Chapter 2

Little Victim

December came and went, and Christmas with it. Once or twice Kelly could have sworn he saw the boy from the night of the blizzard lurking around across the street from 51, but when he walked out onto the apron for a closer look, the kid—whatever kid it was—would take off, vanishing into the streets like so much smoke.

A few days into January, the cold eased a bit, though not nearly enough. Still, Severide and Casey took advantage of the sunny, not-quite-as-frigid-as-before afternoon to climb to the roof and share a smoke. They were chatting fairly idly when Casey, whose chair was facing the street, said, "Is that the kid you keep talking about, Severide?" On the night of the blizzard, Casey had been occupied most of the time in the bunk room keeping people settled and helping everyone to find a sleeping spot. He had never actually seen the mystery boy. But there he was, indeed, backpack and all, standing near Otis's monument. Kelly stood to get his attention, and true to form, the youngster darted away, disappearing around a corner.

"Dammit," said Kelly. "That was him. Why does he come so close and then run off? It doesn't make any damned sense."

"Who knows?" answered Casey. "But it must be you he keeps coming to check up on. You're usually the only one who sees him. Of course, that may be because you're looking for him. I know that his situation may be really unfortunate, and if he's not completely on his own, he certainly isn't well looked after. But you seem really preoccupied with him. Why?"

"I don't actually know. There's just something about him. Maybe it's because he resembles Benny so much that I feel drawn to him somehow?" His voice held a question. "But for some reason I can't just put him out of my mind. He can't be much more than ten, and he seems to be so alone. Maybe I just feel sorry for him."

"Yeah" responded his friend. "Maybe."

A couple of weeks later, the deep freeze had set in again. Kelly hadn't spotted the boy since that day on the roof. The squad, despite the penetrating chill, was out drilling on the apron. "Too slow, guys," said Kelly. "Run it again." There were a few muffled groans. "Hey!" barked Kelly. "If you don't want to do it twice, then do it right the first time! Reset and let's go again!"

"Yes, Lieutenant," they chorused, and began the process of resetting the drill. Their boss had been pretty cranky lately, but it was Cruz who had figured out the cause of his bad mood.

"It's that kid who was here the night of the blizzard," he had told his squad mates. "He left in the middle of the night all alone, and it has really been bugging the Lieutenant."

"Makes sense," said Capp.

"Yeah, it should probably bother us all," added Tony.

Cruz's comment was, "True that, Tony. True that."

As they were about to begin the rappelling drill again, a GMC Sierra pulled onto the apron, and Jay Halstead from District 21 hopped out.

"Hey, Severide!" he called. "Got a minute? Need to talk to you about something. It's kind of important."

"Sure. Cruz, you're in charge. Run it once more and then pack it in for now."

"Sure thing, Severide."

Kelly jogged over to Jay. "What's up?"

"Can we go inside?" Jay asked. "Maybe your quarters? We need some privacy, I guess. And besides, I'm freezing my ass off out here. I don't know how you guys are out here rappelling off the roof. You're nuts."

"Well, rescues don't happen only in nice weather, you know. But come on. We'll go to my office."

Once they were settled, Kelly looked at his friend. "Okay. What's going on? And why the secrecy?"

"I said privacy, not secrecy," corrected Jay. "This is a little strange, and I have to explain it in a roundabout way, so bear with me, alright?"

"Fine. Shoot."

"Ugh. Don't say shoot." Kelly quirked an eyebrow. "Okay," Jay continued. "Here goes. A couple days ago, we had a bust that went really, really south. In a big way. We wound up near a homeless camp, and a young boy was caught in the crossfire. Poor kid caught three bullets. Two in his left lung and one in the left shoulder. We don't think he was targeted. Just piss-poor luck. Anyway, he's currently at Med. They have him in a medically induced coma, trying to let his lungs rest and heal. He's had one surgery already, and Marcel hopes there won't be more. He's hanging in there, but it's pretty bad."

"Hold up," said Kelly. "What does this have to do with me?"

"I told you to bear with me, remember? I'll get to that. Anyway, the kid had a backpack, like most homeless people. Probably had everything he owned in it. In the backpack we found a couple of changes of clothes, about twenty or so paperbacks, the interesting combination of one stuffed toy and one switchblade knife, and a notebook that the kid apparently kept as a sort of journal, although he wrote some poems and stories, too. Not bad at all for a little kid, by the way. Of course, he was a John Doe. Didn't seem to be any adults attached to him or anything. But I found a name on the notebook. Here's where you come in."

Kelly sat up a little straighter.

"The name," said Jay, "caught my eye. Jackson Everett Severide."

Kelly's eyes went wide and his face paled a little.

"That's right Buddy," Jay grinned. "You have a kid. Not that surprising, being that back in the day before Stella made an honest man of you—or almost—you were rumored to have slept with half the female population of this great American city."

"Are you sure?" he asked the detective. "How do you know?"

"I was curious about the name, so I had Will swab the kid's cheek. Your DNA is already in the system, so I ran them against each other. Because I am so charming and beloved, I was able to expedite the process. Got the results this morning. Our little victim is your son, Kelly."

Kelly suddenly bolted up in his chair and looked hard at Jay. "Oh, Christ. What does he look like?" he asked.

"That's your first question?" Jay asked incredulously.

"Yeah. It is."

"Well, he's a really cute little guy. Dark curly hair that could really use a trim, not sure about the eyes, and he's on the thin side. Not overfed, that's for sure. Funny, but once I knew who he was, I could see a pretty significant resemblance, not to you, but to your father."

Kelly stared blankly for a moment. Could this be the boy he kept seeing? If the child knew who Kelly was, it would explain his frequent presence near 51. But why not just come out and say something?

"Kelly? You okay?"

"I need to talk to Stella. And I need to go see the kid."

Jay put his hand on his friend's arm. "Listen, Kelly, it's not a pretty story. It really isn't. Adam ran a check on the name and found the backstory and some other information, and the details are...sad, I guess. He just turned ten a few days ago, by the way."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. January 17th, I think. According to his birth certificate. By the way, his mother did at least name you as the father on that particular document."

"Was he abused?"

Jay shrugged. "Hard to say for sure. Physically, probably at some point. Sexually, who knows? If he's been out on the street on his own, which seems to be the case, it's certainly not unlikely. The boy's mother was a woman named Roseanne Parish. Ring a bell?"

Kelly paled once again. "Good God. I dated her for like, six weeks, and broke it off when I realized the woman was actually certifiable—truly a lunatic. The one time my precautionary measures didn't work, and it's with that woman? Poor kid. No wonder he's had it so rough." Suddenly Kelly was pensive. "If only I'd known..." he whispered.

"Don't beat yourself up, Kelly. You can't know what you don't know."

"Maybe not, but if I hadn't spent nearly half my life behaving like an un-neutered tomcat-like Benny-this wouldn't have happened." Kelly really had loved his father, but he had no desire to mimic some of his dad's less desirable traits.

"Possibly, but what's done is done. It may be your fault in that strict sense, but the fact that his mother chose not to tell you, and that she was a crappy excuse for a mother, at best, is not on you. It's on her. Anyway, it seems sweet Roseanne abandoned the boy when he was five. Left him at a gas station like a kitten you don't want any more or something. He went into the system then, but he ran away after only a few months. How he survived or got along at all at that age is beyond my understanding, but somehow he did. He was picked up in a sweep of a homeless camp about two years ago and went back into the system then. Again, it was for a few months and he took off again. Hasn't been in foster care since."

"Jesus," Kelly sighed.

"Yeah, I don't know a whole lot about Jesus, but from what I learned in Catholic school, I doubt he had much to do with this situation."

Kelly smiled tightly. "What happened to the mother? Do you know?"

"She got busted for possession with intent about four years ago. Took a plea, went to Stateville, survived less than a year before being shanked in a fight with another inmate."

Kelly drew his hand down over his face. "I gotta talk to Stella," he repeated. "And then, I have to go see...my son."