Skittery woke cold and stiff, a warm pool of red blood covered the ground by his head. A thin layer of snow collected on his body. How long had he been out? He bolted up. The girls were gone.

Skittery ran as fast as he could toward the lodging house. He ignored the fact that he could have frozen to death only to be found by morning. The girls were gone; for all he knew, they could be dead. On his watch.


"He left almost four hours ago." Mush said. He felt sick to his stomach. Skittery and the girls should have been back. It only took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half on a bad day, to get to Brooklyn and back.

"I guess somebody should go out and look for them." Spot kept a straight face but in truth, he had been checking the clock every ten minutes. He knew how late it was.

"Should we call the police?" Helena asked.

"When were the police ever a help to us?" Mush ran a hand through his hair.

"It couldn't hurt."

Skittery crashed through the door. He nearly collapsed. He just ran six blocks in the freezing cold snow. His lips were blue, quite a contrast to the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. And his skin was a ghostly white.

"Skittery," Mush took a step toward him as calmly as possible. "What happened?"

Skittery shivered. "W-walkin' th-through 'h-hattan w-wit d-da girls. A-at-ttacked. T-two g-guys."

Spot ran out the door, the street was empty and only one set of tracks led up to the porch. He stormed back inside.

"WHERE ARE THE GIRLS?!" He pinned the taller boy against the door frame.

"Gone."

Spot dropped Skittery, who collapsed on the floor. Kid Blink and Helena helped him to the couch.

"No," Spot breathed. "They can't be." He ran back outside. "Chase! Are you out there?!"

Mush followed, almost in a daze."This can't be happening." The room was spinning. And then he vomited over the porch railing. Helena helped get him back inside, despite his protests.

Jack ran out the door too. He ran and ran, following Spot's tracks for blocks. He tripped over Spot who was kneeling on the middle of the street in the darkness.

"Spot," He didn't even move. Jack saw what Spot was looking at. It was Chase's gold heart locket. Next to it was one of her pink hair ribbons.

The newsies returned after midnight. Jack and a couple of the other boys had to drag Spot back to the lodging house. Helena, Skittery, Mush, Denton, and Kloppman had stayed back.

"Did you find them?" Mush asked hopefully. Helena wouldn't let him go out.

Spot's blue eyes were rimmed with red. He held up the locket, completely devastated.

Mush felt like the floor had dropped from under him.

"We'll find them." Helena made Spot sit down. He cuddled up to her like she was his mother as he played with the locket. It was an unusual sight for the boys to see the king of Brooklyn acting like a child. Normally someone would have teased him about it. But not after what happened tonight.

"Skittery, do you remember anything?" Denton asked. Skittery had hit his head pretty hard. A bandage was wrapped around his head, covering the deep gash in the back.

Skittery nodded.

"Alright then, boys, go upstairs. We need to talk to the witness. This is an investigation."


If she wasn't so weak from struggling to escape him, Chase would have murdered Oscar Delancey.

"What do you want with us?" Although she knew full well what the Delanceys wanted.

"Oh, it's not what we want, is it Morris?" He said, almost regretfully.

"Then why are we here?" Spark narrowed her eyes.

Oscar ignored her question and called up the steps. "Come on down, guys."

Chase and Spark listened as two people came down the steps, wondering who it was. Until they stepped into the light.

They both recognized them. The girl had overly bleached blonde hair and she wore too much makeup. The boy was tall and lean, but his muscles were visible through his shirt. The two of them wore simple, dark clothing, both had hats like the newsies wore.

"Good evening, girls." The boy smiled but there was something sinister in his eyes. "Do you remember us?"

The two girls made no response.

"My friends call me Shade," he said. "And this is my sister, Prima." The girl just smirked haughtily. "I trust you recognize us from your little outing to Coney Island." He took a step toward Chase who reeled back a little, glaring just the way Spot had taught her. "I already know who you are. You're Roselia Emmeline Meyers, Chase, to your friends. Sixteen years old. Your cousin and adopted brother is Nicholas 'Mush' Meyers, Manhattan newsie. You're a Brooklyn newsie and you're currently courting the king of Brooklyn himself, Spot Conlon."

Her glare broke for a second. Over the past three years, Spot had helped Chase hide her identity. Up until recently, only Spot and Mr. and Mrs. Casella and Spark and Story knew her real name."Wh-what do you want with us?"

"I want something you have."

Spark interjected. "We're poor newsies-"

"As are we, in the off-season," his tone was even and cool. "I know you have no money."

"Then what is it you want?"

He looked at Chase. "Brooklyn."


Ring ring, ring ring.

The phone rang for the second time that night.

"Hello?" Kloppman answered it and then he turned to the rest of the room. "It's Mrs. Casella." He clearly didn't want to break the news to her.

Mush tentatively walked up to the counter and took the phone. "H-hello..."

Everyone else watched.

"They were o-on their w-way here, " He was trying so hard not to cry. "B-but the girls, t-they got kidnapped... Yeah, th-the three of them..."

Mush looked up for a second, nervously tapping the counter top. "What..? She is? Oh good... Yeah, just don't let anyone outside alone... We already called the police... Ok, we'll tell yous when we know somethin'... Ok, bye."

"What is it, Mush?" Spot asked, the slightest glimmer of hope in his eyes.

"Story is safe, she never left their house."


"Uncle, couldn't we do this in the morning? We all need some rest." Helena and Denton sat in the front room of the lodging house. Skittery lied on the couch across from them, staring at the ceiling.

"It's better that we do it now so he doesn't forget any important details." Denton handed her a notepad and a pen.

"I don't think I would be able to sleep, anyway." Skittery's tone was flat.

"See?" Denton smiled a little. "Now, Skittery, are you ready?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"I'm going to need your full name."

"It's Henry."

"And what's your last name?" Helena asked as she wrote in her perfect handwriting.

"I don't have one."

Helena looked up from her notepad. "Don't have one?"

"I have one, probably. I just don't remember it."

"Ah ha," Denton thought, taking down some notes himself. "Ok, I hope you don't get offended by this next part. Because you were the only witness, we're going to need some background information on you. You're also considered a suspect, but innocent until proven guilty, and I'm positive you didn't do anything wrong."

"Ok."

Helena wanted to give him a hug. Skittery wasn't the most animated person she'd ever known, but she had never seen him like this.

"Do you want to tell us a little about yourself?"

"What do yous want to know?" He turned to his side.

"Just start at the beginning."

Skittery told him how his parents were immigrants, and that they had him just a few weeks after they came to America. They were very poor. His father worked at the docks unloading imported shipments from all over the world. His father had gotten very sick with a foreign virus. No one knew what was wrong with him. Young Henry was sent next door to stay with their neighbors until his father got better.

But he got worse. He was running out of time when someone told them there was a doctor in New Jersey who might know how to treat him. Henry's mother spent all the money they had to get on a train to Jersey. Unfortunately, their train car derailed and his parents were killed instantly.

Henry was just five years old. The neighbors couldn't take care of him forever.

"You've been a newsie since you were five?" Although she couldn't stand her parents at times, Helena could not imagine living a day without them.

"Yeah... " Skittery stared up at the ceiling again.

Denton and Helena continued to question Skittery about the details of the night. He answered their questions very well but he was clearly distracted.

"Well, thanks for your time, Skittery," Denton yawned. "We should get going, Helena."

He helped her up. She took one look at Skittery and she almost cried. He looked so distraught.

"I'll meet you in the carriage, Uncle."

She waited until her uncle closed the door behind him before she sat on the couch next to Skittery.

"Are you going to be ok?"

It took him a while to answer. "I don't know." He sighed. "This is all my fault."

"What do you-"

"If I was a better fighter, I woulda stood a chance against whoever that was. And Spark and Chase wouldn't be missing."

"Skittery," Helena took his hand and looked right into his eyes. "You know that's not true. There's nothing you could have done."

He leaned back, a pained expression on his face. "You're right. I just wish there was."

Helena studied his face for a minute. She smiled a little. "Why do you care so much? You and Chase fight all the time."

"I wouldn't wish anything like this on anyone."

"And it's because Spark is Story's sister and Chase is her best friend. You love Story, don't you?"

"It's that obvious?"

"Yes," she smiled. "You'd do anything for her."

"Uh huh..."

Helena went in for a hug. "My uncle and I will do everything we can to find Chase and Spark. He was a detective when he was younger, so he knows how a search like this works." She reached up and took his face in her hands. "We will find them, Skittery."


Spot stayed the night in Manhattan. He was completely out of his mind, barely saying a word to any of the boys. He didn't even demand someone give up their bed for him. He lied on the floor next to the window, without a blanket or a pillow until Kloppman brought some up.

Mush did his best to keep it together. He vomited twice before the night was out. The first time, he ran into Kid Blink, throwing up all over him as he tried to make it to the toilet. The second time, he tripped over Spot, flinging open the window to relieve himself.

After that, he cried for hours as he tried to search his mind for comfort. He decided to turn to God, opening his bible to read. It was difficult in the dim moonlight and his tears blurring his vision didn't help.


A/N: Poor bbs! And poor Skittery! This was an early chapter from "The Turn". In that version you find out (or guess) that Skittery's parents and Chase's (biological) parents died in the same train accident. The villain in that story was supposed to be the one who caused the accident for reasons I can't really remember... Anyway that's just a fun fact.