I lay awake that night staring at the ceiling and listening to Glimmer's soft sighs. They were too lady like to be classified as snores. The moonlight was shining in the windows and Spot had yet to come back in. I was berating myself every time I heard footsteps on the stairs and I hoped they were his. I rolled over to my side punching my pillow. I was ridiculous, I was hopeless, I needed to get over it. I needed to hate him before I let him do something that made me truly hate him. It wouldn't even be his fault, which made me hate him a little. After all I would know going into it the fall out. A couple of kisses and I was mooning over him like some ridiculous heroine in a bad '80's flick. I was the sad unpopular girl that was pining for the popular jackass. Great!
Unable to handle that thought I glanced back at Glimmer, affirming she was fully asleep. There was no question, because, despite her ladylike snores she was drooling. I got up. Trying to be as quiet as possible I opened the door and slipped into the hallway. Moonlight was coming in Spot's window too and the sight of his empty bed and the tumble my stomach did in response almost made me punch the wall. This was ridiculous. I wasn't sleeping because of a man that was probably off with someone else and only wanted me because I was playing hard to get. The worst part was I wasn't supposed to be playing hard to get. I was supposed to be untouchable and completely uninterested. And now I was pacing, I was pacing up and down the living room for a guy that I should hate.
"Damn it!" I wanted to scream, I wanted to throw something, I wanted to hit Spot. I wanted to be happily sleeping in bed with no needs warring within me. It was in that moment that I was standing there hating the world, hating Spot, hating myself when I heard a muffled whimpering. I stopped the motherly instinct in me rearing its head. I cocked my head and listened, everything else falling to the wayside. It came again a distressed child whimpering.
I immediately went to the door and laid my head against the wood waiting to see if it came again. I knew it probably wasn't the best idea to go wondering the halls in the middle of the night with my possible reputation. The next time it came I stopped only long enough to go back to Glimmer's room and get her dressing robe. I shoved my arms through it and pulled it on hurriedly as I heard the whimper come even more distressed than previously.
"Aw shut it Mimic." I heard one of the boys groan and the thump of something I assumed thrown in Mimic's general direction. I stood in the doorway all of Spot and Glimmer's warnings fighting in my head against the sounds of a distressed child. I could tell by the way the noises got quieter that he was muffling them against something. A pillow or a blanket, I heard the sounds of small feet shuffling toward the door and waited. The light from a streetlight illuminated the doorway and I saw his shadow slip from the doorway into the darkened hall. He didn't notice me as he headed for the end of the hall and the stairs to the attic. I wondered if he would seek refuge in the attic and prayed he wouldn't. I was already pushing my luck by being in my nightgown in Spot's doorway yet again. By the light of the window at the end of the hall I watched him slide under the stairs and curl into himself. The heart wrenching sobs he attempted to muffle cut me to the core.
I couldn't leave him so alone, in so much pain. It would have taken a much harder person than me to leave and we had already determined I was as tough as marshmallow fluff compared to everyone around me. Slowly and softly I padded down the hall and stopped just short of the stairs and waited for a moment. The poor kid looked like he was about to bolt. Those wide green eyes were terrified in his adorable little face. I realized he was the kid from the pub, the one I had seen wielding an ungainly sword at his opponent. He had seemed so normal and happy at that moment.
"I couldn't sleep." I offered quietly. "Is it okay if I sit here? It's a little lonely in the apartment, everyone else has gone to sleep."
Mutely he nodded and I sat there on the floor only feet from him. My skirts belled around me looking brilliantly white in the dim light. I didn't move, just sat my hands clasped in my lap waiting.
"Did ya have bad dreams?" he asked in the hiccupping voice of a child that is desperately trying to get themself under control and failing miserably.
"No, not tonight." I replied shrugging my shoulders "Just couldn't sleep, I have nights like that, when my mind isn't ready to be quiet and I even when I close my eyes I can't sleep."
There was silence between us, a rather tense silence as fear was tumbling off him in waves. I could practically hear his teeth chattering.
"Did you have bad dreams?" I finally asked, as I did I held out my hand. It lay between us an offering of comfort. I wasn't certain he would take it, but after a little while he did. His hand trembled in mine. "Sometimes if I talk about my bad dreams they don't seem so scary. You can tell me yours if you'd like. I won't tell anyone I promise."
"It's not the dreams really." He lisped. "It's the memories."
"Memories?" I encouraged him, holding my arm out. Slowly he moved into the curve of my arm and allowed me to wrap it around him. "Bad memories?"
"Umhum." He replied intentionally muffling his voice in my shoulder. "I don't want to talk about them. I don't want to 'member them."
"It's okay." I said feeling the tears well up in my eyes. What horrors had this child seen that he couldn't even talk about them? That his whole body seized with shivers at the mere memories. "You don't have to think about them anymore. I'll stay right here until you feel better, okay?"
"Promise." His voice lisped again. I could feel his fear subsiding a bit and wrapped both my arms around him, my head coming to rest on his, his head caught between my cheek and my shoulder.
"I promise." I told him. Gently I brushed his head away from his forehead and held him. I was rocking before I even realized it and his little arm slipped around my neck holding on as if he was afraid I would disappear.
"You smell like roses." He said in a yawn and I smiled. "It smells nice."
"Thank you." I responded continuing to rock him, softy the words of Daisy Belle slipping from my lips. In the need to offer comfort to this small child that had been offered so little I didn't realize there was an audience until it was too late. Some of the older boys had obviously heard my singing and were standing on the stairs and the landing.
"Who are you?" One of the boys demanded. I looked from him to the open door of Spot's apartment wondering if I could slip in and slam the door shut. I looked down at Mimic who had fallen into an exhausted sleep and I wasn't about to wake him if I could help it.
"Briar." I said quietly, licking my lips in fear. I could smell the whiskey from here and I could see the weaving of a few on the stairs. Two of them were only standing because they were holding the other up. At least I probably didn't have to worry about them.
"Who you got there?" Another slurred.
"Mimic." I answered hurriedly. "He was having bad dreams, I was just getting him back to sleep. So I'll give him to you and just go on back to bed."
"Bad dreams huh?" the original boy asked. "I'll bet he's dreaming of angels now."
"I'm not quite sure how to answer that." I couldn't help the annoyance that was creeping into my voice. I was afraid and it was so much easier to be angry than afraid. Mimic whimpered in his sleep and wrapped his arms tightly around me. I gently rubbed his back and rocked him more. "Look this poor child has obviously had a hard time; I was just trying to help calm him down. If you wake him now he might never get back to sleep. "
"We have a saint among us lads." The lead boy continued "A saint comforting a wee lamb. Would that I had some comforting."
"I don't think you qualify as a wee lamb any longer." I snapped. "Now I think it best you go on to bed and I'll settle him on the couch in the apartment."
"Now what would you be doin in Spot's personal sanctum?" He sneered at me. "Are ya the new doxy he's holen up with."
"Doxy, really?" I sneered back. "I think I would prefer lady of the night if you must call me a whore. It sounds so much classier. Though honestly, if you feel the need to harass a woman with a sleeping child in her arms you must be pretty hard up."
"Word is it's Spot that's hard up. He's downstairs cozying up to Annabelle." He said with relish as he backed me into the alcove under the stairs. "I can show you a real man if you'd like."
"With options like that how can I refuse?" I spat cornered, I was quickly losing all composure. The other boys seemed to be interested in who would win this show down. I had a feeling if I lost, this wouldn't be the only boy that would take me down. "On second thought I refuse. What makes you think if Spot can't get in my bed that I would dane to think of you?"
This last bit was said between clenched teeth as I hitched the dead weight in my arms up and prepared to bulldoze through them, screaming the roof down as I went. Perhaps that would get Spot's attention. It was too bad he found Isabelle, Annalee, whatever the damn name the girl that was making him too busy to help me right now. My breathing was hitching and the boy was circling around for the kill. His hand had just wrapped around my wrist and I had backed into my last bit of space. The wall was against my back I had no room left. I swung Mimic behind me dumping him unceremoniously on the ground.
"NO mama, No!" I heard him cry out at the rude awakening as the boy in front of me braceleted my wrist to the wall by my head. My heart knew in that moment that something had left his little boy without his mother in a horrifying way. It galvanized me into making certain that if he was witness to anything else I would go down fighting tooth and nail first.
"Yes, Flint, tell us what you could possibly have that would get her into your bed, if she won't dane to get into mine?" Spot's voice made both of us look to him. Flint just smirked; I however had the advantage to get my knee up. His breath left in a whoosh and I pushed him over as he fell clutching his groin.
"Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." I breathed in a prayer of thanksgiving. Spot took a drag on his cigarette, the cherry glowing red in the darkened hall. One forearm was leaning on the wall of the stair well a lock of hair falling into his eyes. He was steady and almost frighteningly calm.
"What the hell are you doing out here?" he demanded quietly. "I left you to go to bed hours ago."
"I heard him crying." I said gesturing to the boy blinking sleepily his hands clutching the skirts of my nightgown. Following Spots glance down, I saw the confusion and fear on Mimic's face. He clearly didn't know if he was sleeping or had woken up to another nightmare reality. My entire purpose in leaving the apartment tonight had been in an attempt to comfort this boy. I would be damned if I let these boys take what little he had away. I reached for him. Spot's eyes narrowed as Mimic's arms reached back. I lifted him into my arms and covered his head with my hand in purely instinctually maternal move. "Shh, go back to sleep, it's alright." I whispered to the groggy boy. "It was all a little misunderstanding, it's all alright now."
"Mimic." Spot replied. It was neither a question, nor an answer, just an affirmation. "I see, you heard him crying and came out to check?"
"The other boys weren't going to help him and I couldn't just leave him." I said helplessly. "I know I was supposed to stay in the apartment. Boy, do I understand that, but no matter what I wasn't about to leave a helpless terrified little boy alone. Especially not to cry himself to sleep on a hard wooden floor…" I was babbling at this point, surrounded as I was by a handful of drunken boys with mayhem on their minds and a pissed off Spot.
"Is there something you need Flint or do I need to show you the way to the door?" Spot asked of the boy just rolling to his knees at my feet.
"But I paid for the next two days Spot." He said with some difficulty. "You can't expect this girl to go wondering the halls in her nightgown and not give some of us ideas."
Spot reacted with a swift violence that left me reeling. He didn't say a word; one moment he was leaning nonchalantly against the wall in a ridiculously dangerously sexy way and the next he had Flint by the throat and up against the wall. Flint's feet barely touched the ground and his face was turning an unsightly shade of puce. I kept Mimic's head in my shoulder, and while I felt like I should care I didn't. I watched stoically as Spot punched Flint blood splattering the edge of my nightgown in the hit.
"This girl, is my girl." Spot hissed. "Mine, do you understand. Not a one of you can so much as kiss the ground she walks on without my go ahead. Do you understand Flint, do all of you understand? Your money is no good here. I'll keep it for the inconvenience, but you ought to find another boarding house Flint."
Every single one of the boys cowed under his wrath. It both comforted and frightened me. He released Flint to slide down the wall and stepped over him without a backward glance. He looked at me and his eyes softened as they looked into mine. It wasn't anything a single one of the boys could see, but I could see him check his fury. He stood in front of Flint as if blocking me from such a sight and held out his arm. With Mimic in my arms I slid into his and didn't look back as he led me into the apartment and shut the door.
"What happened?" Glimmer was in the room her long golden braid falling over her shoulder and her eyes narrowing at me in the same manner her brother's had earlier.
"Are you crazy Briar?" Spot snapped as I moved past him to set Mimic down on the couch. The blanket I had used a few days before was still thrown across the back haphazardly and I covered the once again sleeping boy. I couldn't help but gently brush his curls back from his face. He looked peaceful.
"Hush." I dared to say, I could see the lightning in both siblings eyes as they stared at me. "I know it was stupid, but I couldn't leave him there. Let the poor boy sleep. He'll have to be awake all too soon."
Spot glowered at me, but impatiently gestured down the hall. He didn't wait for me rather he threw open his door and clearly expected me to follow him in.
"To hell with the fact that you're keeping us up." Glimmer muttered as she trailed behind us. "We don't have to be up as early as him or anything."
"Aren't I banned from this room?" I asked in an attempt to alleviate the tension as Glimmer shut the door and leaned against it. She pulled a shawl she had obviously hurriedly grabbed around her.
"Don't you dare make this a joke Briar." Glimmer warned.
"I don't see it as a joke." I told her, "What was I supposed to do? Did you expect me to just leave a small innocent boy to fend for himself."
"It's everyone for himself damn it." Spot's voice cracked out like a whip. "Do you think any of those boys cared for a moment that you were there to help that small boy? Why can't you get it through your head, you have to look out for yourself., you are a fucking lamb, a damn lamb that for God only knows what reason I keep pulling out of the fire. "
"I guess I'm just not made to look at everyone like an enemy." I tried not to stutter. "I wasn't raised to immediately expect the worst from everyone. I was raised to help those that need it and maybe someone will do the same for me."
He looked at me for a moment and then shook his head. He paced to his dresser and took opened a drawer removing a bottle. I watched curiously as he swigged from it and slammed it down.
"You're living in a fantasy Briar. You know where Mimic is from? He was raised in a whore house." Spot told me straight taking in my recoil and giving me no mercy. "His story isn't too different from Flint's actually, or most of other kids here. There are a lot of women that have little other choice to keep food in their little one's mouths. From what I gather Mimic had a good mother that fell on extremely hard times and did what she could to keep him from starving. He had a spot under the stairs that he stayed in when his mother was otherwise occupied. While it isn't generally alright with the Madames he would sneak up to her when the house closed. He had a nest hidden under a table. A John came in while he was asleep and got a little rough with his mother. He woke up to the man murdering her. He stayed at the house for a while with nowhere else to go. I don't think the house was entirely on the up and up, the fact that he couldn't stand to be touched makes me wonder what else he won't talk about."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, my voice trembling and my legs giving out. I sat on the floor with an inelegant thump. I was desperately trying not to cry and failing miserably. I could only be thankful he was standing now his back to me as he looked out the window. The full moon gilding his hair in its light, how could someone so handsome, have such an unbelievable cruel streak.
"Because I just kicked out one of my best guys. One that had a story not all that unlike Mimic's. A boy that I grew up with and have had watching my back for years. One that's probably on his way to the Brox right now and I can't afford that." Spot said turning back to me. "I don't know if you can stay here."
"I understand." I said trying to look anywhere, but at him. "I'll leave."
"Not tonight." Glimmer broke in. "You can't throw her out tonight."
"I don't know how much say you can have in it right now Gabrielle, you're the reason she's here in the first place causing all the problems." Spot countered. My temper snapped completely.
"This is horse shit!" I exclaimed, both looked at me dumbstruck. "You know it is. You're blaming me for the fact that you've lost a friend and an ally do I have that right?" I didn't even wait for his response, not that he could have given one. I doubted many had voiced their opinions as openly as I just had, nor was I finished.
"Some ally. Do you really think that piece of shit was going to have your back Spot? The minute he thought you weren't there he was more than willing to rape a woman you called yours. It doesn't matter what you were or were not doing, it doesn't matter who you were with. It doesn't even matter if I was in my nightgown or my garters. I was off limits; you assured me you made that crystal clear. How long before he caught Glimmer? Do you think if he wanted your woman that your sister was going to stay safe Spot? That he wasn't just waiting to betray you?"
"You leave her out of this Briar." His eyes were flashing and that berserker look was coming over his face again. The look he had given Flint. I wanted to cower, but there was no going back now. He had pushed me over the edge and I had nothing left to lose. If anything I had three people here to save.
"NO!" I cried. "No! She's in this because you are. If you are blind enough to bet your sister's safety on him, then you have some serious re-evaluating to do. Currently I owe Glimmer my life and I'm not going to pay that back by cowering because I've said something you don't like. Glimmer is on the line as much as you are, you made that clear when you outlined the terms of my staying here. If I'm in the line because there are boys here that would use me to take you down, what makes you think Glimmer is safe? The only thing that has kept her safe so far is not your ever present ego, but the fact that she has friends too. That there are people here that know her and care enough to keep her safe. I doubt she has that loyalty because she callously let a little boy cry himself to sleep. That child was cowering at my very presence and that is no way to live."
"Get out." He ground out pointing for emphasis.
"Fine, but you judge me by the same criteria you would your sister. Given the same circumstances with the same possibility would she for one moment have backed down from trying to do the right thing?" I demanded balling my hands up in fists " Because that is what I did Spot, the right thing and if I'm going to be condemned for that then I'll take a merry leap off the Brooklyn Bridge because there isn't a damned good thing left here."
The room fell silent as we stood facing each other down, both of us shaking with fury.
"She's right Michael." Glimmer's voice was firm, but quiet. There was something in her tone as if she were trying to reason with an angry predator. Looking her brother over, I wasn't too far off of that assessment. "Flint was a powder keg waiting to go off. He's been jealous of you since you both hit puberty and the opposite sex started swooning in your general direction."
"Don't Gabrielle." He said holding his hand up to stay her next words. "Don't you come to her defense now. I warned her, I told her to stay in the room. If she had listened to me that powder keg would be under my watch and not half way to my enemies right now."
"Briar, give my brother and me a minute." Glimmer sighed, neither one of them looked at me. I had to admit it chaffed a little that they assumed I would just leave the battlefield, but really I had no choice. It didn't mean however as I slipped out and shut the door behind me that I wasn't going to eavesdrop on the conversation.
"You can be angry at her for not listening to you until you explode Spot. You might even have half a point, but you can't blame her for what happened here tonight."
"You're forgetting we found her in her corset and bloomers, that for some reason she has no sense of modesty whatsoever. Am I supposed to blame my boys because they had a few too many and came across her in too little clothing?" Spot argued.
"Really Michael, really? You are honestly going to use the argument that your boys couldn't help themselves? Where is your head, pull it out and start thinking clearly. That excuse wouldn't fly in any other situation. You don't honestly think they had so much whiskey that they couldn't help themselves if they came upon a woman in a nightgown. Your boys have a reputation for being tough, but not rapists. You can't possibly say for a minute that your boys can't hold their liquor well enough to contain themselves around a woman wearing a nightgown that our granny wouldn't find too revealing."
"What do you want Bri?" Spot asked wearily.
"Look she's an asset alright. Admit it. You've been trying to reach that kid for months and she managed to get through in maybe an hour tops. What I don't understand is why you aren't rationally thinking this through. You're not thinking about ways you can use her. You're not looking at the fact that she ferreted out an enemy you couldn't see."
There was a pause that had me wondering if I should mosey on down the hall, but I heard Glimmer make a sound of impatience and her hand slapping down on a solid surface.
"Don't Michael. Don't you dare pull the all-knowing Spot Conlon act on me. I am the one person that it doesn't work on. You can tell her that you knew he was an enemy, but the fact is you didn't. You were blinded by that loyalty you give all your boys. You were blinded by your trust in an old friend and didn't even see the snake in the grass. Look back , look back and tell me the warning signs weren't there for both of us to see and somehow we missed it. We both missed it, our trust was misplaced and Briar only brought it to light before it bit us when we weren't expecting it. Why aren't you thinking through the anger? What is it that has you so twisted up?"
"There's something about her Bri, something that I don't know what to do with." He sighed. "I can't read her. She's too much of an unknown and I'm afraid of where that will leave us."
"Come on big brother, you're afraid of where that's going to leave you." She said a wry chuckle. "She's the first puzzle you've come across that you can't immediately figure out. I like her; I vote we keep her for a while. Set her loose on the other boys and see what she stirs up. Things have been too easy lately, we're missing something."
"Maybe." Spot conceded. "You do realize that what makes her an asset makes her a huge liability right? That bleeding heart is going to get her into more trouble, and us by proxy. She isn't going to know the difference between giving someone a hand and getting herself killed. She's too sheltered, too noble, and so brave she's stupid with it. She hasn't gotten it beaten out of her."
"You admire that Spot admit it, we both wish we had grown up in a place that didn't leave us looking for the back door just in case."
"Yeah, but I've seen what happens to people that risk themselves for others because it may be the right thing." Spot's voice was almost soft, and there was a pain in it I couldn't understand.
"You couldn't help Mama." Glimmer's voice was full of the same emotion. "You were too young."
"I know, I could barely save you." Spot replied wearily. "It's not just that I couldn't save her Bri. I couldn't understand how she could put us at risk because she was too blind to see. I see that in Briar."
"We'll just have to educate her Michael." Glimmer told him steadily. "She'll die on the streets without us. She has nowhere else to go."
"Do you really believe that?" Spot's voice was hard. "Do you really think someone like her would have nowhere."
"Let me put it this way big brother," Glimmer offered. "If you had anywhere else you could go would you stay here with us? You might be God's gift to women, but even you can't be enough to keep her here, soft heart or not. She has been propositioned, almost raped, and confronted with the worst reality of our backgrounds and she's fighting to stay. If there was anywhere else she would have left."
"You may be right." Spot said after a moment. "That noble streak though, it puts me on the fence. Would she leave if she thought we needed to be saved?"
"Do we need to be saved?" Glimmer asked. There was a wry twist to her voice, as if they did, but they were too jaded to even realize it.
"I guess we'll see." Spot sighed. "I guess we'll see."