"A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was."
Hello, welcome to the first chapter of Brooklyn's Finest, I hope you enjoy it!
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Disclaimer: Just in case you had the wild idea that I owned the rights to Newsies I'm sorry to let you down, but I don't.
"He's gone." A tall boy said standing in front of an empty chair where Brooklyn's finest had been tied down just a few short hours ago. Another boy stood next to him, older, taller, stronger. He stood in shock, almost as if he was in awe of what had been done. This boy was Shooter, the leader of Queens. His hair cut short showing off an old scar almost three inches long, and a more recent gash, a nice little gift from their most recent prisoner and now escapee. Shooters warm brown eyes ran cold in amazement, Spot Conlon had escaped. Queens had done everything they could to keep him locked away, and it had worked for the past seven days in which they did everything they could to beat him down. Any normal person would have given up; broke down, any normal person wouldn't have been able to walk, or breather after the beating that Spot had endured, but Spot Conlon was never or could never be just a normal person. Spot was the most cold, the strongest, and the cleverest newsie that has ever been or would be, and to top that off he was Brooklyn, not just the king, he embodied the heart and soul of Brooklyn. As he went through beating after beating he never once let out a cry of pain or let his head fall, he just stared into Shooters eyes, who always stood in front of him watching. Spot's cold eyes burning through Shooter with rage and hatred.
"How?" Shooter spoke, letting out a sigh with his one word question.
"Dodge was the one left in charge of watching him tonight." The boy known as Stretch said quickly as he placed the blame on one of Shooters most trusted enforcers.
"Well at least we had him long enough so that Brooklyn could have a mental breakdown. I would like to see Spot try to fix his beloved Brooklyn after all its seams have ripped open like they have. This going to be a good show." The leader said coldly.
The shadows of the night hide the small framed boy as he moved along the walls of the brick alley ways. The boys finger tips slid along the cold bricks, resting against each one for a quick second before moving on to the next as he found his way through the poorly lit backstreets of New York. The boy had not a worry in his mind about being caught, no one was better than he was at sneaking around, no one was better than Spot Conlon. Spots body never came in contact with any light, it was almost as if the lights, the few that existed, would run away from him or dim themselves as he past, like he had command over them. He remained invisible during his escape back to his love.
Spot closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he reached the territory line separating Queens and Brooklyn. He was finally back where he belonged, breathing Brooklyn air once again. In all actuality there was nothing different about the air a few feet behind him on the other side of the territory line but for some reason the air in Brooklyn was more refreshing and you could almost go as far as to say it was sweeter. As Spot took in his first couple of breaths of Brooklyn air, it was as if it was the first time he had been able to really breathe in the last seven day. It was almost like Brooklyn air had become a medicine Spot had to take to survive.
But fear was slowly seeping into his perfect reunion with his love. Not a fear of being taken captive once again being beaten half to death, like any normal person would be fearing at the moment if they had just gone through what Spot had, but no, Spots one and only fear was that in his absence Brooklyn had changed. There was something intermixed with the sweet Brooklyn air that told him something was wrong. His fear built as he closed in on the lodging house it was only nine o'clock and there wasn't a single boy out on the streets, not a single soul at the docks either. He knew now knew that something was surely wrong. Spot began sprinting towards the lodging house searching the empty streets for a sign of his newsies, but he found nothing. When he got to his home there wasn't a noise coming out of the building. He raced up the stairs and swung the doors of the lodging house wide open with all his might, and found nothing. For the first time, he hung his head. Spot didn't care if Queens had taken his pride or beat him tell he could barely breathe, but when it came to his love, when it came down to taking Brooklyn from him, the mighty Spot Conlon couldn't help but break down.
"Brooklyn." Spot let out his first word, his normal battle cry fell off his lips as a whimper of defeat. Spot began to pick up anything and everything he could get his hands on and began to throw them in rage, he couldn't control himself, and he didn't want to try, he wanted to just for this once, let go, and that was what he was doing.
"Spot?" A voice questioned, as a boy about fifteen showed up in a doorway on the opposite side of the room from Spot.
Spot stood there for a moment, staring blankly at his second in command, Flame. Spots face was stained with tears, and his vision was blurred. He didn't even know how Flame recognized him as the king of Brooklyn in the state he was in. Spot examined the boy when his vision began to clear up. Flame looked like he had been beaten just as hard as Spot had. There were cuts and bruises all over his body. There were bandages keeping his arms from bending at the elbows which made Spot come to the conclusion that they were broken. The image in front of him enraged him all the more, but he was back in check and wasn't going to let himself fall apart in front of one of his boys, Flame had already seen more of Spots brokenness than Spot had wanted anyone to see, and he wasn't willing to let him see any more of it.
"Who did this to you? Where is everyone?" Spots voice was cold like it usual was but this time there was something in his voice that was only heard when there was something seriously wrong; concern.
"Spot, they're gone." Flame said softly almost as if he was speaking in awe to himself.
"What the hell happened here?" Spots concern was now mixed with rage as Flame didn't give the answer Spot had wanted.
"Twitch went to the bulls after you were gone for five days, they didn't do anything, so we rallied together and were going to make them but they beat us down, and took most of the boys to the refuge. There's only me, Shadow, Yankee, Bear, and Hush that got out without being sent to the refuge. And believe me we had to fight for that accomplishment." Flame hobbled his way closer to Spot as he spoke of what had happened. Spot stood there once again without a word to say. How was he supposed to act, what was he suppose to say after finding out his life had been thrown into a dungeon.
"Where are the others?" Spot said after a while.
"Drinking." Flame spoke solemnly. He didn't need to tell Spot where they were drinking Spot knew where they would be. He was a regular at the only bar any self respecting Brooklyn newsie would be seen at, he knew that was where he would find them, so he turned and made his exit without another word. Flame quickly hobbled after him, not wanting to lose his leader and close friend again. They were both silent as they went along. Spot not wanting to talk and Flame not having words to say, although he was still missing the reason why Spot was gone for a whole week, but from what Flame could see of Spots bruises he knew it hadn't been good, and it probably wasn't a good thing to question at the moment. Flame kept up with Spot quite well for how much he had trouble with just getting across the room back at the lodging house. Spot felt pride seeing how hard his boy was pushing through the pain that was engulfing his entire body. Spot had trained them to do this but he didn't know if it would have sunk in, but seeing Flame now, he knew it had. They had walked a little over a mile by the time they came across a bar called The Bank. It was a small place that hardly anyone outside of the Brooklyn newsies knew about, but it had the best alcohol in Brooklyn, and probably New York. The two boys walked into the almost empty bar. There were a few sweatshop boys sitting scattered between the booths and free standing tables. A burst of laughter caught Spots ear as he searched the faces of those in the bar for his newsies. He swiftly turned to see where it had come from. As he suspected, the laughter had come from the last of his free newsies. Their ability to laugh in the midst of what had happened in the past few days enraged Spot. He found himself storming over to the booth they were seated at.
"Do you not know what just happened? Brooklyn is your family and you're sitting here laughing while she dies. You're no better than the rats on the street. Actually they're better than you three." Spot shouted at the top of his lungs as he threw their drinks to the ground in disgust, silencing the room as he did so. All the pride he had felt for Flame left him and was replaced with fury.
"Spot?" Bear said in awe, his face like he had just seen a ghost. The laughter had left the three boys lips now as there stared at their furious lead that stood in front of them.
"That's all you have to say for yourselves?" Spot growled.
"What are we suppose to be doing? We can't break all of them out of the refuge." Yankee spoke up in their defense.
"Have you tried? No, so how can you be so sure? Nothing is impossible for Brooklyn, have you forgotten that too?" Spot huffed. "Get up. Go back to the lodging house, now." The boys got up without a fight they knew Spot and in the state he was in right now they knew what he would have done to them if they didn't obey.
The walk back from The Bank was silent, Spot didn't slow his pace which separated him from his newsies with at least a block between them. When it had been just Flame there was no space separating, but now there were four beaten boys, and three of them were completely drunk which didn't help with their ability to walk in the least bit. When the boys finally found their way back to the lodging house where they were expecting to be greeted once again by a fuming Spot Conlon, but to their surprise Spot wasn't even there. Flame was a little concerned by that fact, knowing that Spot had just been missing for seven days, but there was nothing he could do. The rest of the boys didn't even care, mostly because they were too drunk to care and it meant that they could just go to sleep and not have Spot at their necks.
When Spot noticed his newsies weren't right there next to him on the walk back he decided to go visit his thrown that looked over the docks, he didn't really feel like dealing with the drunken idiots he called his family that night and he really just wanted to think with no chance of being interrupted.
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