Author's Note

.｡｡*ﾟi hope you're staying safe and being kind to yourself! .｡｡*ﾟ

Love youuu 💗 𝒉𝒐𝒑𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒆𝒏𝒋𝒐𝒚 ️

~I always love to hear your thoughts!

HOUSE OF REFUGE, 1897

Jack could see the main tower on Randall's Island from the opposite end of the river, even before the ferry took off for the place. It was something of a landmark. Travelers on the newly constructed bridge, who saw the reformatory from a distance, remarked upon the structure as it loomed into view.

The building itself was plain, on the inside and out. Funds were limited.

The rusted green plaque reading NEW YORK HOUSE OF REFUGE 1854 was in the process of being taken down in front of the hostile audience of boys fresh from the hospital. They stood on the snow-blanketed sidewalk with their arms crossed, hands shackled, watching the workmen on ladders take down the sign. They did their best to ignore the bitter cold as they waited for the warden.

"This is bullshit," Jack scowled as he looked on, his breath visible in the chilled evening air. "Why we gotta wait out here?"

"It's criminal," Crazy said, bringing his shackled hands to hit mouth and huffing hot air to warm the frozen fingers.

"It's worse than criminal. It's a crime," Marquette replied, his English getting muddled as it often did.

The others nodded in silent agreement, shivering amidst the falling snow.

"I just realized something," Atlas mumbled. "Only one more week until Christmas, and we're going to spend it in this place."

Shakespeare gave a small smile. "Oh, cruel fate, when wilt thou weary be."

Lion raised an unamused eyebrow, turning to glare at Shakespeare down the line in disturbed awe. "That, uh... That Poe, again?"

"Ephelia."

"Who?" Lion returned his eyes to the building. "You just made him up."

"Her. And no, I didn't," Shakespeare laughed. "Read something besides the headlines, Lion."

"I thought it was Ophelia," Z muttered with chattering teeth, his arms wrapped tightly around himself to keep warm.

Lion grunted in protest. "I'll have you know, Lindy, I read more than just the headlines."

Jack trembled against the wind. "Who cares?"

"Or am I thinking of a completely different thing?" Z continued to no one in particular, still stuck on the name.

River turned to him. "I thought Ophelia was from that play about the two star-spangled lovers. You know, the one where the uptown broad pretends to kill herself so she don't have to fuck that blowhard, and the other gangster kills himself because he did want to fuck her. Then the dame wakes up and kills herself again because she realized she wanted to fuck him instead."

"Stop talking about fucking," Cards groaned. "Please. You're goddamn killin' me."

Shakespeare rolled his eyes, still talking directly at Lion. "Sure, Valentino. The Sheepshead pony listings don't count."

Z furrowed his brow, oblivious to being ignored. "But 'oh cruel fate' sounds more like the one where that sucker turns into a donkey."

Lion folded his arms, still staring at Shakespeare, pretending to be taken aback. "Well, sorry I ain't the Don John of poetry, Shakes."

"Don Juan," Shakespeare corrected, unable to hide the smirk on his lips.

Lion scrunched his eyebrows, looking around to see if anyone else had heard. "Why the fuck do you know that?"

"I have not missed sleeping in the bed between you two," Fleet said with a chuckle, shaking his head.

This reminder brought everyone back to the current state of things, unpleasant as it was. And now a new plaque was being hoisted in the old one's place, somehow looking more ominous.

"This is the worst reformatory in the east," Jack sighed, catching a reflection of a face in one of the upstairs windows, remembering back to when he'd arrived a month ago.

River shook his head. "I can't believe I'm sayin' this, but I miss the Staten Island lodging house. At least it was four walls and a roof that offered actual refuge."

"I don't know," Rails said with a shrug. "That one lodging house in the Bowery ain't too bad. If we were to make a break for it, that's where we should go."

"What lodging house in the Bowery?" Lion asked in confusion. "There's a lodging house there? Since when?"

Rails racked his brain, trying to describe it. "You know, the one with the fancy curtains and bright lamps? It's right across from Adler's Pawnshop."

Alexei narrowed his eyes. "Yeah, that's a cathouse, Rails."

Rails flinched, shaking his head in confusion. "No, I think we're talking about two different places."

"The big brick house in the Bowery, across Adler's Pawnshop, with fancy laced curtains in the windows and Ming lamps? That's a brothel," Alexei said in such a way that made the usually unfazed Grim raise a troubled eyebrow.

"Oh," Marquette whispered.

"You seem way too confident about that, Morozov," Tide mumbled.

"Okay, then I'm thinking of somewhere else," Rails said, rubbing his frostbitten hands together. "I know for sure there's a place in the Bowery that takes in kids off the street."

"Yeah, that brothel in the Bowery," Muggs said quietly without a beat.

"Good lord, Muggs," Grim replied. "That's real bleak."

"Well, if that's true, maybe we'll have a chance," Shakespeare mumbled.

Lion shot him a side glare. "Stick with the dead poets. No more ideas from you."

Crazy heaved a heavy sigh, turning his pockets inside out as best he could while chained. "Even if we did escape, we don't got money."

"We'd make money," Cards assured him, as if it were easy. "Sell a few papers for old time's sake, enough for rent dough."

"Right," Crazy scoffed, giving Cards an oh please stare. "You'd blow the money on poker as soon you could. And then you'd sleep on the street, same as always."

Doc turned to Cards worriedly. "You'd freeze. Don't Lion or Shakespeare chip in for your rent?"

"If he's not slummin' it with some skirt," Lion replied, nodding to Cards who rolled his eyes. "Then blows more dough taking her out for breakfast in the morning. Like a sentimental idiot."

Cards gave a dry chuckle. "And that's why the only thing you get is shown to the door."

Lion smirked. "Hey, come on, that ain't the only thing..." He said. "Sometimes I get cab fare, too."

"I once asked you for five cents to help with my rent, but you wouldn't let me have it 'cause you said you were too broke," Shakespeare said to the Italian boy. "You been holding out on me?"

No Name nudged Rails in the arm. "Wait Rails, are you talking about the boarding house above The Sun office, near St. Mark's? That would've been a good hiding place, but I think it closed down last year. I swear I remember reading that in The Eagle."

Fleet snorted. "The Eagle? Brooklyn would be mooching Manhattan's news. Typical bums."

Grim's features darkened as he turned to Fleet sharply. "The fuck did you just say?" He growled.

Fleet looked at him in shock, as did a few of the others. Slowly, Grim broke into a teasing smile, giving Fleet a playful jab in the arm. "Relax. I'm kidding," he said with a laugh, crossing his arms.

"Don't do that," Fleet said, still looking rather shaken as Grim patted his back.

"Actually," Calico spoke up, his voice hoarse after a fit of coughs. "It didn't close down. I remember. It was just under construction. It's called Ascension House or Assumption House or something like that."

"Oh, I know that place," Jack said finally. "But don't you have to be Catholic to stay there?"

Atlas shrugged. "I guess we're safe then, eh Lion? Z?"

Alexei pointed at Crazy, River, and Grim, giving a dry laugh. "You're fucked."

Crazy returned the look with a mock chuckle. "You're fucked, too. Half-fucked."

Z tilted his head. "Wait, what are you? Quakers or something? Come to think of it, I've never seen any of you in a church."

"Well Z, if you must know, we're Jews," River said with an exaggerated reverence. "I feel like you knew that."

"How would I have known that?"

Crazy blew a cloud of cold air from his mouth, looking like a smoke cloud. "You don't remember when I went to my aunt's house for Passover? Last April?"

"That's what that was?" Z's eyes widened. "I thought you were going to a wake."

"Why would you think I was going to a wake?" Crazy gave him a sideways look.

Z sighed. "I don't know. Passover sounds like you're helping the dead move on or something."

"Jesus," Crazy grumbled.

"No, he's one of us, right?" Lion asked, turning to Cards who frowned and shook his head, refusing to comment. Crazy and Grim exchanged an amused look as if they were having their own private joke.

"What's a wake?" Rails asked.

"It's when you're not sleeping," Jack laughed, earning a few blank stares. His smile faded. "I thought it was funny."

"I guess that means I can't stay at that boarding house either," Rails sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

They turned to look at him.

"I ain't Catholic," Rails shrugged.

"You could convert," Jack said. "And get a bed and a hot meal."

Tide nodded. "Yeah that's a good reason to change religions, I would say."

"At least we'd have a warm place to go for the winter," Rails said quietly. "Hey maybe the suckers on Fifth Avenue would take pity on poor runaway convicts."

This sentiment was met by a chorus of agreements from the others as they stood shivering in the cold. It was hardly sensible to beg Fifth Avenue swells for money. Between all of them, the boys had a combined total of zero money and a whole lot of rage, besides a few personal trinkets of value that none of the boys could part with, even if it meant life or death.

Mr. Caldwell, the Refuge factory overseer, appeared in the front entrance doorway of the building. He wore a most uneasy expression, as he had taken the news of the news of the boys' return with mixed feelings.

"Well, what are you all standing around there for?" He called, looking at the boys' grave faces, shivering in a sort of chain gang. "Come on inside, boys, out of the cold. I'll show you to your new dormitory."

"Can't be any worse than the old one," Jack muttered as the boys trudged up the front walk and through the doorway.

"Warden Snyder will like a word with you, I imagine," the man continued.

At that, the boys tensed up, already dreading whatever that 'word' would bring.

"Now, now boys, chins up," Caldwell tut-tutted, watching as they moved in a funeral-like procession. "It's a quick lecture, not a draft notice to Gettysburg." He counted each boy out of routine as they mounted the staircase. "And say a few prayers." Then, to himself he added, "You're going to need it."

Dejected, the boys swore under their breath, keeping their eyes trained on the ground.

The new dormitory was nothing revolutionary. Ward 33. New number, same inmates. It looked almost identical to the old ward, except it was on a different wing of the institution. And there were bunk beds instead of individual cots. The bunk beds were clearly intended for much younger kids, as evidenced by how short the mattresses were. All of the boy's feet dangled off the edge.

By now the dormitory was almost completely dark, save for the few candles in the lamps placed on a few end tables. The boys waited apprehensively for Snyder to come in, bringing Whalen with him no doubt.

Not even a drinking song could lift their spirits.

Jack soon grew so distracted, unable to keep still, that he opted to leave the dormitory. He wandered down the corridor and slumped on the landing step to the wide staircase, stretching out his stiff muscles, maintaining that ever-present expression of despondence.

Grim was already there, having walked out a little while ago. That's how Jack knew things were getting bad, when Grim needed space. It was like no one was in the mood for anything other than wallowing in their misfortune. "Think Snyder will whip us all?" Grim asked.

Jack shook his head, half-amused, as the two sat there, both tense, as if Snyder would show up at any second. "If I were on the outside, I'd be selling the evening edition right now. And then I'd blow all my money on a train ticket for Santa Fe tomorrow," Jack said.

"Sounds nice," Grim mused.

Jack offered a weak grin at that, wishing more than ever they'd been given dinner, something to fill their empty stomachs. "I'd give my right arm for laudanum," he said, sinking his teeth into the knuckle of his forefinger, something he often did when he was going crazy for a drop.

The two sat on the top step, gazing emptily down the dark staircase.

"If only our mothers married rich, kid," Grim lamented.

"What, and leave all this?" Jack smirked, his knuckle coming back from his mouth bruised. "We'll go to Santa Fe one day, with money in our pockets to spend. All of us. It's different out west. It's a new life. You can be anything you want to be."

Grim stared off with a vague smile, knowing Jack cursed the likelihood of that by daring to voice it aloud. Jack didn't realize it.

"That was your sister, wasn't it?" Grim said out of nowhere, catching Jack off guard. "The girl who came to visit you in the hospital."

"Yeah, that was Sophie," Jack sighed. "She...she missed me, I guess."

Grim gave Jack a look. There was a light, sad smile on his lips as he waited patiently for Jack to go on. When he didn't, Grim finally said, "You missed her, too. It's okay. You need her as much as she needs you."

Jack was quiet at that, looking down his boots. After a beat, he stood up, stretching. "I need laudanum," he mumbled before wandering back into the dormitory.

"Hey," Jack whispered, walking over to Doc who was changing the bandaging on Muggs' hand. And by bandaging, Doc had torn a shred of fabric from his blanket as soon they got there for the job. "Doc, I'm hurting for laudanum bad. Do you have anything on you?" He hovered anxiously from foot to foot.

"No, Jack. Not on the first night back." Doc said at normal volume. He shook his head, continuing to wrap the injured hand. Muggs looked up, holding a candle in his other hand to give Doc some light. The dripping wax pooled around his bruised fingers.

"Don't that hurt?" Jack asked, his face darkened in the shadows of the room.

Muggs followed his gaze to the hot wax coating his thumb and fingers, shrugging. "Should it?"

"Never mind. Doc, I can't sleep without it," Jack sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "I kept having the same dream over and over at the hospital."

Doc smirked a little. "The one about that hot corn girl from Central Park, right?"

Jack tried to laugh, but it just sounded like a deep exhale. "No. The one where my sister's drowning in the frozen Hudson." He shook his head, looking nervous as he recalled the nightmare. "And it always ends the same. I'm looking for her above the ice, but I can't find where she fell in. What do you think that means?"

Doc hummed, while seemingly ignoring him, his attention elsewhere. "Not sure, Jack. I ain't no Blackwell's shrink."

Jack cradled his St. Philomena medal around his neck. He squinted at Doc and gave a disheartened nod, before turning away with a curse. He made his way back to his lower bunk, taking off his boots and sliding them underneath to move around quieter.

"Where are you going?" Cards asked in a whisper, watching Jack head for the corridor, almost bumping into Grim as he returned.

"I'm going to get laudanum from Snyder's stash. He keeps it in the cabinet behind his desk," Jack said without turning around. "I'm very sure."

"What if Snyder catches you?" Cards replied.

"I'm also very fast."

Lion shook his head. "Jack, you're a fiend."

But Jack was already gone and headed down the creaky stairs toward the first floor.

Upon making it to the second floor, Jack bent down and scurried along the corridor, turning a corner, and continuing along another set of creaky steps.

One foot missed the second to last stair, causing Jack to lose his balance and hit the floor hard with a crash loud enough to wake the dead. A rotten piece of wood from the floor gave out, cracking under Jack's ribcage.

Jack heard footsteps and voices coming from Snyder's conference room down the hall, and Jack made his way into a nearby coat closet, resting in the shadows and holding his breath as he peered out of the cracks.

The door to the conference room opened, and Snyder followed by Whalen, emerged into corridor with kerosene lamps.

"What in hell?" Snyder murmured in disbelief.

A woman peered over his shoulder. "What happened?"

Snyder looked at the hole in the wood. "The floor caved in. God damn that repairman."

Whalen rubbed his eyes. "I'll get him to come around in the morning."

They turned to go back into the conference room and left the door ajar, the light fading from the hallway.

Jack crept out from his hiding place and crawled to the conference room door, listening, and peeking through the small sliver.

Snyder and Whalen resumed their chairs before the fireplace, and the woman sat next to her formidable-looking husband. About five other men were present, and Jack suspected they must be from the Children's Aid Society that operated many of the lodging houses and juvenile reformatories in the city. Coffee mugs and cake crumbles littered the tables, and the general atmosphere of the adults was that of exhaustion and irritability as they interrupted one another.

"You made a terrible mistake not to consult me on this," Snyder was saying. "I'm sure I could have hired my own doctor, Reverend, if I had known in advance—"

"With all due respect, Nigel, it would not have made a difference," the man in minister's clothing said. "We have been meaning to appoint an on-site medical professional here for years. Dr. Fuller is the perfect man for the job."

The woman spoke. "This institution is alive because of what Caleb and I give you every year," she said, nodding to her husband. "And we paid for the damage caused by that dreadful inferno."

"Ms. Scholten is right. The fire aside. The walls are crumbling, you cannot make the payments on the new boiler, and now the floorboards are collapsing," the Reverend continued.

"You've been here for nine years. Long enough to know what a mess this place has become," Mr. Scholten added.

"Twelve years," Snyder corrected him with a frown. "I've been here for twelve years."

Mr. Scholten opened his mouth to reply as everyone quieted. Snyder and Whalen exchanged a look.

"That proves my point even further," Mr. Scholten said. "Come now, Nigel. I have none but the best intentions for the boys when I say you would be foolish to not accept this offer."

Jack listened to the voices, his eyes growing wider.

Mr. Scholten continued. "To have Dr. Fuller take over the position of infirmary doctor on the island. This is one of the finest and oldest reformatories for wayward boys in New York, and with his modern methods, it's a dynamic step into the future—"

Jack leapt from his hidden position and dashed down the hall, avoiding all the creaking boards. When he got to the dorm, he shook Grim in his bunk.

"Grim! I found out...we're getting Dr. Fuller!" He whispered the rest into Grim's ear. Grim's sleepy confusion twisted into a look of disbelief.

"Dr. Fuller's coming here?" He asked in reservation, wiping his eyes in exhaustion. "How do you know?"

Minutes later, all the boys were huddled in a circle in the middle of the room, wrapped in blankets with a few candles for light, everyone jabbering in hysteric whispers.

"If Snyder walks in, he'll think we're having a séance," Atlas muttered, looking around the cramped arrangement.

"When is this happening?" Tide asked Jack.

Jack shrugged. "Soon, I think."

Grim shook his head, crossing his arms around himself, his knees to his chest. "Snyder won't allow it."

Lion gave Grim a frustrated glance. "Why not? If the board demands it, he'll have no choice."

"I don't trust Fuller," Muggs frowned, running his index finger through the candle flame. "That son of a bitch is only pretending to care."

"Do you think he'll take over Whalen's position?" Fleet asked.

Shakespeare shrugged. "Don't think so. Not if Whalen has anything to say about it. He'll have a cow if that happens."

No Name didn't seem to be paying any attention. "I don't think cows are real," he said absently.

Z shook his head. "Maybe it won't be so bad. Think about it. We'll have someone on our side."

Calico pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. "I sure felt better at Bellevue."

Grim shushed them, hearing footsteps in the hallway. "Nothing leaves this dorm. We don't let on we know, got it?"

The boys nodded and mumbled their agreements. For once, they could sleep easy in the Refuge. Though it was easy to drown in fear and devastation of being back, Jack had to remember a lifeboat was on the way.