"Dusk?" came Sarah, highly confused how an exchange of one word could, somehow, seemingly, solve a problem. The last thing they needed was some false hope because of some strange word.
"Albequerque. See? I can do it too...Snorkle," came the ever enlightening voice of Brittney, her form different but her tone still the same. "Not mine, but still funny. Anyway, dusk is that time that comes after the sunset. You know? Like evening. In the way they're speaking about it, though, they mean a character. If characters are here, that means the psycho Jew is, and where he is...OH! My man!"
Everyone noticed the sudden difference in tone from the formerly sarcastic girl. How could they not? She just now practically squeaked. "Your man?" Cassie asked, the entire room now looking at her, crickets practically chirping.
"Yeah...ummm...ask her," she gestured toward Carrie, now eager to avoid the attention, which seemed rather odd for a Liza wannabe.
Sighing, the now-blond, former-dyed-redhead-natural-blond, decided it best to explain who the hell Dusk was, who Brittney's, aka Snooza's, man was, and what the hell they had to prepare for. After all, someone couldn't just stroll up to the gang leader Jew with a 'tude. "Dusk is a character of mine that is involved in all of our profiles. If what Mr. Q said was right, then Dusk should be here, along with all of his Hell's Kitchen group. Granted, it is before either Snooza or Relic met him, but Stretch knew him, at least somewhat. I wasn't...She wasn't...one of them, but I...SHE...was at least, to some degree, a friend. So, if we have a problem, Dusk can help us. I can say all of you are from outside of Manhattan...well, I know Rae is from Tribeca and Brooklyn, Snooza...Aren't you from Brooklyn? Anyway, Relic is from Harlem, so she only, mainly, knows upper Manhattan, and I don't know about the rest of you, but he can at least give us a tour. Sooner or later, our...their...memories will kick in and we'll figure out where we are and all that. Besides, if we do have to take part in the strike, there's no one better to be on our side than Dusk."
"You know..." Rachel started, seeming deep in thought. "What if a newsie from the movie was in our profiles? You know? I had Spot...What happens then?" It was a perfectly good question, and one that none of them had an answer to.
"I guess we have to find out..." Nikita replied, still not looking forward to stepping outside, but, something inside her was eager to see Dusk. True, in 1899 she...she Relic...had yet to meet him, but there was something about knowing what he was going to do for her...her Relic...that made both Nikita and Relic want to see him, see how he was, she what she could use against him later, and, especially, just kind of be near him. It was an odd feeling, knowing what the future held for her because she had written it, and knowing the knowledge would soon leave her entirely.
"You still didn't talk about my man," Snooza said in a huff, the definite line between Audrey and Brittney blurring, to which Carrie only sighed.
"Satire is a German kid with a big smile, glasses, and is a general dork. I don't know how else to describe him but a young Harold Lloyd...and I got the inspiration for his looks after I saw anything about Harold. So, if you know what he looks like, good for you. If not, you'll find out."
"Oooh! I know!" exclaimed Cassie, before looking sheepish as everyone's eyes turned toward her. "I just...my Dad has some Harold movies and...I walked by his star once and...never mind."
"Well, he won't be too much use fighting, but he's good to have on our side too, especially since he's friends with Dusk. And where Dusk is...you know, it's times like these I'm way too happy I've developed too many people," Carrie replied, the Stretch side of her dashing out of the worn building and navigating the streets with a great deal of ease more than the day before. Of course, she still got lost a time or two, and it took Brittney...or was it Audrey? Whichever. It took Snooza's knowledge to get them toward Midtown.
Once they hit the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, the smell of rotting meat and the Hudson hit them like a ton of bricks, the modern them nearly gagging at the scents that surrounded them. "Welcome to Hell's fucking Kitchen," Nikita said, her eyes almost watering from the bitterness in the air.
"Just...try to find an old warehouse. Dusk will be there alone because the others actually work during the day. When he does sell papers, he sells the evening edition and then...Well, I won't get into what he does at night," Stretch said, scanning the abandoned buildings spread out on the docks until she found one that, somehow, felt familiar. "There," she stated, starting toward the broken warehouse. While a great deal larger than the building they had currently taken up refuge, it was still, by no means, something to look at.
"You sure waking him up is a good idea?" came Relic, looking up at the ominous warehouse, before shrugging it off. "Screw it. If I'm awake, he needs to be. That's my philosophy." And, without a second thought, she headed in right beside Stretch, the rest shrugging and following behind.
The warehouse looked just like Stretch, or was it Carrie, remembered or invisioned. Either way, it was familiar, and she passed through the mess scattered around the floor, heading for the stairs without much thought. Finding the bunkroom, if it could be called that, wasn't much of an issue, the old cots and abandoned mattresses littering an old storage area. It seemed more like part of a refugee camp than a lodging house of their own, but, Stretch supposed it worked for them.
A few bunks down was the all too familiar, and yet foreign, face of one Joshua "Dusk" Samson. "Guys...uhh...how about you stand back and let me handle him. He gets cranky if he's woken up," Stretch whispered tentatively, Snooza scoffing.
"Understatement of the century," she replied, but was all too willing to stand back with the others, Relic the only one willing to go against that idea.
"I can handle him," she said, somewhat eager to give him a rude awakening if she knew whether or not he had a weapon nearby.
"You Nikita or you Samantha?" Stretch asked, arching an eyebrow and wondering which side of the other female was willing to be a part of the whole 'wake up a gang hitman' process.
Sending Stretch a look that only she could make, she retorted, "Me Relic," and, with that, moved toward his bunk with a sort of determination. On one hand, he didn't scare her. Samantha "Relic" Kates wasn't scared of...Well, she was scared of some people, but this kid lying there wasn't one of them. However, on the other, Nikita knew how Dusk worked. Well, no she didn't, not at this time, and the logical, still Nikita part of her wanted to tell Samantha to shut up and leave him alone. He was psychotic. Sure, he got nice later...but that was a big, fat later. Now? Now he was unstable, and she supposed now she was too. Thank goodness there was more logic in her, at least at this moment, than irrational (or more Nikita than Sam, same thing), because she stood back a little, watching as Stretch carefully shook the sleeping boy.
"Dusk? Dusk?" she tried gently, before the Csilla inside her caused her to shove him roughly. "Dusk!" she said once more, more force behind it, more of a Russian accent than usual. It seemed to work though, Russian or not, as the black-haired, pale as all get out boy was startled back into the waking world.
"What the hell?" he started, his eyes focusing, ready to grab his brass knuckles, girl or not. No one woke him up, including...Stretch? Was that..."Stretch? What the hell are you doing here?"
"Relax...Dusk, we're friends, right? I mean, we're friends...so...When a friend is in trouble, you help them...right?" she started, sounding unsure about all this. She had never been face to face with the boy, and it was a little unnerving. She knew him inside and out, and yet she didn't. He was her character, but he was also just an acquaintance. Damn you, Mr. Q, this was way too confusing!
"Alright, what have you done?" he asked, sitting up in bed, glancing around the room and seeing the other girls, completely uninvited, having seen him asleep. This had better be good.
Biting her lip, she thought of the best way to say it, before finally opting for honesty...sort of. "Dusk...Umm...something happened or something is going to happen. I don't know. I don't know what and I don't know why, but I'm going to need your help. We are. I...met these girls around where I've been staying nowadays, and they...they've heard things. I don't know how to word it, and I'm trying to make this make as much sense as possible-"
"Which isn't working, kiddo," he told her, but sounded less angry as he listened to the desperation in her voice. He was an ass, he was a thug, and he had one hell of an ego, but he was also loyal and she was one he had some loyalty to.
"I know...Dusk...Just, we need your help. Something bad is happening..." was all she could find herself saying, every girl in the room feeling the figurative cloud hovering over them, Nikita feeling the despair of Ben and her current situation, Snooza realizing she had no one and no place to go, Gimmick, who had fallen silent in the whole mess, realizing that her entire family was now gone...Everything was gone.
"Alright..." he began, damning himself and his good intentions. "Go find the others if you can and come back here around five. I'll...sleep on whatever the hell you just gave me."
