Chapter Seven:

Emergency

Arthur yawned as pulled off his white lab coat. He had pulled another double shift for Francis who was finally over the brunt of his illness. Tomorrow the blonde haired nuisance would be back and Arthur would finally be able to have an actual descent amount of sleep. Grabbing his regular black jacket from the back of his office chair, he flipped off the light and locked the door.

"See you tomorrow Arthur", nurses called to him as he walked down the halls heading for the door at the back of the hospital where his car was parked. Grabbing his keys he unlocked it before sliding inside. He laid back for a moment, just enjoying the moment of being alone before starting up the engine and buckling his seatbelt. He backed up and started out of the parking lot towards the address he had dialed into his phone GPS. The home of Alfred F. Jones and Matthew A. Williams.

Since the day he had saw the small child off with his step-mother, he had had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. When he spoke to Matthew last night, it only confirmed his bad feeling even more. Something was definitely wrong and he would figure out what.

Arthur drove for about fifteen minutes before he came to the location he had put in. He was surprised when he saw the house sitting a few feet away. It was huge and obviously not a poor persons feeble attempt at a living arrangement.

Beginning to doubt himself for his irrational fears, he got out of the car and started towards the front door. Now normally, he would have been fine with just knocking and when no one answered, turning around and leaving, but the bad feeling in the pit of his stomach grew. When no one answered his continued knocks, he became desperate. He took from his back pocket a small kit of lock picks from the days of his youth when he was considered "a rebel child". He hadn't used them in years, but he never left the house without them, in case anything should come up.

As soon as the lock clicked into place, he quietly pushed it open. At first, he didn't see or hear anything, but the deeper he walked into the house, the more he began to get a sick feeling in his gut. The entire place reeked of alcohol and something else. Something more…metallic. Being a doctor does more than just make you money and lose hours of precious well deserved sleep. No, it trained him to smell blood easily and this…this was definitely blood that the place reeked of.

There was no movement as he walked through the house and he wasn't sure if he should call out for someone in case something really was wrong and they hid it from him. Instead, he just began to explore a bit. Everything in the house was what Arthur considered high priced. It wasn't a cheap dwelling and he could see why so many social workers had trouble collecting evidence because of the almost perfect living arrangements that most abusers don't have.

It wasn't until he was about to start up the stairs that he heard a small sound. He couldn't tell what it was, but it sounded almost like a moan. Turning towards the sound, he stepped off the stairs and towards the kitchen. He slowed when he found a small white door with three locks on it. Undoing each one, he gripped the knob. Taking a breath, a little afraid at what he might find, he pushed the door open and just stood there, staring inside.

"A-Alfred", Arthur whispered.

He couldn't get his mind to work right, nor his legs to move. The sight before him was gruesome and not one he ever cared to see, especially to a small eight year old.

Alfred was lying in the middle of the floor in a small pool of his own blood, his sandy blonde hair matted red along with his clothes. The boy's eyes were barely open into slits and even then, they were glazed and devoid of any sign of life. His skin was an almost translucent white and his breathing came in shallow spurts as he tried and failed to take in deeper breaths.

The boy, though barely conscious, trained his focus on the man in the doorway. His heart beat faster at the sight of the blonde doctor standing there. Was he dreaming?

"A-Ar…th…ur" came the weak and frail voice.

The sound seemed to snap the doctor out of his moment of panic as he raced forward and gently began to roll the boy onto his back. Alfred hissed at the pain, but he tried to reign it down when he noticed the panicked look on the older man's face.

"Hang on okay Al? H-Hang on", the doctor mumbled as he pulled out a phone. He dialed 911 and soon had given all the information he could to the responder who was sending it out to the local police and fire departments. Help was on its way.

"Ar…thur", Alfred moaned as he closed his eyes, sucking in a breath when a cough tore from his sore throat, blood coughing up and coating Arthur's white dress shirt with red specks.

"Easy lad", Arthur cooed as he gently raked his fingers through the formerly blonde, now strawberry blonde colored hair, "Everything will be okay. Hang with me, alright? I'm right here. Easy."

Arthur continued to comfort the small boy as he closed his eyes, just enjoying the feeling of the doctor's fingers running through his hair. No one could honestly say how long it had been that they stayed in that position, but before long sirens came roaring towards them. Police and EMTs flew into the house.

"In here!" Arthur called.

The two EMTs rushed in and gasped at the scene, but they didn't stop moving as they pushed Arthur aside and began doing an overall assessment of the boy's health status.

"He's lost a lot of blood", one said.

"We need to get him to the hospital stat, I think a rib punctured his lung", the other replied as they began prepping him.

Arthur couldn't honestly remember the ride to the hospital. All he knew was he had climbed in with the boy and had answered what he could for the paramedics who had recognized Arthur from the hospital. When they finally arrived, Francis and a team of nurses greeted them, having got the call, but the blonde who had just arrived for his first shift in days was stunned when he saw the ambulance doors open and Arthur stumble out.

"Are you alright?" Francis asked him, but Arthur shook him off, "Help the boy!" he demanded.

Francis didn't waste time as he ran to the boy and rushed him into one of their surgery prep rooms. Arthur ran to his locker and grabbed his lab coat and scrubs as he rushed back to the ER.

"I am doing the surgery", he told Francis who noticed the determined and desperate glint in his friends eyes, "Alright, I will assist you."

Arthur gave a nod as the two gloved up and tied masks over their faces. They stepped into the room with determination and weren't going to come back out until they had done all they could do to save the life of the small eight year old lying deathly still and ghostly white on their operating table.

Arthur knew this was the time to keep his promise to the two brothers.

To protect them.

"In Place of Hope, comes Security…"

AUTHORS NOTE:

First, I sincerely apologize about how long it took me to update. Life has been crazy lately.

Second, sorry about the length of this chapter, but I thought it was important to get across the severity of the situation.

Third, look forward to a new chapter coming very soon! (Hopefully late tonight or late tomorrow)

Thanks for the reviews!