so, this is very fun! i actually don't think this story will exceed 10 or so chapters. which is terribly shocking seeing as i usually cant write a decent ending.(as you probably know if youve read anything else ive written)

Disclaimer: I own Shadow and the idea for her story, that's it.

Where was I? The beginning, right. Which one? Oh yeah! So, I was rid of Maria, but I hadn't found anouther client yet. Normally if I have time between jobs, I'll hang out with the Brooklyn guys or go shopping, or catch up on sleep. But I didn't. The very next night, I found myself in costume and crouched on a fire escape above Kid Blink and his friends. I banged my head against the railing as quietly as possible. What was I doing? The job was over, why was I still following him? I stopped hitting my head and looked down. The others were continuing down the alley, but Kid Blink stood there, looking around casually. Once they were out of sight, he sat on the stairs of the fire escape and started to whisper to himself. My mind screamed that it was a trap, but my experience and my pride told me I could get close enough to hear him. So I crept down, as carefully and silently as was humanly possible. I was on the landing above him, but I still couldn't hear. This was the only time I hesitated. I reminded myself that I could easily scale the side of the fire escape and get to the top of the building, then I climbed over the railing and lowered myself down as far as I could. I could hear what he was saying now.

"...I'm going to keep talking until you come down here. You're sneaky, but so am I. I know you've been following me..." He was talking to me. He didn't see me, but he was talking to me. It was a trap. He was just trying to lure me down. All of this registered about a half second before he swung around and grabbed my wrist. I tried to climb up, and for a second we were at a stalemate. But he had the obvious advantage, plus gravity was on his side. My hand slipped and I fell. Apparently he hadn't thought this through, because I landed on top of him. Neither of us moved for a second.(if you've been counting, it's been about 10 seconds since I realized this was a trap.) Then I stood and tried to get to the end of the alley, but he grabbed my ankle and I tripped again. "You've been following me."

"I know." I turned around so we could sit facing each other.

"Ok. Why? And who are you?"

"I'm insulted. I thought everyone in New York knew who I was. I'll have to advertise more."

"You're that spy, aren't you? The Shadow." I bowed as best I could from a sitting position.

"At your service. Any other questions?" He started to say something. "Oh no, I remember. 'Why?' Because a client asked me to." It was true. Maria had asked me to follow him. Just because I wasn't under her orders anymore...

"Who?"

"A finishing school girl who 'seeks your face in the crowd of newsboys every morning' and buys a paper from you every day."

"Lots of people buy a paper from me every day."

"She's at the highest end finishing school in probably the entire city and said she 'runs outside just to buy a paper from you.' She's not exactly the brightest, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's run into you a time or two." Another skill I had picked up. Studying people's personalities and determining how they would most likely act. My imagination was rather active, so I ended up with some pretty entertaining scenarios sometimes.

"Oh, her. I always thought she was slightly brain damamged." I laughed, I couldn't agree more.

"Well that's good, she's not interested in you anymore."

"Really? Why not?" He sounded a bit dissapointed.

"Because you smoke and drink and like showgirls. That last one really pushed her over the edge. I wouldn't be surprised if her eyes were still all wide like that, and I told her yesterday." His eyes, rather, eye(only one is visible, remember? The whole eye patch thing?) narrowed and my hand flew to my mouth. There goes my mouth ahead of my brain again.

"So why are you still following me?" Now neither my mouth or my brain was working. I employed the use of the first question I could fully form.

"Why do you wear an eye patch?" I reached out to remove it, but he grabbed my wrist and stopped me.

"Why do you wear a mask?" Still holding my right wrist with his left hand, he reached out with his right just like I had. But my brain was busy trying to think of something to say and didn't think to move my left hand at all. He grabbed the corner of my black mask and pulled it back over my head. Alright, I'll admit it, it wasn't actually a mask. It was a strip of black fabric with two holes cut in it. My dark hair just made it look like I had a hood or somehting on, and I think that's what he was expecting. "You are a girl."

"I know."

"I've only heard about you in rumors, and I never knew. Race said you were, that he had hired you before, but we didn't really belive him."My brain was still a little behindand only nowtold my left hand to move. I reached up and slowly pulled my mask from his grip, my eyes never leaving his. He had these really beautiful, deep brown eyes(well, I assume he had two of them. Like I said, only one was visible).

"I'm still following you because another person told me to." I spoke very slowly. My left hand was still up, because he hadn't let go of the end of my mask.

"Who?" I tried to speak without success for a few seconds(four, if anyone is still measuring the length of this encounter in seconds), then managed to say it.

"Me."

"You're Shadow, from Brooklyn, aren't you?" I nodded. It was very strange. He was only using one eye, and yet he was keeping me from looking away. I couldn't look away, no matter how much I wanted to(which, admittedly, wasn't very much). No one had ever done that to me, and they all used two eyes. He smiled, just a very small trace of one, but I knew it was definitely a smaller version of the one I'd been watching for the past week. "You're not the only spy."

"What?"

"Whenever I go to Brooklyn, or whenever Spot brings his crew over here, I watch you."

"How often do you go to Brooklyn?"

"As often as I can." Oh my gosh! He liked me! He went to Brooklyn so he could watch me! "I know that sounds pretty stalker-like, doesn't it?"

"You're talking to a spy. Trust me, it doesn't freak me out at all." His smile widened, and so did mine. Good, my brain finally caught up. My left hand(which was still up in the air, remember) dropped the mask and instead reached back more and closed around his right wrist.

"You missed," he whispered. He slid his hand through my rather loose grip so I was holding his hand instead. Then, the simply unthinkable happened.(Well, it's actually probably not that unthinkable, seeing that as you're reading this, you're prbably guessing what's going to happen. You probably won't predict the twist though.) He leaned forward. His lips were an inch from mine. My eyes were closed and everything when I heard footsteps. I opened me eyes and glanced over Kid Blink's head to see his friends walking toward us(after noting that his eye was open. I don't think he had ever closed it. I guess that's ok though, I can just imagine him missing).

"Hey Kid, you alright?" He let go with his left hand(the one that was still holding my right wrist from when I had triend(half heartedly I might add) the remove his eye patch. Hey, I just put a parenthase inside a parenthase. Am I allowed to do that?) and motioned for them to go away, but his eye never left mine. They didn't go away, but his back was to them, so he didn't know that. His hand moved from above his left shoulder to behind my head and he pulled me forward and kissed me. There were whoops and whistles from the newsies that stood observing this. I realized(mid kiss) that my right hand was free and I held it up, a certain finger extended. They laughed and after another second, Kid Blink sat up and turned around to see what was so funny. I had put my hand back down and to this day, it has remained an inside joke between Racetrack, Mush, and me.

I actually went through and edited this chapter! isnt that exciting! lemme know what you think of it