It was a day like any other, the sun streaming relentlessly down in waves of unbearable heat. Bolt was at her usual street corner, peddling papers; not the typical profession for a girl, yet so much better than some of the other options offered her gender. She swiped her dark-brown hat off her head after placing her pile of afternoon Advance editions on the cobblestone, patting the sweat off her brow with her forearm. She huffed slightly, irritated with the summer weather, and pushed her uneven, dusty-brown bangs back, replacing the cap. Bending over, she scratched the back of her neck and picked up the papers she'd rested on the ground. Prices had spiked recently, and Bolt had budgeted herself to twenty per edition slot. Licking her chapped lips, she cleared her throat. Improvising headlines came easily to many newsboys and girls who were no longer baby-faced, and considering Bolt had always had rather sharp, angular features she had perfected creating crowd-pleasing stories.

Leaning against the cool brick on the shaded side of the building behind her, Bolt pushed the sleeves of her green-and-beige checked shirt over her elbows, fanning herself with one paper before handing it off to a customer. She stomped her black-booted foot in frustration with the heat, rubbing the back of her leg with the other to ward off the flies that commonly gathered around the rancid working class after a sweltering few hours.

It wasn't until she was down to her last few papers that she noticed a newsboy that wasn't from around the area. Raising an eyebrow, she clutched her papers in her hand and made her way through the hordes of afternoon traffic until she was trotting along beside him. She tilted her head, blinking at him and pursing her lips. He had droopy blonde hair, hidden beneath a dark cap; his blue eyes were concealed beneath his glasses, and the colors of his clothes were bland variations of brown and yellow. An overall boring boy if anyone had asked Bolt. "Can I help you?" she asked cordially when all the boy did was fidget and tug at his ears.

He visibly gulped, licking his lips before hesitantly speaking. "Uh, yeah. I've been sent from 'Hatten. We're, uh, we're planning on going on strike."

Bolt snorted, handing off a paper and receiving a penny in return from a passerby. "You're going on strike?"

The boy shrugged. "We're planning on it."

"Well what are you waiting for?" she asked mockingly, raising both brows in question.

The blonde boy scrunched his face. "We're trying to build our forces; we can't do it alone," he explained before reverting back to his nervous habits. "You know, I probably should speak to your leader."

Bolt rolled her eyes. "We're heading in the right direction. We'll find him soon. You're definitely going to need back up, what with the way you're acting."

The bespectacled newsboy narrowed his eyes. "We're going on strike. All for one."

Once again, Bolt rolled her eyes. "No need to get so defensive. I'm not so sure you're going to be able to pull it off, that's all."

Looking extremely annoyed at the pestering, the blonde boy sighed. "If we stand together we can—"

"Save it for Hawk," Bolt cut him off, selling her last paper before walking into Skippy's, the diner Staten Island's leader was known to frequent. She jutted her chin at the far corner where a group of boys were rowdily eating their food. "He's the one in green." She crossed her arms and stared at the newcomer, who was pulling at the collar of his undershirt. "You're burning daylight."

"Huh?" the boy jumped slightly. "Oh, right."

Bolt chewed impatiently on the inside of her cheek. "Follow me," she instructed, grabbing his upper arm and dragging him to the table, forcibly shoving him into a chair and placing both hands firmly on his shoulders. "This is…" Bolt pursed her lips. The two hadn't exchanged names. "…a boy from Manhattan. He's here to talk about going on strike."

Hawk, a lanky boy about seventeen with green eyes and auburn hair, narrowed his eyes at the newsboy that had disturbed the afternoon revelry. "Strike? Who are you to suggest a strike?"

Gulping, the boy glanced at the other few newsies that were seated around him. "I, uh, well, Jack Kelly sent me. He's the one suggesting we go on strike. I mean, I'm standing behind him. Jack's got a plan to get the newsboys their rights back."

"Back?" Hawk scoffed. "We never had any to begin with."

The boy scratched at his head. "Well yeah, that's what I meant."

"Nerves," Bolt shrugged. "You know how spineless that area of the state is."

Hawk smirked at the jab. "So Jack's planned the whole thing out…what did you say your name was?"

"Dutchy," was the response. He turned around in his chair, deliberately staring up at Bolt, who refused to take a seat. "And I do have a spine. So do the rest of us, or we wouldn't be going on strike."

"Prove it and talk," one of the newsies barked, causing Dutchy to spin back to face Hawk.

He took a deep breath and stared at the table. "Jack Kelly is aiming to go on strike. But we can't do it alone."

Hawk tilted his head backwards. "And what do the rest of the boroughs say?"

Dutchy furrowed his brow in confusion. "Well that's why I'm here. To see what you say. The boys are all throughout New York, seeing what others say."

Hawk shook his head. "I'm not agreeing to anything unless I know what Brooklyn is saying. Spot Conlon's got a good head about him. He's closer to the area anyway."

Dutchy gulped and removed his hat, swiping a hand through his hair. "Well…the strike…it'll change things everywhere! And Cowboy's over in Brooklyn talking to Spot right now."

Hawk raised an eyebrow. "So you don't know what any other borough thinks of this plan of yours." It wasn't much of a question.

Dutchy fidgeted slightly in his chair, licking his lips. "Well no, but we're working on that—"

"And you haven't really got much information, hmm?" Hawk leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, fingers laced together.

Dutchy took another deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily, trying to collect his thoughts and formulate a coherent sentence. "Jack and Davey have it all worked out…" was the best he could come up with. He had, after all, only been sent to inform Staten Island of the strike. No other details had been offered him.

Hawk snickered, glancing around at his fellow paper-peddlers. He met Dutchy's eyes and frowned. "Go home," he ordered the blonde boy, who bolted out of his seat, slamming into the glass door before managing to escape to the outside. The bells hanging overhead chimed, and Hawk chuckled quietly, licking his lips before raising and eyebrow at Bolt. "What are you waiting for? Get to Brooklyn." He glanced around his circle of comrades. "Go!" he shouted, fist pounding down on the table.

There was a resounding groan that none of the newsies tried to hide from their leader. He already knew how much they disliked running from borough to borough, checking up on things, especially the boys and girls assigned to boroughs a greater distance away. Bolt was lucky she didn't have far to tread, but she was also the newsie that got to deal with Spot Conlon, which was a task not many people volunteered for. In fact, none of Hawk's newsies had volunteered for the position, and Bolt had found herself the unwilling go-between from Staten Island to Brooklyn.

With a slight huff, Bolt shuffled out the door of Skippy's, surrounded by the boys assigned to the other sections of New York. A few scampered down the road, setting out to inform other assigned newsies of the goings on. Bolt tromped towards the Narrows, shoving her hands deep into the recesses of her pockets after pulling the brim of her hat low on her head. Jinx, Knobs, and a few other acquaintances were nearby, all grumbling in low voices. Knobs was a particularly skilled grumbler, as the borough he had been appointed to was the farthest. "It ain't like the Bronx is really part of anything," he complained, kicking at a loose stone on the cobble streets.

Bolt glared straight ahead. Every time they were sent out, Knobs had to make some sort of fuss, whether it was about the heat, the cold, the time, the distance—it didn't matter: Knobs was sure to complain, and none of the boys and girls enjoyed hearing that all through their ferry ride. Smiling sweetly, Bolt spun around, walking backwards in order to face the moody newsboy. "Would you like to trade boroughs, Knobsy?" she asked in a faux-caring way.

Knobs quickly glanced up from the rock he had been punting, blinking in surprise. "But you've got Spot Conlon's territory…"

Bolt tilted her head. "That's right, I do. Now shut your trap." She swirled back around, shoving a shoe-shine out of her way as she continued down the road. Bolt was just as disgruntled with Hawk's arrangement as the other newsies. It wasn't that she minded the commute; Brooklyn was the nearest assigned area Hawk had any interest in, and Spot, though intimidating, was fair and reasonable. But these runs were at least once a week, if not more, due to Hawk's constant paranoia of being anything less than informed on everything, and after a while they began to be more than just a bother. Especially with Knobs insisting on verbally spouting his annoyance, at volumes high enough sometimes that Bolt swore the other boroughs knew they were on their way.

There was one last grumble about Bolt's attitude and then Knobs was quiet until they parted ways on the ferry, each newsie finding their own area to occupy for the short voyage. After hitting land, Jinx and Knobs went one way, the rest went the other, and Bolt traveled further into Brooklyn on a shortcut she had stumbled upon long ago. Or, as Spot told the story, was graciously informed of. Hands still buried in her pockets, Bolt kept her head ducked. Although she was a regular in the area now from the copious trips Hawk sent her on, she wasn't a local, and Brooklyn's working class wasn't always kind to their own, let alone a visitor.

Finally reaching the correct street, Bolt raised her eyes from the dull cobblestone, nodding her head in greeting to a few newsboys and girls she was familiar with. Clopping up the steps, she paused, glancing at the newsie perched on the wide railing. "One Lung, he in there?" she tilted her head at the building in question.

One Lung Pete blinked, a slow smirk crossing his cracked lips as he raised his eyes from the paper in his hands. "What do you think?" he shot back languidly in an unnaturally rough voice for a boy his age.

Bolt nodded. "Yeah, I figured as much." She shrugged, glancing at the highest window. "He's never gonna report the matron missing, is he?"

Pete snorted. "And he's never going to let any of us report it either." After the last matron ran off, Spot Conlon had neglected to inform anyone that the Brooklyn Lodging Establishment for boys no longer had anyone to oversee them. With this freedom, Spot was truly in charge of what went on, and he was taking full advantage of the time he had before the state figured it out.

Spot Conlon and Tricks Lopez were having sex. It was the typical way the leaders of Brooklyn and Queens spent their afternoons, sweating in his single room on the top floor of the lodging house. The heat rising from not only the weather, but their activities as well, until it felt as if they were not only consumed by pleasure, but an inferno. This did nothing to douse the two newsies' desires however, and they reveled in the unbearable temperature rise, lightheaded from dehydration and oxytocin.

Just outside the wooden door, Bolt leaned casually against the wall, picking at her dirty fingernails impatiently. She had half a mind to kick in the door and get things over with, but that hadn't worked out the first time she'd tried it, and, not wanting a repeat of the past, she stood silently, listening to the creak of the bed and the sounds of fucking teenagers. It wasn't anything new to Bolt, who'd experimented with guys her age as much as the next girl had. But the fact that the newsie Bolt had had her eyes on for quite a while was in the room with someone else, and she had to hear it, made her bristle in annoyance and discomfort.

There was a loud grunt, a bit of complaining, the creaking of the bed as it rocked, and then a final sigh before Bolt heard someone's footsteps heading towards the door. Spot, clad in white long-john bottoms and a key around his neck, rested his shoulder against the doorway, licking his lips and still trying to catch his breath. His hair was slicked back with sweat, and his chest was gleaming. "How's it rollin' Bolt?" he asked casually, not paying any attention to the fact that Bolt had her eyes glued on Tricks in disdain as she got dressed and slipped past the other two.

Bolt gulped at the up-down look Tricks gave her, a smirk crossing the Queen of Queens' lips before she trotted down the stairs, hands twisting her long, dark hair into a bun.

Spot snapped his fingers. "Bolt. What is it?" he repeated, this time annoyed at the fact that she hadn't answered the first time.

Finally returning her gaze to Spot's hazy eyes, Bolt cleared her throat. "The strike," she muttered, shoving her hands into her pockets and raising one eyebrow. "Hawk wants to know what you think about it."

Spot chuckled. "Hawk wants to know what I think about everything," the Brooklyn leader retorted before traipsing backwards into his room and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Lighting up, he took a drag before handing it off to Bolt and replying. "I'm waiting to see if Jacky-boy is serious about his whole thing. If he ain't willing to put up a fight, I ain't willing to stake a claim."

Bolt twirled the light around her fingers for a moment before taking a small pull, puffing the smoke out in rings. "Great. Thanks," she offered in reply. Spot reached out for the smoke, but Bolt kept it a moment longer, placing it between her lips and taking in a long, slow drag. She grinned. "See you soon," she promised, handing the cigarette over, ghosting the smoke into her lungs.

Spot let the cigarette hang from his own lips. "Yeah, yeah. I'm sure something will get Hawk all up in arms within the next few hours and you'se'll be scrambling back." He smirked.

Bolt nodded. "As always," she added to Spot's statement.

Bolt stood awkwardly for just a moment, kicking at the wooden planks. "You sure you wanna be messing with Tricks?" she finally asked, although it was a worn out conversation between the girl and boy. "You know what she does on the side."

Spot exhaled, smoke rising above them. "Yeah, well. If it wasn't offered to me for free, I'd track her down. Get back home, Bolt, before you stick your nose too far into other people's business."

Bolt momentarily glared at Spot when he looked away, distracted by a fly that had made its way into the leader's room. "See ya," she grumbled, swiveling on her heel and making her way down the stairs.