It was dark inside that room. Dust covered everything—the few windows that were still intact, the walls, and the floorboards that were not hosts to random shoeprints. Spot took a step out of the room's doorway and looked out over the vacancy of the first floor that was once the location of a clothing factory. The machinery had been disassembled; the tables and workspaces cleared; and the only things left were random pieces of wood and fabric. He reached the railing of the second-floor balcony that ran around the indoor perimeter of the large, open room. He placed his palms around the wooden rail and scanned over the setting. His eyes squinted hard to ensure that the twenty-five Brooklynites were safely hidden inside a room or behind a barrier of some sort.

Spot smirked confidently; the weather was good in Brooklyn. Sunny without a cloud in the sky. Selling had also been unusually easy this morning. He had also found a penny on the street just as he stepped out of the lodging house that evening at quarter till five. Omens,he thought. They're all omens. As he was relishing within this feeling of confidence, Johnny stepped out of his room that overlooked the outside entrance of the factory. He waved the signal and Spot nodded. Queens was coming around the corner. Spot took his place inside his room and pulled his gun from his pocket. He closed the door until there was but an inch until it closed. He backed up against the wall and waited.

"Now er never," he said to himself under his breath. "Now er never…"

The Queens boys had been walking from their home for what seemed like days. Their gutsy, vengeful morale did not seem to weaken even when Gabby joined their group to the factory. It also smelled, she noticed; Tyce felt it was bad luck for them to bathe before a fight. Gabby thought it was just a sorry excuse for wanting to seem more masculine—she didn't believe in much superstition or luck for this particular element. She did, however, note the irony of the day. The weather could not have been better for such a darkening day. It was almost sickening. She also broke her shoelace this morning; she wrote it off as coincidence.

Ace jogged up to walk beside her, and Gabby did not as much as glance his way. She looked down at the baggy brown pants she had been instructed to wear. They were so large it was hard to miss them when trying to stare at the ground. The white, collared shirt's sleeves reached well over her hands, leaving her to push them up continuously. To top it all off, she had been given a newsboy cap to conceal her identity, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and hidden beneath it. Gabby felt utterly ridiculous.

"Hey," Ace whispered loudly to her. After she refused a reply, Ace pulled her close and discreetly planted a silver revolver in the pocket of the wool trousers. The weight of the gun came to Gabby and she immediately reached for it.

"Stop," Ace demanded while pulling her in closer to speak. "It's for yer own goddamn protection. Just aim, cock it, and pull the triggah."

Gabby jerked from his hold and glared at him. She pursed her lips for lack of a response and adjusted her cap tightly on her head.

The factory was in sight now and Gabby felt her stomach drop ten feet. The boys around her picked up in their grimy spirits and began smacking each other in preparation for the big rumble. Gabby grimaced and walked with her head down. They arrived seemingly quickly at the entrance and Tyce gathered his fourteen boys up, plus Gabby and Ace.

Tyce huddled them together and reviewed their instructions while Gabby watched the boys' eyes take on a bloodthirsty shade, and she stood outside the group. She huffed and began looking at the building's windows. As her eyes traveled over the red brick, she came to the only clear window visible. Then, sudden movement came from inside the dark room and she froze completely. She was not sure what it was at first and the initial surprise unnerved her. She looked back to the Queens boys dispersing and it hit her: Brooklyn's here. How could Ace have missed this?

A part of Gabby wanted to notify Tyce right away, and that was the dutiful, serving part. The other part of her, though, took over and she kept her mouth shut. In her mind she applauded Brooklyn. She wanted all of Queens dead. Tyce reached for the door. If she was to do any fighting at all tonight, it was definitely not in favor of Queens.

Tyce opened the doors and the emptiness of the factory swarmed all around them. Gabby wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She let in a sharp inhale and Ace quickly covered her mouth with his hand. She looked over to her right and hoped the room she had in mind was not taken. Tyce looked back at her, winked viciously, and turned back. While the Queens boys looked all around the enormous space and rubbed their grubby little hands together hungrily, Tyce held up a hand to stop them from walking. Something had been brought to his attention. Gabby pushed Ace's hand away as she watched Tyce intensely to see what was going to happen next. The thought of being shot at by a Brooklyn newsie had not even occurred to her as she was so immersed in watching Tyce's world collapse. She loved it.

Tyce silenced the boys with a mere wave of his hand and bent down. Footprints on the dust-covered floor. Fresh, new footprints. Gabby smiled with a vengeful spirit, and she knew, somewhere, Spot was smiling too. Tyce looked up and noticed the mess of prints leading in various directions and places.

"What is it?" a newsie asked. They looked around to see what had occurred to their leader.

Tyce looked ahead of him and Gabby felt the rage radiating from his being. He stood up and took out his gun quickly. "They're here."

A second later, a single bullet whizzed through the air from a cracked door upstairs and hit a Queens boy in the leg. As he yelled out in pain and fell to the floor, the rest of the group jumped and scattered to a hiding place. Following bullets sliced through the air and hit two more newsboys, lowering Queens' numbers to ten. Ace grabbed a hold of the back of Gabby's shirt and dragged her in a run into the fortunately empty room she had intended in the first place.

Gabby's heart was pounding at a mile a minute and her hands shook vigorously. She could hear the firing of all the pistols and they resounded so loudly that she could feel each one of them in her stomach. Ace pulled her into a pitch-black closet, and before he closed the door, he gripped her shoulders and stood shaking in front of her. He had an expression of terror taking over his face and Gabby had never seen him so frightened.

"Why did you do that, Gabby, why!" he demanded.

"Do what?" she replied frantically as sheer horror took place in a deluge of hot tears in her eyes.

"You didn't tell Tyce Brooklyn was comin' here first! Don'tcha realized what you'se done?"

"Don't blame me, Ace! You're the one who got all the information, this is your fault!"

Ace let go and grabbed the roots of his hair for lack of something to punch, while muttering panicked obscenities to himself. "Okay, you stay here." He shut the door quickly without letting Gabby say anything else.

Hurriedly, Gabby took out her gun and blindly ran her quaking hands over it, remembering how these things worked. This was not a foreign object to her; her father had a gun for home safety. She had seen him handle it in plenty of ways. Her breathing was getting shorter and more frequent by the second. She moved her fingers over the smooth ridges and twisted it around, getting familiar with it. She wanted out of this place immediately, she thought as she moved the revolver about in her hands. Owning it, possessing it. She knew what she wanted to do with this gun. She didn't want to be here at all. She could hear the gunshots and smack of metal objects against the walls and she could hear boys dying and she could hear them screaming in pain. She didn't want to fight anything anymore. She just wanted to be happy. She didn't want this life, this job, this anxiety; drop, drop, drop. It all came tumbling down.

Before she could do anything else with the gun, through the cracks of the wooden door, she saw Ace hesitating to leave the room. He looked more nervous than he had ever seen, and the image of him chilled her to the bone. He stopped his pacing and turned on his heel to speak to her, the closet door still closed.

"Gabby, if Tyce comes in here—"

Before Ace could finish his advice, the cracking sound of a bullet leaving a gun barrel cut through her ears and Ace fell to the floor on his stomach, blood immediately pouring from his back. Gabby was so stunned she didn't hear herself scream, but she knew it was there. Her hand flew to her agape mouth as she was too afraid to vomit, speak, breathe, move. Her legs gave way beneath her and she fell to the closet floor. It was then that the sum of all her fears entered the room with a crazed, menacing look in his eyes.

"Fuckin' lousy bastard," Tyce muttered at Ace's back, and shot two more bullets into the dead body of his loyal servant. He bent down and grabbed Ace's hair. "I trusted you!" he screamed loudly.

Gabby then heard herself breathe again, yet she knew it was the end of her as Tyce's head shot in the direction of the closet. She immediately picked herself up and watched as Tyce stormed toward the closed door. With the only thought of revenge on her mind, she stepped back, and brought her leg up. Just as Tyce was reaching for the doorknob, Gabby collided her foot with the wooden barrier, knocking the door open in a swift motion and sent Tyce stumbling to the ground. His pistol fell from his hands with a deafening crash. Gabby sprinted out of the closet, kicking his weapon across the room in the process. Tyce held his bleeding nose for a moment and took to his feet at once.

Gabby pushed her legs to the ground fiercely in the fastest run of her life, not looking back once. She dodged boys fighting and, very fortunately, missed any flying bullets coming her way. She could not make out the blur all around her as she could only see the destination she was trying to get to: the staircase. It was open. Nobody was on it. She darted towards it and sprinted up the creaking steps, skipping one or two at a time.

Nobody seemed to be fighting on the upper level, and she was extremely thankful for that too. Her eyes whirled around the second floor as she got up to it, and she dashed into a room ahead of her. She closed the door behind her once inside and tried to catch her breath. There were no closets in this one. Just emptiness and no windows. It was practically impossible to see anything. Shit. If Tyce were to get find her in here, she was for sure a goner. For some reason or another, she was beginning to think the superstition of a broken shoelace was working against her. Fuckin' omens. The omens had sent her to this unfortunately unlucky room.

The door burst open and Gabby shrieked, jumping what felt like a mile high, and a modest light flooded the room. But it wasn't Tyce—it was someone she wasn't expecting to see at all. It was Spot. For a moment, she felt relieved. Yet, Gabby then actually saw Spot in the dark light; he was in a strong stance with his taut arms outstretched in front of him, both of which clutching a shiny black pistol. Pointed directly at her. The only part of his face visible was his eyes peering at his target, who stood there speechless.

The room was deafeningly silent for moments; it was the darkest room in the entire world. Dark with light, dark with its occupants, and dark with their emotions. For those suicidal moments, the world had stopped turning. Two lovers, one with a gun pointed at the other's heart.

A shadowed figure overtook the moment. Tyce stood in the doorway and served as, by any other means, a convenient interruption. Gabby breathed and her eyes flickered to the door. Spot turned as well, his gun turning along with him. Tyce's face, bloody and dirty as were as clothes, had slowly grown a devilishly sly smile. His pistol was tucked between his stomach and pants.

"Well, well, well," Tyce began, following with a round of slow, crisp, applause. "Isn't this a bit odd?"

Spot did not move a muscle. "What the hell're you talkin' about, Nichols?" His voice sent shivers up Gabby's spine; it was filled to the brim with cold hatred.

Tyce placed his hands on his hips, strolling dramatically out of the doorway and around the room. Spot's gun followed his every move. If Tyce took a step, the gun shifted. If Tyce breathed, the gun moved with it. Gabby watched in shock to see what would follow. Tyce was slowly making his way towards her with every fast thump of her heart.

"How've you been doin' since I saw ya last, Conlon?" Tyce inquired, ridiculing the idea of small talk.

Spot refused to respond and his jaw clenched together hard.

"I heard not so well."

"Shut up."

"Been a feelin' a little blue since that day, Spotty-boy?"

"Shut the fuck up, Tyce."

"How bout when I made a little disappearance a while back, eh? Needed to see how you'd react to it, and I must say, kid…you still got it. Spies. Now that was a good idea, if I do say so. Oh, and when Blink died, ya still had it! Shame he had to die on account 'a me messin' with you, ain't it?"

Spot cocked the trigger.

Gabby wanted to break down, shove Tyce to the ground and blast his brains out with his own damn gun. But she was frozen solid. She couldn't keep her eyes off Spot. He hadn't moved his arms since first pointing them at Tyce. He was blinded by hate, and Gabby could feel it pulsating from his mind.

"I see you picked ya'self up again, though, once ya met that girl," Tyce said maliciously.

"Stop it," Spot commanded involuntarily and protectively.

"Gabby was her name?"

"Shut the hell up or I will pull the trigger and have no regrets. This is between you and me, Tyce. Don't you even mention her name, y'hear? You talk about her or even think about goin' near her on the off chance that I don't kill you right here, you had bettah run as far and as fast as you can, 'cause you ain't gonna be alive no more if you so much as glance in her direction."

If it weren't for the circumstance in which she was, Gabby would have run up to Spot and planted a big kiss on his lips. However, she came back down to reality and realized that she was the enemy and he was the enemy.

Tyce smiled as if impressed by Gabby's ability to lure a boy into loving her so. He nodded and agreed to Spot's terms. Gabby hoped for a miracle to get her out of here, but she did not want to leave the presence of Spot. She wanted to be there, protect him if anything happened; but he would never understand.

Without warning, Spot lunged to the side, with his other arm still outstretched, and grabbed Gabby's arm with a death grip. He wrapped his strong arm around his hostage's neck. For a brief second, Gabby felt protected; though, it was then that she felt the barrel of Spot's gun pressed directly beneath her chin, poking into her throat. Her heart jumped to her mouth and she could not breathe if her life depended on it. She gripped Spot's arm around her neck tightly.

"You end this thing, I'll let this little bitch boy go," Spot told Tyce threateningly. Tyce's eyebrows raised in anticipation to hear the bargain, basking in the glory of knowing the captive's secret. "I'se already knocked out plenty 'a yer boys just by walkin' in here. If you end this thing, I'll spare this little fucker's life. I know ya got some spot fer him since ya got 'im protected in this room by hisself."

Tyce slowly folded his arms over his chest and shifted his weight to his hip, scratching his chin in pretending to contemplate the offer. Gabby felt Spot's heart rate beating incredibly steadily. He was not afraid of Tyce. Not in the least.

"Conlon, if ya gonna hold one 'a my guys prisoner, you sure as hell bettah know who you're takin' into custody. I don't give a shit about that one…But you might."

Spot's eyes furrowed upon hearing this. "What?"

"Take a look at who ya're holdin, Brooklyn," Tyce told him viciously. "Take a good look and tell me who ya see."

Here it comes. The moment Gabby had dreaded once her feelings for Spot had surfaced. This was it. Whether she would live to see Monday all came down to this moment, there was no way out. As if in slow motion, Spot spun her around, still keeping his hold on her, and he came face to face with the person he threatened to kill. His eyes widened and he instinctively shoved her behind him to protect her.

"Why did you bring her here, Tyce?" he demanded in a deafening volume. "Remembah what I told you about goin' near her?"

Tyce snickered and pushed the end of Spot's gun away from him. "Things are not always as they seem, Spot. Yer little girlfriend, well, she ain't really yours."

"What?"

"Come out, come out, wherever you are, Gabrielle!" Tyce chimed.

Gabby squeezed her eyes shut and let her sobs choke her. It was time. The end was going to come whether she wanted it to or not. She had to own up to her mistakes, even if she was killed in the process. With timidity, Gabby took a step out from behind Spot. Then two steps. Then, three, four, until she was at the side of her master, the puppeteer that directed her to do everything she had ever done. She looked up, but could not bring herself to look into Spot's eyes. Her shoulders trembled within her cries as Tyce placed a hand around one of them.

Spot's eyes widened even greater and his mouth unhinged with his upper lip. His one true love was working against him all along. His mind went blank to a state of shock as Tyce tore off Gabby's hat, revealing for sure her true identity. He lowered his arm as his pained face stared back at Gabby in utter disbelief. He could not hear anything else around him, not the fighting downstairs, not the streets, not Gabby's sobs, or Tyce's laughter. A burning fire had seared his heart into flames and it felt as though the smoke of it was strangling him.

"Ain't…that…a bitch!" Tyce mocked slowly and loudly through his wicked grin. "Conlon, the only girl you evah loved was workin' for the only guy you evah hated."

Gabby pressed her lips together as tears streamed down her cheeks violently. She looked up at Spot and opened her mouth, hoping any oral movement would stimulate her brain to pop something out. She failed. There were no words.

Spot's disbelief was fading. Acceptance took him over in a matter of seconds, and his face returned to hatred. Gabby watched his eyes turn to a silvery blue, filled with malice and rage, much like Tyce's did. He raised his arm again and pointed his gun ahead of him, unsure of whom exactly to shoot.

Tyce popped up one eyebrow, his face morphing into a murderous expression. He suddenly took the gun from his waistband, wrapped an arm around Gabby's chest, and positioned the pistol so that it dug into Gabby's temple. "Ya gave me a good idea, Spot. I'll give you a choice: save yourself, or save the girl. You give up the gun ya're holdin' and I let this one live, or I blow her brains out and we settle this man-to-man."

Spot clenched his jaw again and swallowed down hard.

"Which is weird, seein' as I want Gabby dead, and, by the look in yer eye, you'se want her dead too. But I got a feelin' that you really did love her. Ain't that sweet?"

Gabby became dizzy, wanting to faint and wake up dead. She deserved this guilt. She watched as Spot held her life in his hands.

"I ain't choosin'," Spot replied. "This is you an' me, Tyce."

Tyce thought on it. "Ya're right, Conlon." He pulled the gun away from Gabby's head and threw it to the ground. He reached into Gabby's pocket and pulled out the revolver. "If I'm gonna do anythin' to you, it's gonna be with her gun. It'll serve as a lil' reminder to ya while we duke it out." He held Gabby close to his body and walked her, with a slight shove, towards the doorway. He lifted her up for a second and then threw her back to the ground, shutting the door in her face and locking it. He turned back to Spot.

"Come one, Conlon, let's settle this. Man-to-man."