****Lucky/Zero and Minutes are mine!  Feel free to use them as characters, but please check with me first!  Thanks!  ---Bam.

*hey kids!  I know I haven't finished my other stories, but that's a long story involving me losing all of my work when my hard drive crashed…  so here's a new one!  Its for the Bronx Newsgirls.  Its giving me some trouble, so please review and give me some advice!!!!  Thanks!  big hugs and sloppy kisses

            Shit, Lucky thought to herself as she pulled her small body up and over a fence.  Glancing behind her, she saw Minutes chasing after her.  
            "Zero!  Hold up, will ya!"  Minutes called after her.

            "Go to hell!" Lucky screamed over her shoulder.  He caught up with her and grabbed her by the arm.

            "Listen up, I'm sorry," he started but was quickly silenced by the icy glare Lucky shot him.  Sighing, he started again.  "I didn't mean to get you involved in this, but there's nothing I can do about it now."  His grip on her arm tightened.  "So quit being such a bitch," he added with a growl.

            "Piss off, Minutes!  Of course you meant to get me involved, or you wouldn't have asked me in the first place!"  She shook her arm free of his hand and stormed off toward the lodging house.  Lucky figured he would follow her, but heard no footsteps behind her.  When she looked back, there was no sign of Minutes.  Shaking her head angrily, she pushed open the door to the lodging house.  It should have felt good to be home, but Lucky just felt out of place.  Since she joined the house, she hadn't made much of an effort to make her presence know.  She preferred to sell alone, and rarely came back to the house before the wee hours of the morning.  How did I get into this mess, she asked herself.  Lucky made her way up to the bunkroom, thinking about the first time she had met Minutes.  It was the first week she had been in the lodging house.  She remembered feeling scared and lonely, and when Minutes came up to her one day, she felt a sense of security with him that she hadn't felt since leaving her parents.  Lucky laid down on her bunk and closed her eyes, allowing the memory to play in her head.

             "Hey doll, wudda ya doin' sellin' papes?  You're too pretty for dat!"  She smiled as she remembered his first words to her.  No one had ever called her pretty before.  They started talking and soon became friends.  Months had passed when one day, Minutes asked her to come with him somewhere and she agreed.  She followed along with him as he made his way to an abandoned factory on the edge of the Bronx territory.  Two young men waited for them inside. 

            "Who's the broad?" the one demanded.

            "This is… um…. Me goil..."  Lucky remembered the nervousness in Minutes' voice.  Lucky also remembered the butterflies in her stomach when she heard Minutes call her his girl.  She had grown quite fond of him and was happy to learn that he considered her to be his girl.

            "What's yer name, sweetheart?"  the other asked her.

            "That don't matter…." Minutes tried to avoid question, but the two men persisted. 

            "If she's gonna be heah for dis, den we wanna know her damn name."

            "It's Zero."  Lucky answered bluntly.  She couldn't figure out why Minutes hadn't wanted to tell them her name, but she figured he knew best.

            "I see where ya got dat name from,"  the first one remarked as his eyes swept over her, causing her cheeks to grow red in embarrassment.

            "Let's just get to business,"  Minutes insisted, avoiding eye contact with Lucky.  Their "business" took mere seconds, and soon Lucky found herself back outside, watching Minutes conceal a small brown package in his coat.  He walked her back to her usual corner in silence. 

            "I didn't know ya thought of me as your goil,"  Lucky tried to read Minutes' face, but it was like stone.  "Min?  Did ya hear me?"  He nodded.

            "Ya know, since you'se my goil now, maybe you could do me a favor…"

            "Shoa!  Anything!" 

            "Could you just hold onto dis for me?"  he shoved the package into her hands, looking around nervously.  Lucky took the package and tucked it carefully in her pants pocket.  "Don't tell anyone about it, especially not the odda newsies.  Dis is our secret…"

            Lucky pushed the memory out of her mind as she heard someone else enter the bunkroom.

            "Hi Lucky!"  Kat called out.  "Long time no see!"  Lucky ignored her and kept her eyes tightly closed.  She knew the other girls were getting annoyed with her aloof act, but she didn't really care.  I got enough problems, Lucky thought to herself.  Ever since that day with Minutes, her life had turned completely upside down.