Snakes, David thought when he saw the leader of Harlem. Snakes.

He was a massive boy, steel cable muscles rippling under ebony flesh. His hair was wiry and twisted into cables. He was sitting in a wooden, cane-back chair with one leg thrown over the arm. It gave David the appearance of a king sitting on a throne. When he rose to greet Jack, he didn't carry that certain arrogance that Spot had when he did so. The casual flippancy that he had had when he jumped down and did the spit-shake in one, fluid motion.

He regarded Jack with cautious reverence, spitting lightly into his palm before clasping Jack's hand.

"Lion's dead," Wart said in a hurried voice. "Murdered."

The boy stroked his chin with one hand.

"That is quite the shame." His voice boomed over them, carrying a cadence that David couldn't quite place. "Lion was a good boy. Never ran his mouth."

The other boys around him nodded.

"Yeah," Jack said. "And more are missin'. Including one of my own. You got any problems, Val?"

"No. None of my boys have gone missing," he stated. "That I know of."

Jack leaned in, his face set in a grimace. David felt his heart accelerate, wanting to see Jack in action. Strangely, this was accompanied by a strange, groin-y sensation that shuddered up his body.

"Well, Val," his voice was razor sharp and sent chills up David's spine. "You tell us if you see anything."

Spot smirked behind him as though he hadn't spent the morning being violently sick off of the docks. David stood up next to Jack as though he were his second-in-command. True, he was, but he felt like a fraud. He didn't know any of these boys. Spot or Race should have been up there with Jack, not him. The others were hanging back save for Spot and twins. Being leaders seemed to have certain rights and privileges.

Dragging himself back to reality, David noticed a kind of mental contest going on between the Harlem leader and Jack. Though physically smaller, Jack seemed to tower over him. His gaze was sharp and slightly terrifying. David knew that Jack could be incredibly intense but this was starting to frighten him a little.

"I…will tell you, Cowboy," the youth said finally, his voice reverberating against the walls of the cramped lodging house.

Jack smiled a smile that frightened David. A curly, creepy smile that made his entire body shudder and made that groin-y feeling return once more.

"Glad that we could come to an agreement, Val."

Jack stood and motioned for the others to follow him out the door.

"What was that about?" Race asked the moment they were back onto the street.

The sun pressed down as though it were reprimanding them for something. It was beating hard, trying to milk the last days of summer before autumn took over the city it seemed.

Jack grinned. "Valentine's got some explainin' to do is all."

"You mean you think he's hidin' something?" Spot queried, cocking a brow masterfully.

"No, I mean that I know he's hidin' something."

There was an uneasy silence for a moment with everyone just standing there, not sure of what to say. Blink started walking a little way down the street, a smile on his face. Blink had been smiling since they had reached Harlem, his thin face split by a huge grin and a certain, youthful exuberance held in his good eye, which sparkled like the sapphires David had seen in books.

"Well." Jester broke the silence and held up his hands. "Wart'n'I need 't be 'eadin' back. We got our remainin' boys 't deal with."

Wart nodded, clutching his cap in one hand and wringing it with the other. They both exchanged a spit-shake with Jack before heading on their ways.

The remaining group walked towards the distribution center, Spot included. He seemed edgy about going back over the bridge to Brooklyn and, quite frankly, David couldn't blame him. Spot was tough, but looking into his eyes, there was a certain darkness there. Even Spot couldn't pretend that what happened to him wasn't traumatizing. Unfortunately, David had a feeling that he'd respond to that feeling by being more aggressive. Dangerously aggressive. Aggressive enough to searching after the killer on his own.

"Listen," Jack said. "Don't tell no one 'bout Lion. They'll find out but it wont' be from us. Got it?"

He was looking directly at Mush.

"What?" he squeaked and looked around, confused.

"You don't got the best luck with keepin' your mouth shut," Skittery explained.

He pouted and crossed his arms but Blink squeezed his shoulder and he loosened up as they continued their walk.

"My mama was from here," Mush said after a while, gesturing back to Harlem. "I like it."

No one replied and they continued to walk in silence. It was the silence that got to David. He always felt the need to fill empty space with words, keep the air buzzing and warm with sounds and words and laughter. But now even Race was keeping quiet.

"Jack…" Skittery said finally. "Does this mean that…that Snoddy's dead?"

He put a smile on his face. "Nah. Lion was missin' a whole week afore he ended up dangling from Spot's tower. Snoddy's somewhere. We just gotta find 'im."

His words echoed hollowly off of the buildings. Even though they were amongst masses of people trundling around New York, the city felt empty. David surveyed the faces of the others. Everyone's was locked in a grim, stoic-faced mask. No one believed Jack. He glanced further down the line. Not even Mush.

--

Jack Kelly always prided himself upon being smart. Not just smart but able to think on his feet. He was one of the few newsboys who could read and read well. He was good at coming up with things at the spur of the moment. Like his name.

He hadn't known where he pulled Jack Kelly from the night he made it up. He had recently escaped from the refuge and Snyder, not wanting to lose the walking money, would have been after him. He signed the ledger at the lodging house that night for the first time. But Frankie Sullivan had to be put to rest. He thought of names. The Kelly part was easy. That was his mother's name: Patricia Kelly. Watch her sing, watch her dance, watch her cough herself to death.

He remembered watching, at the tender age of four, his mother singing on stage and fall into a fit of coughing. It was a normal occurrence, it was winter after all, but then the drop of red hit the boards of the stage.

Jack he pulled simply from the air as it was the first name he thought of. Thus, Francis Sullivan ceased to exist and Jack Kelly was born.

That was why he was nervous. He didn't know what to do, didn't know who the killer would strike next, if he'd strike next. Jack skipped out on the afternoon edition and instead took up to David's fire escape. David didn't know it but he often went there to think. Sometimes Sarah would come out and join him but usually he was on his own. Although, he sometimes wanted David to pull aside the curtains and find him there. Stare down upon him with his blue eyes seeing right through him, the curtains locked in one, pale hand. Hands Jack sometimes felt the strong urge to grab and hold onto for eternity.

But David was out selling and only Esther was home, tidying and singing to herself in Polish. So Jack sat on the black metal, thinking.

He thought of the strike first, and Denton. He had always felt a latent jealousy of that man with his bowties and bowler hats. He was ridiculous to behold but Jack felt in awe of him. But not just that, but the bare-faced admiration David had for him. Admiration that he didn't even have for Jack. The way David's eyes shone when he put an arm on Denton's back and said 'he's going to be an ace war correspondent' and how he always seemed to get dreamy-eyed when he talked about him.

David. All of his thoughts turned to David. Jack willed them away and concentrated. A boy was dead. Dead. Killed. There was no Denton now. No one to hear their story, no one to write words and help them. They were on their own. The papers wouldn't cover a story about some dead street rats. That's what they were: street rats, street trash, urchins. They didn't mean nothing to nobody.

Except each other.

"'Lot of damn good that does," he said sourly to no one in particular.

How could they even stick together when they lied to each other? He thought of Valentine, concealing things from him. He didn't like it. No one hid things from Jack Kelly. Especially not the large, silent leader of Harlem.

Jack rested his forehead on his knees, feeling useless. And he was violating his own rule. Despite Esther's presence, he was alone. Alone and vulnerable. Would he be taken in broad daylight?

"I thought I'd find you here."

Jack glanced up to see David standing on the fire escape. The knee of his brown pants had torn during the climb and the flesh shown was white but not the sick-looking white that his mother was. Looking at David's white knee was somehow better than a peepshow. It was white as bone and strangely beautiful. Like a statue. There should be a statue named David.

"You knew I come here?" he asked, confused.

David smiled and sat down across from him. "Sarah told me."

"Your mother's in there."

"I know. I don't want her to know I'm here."

Jack felt something conspiratorial all of a sudden, with that last comment. That he didn't want his mother to know that they were out there, talking. Perhaps he was blowing it out of proportion, that David just meant that he didn't want his mother to know about the murders. Still, a shiver went up his spine.

"You're worried, Jack."

The statement sent him reeling.

"What'd ya mean?"

"You're worried because you can't see it. You can't fight it with your fists."

His mouth went dry and he lowered his head sheepishly. David could see right through him. He was right. Unless faced with the killer, he couldn't find it. Physical fights, that was what he was good at, not this mind-bending malarkey that'd end up with him in the nuthouse, getting electro-shocked back into normality.

"Dave, how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"See through everything."

He shrugged. "I just do."

Jack smirked at him and David gave a little smile back. It wasn't much of a smile, just a little half cock of his mouth but it sent those shivers back up Jack's spine. It wasn't smirk and it was somehow sad.

"Jack…" he stared up at the maze of fire escapes above them and let his name dangle for a while, not chasing it with the rest of a sentence. "…Will we find Snoddy?"

There was no forced cheerfulness this time. Jack reached out and placed a hand on David's knee, feeling the sweet warmth radiating from it.

"No," he said simply, voice catching only slightly. "We won't."

--

"Snitch, stop suckin' your thumb!"

Sheepishly, he pulled the offending digit from his mouth but, within seconds, it found its way back there. He frowned over it. He thought he had gotten over the habit. During the daylight at the very least. But he was nervous and when he was nervous, he sucked his thumb.

"Snitch, they ain't gonna get us in the middle of the day," Itey assured him with a smile.

Snitch was usually calmed by Itey's smile. Crooked teeth and a little tilted on his dirt-streaked face, it was enough to cheer him up when his skies were gray. But today, his body was racing ahead of him and he couldn't even concentrate.

"I don't wanna sell," he said after a moment. "I got enough for a stay tonight and we got some bread stored up, right Ite?"

Itey nodded slowly, his matted curls flopping onto his forehead as he did so.

"Good idea," Mush said quickly.

He and Blink had joined them for sale that afternoon. They had shown up at the distribution center, their smiles wide enough to split their faces. Strange smiles that didn't meet their eyes—or eye, in Blink's case. It had unnerved the both of them since Mush and Blink smiled plenty of real smiles all of the time.

"Let's go swim," Mush suggested.

Blink elbowed him discreetly and he snapped as if to attention. Snitch dutifully corked his mouth with his thumb once more and glanced over at Itey. He was standing with his hip cocked out to the side, his papes under his arm and one thick eyebrow quirked.

"But not in Brooklyn," he added hastily.

"Don't want Spot's musclemen to decide to soak us," Blink chimed in, his voice dripping with fake sincerity.

"What's goin' on here?" Itey asked.

"Nothin'."

They spoke as one person and it unnerved Snitch slightly. Mush and Blink were most definitely acting peculiar.

"Come on," Mush chirped.

They started off at a brisk pace. Itey stared after them, his face furrowed in confusion. Snitch unplugged his mouth and wiped his thumb on the side of his pants.

"I guess we should go with 'em?"

Itey shrugged. "I guess."

--

Racetrack Higgins was not a boy of simple thoughts. If you saw him, you'd think nothing more of him than an immigrant boy with a wise mouth and thoughts of horses in the head. But he was complex.

Skittery knew that after Lion died. They had split apart from the others, walking slowly down the street. Skittery shuffled his feet to keep in time with Race who was far shorter than he.

Both boys had remained silent since their return to the island and to the afternoon edition. They sold together by default and had yet to speak. For Race, it was something that would usually be incredibly difficult. He couldn't keep his mouth shut for any amount of money. But, with what just happened, he found silence to be easy. Easy, but not comforting.

"What are we going to do?" finally, Race broke the silence that had settled over the two of them.

Skittery shrugged his shoulders. He couldn't help but feel massive around Race. He remembered something Mush told him ages ago. About dreams. Giants, he had said. He had dreams about giants. Huge, looming, dripping with waffled skin and hatred. Mush had told him that it wasn't that he was afraid of being attacked by the giants. He was afraid of being bloated and angry and huge. That he was one of them. It had been his response when Skittery asked him why he sometimes woke up biting himself.

Skittery felt like one of the dream giants standing with Race. It was strange. He didn't feel that way when he was with the children and they were even smaller than he was. The children soothed him. Made him less angry at everyone.

"I don't know," he answered after a long pause. "Jack should know."

"Jack always knows."

They walked on in silence, not speaking. Neither bothered to push their papes. Their hearts weren't in it. Skittery kept picturing Lion, the Bronx boy. Dangling from Spot's tower. It made him sick just remembering it.

"Race…I don't think Jack knows what to do."

There was a long pause. Race stared awkwardly into a storefront, his narrow brown eyes fixated on the pane of glass with the gold lettering. His small shoulders were bunched up as though he were carrying a heavy load.

"Yeah," he said after a minute. "Jack ain't gotta clue."

Skittery scuffed his boot on the ground before answering. "Can't blame him."

"Me either."

--

There was something beautiful about them that he wanted to possess. He had read about them in the paper. Child heroes. They were beautiful. There was one in particular that caught his interest. One that he wanted to take especially for his own.

He unfolded the picture he tore from the paper. It was well worn and tearing slightly at the creases. The boys staring out in various forms of disarray. One looked in pain, one was dangling sideways, but most just looked confused. Bald surprise written on their dirty faces. Except for one. The dangerously gorgeous one in the center with the big smile on his face. He licked his lips.

He put it back into his pocket and hid near the window. A small group of four that he recognized from the picture was heading towards the docks to swim. Just shy of the bridge. Over which he dangled the body of the poor boy who had the misfortune to cross his path.

He watched them with keen interest as they took their clothes off. His breath caught in his throat as one let his longjohns drop. He had never noticed how exquisite he was in the photo. All he had seen was a confused face. His cheekbones were half-shells on his face, taupe skin stretched over them deliciously. His lips were full and plush like those of angels in Renaissance paintings he had seen in books. His nose was upturned and his eyes…his eyes. Even from there, he could see the sweetness and soulfulness behind them. The riot of tight curls on his head that he wanted to tug.

He watched him run towards the water. The arch of his biceps, the clench of his thigh. His round, firm buttocks. He nearly swooned. He gripped the wooden sill of his window so hard that paint came off in his hands.

The other boys were less exquisite but fine in their own ways. The blonde especially. His wide mouth was stretched into a grin as he swam in tight little circles. A strange thing, that mouth. It was wide and almost clownish but it seemed right on his narrow face. The Italian-looking boy had those beautiful curls and the boy with the wavy hair had large front teeth that made him look somehow innocent.

He gripped the curtain. The first boy, the one with the exquisite body, was to be his next. He would do more than just come up behind him on the street and kill him. He wanted him like he wanted the grinning boy.

He wanted to have him.