Author's Note: Well, well, well… I guess that's all, eh?
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My, my, what a crick in me neck, Jack thought drowsily to himself as he tried to raise his left hand up to massage his neck. "What da..." he mumbled out loud when he failed in moving his arms. He slowly opened his eyes, fighting off the faint pain coming from his backside.
"Up so soon, Nick?" Secrets hissed, leaping up from the bunk she had been perched on, pulling her knife from her pouch before doing so.
Nick? All at once the memory of how Secrets caught him off guard and how he fell down, hitting his head on the floor, came rushing back at him. No wondah me head hoits, he noted sarcastically as he distinctly remembered the fall and the loud clunk his head made before he blacked out. But, who is this Nick character? That's what she had called him right before she lunged at him; but what did she mean? And what was she playing at? Something was definitely not right.
Standing across the room, her mouth curving into an uncharacteristic smirk at his obvious discomfort and puzzlement, Secrets fingered the blade and spoke to him . "Nicky, Nicky, Nicky... Why didja have ta go an' read me joinal? Why didja hafta ask me 'bout Ma an' Pa an' Eddie? We could have been friends, jist like me and Kisses-- Damn!" she swore as she ducked her head for a moment, dropping her knife in that instant. After a few seconds of eerie silence, a few seconds that did nothing to help Jack get away from this child-like version of a demented Secrets, she lifted her head, her once-gleaming blue eyes now clouded over, as she bent down, retrieved her knife and began to make her way to where Jack sat tied in his chair.
Jack began to tremble in his bonds. Dis can't be happenin' his brain screamed over and over again as Secrets -- Kisses -- Layna -- it -- stalked closer and closer. Which meant the long, blood-stained knife gripped tightly in her right hand, was growing closer and closer to him as well. If it wasn't such a drastic situation, Jack would have to laugh. After all that time -- hiding in the lodging house, taking precautions by not selling -- it turned out that the murderer had been there all along. For Jack wasn't as dense as he normally let on -- he knew now who had killed Stress and Kloppman and Morris. He only wished he had figured it out sooner...
As all the thoughts -- thoughts of how mingled with flashes of anger at the fact that he hadn't seen any of this coming -- swirled around his mind, Jack stared in disbelief at the knife, clasped tightly in her tiny hand. Bloodstained... covered with the blood shed by his girlfriend, his mentor and his adversary... And soon enough, there would be a new layer of blood on the knife... his own...
At that realization - the realization that he was going to die in a matter of minutes, at the hands of some deranged lunatic that he himself had taken in - Jack felt some of his courage return. "Secrets, ya ain't gonna get away wit' dis an' ya know it."
Her dull blue eyes showed some life as she paused for a moment and smiled at her captive. "That's the beauty of my plan, Cowboy. It doesn't matter if I don't get away with it because Layna will be happy. She'll have someone to love and someone to love her in return. She'll have a fine life -- Isn't that the life you newsies lead? A fine life?" Secrets, under the entire spell of Kisses' now dominant personality, sneered as she ran her finger across the blade, the shadow of the childhood Layna disappearing entirely as she acknowledged that he was Jack and not Nicolas. "Fine life, indeed. But, no worries. Once your gone, we'll be happy and she can get rid of this Secrets person. She can be Layna again..." She paused once more when she noticed that Jack's eyes were glued to the knife. "Sharp, ain't it, Cowboy? I'd never know, actually. Never got stabbed myself. You'll have to tell me how it feels before you die."
He lifted his eyes from the knife and stared her down. "I ain't gonna tell ya nuttin'!"
Secrets giggled, a high-pitched laugh that only went to encourage her aura of madness. "Isn't that brave, Cowboy. You want to die proud, huh? You're not even going to try to plead with me?" She continued when he made no sound, "Stress tried to plead with me, you know."
"Yer a liah, Secrets. I knew -- know -- Stress an' I know she would nevah give ya da satisfaction o' grovelin' at yer feet," he spat out, once more struggling in his bonds at an attempt to get at Secrets, completely forgetting about the knife she held in her hand.
Pausing momentarily, placing her knife against her own cheek in a gesture of amusement, she smiled. "You know what, Cowboy? Why don't you just ask her yourself? I mean, when you meet up with her on the other side, you know. I wonder where she's waiti-- Did you hear that?" Secrets turned her head to the side and listened briefly before dismissing whatever it was with a careless swing of her knife.
But he had heard the noise -- it sounded exactly as if someone had been knocking roughly on the lodging house door. He only prayed that who ever it was got upstairs in time. In the mean time, he figured it might be a good idea to try and stall Secrets. "But why? Why didja do it, Secrets?"
Secrets turned her head back and glared at Jack. "Oh, I think you know why, Cowboy."
***
"Damn!" David cried hoarsely when his attempts to open the lodging house door failed. They were too late; the door was locked. Taking his frustrations out on the weathered wood, he pounded against it with all of the strength that his wiry frame could muster.
"Dave, y'know dat ain't gonna do no good, right?" Iris whispered as she began to fiddle with the back of her set of braids.
"And I'm sure that by doing your hair you're going to save the day, Iris?" he asked sarcastically, trying once more to fiddle with the door handle.
"Y'know it!" she cried when she found what she was reaching for in her hair -- a rusty, old bobby pin. Perfect for picking certain locks, she grinned as she set to work on opening the door.
And, for the first time since he had met up with Iris earlier that afternoon, David's thin lips broke into a smile when he heard the tell-tale click of a door being unlocked. "Come on, Iris, let's go see what's going on!" he said to her before grabbing her left hand and running into the lodging house. Something told him that they didn't even have a second to spare.
***
Jack gulped when he felt the intense heat of her gaze. Maybe it wasn't that smart of a plan after all.
"I truly think you know why, Cowboy," she hissed, "and I think you also understand that this is all your fault. That's what you've been contemplating ever since your precious girl was killed, right? You knew somehow that it was because of you that they all died," she added, focusing on Jack, ignoring everything else around her. Including the tell-tale sounds of two people entering the building and running up the lodging house stairs.
But Jack didn't care anymore -- Secrets had just confirmed his own worst fear, even if he had no idea what that "c" word she had just used meant: It was all because of him that three people he knew -- two of which he cared for tremendously -- were murdered. If he had to live with that knowledge and that guilt, wouldn't it be better for him just to meet the same fate that he had thrown upon the others? "Yer right," he whispered, going limp in the chair, no longer struggling against the bonds. He knew it was his time to die. Besides, how on Earth would the footsteps reach him in time?
"That's one thing I'm glad you learned before I sent you to be with Stress, Jack," murmured Secrets -- the true Secrets, once again in control of her body -- as she stood over Jack and raised the knife over her head, "Kisses is always right." But, right before she had a chance to thrust the knife downwards, someone -- or, actually, two someone's -- came crashing through the bunkroom door.
"Secrets, no!"
Jack's head perked up and Secrets tensed as she turned around and watched David rush into the room, followed shortly by Iris. Before anyone had a chance to react, David leapt forward at Secrets, throwing his entire body weight into the jump. Once he made contact with Secrets, he knocked her over, bringing her down the the ground. Unfortunately, as she fell, her hand slipped and she plunged the knife into David's left shoulder.
But David didn't notice at first; instead of the blood blossoming onto his faded blue shirt, David looked down on the girl he pinned to the ground, staring into her clouded blue eyes. "Secrets?" he asked quietly.
"Pa, I didn't mean it! I nevah wanted ta go wit' dat man. I nevah wanted ya an' ma ta die. I'se sorry," she began slowly, before wailing out loud. She pulled on the knife, still clutched in her right hand, until the blade was out of David's flesh and proceeded to toss it to the side before wrapping her arms around his neck. "I'se sorry, Pa!"
Meanwhile, as Jack watched in awe at another one of Secrets' personality transformations, Iris rushed to his side and began to untie the rope.
"Iris, I don't know what ta say," he murmured, one eye on the floor where David was trying to keep his left side steady as to not aggravate the wound, while still comforting the sobbing child-like Secrets.
"Just say dat it's ovah, Cowboy," Iris answered, pausing to pull him to a standing position before pulling a sheet off of a nearby bunk and walking over to David.
Jack watched as Iris then helped David to his feet and began to wrap the sheet around his injury. Running a hand through his fear-induced-sweat-soaked hair, Jack continued to watch as Secrets remained on the floor, even after David's body was lifted up off of her. Before answering, he thought briefly of Stress... of Kloppman... hell, even of Morris... and he smiled grimly. "Ya know what, Iris. I t'ink it is ovah."
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Author's Note: Or maybe not…Want an epilogue to tie the ends altogether? Leave me a review. And, since the epilogue is just about written already, it won't be a month and a half 'til the next update, promise :)