Spot slithered out of bed on the morning that marked the third week of Flight's confinement in bed early so that he wouldn't be disturbed in the wash room. Spot liked his space. He didn't like whiny kids in the morning fighting over his sink. Yes, Spot had his own sink.
The arms of his long johns hung down around his waist. It was to warm outside to wear them on his arms, so he just let them dangle.
Spot washed his fast first, moving the soap in circles slowly across his cheeks. He had no reason to hurry. He reached for a towel, slowly patting his face dry before lathering it with shaving cream. Spot picked a razor that he suspected might belong to that one boy, Scale, but he wasn't sure.
Spot took his precious time shaving. He was proud of the fact that he had never once nicked himself. He was nearly done when he looked over his shoulder in the mirror. Spot jerked his hand and yelped at the same time, drawing blood from his face. He certainly hadn't been expecting Flight to be staring back at him.
She laughed, at him or the situation he wasn't sure, but she laughed all the same. Spot swore and spun around to face her.
"What the hell do you think you're doing scaring me like that?"
"I wasn't trying to scare you, only trying to use the washroom," she said innocently, limping slightly over to the sink next to Spot's.
"This one looks clean," she said quietly, plucking an unused looking toothbrush form a jar on the counter. Spot was too angry at her for scaring him to laugh, otherwise he would have. He was currently struggling to clean up his fresh cut without getting shaving cream into it.
Flight brushed her teeth as she watched Spot with an amused expression on her face.
"You're hopeless," she said finally, spitting out the toothpaste and replacing the toothbrush in its proper jar.
"Is that right?" Spot snapped.
"Yeah, it is." She took the towel he was using away from him. "Just wash your face off first; it would be a lot easier that way."
"Whatever." He did it anyway. She slapped the towel on his cut and tilted his head back.
"Just press it. Do that for a couple minutes. It should stop bleeding." Spot raised an eyebrow.
"How do you know that?" he asked accusingly. She stared at him for a moment before replying softly.
"I've had my fair share of injuries."
She hobbled out of the washroom slowly and just managed to get out before the first flood of boys burst in, claiming shower stalls at the top of their lungs, only to have someone jump in before them anyway.
Spot scowled at all of them. Who cared what shower they got as long as they got a shower?
"Hypocrite," he said quietly to himself. It mattered to Spot. He strode over to the stall on the far left and kicked the kid in it out. This was Spot's stall, and he wanted to use it. It was that simple. Spot wanted something, and he got it. Spot always got what he wanted.
Skittery huddled in the corner of the warehouse. That was all he knew about the place; it was a warehouse.
The people came about once every two days to give him a little bread. When he asked them why they had brought him here, they simply laughed and gave him a swift kick in the ribs.
"You're funny kid," one of them had said once. "Real funny."
He'd been here a week and a half, or at least he thought he had. He'd had a lot of time to think about it, about how he got here in the first place. How had he got here again?
Oh, yes. He'd been selling, he knew that. Skittery had sold a paper to a middle aged man, maybe in his late thirties. The man had smiled, he remembered.
"Hello, Skittery," the man in the tweed suit had said. And suddenly there was another man, only he was wearing plaid. The two appeared to be brothers, because they looked scarily alike.
Skittery knew he had been staring at the two of them open mouthed in confusion, when there was a sharp pain in the back of his head, and he had blacked out. He knew that for certain, because a large chunk of time seemed to be missing. He had woken up on the hard dirt floor of the ware house, and he hadn't found a way for escape since.
The first thing he had found when he woke was that his knife was gone.
"Fifty papes, please," Flight said, sliding her twenty-five cent piece across the counter.
"Fifty papes!" Bill called to a worker, who passed him the stack. "You think you can handle fifty on your first day, kid?" he asked Flight quietly. Flight laughed.
"It ain't my first day," she said, gathering the papers and marching down the distribution center's steps.
Flight had sold out by lunch. Apparently having a bandage around your foot did boost sales. Flight could live with this.
She wheeled around towards the diner. Martha's was the Brooklyn equivalent of Tibby's; all the newsies hung out there.
Flight hobbled inside and sat down at a corner booth by herself, ordering a roast beef sandwich. She watched everyone in the restaurant carefully, just by way if amusement.
A small group of eight year old boys played crapshooter at one table, while the older boys played poker at another. Catwalk was talking to a little girl, whose mother was glaring at her, and Spot was kissing some brunette passionately in a corner booth. This sent a pang to Flight's heart, but she quickly shook it off.
To avoid looking at Spot, Flight's eyes traveled to the booth adjacent to him. In the seat were two men, one in a plaid suit and one in tweed. Flight's eyes widened. She placed a dime on the table to pay for the sandwich she never ended up getting and hurried out of there.
"I don't think they saw me," she muttered, limping down the sidewalk.
"Who didn't see you?" Flight jumped, but then relaxed as her brother slung his arm over her shoulder. Race was with him, grinning, as usual.
"I'll tell you later," she said quietly. Blink just shrugged.
The three of them walked down the street and over the Brooklyn Bridge; Flight wanted to go back to Manhattan for the afternoon.
"And get this," Race was saying, "the horse beat the three time champion, and so I won five bucks! Five bucks, Flight! And then – Blink? Are you listening?" Blink had come to a complete frozen stop in the doorway of the Manhattan Lodging House.
Race looked hard at Blink, and then at Flight, who had also stopped dead and was clutching her brother's hand. Race then followed their line of vision.
He didn't understand what had made them stop. It was just two short, plump men, one in a tweed suit and the other wearing plaid. Race didn't know why his two best friends had looks of absolute terror etched onto their faces. One of the two men stepped forward.
"Hello, Josephine, William. It's a pleasure to finally be meeting you."
"What do you want?" Blink asked hoarsely. The main in plaid smiled a thin little smile, but the man in the tweed suit spoke.
"You know what we want," he said rather simply. "We want you."
Wee! Okay, so it's been forever, and I know that chapter was short, but that's not the point. The point is that I updated! So yea for me!
Alright, I have an important matter to discuss with you all, especially all you Non Reviewers! Do you know how many reviews I have? 21. Do you know how many hits I have? 308! So, basically if everyone who's ever clicked on my story and read it, reviewed I would have 308 reviews. And, guys, it really bugs me that so many of you aren't reviewing, because it really is important, and as an author it means a lot to find my inbox chock-full of reviews.
So, last chapter, I had 2 reviews. Two. How many hits? 19. That's 17 of you who didn't review! That's a lot of reviews gone. Guys, it takes about 2 seconds to leave a review. Just say that you read it and you liked it, or leave a review and say you hated it if you feel so compelled. However, if you do hate it, you wouldn't have read this far.
To those two of you who DID review:
Cinnamon Spice: Uh, no you didn't, but okay!
Queen of Doom: Skittery really has no idea. And I know it's been forever! I'm glad you like it!
All of y'all who read this and don't review, please just press that little blue button on the bottom left hand corner of your screen and take ten seconds of your time to let me know what you think. It really would be greatly appreciated, considering this is my fist fic. Please review!
