WARNINGS: Mentions of sexual predators and brief descriptions of violence.
“Are all sewers this nice?”
“No. Trust me”
“How do you know-“
“Hey, man, I ran away six times. I’ve slept places, okay?”
The first time Leo ran away, he was nine.
It had been just over a year since his mother had died and he already been through three foster homes. He had been staying with a woman named Jillian Hartford and her boyfriend Ken Franks. They had five other foster kids living with them. Ken tried to be nice to all of them, but he go overwhelmed. And Jillian… well she was just a bitch.
He wouldn’t have run away if she hadn’t smacked him. It wasn’t like it had ever happened before, it was just a heat of the moment thing, but it still sent him running. He was living in Dallas at that point, and the only think he could think of to run to was the Dallas World Aquarium. He snuck in before it closed and slept by the tank with the sting rays in it.
He managed to stay on the streets for two more days before the police finally caught him. He remembered watching Aladdin with his mom and stole hotdogs like Aladdin stole melons. He spent a lot of time aimlessly wandering the streets-feeling like he should be somewhere but not sure as to where that was.
The police caught him outside the Dallas Zoo, waiting for the pretzel vender to get distracted so he could steal one.
The second time Leo ran away, he was ten and they had just shipped him off to live in Phoenix, Arizona.
He was living with three other foster kids and an old woman named Helen. He slipped out the window at night, intending to go back to Texas, because that was his home. They couldn’t take that away from him too. He spent two weeks walking in what he hopped was the general direction of Texas before they found him.
He had spent all the money he had saved up (a grand total of 12.89) on a box of crackers, two bags of puffycorn, and three giant bottles of Gatorade. (He also stole a bag of gummy worms and four bottles of soda… and he may have stopped at couple pretzel carts.)
He slept anywhere, including behind a McDonalds, behind bushes, a multitude of truck stops, a few gas stations, and in the library of a small town.
The police found him attempting to hitchhike on the side of a road and took him back to Helen. She died of old age four months later.
The third time Leo ran away, he was twelve and living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
His current foster parents were named Lynn and Jake Gordon. They were wanna-be pop stars and were really obviously only taking in foster kids for the money. (Most people at least put in some kind of front.) There was only one other kid there, and he was about to turn eighteen. His name was Marvin. He didn’t talk to Leo (who would want to deal with a stupid twelve year old?) except when he was trying to do homework and Leo was being fidgety and making noise. Leo tried to control it, he really did, but it was so hard not to have his hands moving.
Marvin got so annoyed he taped Leo to a chair and left him there all day. Lynn didn’t find him until she got the call he wasn’t at school. She wasn’t willing to give Leo a ride to school, so she sent him off to walk there. Leo was really sick of Marvin being mean and Jake’s awful cooking and Lynn making him clean the house because she was too lazy…
That was the first time he had to sleep in a sewer. It was dank and disgusting but he really didn’t want to go back.
He was gone for four days. He had been trying to raise enough money to find a bus to Houston. He picked up money people dropped on the street. He found 29.57$ and a 20$ gift card to Taco Bell by the time they found him. Including at least 300 pennies. He hid his money from the police. That was when he started saving.
The fourth time Leo ran away, he was fourteen.
He was living in Little Rock, Arkansas at the time. His foster parent was named Molly Grand and she had a kid of her own, Frank. (complete coincidence. This Frank looked nothing like Frank Zhang and was at least two years older than him.) Frank was a creep. Leo had caught him trying to peek in his room while he changed a lot. After he caught Frank staring in his window while he slept, Leo knew he had to leave.
He had been saving money for two years. (Doing odd jobs for neighbors, combing his foster parents’ couch, collecting money he found on the street, pawning jewelry he found in the lost and found at school…) He had saved 631.42$ by the time he ran away. They didn’t find him for three weeks and by then he had made it all the way back to Dallas.
He had spent 203.05$ by the time they found him. He had lived off chips and candy the entire time. He had slept on busses, in a slide at the park, underneath a tree, on the roof of a KFC, on somebody’s fire escape, and when the police where on his tail, in the sewer again.
They didn’t send him back to Molly’s, thank the gods.
The fifth time Leo ran away, he was fifteen.
He was living in Jacksonville, Florida with an old couple named Flora and Will. There were five other foster kids living with him there. It wouldn’t have been bad if Flora and Will weren’t so… over protective. They had never been able to have kids of their own and they actually cared about their foster kids. Leo, who was used to no one caring what he did, felt suffocated. He was barley there for a week before he snuck out.
Flora and Will went into panic mode and went searching for him themselves. They found him a day and a half later sleeping on the back steps of a library surrounded by taco bell wrappers (he had saved the gift card).
The sixth time Leo ran away, he had a very good reason.
He was living in Salt Lake City, Utah with a couple named Madelyn and Jared Peka. There were two other foster kids living there it was a pretty normal situation (for Leo). Until Jared freaked out. Leo had just been sitting at the table, building a catapult out of forks, and then suddenly Jared was there, and he was angry. (It wasn’t until a couple years later that he realized Jared was possessed by an eidolon.) Before he knew it, he was on the ground covered in bruises. Terrified, Leo ran out. (without any of his money… or his coat... or his shoes.)
A police man found him two hours later, soaked to the bone (it was raining… hard), covered in bruises, and barefoot.
They sent Leo to the Wilderness School after that. It wasn’t so bad there. Leo’s face was still a mess of bruises the first day he went there. Piper was the only one who didn’t care. He had been sitting alone in the back of the room when Piper came over, plopped into the chair beside him.
“I’m Piper. You look sane. Wanna be friends?” She said.
Leo didn’t run away after that.
