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.

"Lucy!"

But there was no high this time. She was still in pain.

Her eyes were closed with her arms covering her face and she was buried between Spot and the wall of a closet that had been exposed so swiftly she was thrown into shock. She suddenly felt the suffocation break. She felt the air swirl around her and the absence of Spot's constricting embrace on her body as she opened her eyes to light flooding the room.

Jack had grabbed Spot's shoulder, spun him around and threw him into the closet wall by his collar. Lucy refused to watch as Jack knocked him into oblivion. Sarah suddenly appeared and grabbed Lucy's arm.

"Get up!" she urged.

Lucy let Sarah pull her through the closet door, all the while Jack's angry fists colliding with Spot's face and his words echoing in her ears.

"I'll kill you, Spot, swear to God!"

"Get off me, Kelly, it ain't --"

"Shut the fuck up!"

She followed Sarah down the hall towards the exit. She glanced back to find several Manhattan and Brooklyn boys rushing from the stage to the cramped, dark hallway to see why Jack had gotten up from his chair in such an angry way, why Sarah had frantically run after him, and what exactly had been going on in the closet.

Sarah opened the door and they were outside in an alleyway. Lucy crumbled, speechless, using the brick wall as leverage. She doubled over and placed her hands on her knees, and angry sobs started choking her breath. What have I done, what have I done?

Sarah stood a foot away looking down at Lucy, her arms folded over her chest. Her posture was stiff and it was like her arms across her stomach were holding in her nerves, for her anxiety was skyrocketing at that moment. Her lips were locked together and trembling; there was nothing she wanted to say to Lucy, no words of comfort, no plans for getting out of trouble.

All Lucy could think of was how so very quickly she had gone from ecstasy to pain in such a short amount of time. The foreboding glimpses of what she could expect to come of this new predicament were unnerving. She could hear in her mind Jack's clenched fist wailing into Spot's jaw, cheek, eye, and mouth, but she could not see it because she had been too much of a coward to watch it take place.

That's exactly what she was: a coward.

Get up, thought Lucy's inner calm; it had not been active lately with bringing back her common sense and self-esteem. Stand up.

She weakly crawled up the wall to a standing position. She raised her arms to look at her wrists in the glow of the streetlights. They were bright red against her fair, raw skin and they were throbbing in waves of pain -- physical evidence of Spot's hands on her. They were inexplicable in every sense of the word: Lucy had always reassured herself that Spot would never hurt her and she had whistled the same tune with Sarah, so giving reason to these new bruises was next to impossible. And she knew on some level she would get hurt from this relationship as soon as it started to go south -- she just never thought the wounds would be on display for everyone to see.

"Oh my God…" responded Sarah, deeply concerned. She gently took hold of Lucy's wrists and shook her head speechlessly. She looked at Lucy's weak face: there was a painful combination of purple and red bruises around her mouth and jaw. Sarah swallowed a lump in her throat. "Lucy, what on Earth…"

Before she could respond, the door to the alleyway burst open again and tumbling out was a group of shouting, angry boys with Jack and Spot at the middle of it all. Sarah and Lucy jumped backwards. Jack was still throwing a round of punches to Spot's face and when he shoved him against the alley wall, Lucy felt sick with fear that Jack would actually kill him. She moved her way through the small crowd at once. Sarah reached for her to hold her back but Lucy shook her off.

"Jack! Stop it!" she screamed.

"Ya coward!" came Jack's voice. "Who the hell d'ya think you are!"

"Fuck you, Jack!"

In an instant Spot raised his elbow and crashed it into Jack's cheek. The boys cringed audibly and Jack spun around stumbling, failing to catch himself and he thudded to the ground.

The on-lookers, cheering and shouting in an animalistic way, strained themselves to keep from joining. Nobody touched the Brooklyn leader -- he himself knew he was a force to be reckoned with whenever he was challenged, so everyone else engaged in the fight by loud remarks and barking cries.

In the middle of the circle, Spot lunged forward and pulled the Manhattan boy up from the ground by his red handkerchief and knocked him in the jaw effortlessly. The Manhattan boys winced and bent down to help Jack to his feet. He got up as soon as Spot gave him a gentleman's shot to fight back. They stepped around the circle, facing each other with fists raised high, the adrenaline reverberating between both of them.

Lucy yanked her way forward. She took a moment to force herself to catch the scene: her brother and her lover, ready to rip each other to shreds. Just as Jack was going back for another punch, Lucy lunged forward and jumped in front of Spot, creating a weak barrier between him and Jack. She held up her hands with pleading eyes and said shakily, "Stop."

"What -- Lucy, get outta heah!" He gripped her shoulders and moved her out of the way, moving to toss her over to Racetrack for safety. But she fought back and stood her ground between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

"No! Jack, it's not what you think!" she squeaked.

He stopped and looked at her, puzzled. David pushed past all the boys around them and ended up close to the scene. Slowly but surely the crowd's yelling simmered.

Jack stared before him. Lucy and Spot, both short of breath and shaking, stared right back.

"What're you talkin' about?" demanded Jack.

"Spot wasn't…" Lucy looked behind her for encouragement but found Spot's clenched face staring into Jack's with more malice than she knew him to possess. "We were…"

She noticed from the corners of her eyes the stunned faces of those who had sorted it out around her, but the only face she was concerned with was Jack's.

"I don't understand, he was attackin' you in the closet, I watched him follow you there, what the hell're you talkin' about?"

Lucy's head shook. "He wasn't attacking me."

"You expect me to believe that? From him? Lucy, he had you against the fuckin' wall, his hands were all ovah you!"

She felt the lump in her throat trying to work against her. She repeated in a voice just above a whisper, "He wasn't attacking me…"

The boys around them all started darting their glances towards one another now. They all got it. They understood perfectly well: Spot Conlon was screwing Jack Kelly's little sister behind his back. The only person who didn't get it, who refused to get it, was Jack.

"No, no, no…" He paced in a circle. "Don't try to defend this son of a bitch, he ain't gonna hurt you no more, I'm gonna set him straight!" He shifted to glare at Spot.

"Do it, then, Kelly, I want ya to!" challenged Spot in a malicious voice.

He started to advance towards Jack. But Lucy, with all her strength, pushed Spot back against the wall so that his head knocked against the brick. She turned around and pinned him their with her back. A brief snicker rippled through the crowd at this girl's defiance over Spot.

"Jack, please, just walk away," begged Lucy desperately.

"He -- cannot -- attack you! He doesn't fucking get it and I'm gonna make him get it!" He again started towards Spot and Lucy grabbed his shoulders.

Both Spot and Jack kept trying to grab at each other to tear the other to shreds but Lucy remained between, pushing her brother back with all her force. The crowd started to slowly rumble again, transfixed on the struggle before them. In desperation, because Lucy's attempt at strength was starting to wane, she shouted:

"Spot didn't attack me, I told him to follow me into the closet!"

That stopped Jack cold. He jumped back in shock.

"It wasn't an attack! Listen to me before I have to spell it out for you!" She panted nervously, her fingers scratching each other at her sides.

When it all came together -- when he finally allowed himself to believe it -- it was easy to see Jack suddenly understood. Lucy watched the change in his face and she moved backward cowardly. Spot's fingers curled around her hip possessively. Lucy felt the silence in her mind as she looked at her brother's face, the expression on which made her wish she was blind.

The crowd was buzzing again and their gazes flickered between the three of them. It was now easy to point out, too, who the Manhattan boys and the Brooklyn boys were. As if instinctively recognizing the call to active rivalry, they were steadily securing their clenched jaws and cracking their knuckles. In those moments of vulnerable clarity, nothing would ever be the same between the two infamous territories because Spot had struck far too close to Jack's heart -- during a time of alliance among their Burroughs -- to ever be willing to negotiate and accept what had happened.

It only took this moment for Lucy's world to change drastically into something she now loathed and regretted.

Jack clenched his fists and raised them to his face, burying himself in them as he strained to keep control and he paced around angrily. Lucy's heart beat madly and suddenly she was aware of David's presence; she looked at him, for he had been watching only her all along. He flicked his eyes to Jack and he stepped towards him.

"Jack, don't --"

"You knew too, didn't ya, Dave?" he suddenly yelled.

David turned his head and stepped back paces, holding up his hands as Jack advanced towards him. "I had my suspicions, I didn't know until --"

"Until tonight like the rest of us! When you was up there with her --"

"Yes."

"Until you was puttin' your hands all ovah her on stage!" He turned, and pointing to Spot he stomped towards him.

Lucy stepped forward and pushed him backwards again. He shoved her arms away quickly.

"No, don't you touch me! You been lyin' to me, to everyone all along! Sneakin' around behind my back, all those times ya been 'sick,' the hickeys, the fight with Sarah last week…" The thought burst into clarity as well and he got even more angry. "Sarah! Sarah knew too! Jesus! What the hell's goin' on, did any one 'a you bastards know too?!" He whipped around and motioned to the newsies.

They all backed up, fearful of Jack's temper, and shook their heads.

"Jack, we had no idea," said Racetrack, turning to glare at Lucy.

"Yeah, honest, no clue at all," added Blink.

Lucy turned her head to escape the betrayed looks on all of their faces. They were filled with judgment and absolute disgust.

Jack turned back around. He glared at Lucy and shifted his hatred to Spot, who had been staring directly back at him the entire time, unafraid and challenging. Jack shook his head quickly and started towards Spot again.

"Don't!"

Spot suddenly shoved Lucy to the side and met Jack halfway, sending his fist up beneath his jaw and the Manhattan leader fell backwards. Spot went to deliver more blows but Mush and Racetrack stopped him by pushing him backwards and tackling him to the ground.

Lucy was pushed out of the mix as all of the Manhattan and Brooklyn boys broke out into a fight with each other. Before getting thrown out altogether, she crouched down to the place where Spot's hat had fallen, picked it up, and shoved it into her dress. Then she made her way out of the crowd and onto the street to see the rest of Irving Hall exiting the theater to watch the brawl in the cramped, tiny alleyway. Giving up and giving in to the coward she knew she was, she started running down the street. She suddenly saw police officers on horses with bats and whistles bounding toward the scene, and the mass of newsies and people scattered like mice.

Lucy skidded to a stop, sliding to the ground and scrambling to get back up. She took shelter down another empty alley. She crouched behind a structure of crate boxes, alone. Boys who had escaped the police rushed past the alley and some of them scurried into it, breezing past her.

"See that one comin', Ace?"

"I kinda figgered since it was Spot!"

Lucy scoffed and shook her balled up fists. She stood up and looked around, knowing she couldn't follow those running down the alley nor run out into the streets. She made a split second decision and eyed a street corner across the way she could take in order to get to her own apartment.

Just as she started to make a break for it, someone scooped her up into his arms and yanked her in his hold down the alley. She got back to her own footing to realize her savior was, of all people, David Jacobs. She said nothing but felt more grateful than she ever had in her life as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her further away from the mess she had caused at Irving Hall.