(Authors' note - welcome welcome! This is the first of many chapters to come for this fic. Each chapter will have which of the three authors wrote it, and you can look up here in the author's notes to find out which characters will be featured in the chapter. It's a big cast, but hopefully that will make it easier to follow each story line! Enjoy, and don't forget to leave FB!)

Prologue

By Stretch

The day was bright, the sun was shining, and Jack squinted his brown eyes to keep the afternoon sun from adding anymore beaming brightness to his day. The heat was enough; he didn't need to go blind in his efforts to make a living. However, as he held up his arm and prepared to shout another headline, Racetrack suddenly burst through the crowd, red-faced and breathless. Typically, only one thing could get a man that frantic and desperate looking, and Jack didn't want to know her name or what she had decided to name their first child.

"Jack!" Race called out once within mere feet of the other boy, trying to catch his breath and speak at once, choking on his words. "You… you gotta come! Quick! Midtown, they said they found a kid. Jack, it's bad."

The blinding light seemed to become the least of his worries as all the possible situations flooded through the cowboy's head. Someone was hurt, sick, kidnapped, lost their mind in the butcher's district or, possibly worst of all, this was simply a joke and he was going to have to kill someone to make up for it. Regardless, as Jack all but dropped his papers and ran toward Midtown, his lack of knowledge about where he was supposed to go and who he was supposed to see seemed to be on the back burner.

"Jack! Jack, damn it, wait up!" Racetrack called out to him, the considerably shorter newsie running as fast as his legs could manage, calling out directions between strained breaths. Even the smaller Italian man had a problem wrapping his mind around the situation, his heart pumping and his ears ringing as he focused on simply getting Jack to the scene.

As they approached the shady neighborhood only faintly familiar to Jack, a crowd became visible, their eyes transfixed on the ground below. So, perhaps this wasn't a joke and he wouldn't have to kill anyone, but he found himself wishing it were only that simple.

Stopping short of the boundary formed by the growing mass, Jack shoved his way through, the sight becoming clearer as people made way for the Duane Street leader. While it was true the newsboy lodging house went through lodgers like a hooker went through clients, Jack noticed this one right off, the nameless, past-less boy laying there as if he were playing dead.

…He was only playing, wasn't he? Surely there were better games to play, even in the streets of Manhattan, and Jack would be all too happy to show the kid he had dubbed "Joe" only days before how to throw a ball around or whatever kids did for fun. This kid needed a new hobby, though as Jack leaned down to inspect the poor kid's form, he slowly realized he was never going to find one, because someone else had clearly exercised their hobby on poor Joe.

"Jack, we…we can't stay here. The bulls will be here any minute," Racetrack informed him, ever the voice of reason.

The bulls. Where were they when this kid was clearly in a head-on collision with someone else's fist? Surely scarfing down a few jelly donuts as they compared guns to compensate for… other things. And now, thanks to their absence, their newest lodger was laying there with his face almost unrecognizable behind the bruises and the blood, looking more like an abused doll than an eleven year old boy.

"Who did this?" Jack asked suddenly, standing up with a fire in his eyes like Zac Efron with a purpose. He was going to give whoever was responsible a little payback – bet on it. "What happened?"

Race shook his head, lighting a cigarette to make use of his otherwise shaky hands. "Nobody knows. Blink saw 'im last – said he told him he was getting too close to Jet's territory with his selling spot, but the kid said he'd be fine."

"I guess we know, then, huh?" At Race's quizzical look, Jack rolled his eyes. "I knew that guy was bad news. Him and all his boys; bullyin' people into buying papes, starting trouble all the time. But this…"

"What are you going to do?" the other boy asked, anxiously taking another drag from his cigarette.

Jack stood there for a moment, seemingly in a daze, Race furrowing his eyebrows in concern as his friend took an unnecessarily long dramatic pause before inserting himself back in reality. "We get even, Race. We get even."