Shout Outs:
My most faithful NML feedback-senders: Eire, Tree, Sparks, and RunAway
My Insane Random Role Play Sisters, for giving me all the incentive I needed: Cocky, Let, Poker, Spy, Tag, and RunAway and Tree again
And my most faithful fanfiction.net reviewer, StormShadow
Here, then, is the long-promised chapter, and although I have to study for midterms all weekend, I'm still fairly optimistic about getting another one up soon.
Somewhere they're speaking
It's already coming in
Oh, and it's rising at the back of your mind
You never could get it
Unless you were fed it
And now you're here and you don't know why.
-Everything You Want, by Vertical Horizon
The Manhattan visiting party stood close together in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge.
No one had agreed to pause at this point; yet every newsie had stopped dead upon reaching it. There was just something about crossing the Brooklyn Bridge that forced you to hesitate for a few moments...to take time to think. Think about things like the sheer size of the bridge, and the awesome beauty of the river, and whether you were entirely certain your sanity was intact. After all, you were going to Brooklyn.
And to Spot Conlon.
Girls had stood in the middle of this bridge and planned their weddings. Other kids had stood here...rival newsies from other boroughs, or ragged runaways with nowhere else to go, or even Brooklyn newsies who had failed at some task or another...and planned their funerals.
Secret planned the death of her alter ego.
After she had run off from Tibby's, the boys had soon caught up to her and demanded explanations. Blink had been understandably horrified and outraged. Jack had merely appeared shocked; he couldn't quite find it in him to be angry at an insult to Flick, even the poignant and cruel one that Secret...well, Secret's alter ego...had chosen. It was Mush and David's attitudes that had hurt Secret the most. Neither angry, nor triumphant at the sleight to Flick, both had seemed deeply bewildered...and deeply worried about her.
Unfortunately for them, one aspect of her normal personality seemed to have returned. She kept her mouth firmly shut, except to apologize repeatedly for what she'd said, and to express fervent wishes to find Flick. While the others hadn't considered this an especially bright idea, they had agreed to help her look. When there was no sign of either Flick or Race in any of the usual newsie haunts, the search party had split up and gone their separate ways; Jack with Dave, and Secret with Mush and Blink. And now, now that they had all finished selling their papers, and met up with Skitts and Itey and Bumlets, and gathered in the middle of the bridge, Secret dimly realized that she was still going through with it. She was actually going to Brooklyn.
There was no turning back.
Upon arriving on the other side of the bridge, the guests were greeted with the typical Brooklyn scene: chaos. As usual, the docks and river were teeming with a huge, noisy, completely unruly gang of boys. Here and there, mixed in with their male colleagues, the Manhattan newsies also occasionally caught sight of a girl. Since the newsgirls were dressed in boys' clothes for swimming purposes, it was a difficult to pick them out of the crowd.
Secret glanced at the shirt and pants cradled in her arms, and wondered if Mulberry would let her wear them again. Under normal circumstances, she would have borrowed clothes from Flick, but current circumstances were not exactly normal. She shuddered again at the memory of those terrible words that had come out of her fickle mouth, and tried to block them out for the time being.
"Secret!"
Thank goodness: a diversion. And, speak of the devil, it was none other than the cheerful caramel-haired Mulberry, who greeted Secret with a warm smile and a quick spitshake. "Ya came," she observed shrewdly. She didn't look surprised. For some reason, this bothered Secret quite a bit.
Meanwhile, her companions were being greeted as well, the natives swarming around with grins and nods and spitshakes and slaps on the back, already firing questions, jokes, and snippets of news and gossip a mile a minute. Brooklynites were talkers as well as fighters.
Taking advantage of this distraction, Mulberry took the opportunity to drag Secret off to the lodging house. "Ya need ta get changed," she pointed out as they entered the girls' bunkroom through the door on the left.
It quickly became clear, however, that letting Secret change into river-appropriate clothes was just an excuse. Mulberry was concerned about other matters, and she didn't beat around the bush. She'd barely taken a seat on the edge of her bunk before she had addressed her main point of interest.
"Ya fallen fer 'im, den?"
After gaping at the other girl for several embarassing seconds, Secret stalled for time by stripping off her dress and donning the clothes that still made her feel so strange and self-conscious. Mulberry waited patiently but expectantly.
Finally, Secret finished dressing and turned to the Brooklyn newsgirl.
"No," she replied firmly.
Mulberry's eyes bored into her. "Still in da denial stage?"
Helpless frustration and anger showed on Secret's face...when had her face started showing anything? When had she become incapable of keeping it perfectly expressionless, which she had been able to do for fifteen years?
"I said no an' I meant it," she insisted coldly. "I came heah 'cause I like Brooklyn. It's got nuttin' ta do wit..."
Her tongue froze, curled around the name like a dragon curled around a treasure chest.
" I see," Mulberry murmured, sliding off her bunk and starting toward the door. She didn't seem offended by Secret's tone. Indeed, she responded to it with something that almost sounded like...pity. "I see," she repeated softly over her shoulder, as she opened the bunkroom door and stepped out into the lobby. "It's got nuttin' ta do wit da one whose name ya can't say."
When she caught up to Mulberry on the docks, Secret found her with two other girls. She recognized one of them, Bat, from her last visit. The other was unfamiliar to her, a striking Hispanic girl about her age and maybe an inch taller. That one was currently biting her lip, eyes narrowed as if in silent disapproval. Bat was shaking her head as Mulberry, face earnest, spoke rapidly to her. When Secret arrived on the scene, she immediately fell silent. The other two newsgirls' expressions vanished from their faces like chalk wiped off a blackboard.
Oh, very subtle.
Suppressing a snort, Secret forced her face into something resembling a smile. "Hey," she greeted lightly.
Mulberry forced a smile in return, and nodded. Bat responded with a carefully neutral and reserved, "Heya." Only the third girl's greeting seemed sincere.
"Hola!" she exclaimed, rocking back on her heels as if she couldn't bear to stay still for long. "Me llamo Snake Eyes. Don't pay attention to these chicas, they're not so bad once you get to know them." She flashed a smile that caused her brown eyes to sparkle and her whole face to light up. Secret had to smile back.
"Um...what'd she jist say ta me?" she asked Bat and Mulberry blankly.
Mulberry giggled. Bat rolled her eyes, smiling tolerantly. "She said hey, an' told ya her name's Snake Eyes, an' she called us chicas, which she says means 'goils' but I'se startin' ta suspect it's really an insult."
"It is not!" Snake Eyes exclaimed indignantly. "It means 'girls', nothin' more, a perfectly good everyday word..."
"See, dat's how ya get 'er ta speak English," Mulberry spoke up with a grin.
Secret was beginning to relax. This peculiar miracle called Snake Eyes seemed to have broken the ice. The Brooklyn girls were becoming the friendly people she remembered, and somehow, things would work out for the best.
Then she turned around to face the edge of the dock, with a vague idea of going swimming, and felt the bottom plunge out of her world.
Gold hair, blue eyes, red suspenders, slingshot and gold-topped cane, and that expression, that expression like he owned the world, and knew the streets, and felt nothing, and towered over everything, and saw into your soul...
Secret's heart stopped beating. Her world stopped spinning. Her face paled, her heart twisted into a painful knot, goosebumps rose on her arms. She wanted to turn and run, to hide, to scream, and her heart, which wasn't beating anymore, was at the same time hammering in her ears and pounding blood through her veins. She felt so filled up with emotion that she was overflowing. She felt as hot as the sun and as cold as ice. She felt like she was going to die. Like she had just stepped off the edge of a precipice and slowly begun to fall...or plunged into the ocean and begun to sink beneath the surface.
Spot Conlon crossed his arms and smirked. He spoke, two simple words, an exact echo of those words Mulberry had said to Secret when she'd arrived.
"Ya came."
..................
The Sheepshead Races were crowded tonight. There was rarely a night when they were not. Summer or winter, rain or shine, fans never failed to turn out in alarming numbers to bet on their favorite horses, and to see them run.
Race and Flick hurried to place their own bets. Race chose a stallion named Comet, with tremendous odds against him, as was Racetrack's custom. Flick decided on a mare called Twilight Prayer, claiming she liked the name. Flick's choices had an interesting tendency to make no sense.
Once that was taken care of, the two newsies headed to their usual box, Flick grumbling good-naturedly about the inadequacy of Pie Eater's "loan" while Race chewed on his cigar and inserted such absurd remarks that she finally gave up her would-be complaints and succumbed to laughter.
Twilight was falling, the world acquiring its surreal ice-blue tint that normally marked the start of a race. It was cold, Flick observed. Quite cold, actually. Unusually so for a September evening. She shivered and pulled her navy-blue vest closer around her, leaning back in the box and glancing at Race. The casual glance became a startled one when she found his gaze already fastened directly on her. Both of then quickly looked away.
Race watched his last cigar crumble to ash and didn't light another one. He was trying to concentrate on the horses. Or rather, he was trying not to concentrate on his companion.
It was crazy, he knew, but it always seemed to him as if something strange happened to Flick at times like these. He didn't know if it was the racetracks, or the twilight, or the combination of both. That last possibility seemed most likely...the gentle tones of dusk blending with the relaxed joy that Flick felt at the races. It transformed the combination of her snow-white skin, brilliant red hair, and expressive sky-blue eyes into something almost like a fiery angel. Not beautiful, exactly; no matter what the situation, nothing that could accurately be called beauty ever seemed to touch Flick; but it did change her, and dramatically. It made her look stronger than ever, and purer, and brighter...a celestial dragon, perhaps. And the transformation made Race feel strange. It wasn't that it reminded him how much he cared about Flick; he knew that perfectly well, and needed no reminder. After only a month, he already felt closer to her than to either Secret or even Mush and Blink, who had been his best friends for years. But the way she looked now made him feel something completely different...not entirely separate from affection and friendship, but much more powerful, almost overwhelming. It was something he had never felt before, and it scared him.
Twilight Prayer was giving Black Dream and Golden Dawn a good run for their money. Racetrack scowled and tried to remember if Flick had taken the odds on third.
The wind picked up, lifting Flick's hair and swirling it in a tangle of flames around her shoulders. It also knocked Race's hat down over one ear. Actually, it knocked his hat down before it started playing with Flick's hair. Race vaguely wondered why he noticed the events in the opposite order from their occurrence.
It is a strange time, twilight. A time for events that couldn't happen at any time. A time for the opening of doorways, and gateways, and the discovery of paths that are normally hidden by the glare of daylight or shrouded in the dark cloak of night. It is a time for things that are random, and strange, and have meaning only until blue is swallowed by black, and day surrenders to night, losing its brief but valiant battle.
"Race," Flick pointed out with laughter in her voice, "ya jist lost sixty cents."
With a start, Race was astonished to realize that the race was over. Black Dream was being named the victor, with Golden Dawn as runner-up, and Twilight Prayer in third place.
"Didja take da odds on--"
"Jist foist an' second, 'memba?" The amusement of Flick's tone increased. "Ya ain't really awake t'night, huh, Race?"
"It ain't night yet," he found himself pointing out automatically. Flick gave him a strange look.
"Ri-ight...well, anyway...ya wanna come back an' lose some moah money, say, Friday?"
"Saro li," Racetrack murmured, still not taking his eyes off the horses as their jockeys led them off the track in the direction of the stables.
A second later, he realized what he'd just said, and turned back toward Flick to find her goggling at him. "Wha...what'd ya jist say?" she demanded blankly.
"Er..." Race smiled sheepishly. "'I'll be dere'?"
Flick continued to stare as if he'd grown some extra ears. "Did you jist speak Italian?"
He wondered how she could recognize it. Well, she had spent a lot of time on the streets; she could probably recognize several languages. "Yeah," he admitted.
"Ya speak Italian!" She made the proclamation sound like the greatest discovery since sliced bread. "Why did I neveh know ya speak Italian?"
"It neveh came up?" Race suggested, grinning at her excitement over the simple fact. "Didja even know I am Italian?"
She considered this. "Ya look it...I t'ought ya was when I foist saw ya...but yer name's Higgins!"
"Half Irish," Race clarified. "On my fadda's side."
"Ah." Flick nodded, satisfied. "Well, dat's da bedda half."
Racetrack snickered. He had never even heard Flick refer to her own ethnicity before. He supposed she only did so when she felt it needed defending.
Twilight was rapidly fading now, replaced by a murky, starless night that was not unusual in New York. The race they had watched had been the last of the evening. Now the boxes were emptying, the crowds dispersing as everyone went their separate ways...some wearing triumphant grins and filling their pockets, bragging loudly about how they'd been sure of Black Dream since he was a colt; others downcast and dreary, slouching away with bowed heads, drooping shoulders, and empty pockets.
Race and Flick would be heading home too, back to the lodging house. They would probably play a game of poker and wait up for the Brooklyn visiting party, which would doubtless be back late. Then they would hear all about how the visit had gone. Secret would apologize to Flick and make up with her. Everyone would go to bed happy.
That was how things could have been. Race would later fervently believe that it was how they should have been. He never did know what prompted the next words to leave his mouth. It was his mouth that was always getting him in trouble, of course...but those words were possibly the biggest mistake it ever made.
"Flick," he suddenly began...so randomly, so unprovoked, so out of the blue..."why d'ya soak people so much?"
Flick blinked; it was a question he had asked her a couple times before, phrased in a couple different ways, but she certainly hadn't been expecting it at this particular moment. First a strange comment about the night, then a lapse into Italian, and now this...what was wrong with Race tonight, anyway?
However, they were both in such a good mood right now, and it was such a relief considering the events of the afternoon, that she tried to give Race a way out; to take the question lightly and try to dismiss it.
"Jist yer usual Irish tempa, I guess," she replied with a shrug and a carefree smile.
Race, however, was not so easily dissuaded. "Nice try, Flick. But I'se serious." He sighed, doing that direct-gaze thing again that Flick was coming to hate, since it usually seemed to go hand-in-hand with a lecture. "I know why ya was so touchy fer yer foist week or so. Ya was cut up oveh Song, an' I don't blame ya. An' I know ya don't go 'round beatin' up ya fellow newsies anymoah. But ya still snap at people all da time, an' won't listen ta a t'ing Jack says, an' knock out random people on da street if dey say a few t'ings ta ya dat ya don't like..."
"Race," Flick interrupted, cheeks starting to redden, "have ya eveh lectua'd Jack 'bout 'is tempa?"
Taken aback, Race cocked an eyebrow before answering.
"Uh...no."
"How 'bout Blink? He hardly eveh gets mad, but 'e goes ballistic when ya do strike a noive."
"Flick--"
"Skitts, den? He's always rantin' 'bout sometin'. Ya accuse me o' snappin' at people, but ya can't even say good mornin' ta dat boy widdout havin' ya head bitten off--"
"Flick, what's ya point?" Racetrack moaned, trying once again to remember why he had brought this up now.
"My point!?" Too dark to tell what shade her eyes were, but he could guess. He could see her leaning toward him in the dark, her voice slicing through the otherwise quiet night in the empty stands by the empty track. "My point is, outta all da people I know dat've got bad tempas...out've all da people anyone knows dat've got bad tempas...I'se de only one you, or anyone, eveh pestas 'bout it. Ya wanna know why I soak people? I wanna know why it boddas ya. It neveh seemed ta befoah."
It never had.
It had never bothered Racetrack at all until...well, he couldn't pin an exact date, but...well, maybe a week and a half, or two weeks ago. Even then, it had only started to nag at him a little. It had been much more recently...in fact, just the previous night...that he had admitted to himself that Flick's temper bothered him. And it was only now that he admitted it to her.
Now, after a beautiful twilight, of smiles and laughter and horses, teasing and crazy breezes, after a perfect twilight that was quickly turning into a perfect nightmare of a night.
"I dunno," Race heard himself mutter, suddenly as eager to dismiss the topic as Flick had been. But this time it was she who wouldn't let him off the hook. She'd gotten herself warmed up, and a fire won't burn out on short notice.
"Don'cha?" she whispered viciously. Poison fire voice now. Not good. "I can tell ya why, den. It's 'cause goils ain't allowed ta have tempas. Goils ain't allowed ta go around beatin' people half ta death. If guys do it, people respect 'em. If a goil does, people t'ink she's some kinda freak."
Race opened his mouth to deny what she was saying, to protest that such ideas had never crossed his mind. Then, for one of the few times in his life, he shut his mouth, and really considered Flick's words. In his mind, he ran through the guys who she had named. She was right; about most of them having tempers, and about the fact that neither he nor anyone else he knew of had ever chastised them for it. It was then that he first began to question himself about exactly why Flick's behavior had begun to irk him so much...and found himself uncomfortably unable to dismiss her reasoning.
"Well..." He floundered hopelessly. "Ya gotta admit ya don't act like most goils," he finally stated.
Flick's eyes flashed. "An' why da he should I!?"
Race just looked at her for a few seconds. He had seen Flick angry countless times. This certainly wasn't the first time she'd been angry at him. But only once before had he actually responded to her anger with an angry outburst of his own. It had done her a great deal of good then. It was to have the opposite effect now.
"Why shouldja?" Race repeated. Like Secret earlier that evening, he wasn't even sure where the words were coming from now. But unlike Secret, he had the strangest feeling that he meant them. "Why shouldn't ya, fer cryin' out loud? Ya lash out at people an' beat 'em up fer ev'ry single t'ing ya don't like. Ya weah boy's clothes an' don't care dat ev'ryone who sets eyes on ya is horrified. Ya won't acknowledge leadehs, or follow rules, or...or even lose a da pokah game."
That was an incredibly pathetic ending to his rant. It wasn't what he'd meant to say. He had no idea what he'd meant to say. Only that there had indeed been a point somewhere in there, and he had lost it.
Flick sat in helpless shell shock.
What da...what is dis!? Did I miss some announcement declarin' dis Gang Up On Flick Day? Did Secret an' Race brew up some kinda conspiracy? Is it sometin' in da wadda?
So great was her shock that it took a few moments for Racetrack's exact words to sink in. As she continued to stare through him, processing his speech, a low sound bubbled up from roughly ten feet behind the Sheepshead box. It was a seductive, intimate sort of sound, like a gentle rustle of silk or velvet in the dark. Flick's head snapped around, and she squinted at a form in the near distance.
It was a girl, she saw; around her age, maybe a year or two older. And another form walked beside her, arms wrapped around her waist, holding her close. A boy. It was the girl's laughter Flick had heard, provoked, no doubt, by some outrageous flattery her companion had whispered in her ear. The girl's long skirts rustled around her legs as the couple, unaware of any observers, leaned in toward each other for a deep kiss.
Flick quickly turned back to Race, her eyes as hard as stones.
"If dat's how ya feel, den why don'cha go find someone who can't soak ya or beat ya at pokah?" she suggested, and to Race's amazement, her voice was actually quivering. "But I bet," she added venomously, "yer gonna have a long soich."
And before Race could make any kind of response, she had risen, left the box, and run headlong out into the night.
It was quite a while before Flick got ahold of herself enough to slow her pace to a dignified walk. She wasn't pleased with herself for her actions; she had certain issues with running.
"Wheneveh ya run, yer runnin' away from sometin'."
A close friend had told Flick that once, and another close friend had agreed. One of those friends was now dead, and the other had placed a severe and only presumably temporary dent in their friendship earlier that day. But the words still bothered Flick. She didn't like to run from things.
Of course, considering the alternative, in this case, had probably been knocking Racetrack senseless, perhaps it had been the best available option.
As she finally slowed her pace and looked around, it occurred to Flick that she was not entirely certain where she was. Unbeknownst to her, her situation was similar to Secret's the night before. However, Secret had been horrified and worried during her nocturnal wanderings. Flick was nothing of the kind. She saw no reason to be. If trouble came along, she'd just fight it.
In fact, Flick mused as she turned onto a dark and strangely unfamiliar street, I could really use a fight right now. Lets off steam an' all dat. I wish some trouble would come along, an' hurry up about it.
It was mere seconds after making this silent wish that Flick drew nigh to the alley. It was just an alley like any other, nothing remarkable about it, and she wouldn't even have taken notice of it if she hadn't heard the unmistakable sounds of a conflict. As soon as she entered hearing range Shouts and swearing assaulted her ears, mingled with loud thumps and crashes.
She could have ignored it and kept walking. But when had Flick O'Grady ever ignored a fight?
Casually, she altered her course and sauntered into the alley.
The fighters, she discovered, were two very large and muscular teenage boys. Both looked to be several years older than she was, and the ragged and scarred appearances of both testified to difficult lives and complete knowledge of the streets. They were also both rainbows of bruises and cuts, and locked in such a raucous and ferocious physical and verbal battle that it was a while before they even noticed Flick's intrusion.
Finally, one boy hurled the other against one of the buildings between which the alley was sandwiched. He turned slightly and leaned against the opposite wall, to quickly catch his breath and savor the triumph. Flick smirked, expecting him to charge at her, and fully ready for the anticipated attack. But his reaction completely threw her off-kilter.
"You!" Straightening up immediately, the boy stared at her. His mouth dropped open. His eyes narrowed. As Flick watched in fascinated confusion, the color drained from his face, turning it livid with rage.
While he remained transfixed in what seemed to be shocked fury, his opponent managed to stand. But instead of taking advantage of the other boy's state of distraction, this one, too, turned his eyes on Flick...and sneered.
"Well, hey dere, goil," he greeted in a soft, fluid tone that was uncomfortably menacing, even for Flick. "Come ta gloat oveh da state ya managed ta t'row us inta?"
It was these words that served to strike the necessary chord in Flick's brain, and the realization of their meaning vibrated throughout her entire body, shooting an overwhelming surge of adrenaline into her veins.
Oh, deah God...I'se wanda'd inta Queens.