It's a high. When the body reaches a certain level of pain, an altered state of mind takes over. You are in trance. After being put through so much pain, there exists a surge of endorphins as the body reacts to the fight-or-flight mode it was in while enduring the pain. Lucy Sullivan had trained herself for this kind of situation. She saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing but a breeze in her mind. A perfect day in a perfect place, and she was free to do as she pleased.

THUMP.

She winced at the painful new surprise. She quickly determined the thump against the back of her head was a book -- the Bible -- that had been used as a frequent weapon of Ms. Carrigan's. It was suddenly real again. She saw the wall before her, and heard the scoffs of the warden behind her. She still felt nothing in her hands. They were numb. But that was due to the fact that she had had to sit cross-legged, back straight, facing the wall with her hands plunged deep into a bucket of ice.

"Just think long and hard there, missy," ordered Ms. Carrigan, prowling up and down her office behind her before repeating with evil delight, "Think long and hard."

Lucy pursed her lips and a scowl grew on her face. She looked down, against her better judgment, and saw her bone-white hands wriggling minutely without feeling beneath cubes of ice.

Ms. Carrigan took a seat behind her desk, relaxing, and crossed her ankles atop a stack of newspapers. She gently set the Bible down and pulled out a matchbook and a cigarette. Lucy felt the anger in her stomach rise as she watched Ms. Carrigan out of the corner of her eye let the flame simmer slowly along the stick just before attaching it to her cigarette. The warden's icy grey eyes glared at the girl as the smoke left her mouth like a dragon. She longed for the reverie the pain had brought on.

"Think 'bout how your little hands feel now the next time you go droppin' all my plates in the kitchen," said Ms. Carrigan with authority. "Don't think I don't know it was a mistake, either!'

Lucy wasn't going to take it anymore. She shook her head and began to sit up, but her conscience warned her to stop. Ms. Carrigan straightened up at once, and smirked as she watched the fifteen-year old girl will herself to remain sitting.

"That's right, Sullivan, you stay there 'til I know you learned your lesson." She exhaled a puff of smoke. "Again."

Lucy had lost track of how many times she had been in Ms. Carrigan's office for punishment. She couldn't say this one was the worst, but Ms. Carrigan was starting to get creative.

She bit down hard on her lip to try and control the pain in her hands, but it was no use. She thought her bones would crumble to frozen pieces in there. She subtly shifted her hands around and rested them against the side of the bucket, out of the water and away from the ice cubes. It was no use, though. Ms. Carrigan sat up once more and pointed, with her hot, smoking cigarette, to the icy depths of the water. She couldn't concentrate to catch that high again.

Lucy shook her head. Suddenly, like a force over which she had no control (nor ever had), she spat out, "When my hands fall off in here, Ms. Carrigan, I'll be sure to get someone else to carry this bucket out for ya. Wouldn't want ya to go through the trouble an' work an' all."

They glared at each other for a moment, the anger rising in both of them. Ms. Carrigan rose from her desk and stomped across the floor. She hoisted one of Lucy's arms up forcefully and positioned the burning end of her cigarette barely an inch above Lucy's bare skin.

"One more word outta you, ya little brat, and I'll --"

Ms. Carrigan stopped talking and stared at Lucy's arm for a moment. As if she had reached her ultimate limit, she viciously followed through with her threat and snubbed her cigarette out into Lucy's arm. Lucy jumped back, yelping, and yanked her arm from Ms. Carrigan's grip. Her left hand held the searing wound tightly, and the frozenness of it helped ease the pain. She lay in a ball on the floor, eyes squeezed shut and fighting off tears, as Ms. Carrigan ordered her to leave and take the bucket of ice with her.

The orphanage was completely dark as she left pushing the bucket along the corridor with her feet. The security guards paced up and down, commenting to each other behind their hands upon seeing Lucy, once again, making her way out of the warden's office after lights-out. She had come to know each of the guards now. After six years, it was quite easy to pick up on their names. Not only that, but she observed where they were positioned each night, and how they responded to situations. After all, her time here was coming to a close -- she needed to know how to properly escape their grips.

"Good night, sir," she said every night to the guard outside the sleeping room. His name was Charlie. He simply nodded in return, aware of Lucy's irony in her politeness. He knew full well of Lucy Sullivan. In fact, not a soul breathed in that orphanage that didn't know who she was.

She tip-toed over to one of the bunks on her way to her own. Crouching down, she gently nudged the girl's shoulder until she awoke. "Tick…Tick!"

The young girl rolled over and said sleepily, "What izit?"

"Didja get the paper yet?"

Tick turned to look back at the doorway. Charlie was facing the other direction, speaking with another guard from across the hallway. Tick rolled over and dug through a box of knick-knacks and trinkets under her bed. Lucy gathered her long brown hair to one side and began fingering through it anxiously. Tick rolled over again and handed her a copy of the New York Sun. Lucy's lips spread into a huge smile as soon as she looked at the picture.

"Which one is he?" asked Tick, leaning over her bed.

Lucy adjusted the paper so that it was visible in the moonlight from the window above them. The group of boys was large, but her eyes flew directly to the one in the middle, who stood centered and poised, a proud grin on his face. She pointed to her older brother.

"There. Jack Kelly," she whispered, glancing over her shoulder at the doorway. "Well, that's what everyone else calls him."

"What'd he do?"

"Oh, just led a strike against the newspaper god Pulitzer in New York. Just that," she said sarcastically, and Tick laughed.

The guards finished their conversation and Lucy hurriedly made her way to her bed. Just as she jumped under the scanty covers, the girl who slept next to her, Ginger, rolled over with the same excitement on her face as Lucy.

"Is it him, Luce?"

Charlie looked back into the sleeping hall and stalked in, looking at each side of the aisle and scanning the room for anyone out of line. Lucy waited until he was out of the room to whisper in response, "Tick got it! I'll tell you all about it tomorrow morning!"

Lucy tucked the newspaper safely under her pillow and rolled onto her side. Her arm stung against her sheet, and she was suddenly -- painfully -- reminded of the small, cigarette-shaped burn on her arm. It was fresh, still, and bleeding a little. She brought her cold hand to it and held it tight.

Ginger and Tick huddled around Lucy as she pored over the newspaper the next morning. Her bowl of mush resembling what oatmeal might look like sat cold and untouched next to her, as she read to herself, her lips moving silently over the words.

"So is it still goin' on?" asked Tick.

"The strike? Maybe. The paper's a week old."

"Sorry 'bout that." Tick stared dejectedly at her mush.

Lucy shook her head and finished the story. Ginger picked up the paper. She smiled at the picture and said, "Ya know, some 'a these boys is pretty cute."

Lucy laughed. So Jack had taken on the big guys. When she had heard from one of the chimney sweep boys a few days ago that there was a newsies strike in Manhattan, she laughed and dismissed the idea. She had been in Boston in the same orphanage for six years, and some of the things she had heard about New York were often false. Then a few days later, the boys said they were leaving their jobs to go down there in support of the strike, and that a boy named Jack Kelly was the leader. Immediately she knew the story was true, and that it was soon turn to legend.

"So your brother's in the middle?" asked Ginger. "Nice. Ya look like him, least from what I can tell. 'Cept your eyes are blue…" she looked closer at the picture. "His are brown, I think."

"Yeah, my mom had blue eyes. But ev'rything else we get from my dad."

"So your disregard fer authority, that's from yer dad?" teased Ginger. She gulped down a spoonful of mush, choking down the bland taste.

Lucy laughed and nodded. "Yeah, he's had a few run-in's with the law, we'll put it that way. Not to Jack, though. According to him, our parents are out West. He won't tell people my mom's dead and my dad's in prison. He gets the dreamin' thing from my mom. But I haven't seen him in six years, he could be different." She thought a moment. "Nah, I'm sure he's still Jack."

Lucy and Jack shared a unique quality of breaking rules, but when it came to down to it, both were different. Jack had always been an optimist, refusing to let anyone beat him, and he was free to dream as he pleased; and while Lucy believed she wouldn't let anyone get her down either, she preferred honesty over imagination. Nevertheless, she admired Jack's glass-half-full outlook; it obviously let him accomplish things like a strike.

"Any more 'a these guys yer brothers?" asked Ginger. "These two on the right…one's got an eye patch, the other's wearin' suspenders…Not too bad, Luce. Not bad at all!"

"Sorry, Ginge. Even if they were my brothers, ain't like I could introduce you to 'em anyway. We're a good distance from New York."

"You can always use that rebellious streak to escape, ya know," laughed Ginger. "Get us the hell outta here, how 'bout it?"

Lucy laughed at the absurdity. She dunked her spoon into her breakfast and, plugging her nose, was able to get down three gulps.

Ms. Carrigan entered the mess hall with a powerful entrance, swinging the door open. She turned up her nose as she stalked down the center aisle, her Bible tucked comfortably in the crook of her arm, and hair pinned up tightly out of her face. Lucy, at the far end of the hall, glowered in her direction.

"That from last night?" asked Tick quietly. She pointed to the burn on Lucy's arm.

Without taking her stare away from Ms. Carrigan, she nodded, and her eyebrows slowly knitted together. She blindly ran her finger over the wound. She could count on hands and toes the amount of bruises, cuts, or scars she had on her body from living in this orphanage. She felt her face grow hot with anger.

"Looks like it's healin' okay, huh?" said Tick, though Lucy was paying little attention.

Ms. Carrigan was inches away from her now. She met eyes with Lucy and stopped at her end of the table. She had a pinched, smug look on her face as she stared down at her. Lucy clenched her jaw; she had little control over her emotions, particularly anger.

"Up," ordered Ms. Carrigan.

Lucy, stiff, rose and felt several pairs of orphan eyes flicker in her direction.

"Now, I don't want to see you anymore in my office, Lucy. Are you going to obey the rules of this orphanage? Finally? After all these years, have I finally knocked the sense into you?" Her voice had elevated, but she was quick to check herself. In a more even tone she continued, "Lucy, God frowns upon the child who defies her guardians. Do you understand?"

Lucy released the tension in her fists and exhaled sharply through her nose. She closed her eyes, taking herself, for a split second, away from the orphanage. A light smile grew on Lucy's lips. Ginger and Tick exchanged puzzled glances; they had been ready for Lucy to hit her back or at the very least, spit something back in response.

"Yes, Ms. Carrigan." Lucy cradled her forearm next to her stomach, rubbing her newest wound. "I understand now."

Ms. Carrigan fought the urge to smile as she looked Lucy up and down suspiciously. Her eyes unlocked from Lucy and shot their glance at the newspaper on the table. She picked it up and snorted a contemptuous laugh as she read the headline.

"Girls, don't get any ideas," she said quietly, almost to herself. She turned and began walking away.

Lucy let go of her restraint and said, as fast as she thought it, "That's my paper!"

Ms. Carrigan paused and turned slowly. The mess hall was quiet now, their attention fixed at the far end of the room. Lucy now stood in the aisle, Ms. Carrigan a few feet away with an insulted, annoyed look about her face.

"And now it's mine! Sit. Down."

"Not 'til I have my paper!" Lucy felt her calm self, the quiet voice of reason, had left her body and was floating above her, shaking her head and covering her eyes.

"Child, do you learn nothing? I give you a roof over your head and food in your stomach, and you continue to defy me the way you do? You're lucky I don't throw you out onto the streets for your past -- and current -- behavior! I say no newspapers, and I mean it! Sit! Down! Now!"

Ms. Carrigan and Lucy glared icily at each other . The calm Lucy, above her head, tried its best to quell the angry one, to tell her to let it go, to sit down and spare this fight. Defeated, Lucy turned up her nose and slowly walked back to her seat, her heels clicking against the floor with a resounding noise that could be heard around the entire hall. Ms. Carrigan watched as Lucy, stiffened by restraint, dug her spoon into her bowl of mush. The mess hall returned to conversation and she walked down the aisle again.

Tick exhaled as if she hadn't breathed for a full minute. "Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. Got lucky that time."

"Yeah, I thought you was gonna rip 'er head off," added Ginger. "It's like you enjoy pissin' her off."

Lucy shuddered as the mush filled her stomach. She thought of Jack. She thought of the strike. "I'm not doin' this no more. I'm finished."

"Good, more fer me…" said Tick as she pulled Lucy's breakfast from her greedily.

"No, Tick, I'm not doin' this anymore!" She gestured largely about the mess hall. "The orphanage, Carrigan, I'm done!"

Ginger eyed her cautiously. "What're you sayin', Luce?"

"I'm sayin' I'm takin' a cue from my brother, and I'm leavin'. Tomorrow."

Tick and Ginger looked at each other and exchanged looks once more. Lucy took back her bowl from Tick and scarfed down the rest of its contents. She felt her stomach rush, and she knew once again why she always dared to speak up.


A/N: I'm torturing you, making you wait a few chaps after that crazy prologue ;) you'll thank me later. This is just withdrawl. (Count on a corny joke for every chap now, haha)