Some warning about this story: it is rated Teen for a couple of reasons, mainly suicide (but of a minor character), violence and abuse, but nothing is too graphic, if there are any more warnings please let me know! Stay safe!

This story was partially inspired by wayward_winter_soldier and their story I Believe Children Are Our Future on Archive of Our Own: /works/29624631

CCPD had received a late night call from the more rundown part of Central City, an older woman claiming that she heard yelling and gunshots from a neighbor.

Three police officers were on duty that night, but two of them had already left to go deal with a robbery, so, the remaining officer, Detective Fred Chyre, knew he needed backup.

Joe West was eating dinner with his daughter Iris and his adoptive son Barry when he got the call. When he saw the call id, he sighed, not wanting to deal with whatever it was Chyre needed. He wanted a break.

"Dad?" Iris asked tentatively, her mature concern making her seem a lot older than she was. "Are you going to pick it up?"

"Yea, Joe, someone might need you!" Barry blurted out, and Joe sighed, knowing that they were right.

Only at twelve years old, they both had a good sense of right and wrong. Especially Barry, who's mother had been murdered by his own father not one year earlier.

Joe picked up the phone. "Chyre? What's going on?"

Barry and Iris glanced at each other when Joe's face became concerned.

"Alright. I'll meet you at the station." Joe finished. He got up out of his chair and gave both of his children a quick hug.

"I have to go, I should be back in a couple of hours."

"Okay." They both said, and Joe grabbed his jacket and gun, heading out the door.

Being a cop was hard, he had no clue what kind of trouble would happen.

But nothing prepared him for what occurred that night. Or the emotional baggage he would gain with it.

Joe and his partner rolled up to a run-down house, lights blaring, but no sign of life was seen in the house.

Joe, gun in hand, kicked down the door, and Fred followed behind him. They heard ambulance sirens in the distance, and Joe glanced at his partner in question.

"I called them just in case." Fred explained, and Joe nodded, but had a feeling that the medics were not needed. The house was dead quiet. Much too quiet if someone was injured. Only serious crime scenes were this silent, like a grave.

The two detectives made their way into the living room, where they saw two bodies lying on the floor, a man and woman.

Joe ran forward and knelt beside the woman, pressing his fingers on her neck. No pulse. Joe scanned her body for injuries, and saw a bullet wound near her heart. She was dead.

"The male's dead too. Shot in the head." Fred said glumly, looking up from the other body.

Joe got up and glanced around the room, running his hand through his short hair. What happened? Who murdered these people?

Fred surveyed the room with his flashlight, and found a gun near the man's hand on the floor.

"Joe?" Fred said, and the detective turned his attention to his partner. "I think it was a suicide."

"And murder, if it was a suicide" Joe responded, knowing that it was possible. The older woman who called this in said that she heard a lot of fighting, so the man could have murdered the woman and then himself out of anger. But, nothing could be confirmed until a CSI came to the scene.

He let out a heavy sigh. No matter what happened, the result was still the same. Two more people that he couldn't save. Two more people that would have to be buried.

Fred began to report back to the station through the radio, and Joe glanced around the room, hoping to find any clue as to why this man possibly killed himself and the woman. He saw photos hanging on the wall, of a happy family, the man and woman, plus two boys.

Joe's heart broke. That could mean that there were two young boys out there, whose parents were dead.

Suddenly, the silence of the room was broken by a creaking noise from a cabinet, and both Fred and Joe raised their weapons. They creeped forward, and heard a soft sniffling noise come from behind the door.

Joe threw open the small door, and saw a young boy inside, shying away from the flashlight. His black hair was matted, and tears streamed down his face. The men immediately put their weapons down, and Joe crouched in front of the boy, putting on a comforting smile. Joe recognized the kid as one from the family photo he had just seen.

"Hey, kid. I'm Detective Joe West, I'm here to help. Can you come out of the cabinet?"

The boy quickly shook his head, his small body shaking with suppressed sobs.

"No...Papa said I had to stay here. No matter what I hear or see or smell or…" His small voice broke, and he curled into himself.

Joe tried to gently grab the boy's arm, but he flinched away, burrowing himself further into the cupboard.

"Don't cry, or you're weak, a disappointment…" The boy mumbled, clutching his head and whimpering.

"Son, you have to get out, okay? We're here to help you." Fred said, but the boy didn't acknowledge that he was there.

"I have to stay here, no matter what loud noises I hear… no matter what…"

Joe placed his hand on the boy's leg, and squeezed it gently, trying to comfort him. In the dim light he could see that the boy's shirt and pants were dirty and torn, and the boy had bruises along his arm.

"Abuse?" Fred guessed quietly, and Joe nodded, knowing that it was quite possible. Even just the way that the poor boy was terrified of leaving the small space he was forced into made it seem like child abuse.

"Okay, you don't have to get out now, you can take your time." Joe eventually said, knowing that the kid believed that he had to stay where he was hidden. He tried a different tactic to gain his trust. "Can you tell me your name?" He asked, and the boy's lip trembled.

"CisーCisco."

"Okay, Cisco, can you tell me what happened?"

"Papa said that he and Mama were going to solve their issues, and I had to stay in here until they told me to get out." He cried, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Joe's heart broke. His father told him to stay in a tiny cabinet...was he ever planning on letting the boy out? Not if he was going to die…. Joe's heart stopped when he realized that the father likely intended for the child to starve in the small space.

"Cisco, it's different now, you can come out." Fred said, but Cisco flinched.

"No! Papa will hurt me! I can't disobey!"

Joe tried to look the child in the eyes, but Cisco looked away.

"Listen, things are different now. Your father can't hurt you."

Cisco didn't move.

The cops heard the medics rush into the room, and Joe knew that he needed to get the boy away from the scene, or else he may be traumatized by the increase of strangers in his home. Well, more traumatized than he already was.

"Let's play a game, okay, Cisco? You obey what I tell you right now, and then I'll obey what you'll tell me later. Sounds like fun?"

Cisco eyed the detectives warily, but nodded.

"Okay, can you come out of the cabinet?"

Cisco stared at Joe, as if seeing if he could trust him.

"It's a game, remember?" Fred said, and Cisco hesitantly climbed out, taking Joe's hand.

Cisco looked around the room, and Joe quickly went to cover his eyes, but it was too late. Cisco saw the bodies.

"Mama! Papa!" Cisco cried, yanking himself out of the detective's grip and running to his mother, falling to his knees. A medic tried to pull him away, but he fought against her grip.

"No! Let me go! Mama! Wake up!"

"Kid!" Joe exclaimed, He rushed forward and swooped up the thrashing boy in his arms, carrying him away from the crime scene.

"No! No, please! Mama!"

Joe carried him to the ambulance, trying to keep a strong hold of the young boy, where a medic proceeded to knock Cisco out with a sedative and prepared a stretcher. Joe gently placed Cisco on the bed when he had fallen unconscious and let the medic take over.

Fred came up behind him and gripped his shoulder.

"Are you okay, West?"

Joe nodded. "It's just hard to see stuff like this. Especially to someone so young."

"It definitely is."

The two men stood in silence for a while, and watched the CSI come, confirming a sucide and homicide, the bodies being bagged up and Cisco taken away in an ambulance.

"I'll head back to the station and do the paperwork." Fred said after a while, "And you can go home if you want."

Joe nodded, feeling the weariness that always resulted from cases like these, and headed back to his vehicle.

He sat down and put his head in his hands. Seeing dead bodies was hard enough, but knowing that a little boy, who couldn't be older than 10 years old, lost both of his parents made him wish that he had never become a police officer. And, not only were Cisco's parents dead, but it was clear he had been abused by his dad and left to die.

Joe had, in the course of two years, now seen two boys lose their mother and father. And he, through Barry, saw how hard of a recovery journey it was. Cisco was going to have a lot of trouble.

And what of the other boy in the family photo? Was it Cisco's brother? Was he dead? Where was he? Joe hoped that when Fred was looking more into the case he would find out.

But, Joe had to go home. Barry and Iris were home alone, and he needed to recover himself. Because no one, not even cops, are immune to feelings of guilt, pain, and sadness.

Joe needed a break. A big one.

Two days later, Joe dropped off Iris and Barry at school, and he drove to the station, his mind still occupied by the young boy he met a couple of nights before.

When he arrived, Joe made his way directly to Fred's desk, determination in his stride. Chyre had already prepared a file for the case, and handed it to Joe without a second thought.

"Ian and Alondra Ramon were the victims, Dante and Francisco are their kids. Dante is the oldest by four years, Cisco is only nine."

Joe flipped through the file. "So where was Dante?"

Fred took a sip of his coffee. "He went on a trip to visit his grandmother, apparently Cisco wasn't invited along. We contacted the grandmother, talked with Dante to get his side of the story and took a quick medical exam."

"And?"

Fred continued on. "Dante said that their parents were always fighting, and that his father sent him to his grandmother too, and I quote 'to be safe from what was coming'."

"So, the father knew that he was going to kill her and himself."

"Exactly."

Joe set the file down. "So, they sent their eldest son away from the scene of murder before it happened, and left Cisco in a cupboard? That's messed up."

"Without a doubt. We have reason to believe that Cisco was the least fortunate. His body is covered in signs of abuse, while Dante looks as healthy as ever."

Joe sat down, feeling faint. How could he have not seen this? He knew abuse existed, but he never heard of any case which had one kid get carefree while the other was hurt beyond comparison. It just wasn't right, or fair. Joe knew that he had to help this kid, no matter what.

"What about Cisco? How's he doing?"

Fred flipped to the back of the file. "He recovered in the hospital for the night, got his wounds treated, and talked to a psychologist. He's really shaken up, but they think he'll recover with time and effort. Apparently he heard everything, from the fighting until the...you know, gunshots."

Joe went silent, just thinking about all the poor kid had been through. And he was only nine. Joe could only hope that Cisco's future would be a bit brighter.

"What's going to happen to him?" Joe asked, thinking back to Barry, a child much like Cisco who had lost everything.

Fred gave a comforting smile. "We already found a good home for him, a couple who's been wanting a kid for a while. They'll take good care of him. Dante is going to stay with his grandmother."

Joe huffed. "They better treat Cisco right."

Because, if they didn't ,Joe would give them a piece of his mind, because Cisco deserved better than what he had already gotten in his life.

Joe never spoke of Cisco or his situation to Barry and Iris, he didn't know why. He thought that he just wanted to protect them from the harsh world that existed, but he knew that there was no need for that, as Barry already knew that the world was cruel.

Maybe Joe kept Cisco a secret because he didn't want them to know how he had failed to protect another kid, a kid whose story was much like Barry's, if not worse. Joe still wanted his kids to see him as a hero, and if they knew about Cisco, they may not anymore.

Joe knew that Cisco was in a good family now, but he still felt like he failed.

And, a month after he found Mr. and Mrs. Ramon dead in their own home, he cried, because something about Cisco was special, the whole situation was wrong, and his gut told him that Cisco still wasn't safe.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" A woman said, answering the late night call. A small voice came on the phone.

"Hello?"

The woman softened your voice, realizing that it was a kid.

"Hi, sweetheart, can you tell me your name?"

"Cisco. Cisco Ramon."

She began to type his name into the computer. "Okay, Cisco, can you tell me what's wrong?"

"My-my foster dad, he's been drinking a lot...and...and he hit me again."

The woman began to call the police and medics, knowing that abuse cases needed both services. "Are you safe right now? Is he near you?"

"He locked me in the basement, he's upstairs right now." He sounded so scared, and she couldn't help but feel bad for the kid, but was proud of him for staying strong.

"Can you tell me your address?"

"Umm, 1512 Cliff Street."

She typed in the address, and let the emergency services know where to go.

"Okay, help is on the way, you need to stay on the line for me, can you do that?"

His voice began to shake. "No, he's coming down the stairs...I have to go before he finds out…"

"No, sweetheart, stay on the line no matter what!" She urged, but jumped when she heard loud yelling coming from the other end, and soon a beeping came from the phone. The woman sighed, realizing he hung up and that he was in danger, and hoped that the emergency services would get there in time.

But most of the time they didn't.

There will be more chapters to come! I hope you enjoyed it! Leave a review if you so wish, I would love to hear what you thought!