Hopeless | Stellaride

Chapter 1: Benny Severide

Ricky Dalton has been floating in and out of the foster system for 7 years. His dad left before he was born, and his mom is an abusive alcoholic. Other than them he had two younger siblings who he got separated with last year. Ricky has been known to be a problem child. He pushes boundaries to prove they don't actually care. This tends to be by skipping school, staying out late, being mouthy, getting in fights at school, running away, and just being an all-around menace. This does often lead to him being removed from foster homes. Which isn't what he truly wants, he wants a home but he's also scared of actually trusting a family.

Carefully Ricky goes down the stairs. He's been in this home for 6 months, one of his longer homes. Well as of recently at least. When he was younger he'd stay at a home until his mom would "get her life together" but now he doesn't care. He's made it a challenge to see how fast he could get kicked out of a home. His record is 2 months. This home though, nothing he seemed to do would work. He tried all his usual tricks. The only reason he didn't run away sooner was he liked the challenge they gave him. But they were getting too close. It was starting to feel permanent. Nothing's permanent though. Not for Ricky at least.

Ricky quietly unlocked and opened the door before locking and shutting it again. Then he starts running until he gets about two streets over. He knows where he's going. The same place he always goes, the ice rink. It's not opened of course since it's 3 in the morning. But he knows how to sneak in. He puts his hood up as he slows down. He just wanted to get to the metro station. From there he'll be able to figure it out. He also grabs his phone from his pocket and shuts it off. He figures they won't notice for another hour or two but better safe than sorry. He makes it to the station and buys a ticket.

When the train stops he walks for a few minutes before stopping at a corner store. He goes into the store smiling at the cashier before walking to the back. He acts like he's browsing before he opens the freezer and grabs a water checking the front before putting it in his bag. He does the same with a bag of chips.

"Bye." He says going to walk out the door.

"Kid I saw you you need to pay for those." The old man said.

"What?" Ricky says stopping to look at him.

"You grabbed a drink and some chips. If you give them to me I won't call the cops."

"I didn't grab anything. Dude, I was just browsing."

"I saw you. Kid I don't want to call the cops but I will."

"The cops over chips and a drink that I didn't even grab. You're crazy." Ricky rolls his eyes and continues toward the door tucking his cash back into his pocket. He gets pulled back by his bag.

"I'm calling the cops." The old man says keeping his hold on the bookbag. Ricky rolls his eyes watching him dial the number. After getting off the phone the man locks the door and makes Ricky sit in front of the counter. Ricky sighs looking out the door at the road. It was about 4 am so there weren't many cars going by. He wonders if his foster parents have noticed or not yet. He figures not but he can't help but hope. Soon a cop car pulls up and two officers walk in.

"Got a call about someone stealing from you?" One officer asks while the other looks down at the boy. He was staring at the cracked watch that was on his wrist.

"Yeah, he has merchandise in his bag that he didn't pay for." The cashier says.

"Okay, sir." The officer says before looking at Ricky. "Can we?" He takes the bag off his back but doesn't say anything. The second officer opens the bag pulling out the water and chips.

"See I told you!"

"Okay. Kid, how about you pay for this and we take you home huh?"

"I don't have any money," Maverick mumbles looking up at the cops.