, after a year or so you might even be able to adopt him"

"Let's talk to Locien and Natalie about this first, before we set everything in stone. Maybe he already knows where his family is,maybe he will want to go back to them."

"We've asked him already."

"Let me try asking him then." Bonnie said. "What could it hurt for me to try?"

That evening when Andy took his wife and daughter to see Locien, Bonnie gently brought up the topic.

"Locien, do you really not know where your from?" she asked and he hesitated thinking about his mother and father and how dangerous it was back home. He remembered the foresaken and fleeing from the palace. He fully believed there was no way they had survived. But he couldn't tell these people that, so he took a slow breath before shaking his head. "And your parents.. you have no clue what their full name is?" again he shook his head, trying hard not to cry at the thought of never seeing them again. Princes didn't cry. "Well what about your birthday? Do you know when you were born?" He looked up at her in confusion. He had not celebrated the day of his birth, the only birthday celebrated was the twenty-first. The one that marked the day you became a man and in his case, when he would have become king. He hadn't known the day yet because he was still too young. His brow furrowed before shaking his head again. Bonnie looked to her husband in concern, thinking maybe their theory that he had been taken before ending up with those men wasn't far off. Perhaps he had been trafficked for years. "When the doctors say your free to leave, do you know where you'll go?" the boy looked at his hands sadly before shaking his head again. "Do you know who might come to get you?" she asked and he took a deep breath before finally speaking in a quiet voice.

"My uncle was supposed to come back for me, but I haven't seen him in nearly a fortnight, I don't think he is still alive."

"What would make you think he wasn't alive?" Andy asked him, his heart aching at the sorrow in Locien's voice.

"We were running from..something..but we got seperated. If he were alive, he would have found me by now." The couple were taken aback by this new information. So the only known relative that this boy could think of was likely dead? Did that leave him completely alone? What kind of life had this boy led to this point? They couldn't even begin to guess at his age, he looked no older than seven but he spoke with more articulation than some adults in this town. He didn't even know when he was born. There was no way they could leave him here.

"Locien, would you like to come stay with us?" Bonnie asked him and he looked up in surprise. "You protected Nat when you didn't have to. You saved her father and those officers when you didn't have to. It wouldn't be right to leave you here with no where to go and no family. We could take care of you, a small thank you for what you did for us." She said with a reassuring smile. Locien looked stunned beyond words, unable to imagine what life would be like with these humans but Natalie was bouncing with excitement.

"Yes yes yes! You could come live with me Locien and then we will always be partners! We can play lots of games and have so much fun and we can be best friends forever and ever!" Locien looked to Natalie and for one tense moment Andy and Bonnie feared that her enthusiam might scare him off. But after a moment he smiled at her. Because suddenly he could see it. He could himself living side by side with the sweet girl who he had felt driven to protect. Eating with her, learning with her, and what ever this 'play' was she was refering to. In fact he didn't want to be anywhere else, not even home.

"I've never had a friend before. Are best friends more important than normal friends?" he asked tilting his head to one side, she looked at him dubiously and placed her hands on her hips.

"Uh their the most important friends in the world. Duh!" Her parents chuckled at her as Lociens smile grew wider and warmer. That made perfect since to him, without the things that bound him to his old life, she was already the most important person in the world to him.

"Then you already are my best friend." He said, before looking at Andy and Bonnie. "I would like to come stay with you please."

They smiled and reached over to pat his head. The gesture felt forgein to him, but it made him feel warm inside. He found that now he couldn't stop smiling.