Author's Note: Well, here is the second to last chapter of this story. It's so strange to think that this chapter in Rip's life is going to be over in one week. At least I still have all of Obsession to work on before following that with other stories. And there is still Can't Keep Running, which reunites Rip with the SSM world. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. And, remember, only one more to go!

Disclaimer: These are always mandatory when dabbling in fan fiction. If there is anything at all that is reminiscent of the 1992 musical Newsies, then it probably belongs to Disney. The characters of Luke/Rip & his family, Caitlin/Spindle, and Jessa, specifically, are mine, as well as others that may work their way into this story. Any others belong to their respective authors and will be noted in individual disclaimers.

---

A Virgin's Touch

09.13.06

They say that what men desire is a virgin who is a whore.
Maybe that's what I was looking for. It's what I made her, after all.

---

PART XVI

In years to come, when Rip allowed himself to relive that night – the second life ever extinguished by his hands – he was not sure how exactly he made it back to the Harlem House entirely whole. If he thought back, and tried to remember, he could see pieces and scenes running before his eyes. In a way, it was as if he was detached from himself, watching vaguely over him.

Mack, with that eternally surprised expression, was on the ground; death had been quick. Rip was pulling the blade out of the wound and, nonchalantly, wiping it on Mack's discarded slacks. The shiny, sticky crimson blood soaked into the fabric and faded from sight. The knife was clean and slipped back in his pocket. Briefly he thanked Spindle for her gift – it had come in handy.

He checked himself to make sure that there was no blood on his hands. The proverbial dirt remained with him but, literally, he was clean. He left Mack behind. The door closed and he put the thought of the fallen leader behind him.

A big part of that night was Maria. Mack's final words, that final statement, right before he died… They were on his mind that night and many nights that followed. Was he telling the truth? Was there more to it? Was it really Maria? And, the most important one of them all: if Mack did not do it then who did?

After that sudden release of anger directed at Mack, resulting in his death, Rip was cold and emotionless once more. As he rolled Mack's hardening corpse into a shadowed corner of the abandoned building, he saw it as nothing more than manual labor. When he cleansed the blade of split life, he watched his icy eyes in the reflection of the steel, his mouth a straight line.

It was not until he was outside, his dirtied hands hidden in the pockets of his own slacks, that he tried to make sense of what had happened. He had entered the house with the intent to put Mack in his place; he had exited it a murderer – a murderer who was one step closer in vindicating the death of his sister, if he had not done so already. Wouldn't that just be the work of the Lord that he made me pay for my sins by trial before I could break myself of his hold and discover that he had taken Maria from me?

The only thing he was sure of was that he made it back to the Harlem House shortly before curfew. Mister Smith was just locking up the House for the night when he approached. There had been a shake of the head and a stern finger wagging but Rip ignored him and, quietly, slipped inside the House.

For the first time in only God knew how long, Rip did not say his prayers. Rather, he climbed into his bunk and, without the threat of Mack crawling into it, he slept soundly.

--

For that first week, nobody seemed to even notice that Mack was missing. The boys in the Harlem House were used to tenants coming and going – some boys found better lodging, moved on or just plain disappeared – the when Mack did not fill his bunk for a few days, no one said a word. It was not rare for him to be gone for a bit. Cecilia Rayner allowed him to stay over at her brothel at times or he might visit other friends. But, when nearly a month passed, people began to whisper.

Where is Mack?

Mack had been one of the first boys ever to lodge at the Harlem House. He used to brag that he would stay there as long as he could. Yet, almost a full month had gone by and he had not returned. None of the other boys saw him selling newspapers nor did they hear of him stopping by the brothel. It was as if he had just vanished.

Rip pretended to be curious for the sake of the other boys. He knew well enough that, without Mack to protect him – a protection, now that he understand the root of it all, he resented – that it was only a matter of time before some of the other boys looked towards him. If what Mack had told him was true then there were some boys who, not only had slept with Mack themselves, but knew that Mack had been doing the same thing to him.

Whether his acting was accepted unquestioningly or the others just did not care, overall, what happened to Mack, no one ever asked Rip implicitly if he knew what happened to the older boy. That did not mean, though, that certain boys did not have their suspicions. Rip caught Trace watching him out of the corner of his eyes more than once.

Then the winter season, late in its arrival, hit and all thoughts other than surviving through February and March of 1895 flew from the newsboys' minds. They lost more than one boy that season: Nickels, unable to make lodging one night, was found frozen in the back alley down the street from the Harlem House; Bean slipped on a stretch of ice and snapped something – he could not afford to see a doctor and, rather than deal with the pain, he purposely journeyed into the Negro tenements and shouted slurs at them. They did not kill him out right; he died later that night, just after making it back to the House. Trace, the closest to family that Bean ever had, was devastated.

It was easy for Rip to pretend like the loss of boys like Nickels and Bean meant something to him. Despite his cold exterior, his feelings – lost temporarily after Mack's murder – came back with the second anniversary of Maria's death in March. It was no easier to deal with her loss two years later, especially now that he thought he knew who her murderer was. And, if it was Mack as he believed, despite his refusal to claim responsibility, then he had already avenged her death. However, it was one thing to think that it was Mack; he wanted to be sure of it. Every day that he did not know, the gold cross around his neck became heavier.

When spring finally spread over Harlem, it was hard to remember who had lived in the House prior to the start of 1895. With the discovery that Nickels and Bean, among others, had died, it was understood that Mack must have met the same fate. And that was that.

The biggest concern came down to who was in charge. With the onset of much pleasanter weather in April, there was an increase in the number of boys who came to the Harlem House in search of a place to stay. Rip could not help but look at most of them, their faces unhardened by the street, and pity them. He must have looked as naïve as they did when Mack found him. He was no longer naïve; at sixteen years old, Rip Divenize felt old.

He kept out of the discussions of who was the new leader of the House. While Mister Smith, entering into his second year of being the House's adult supervisor, was nominally in charge, the boys felt the need to have one of their own raised above the rest. As far back as all of them could remember Mack had always been that boy. With his disappearance – now that three months had passed, they assumed he would never return and that it was high time they chose a new leader – he left the House in a lurch.

It was finally decided that Trace Flannery would be the new head of the House. He was seventeen years old and one of the oldest boys in the House. He had grown quite responsible following Beans' death. He, in a way, felt that it was his fault, that he could have stopped the pain. But he did not and Beans took the only way out that he could. Trace did not want that to happen to any of the other boys.

He wanted a second-hand man, though, a boy that had been in the House for awhile and knew Mack. Beans, obviously, would have been the best choice but that was now impossible. Strangely enough, he seemed to settle on Rip.

Trace's reasons were simple enough: Rip had been in the House for over a year and a half and, because he had arrived at such a late age, he was old enough to be respected. He glossed over the earlier harsh treatment of the boy; he acknowledged an initial dislike but said that none of the newer boys had anything against him. If anything, they just thought him odd for his refusal to skip his prayers. And, lastly, Trace justified his choice by saying the Mack had liked Rip and if Mack liked Rip, then that was good enough for the other boys.

However, the way that Trace stressed the word 'liked' was not lost on Rip. He accepted the position with one goal in mind: to get close enough to the new leader to ask him some questions.

His opportunity came quite soon, actually. Quite relaxed after spending a morning with Spindle – she had come to try to convince him to follow her to Queens again and, to her thrill, he had said 'maybe'; even if he said it only so she would sleep with him one more time before she journeyed back, it made her happy – Rip arrived in the bunkroom to find that Trace was sitting on Mack's old bunk. He was, in his embrace, holding one of Beans' old shirts.

Rip wondered briefly if he should leave but, before he could leave the older boy in peace, Trace saw him. "Rip," he said, his voice sounded throaty. It sounded almost as if he had been crying. "I've been wondering when I would get to see you alone."

He shrugged, trying not the feel uncomfortable. It had taken nearly three months of numbness for his emotions to return and he was not used to the feelings they invoked. Sometimes he wished the emotionless states he frequently found himself in remained. "I'm always alone, Trace. I sell by myself everyday," he replied.

"Yes, but I couldn't just search you out to chat, could I?"

Rip did not reply. He was too busy wondering where Trace was going with this.

Trace slowly stood up from the bunk, placing Beans' faded brown shirt at the foot of the bed. "Do you miss him?"

The question came from out of nowhere but, somehow, Rip had been expecting it yet. Nevertheless, he feigned ignorance. "Who?"

"I think you know who I mean, Rip."

He shook his head. "No. You?"

"I… I don't know. Mack made me feel like I belonged when I first got here. He took me under his wing and looked after me, you know? And if that's what he wanted, then he could have it," Trace confessed, his nose wrinkling as he spoke. "I ain't no queer, Rip, and I know you ain't either. But Mack… he didn't care."

Rip tried not to indicate that anything that Trace said rang true with him but Trace knew already. The memory of the last conversation with Mack rang in Rip's head: 'Some of them watch us, you know. You think they're sleeping when I come crawling in with you but, when I get inside your ass, I can hear them. They get off to watching the good little Catholic boy getting fucked by a man. It's like they're watching you go to Hell.' Trace's next statement verified his suspicions.

"I wanted to help you, Rip, honest. But some of the other boys, Rocky and, bless him, Beans, didn't want to. They thought it was funny, watching you get poked in the ass by Mack. Jealous, I think. They liked it when Mack jumped them and, I think, they was jealous of you. I admit that I wanted attention. Not that kind, cause, hell, that shit was real messed up, but I wanted someone to hold me – and not just some whore I paid." He sighed. "It hurts, Rip, and I know that. But Mack was real crazy."

Rip lifted his head. Rather than focus on discussing what had happened in his bunk – he still had to sleep in it and whenever he remembered what Mack had done to him in it, it was hard – he decided to ask Trace about Mack's last confession. "Crazy, Trace? Crazy like how?"

Trace shook his head sadly and Rip was surprised to see the boy look so forlorn. The loss of his pal had hit him hard; he was nothing like the rough and tumble bully he had been when Rip first arrived at the Harlem House. "I heard something once, Rip, and I was never sure if it was true or not."

"Like what?"

"Like killing. Beans told me – you know, he was here before I got here, about two years ago – that Mack used to show off. They was in Manhattan one day: Mack, Beans, and another boy who left shortly after, and…"

"And, what?" Rip knew his voice contained much more emotion than any of the other boys had heard before but he did not care. He needed to know the truth – if Mack did not do it, then he needed to continue in his search for the true murderer. He felt that, especially after killing a second person, he would never be clean until she, at least, was at rest.

Trace looked taken aback but, regardless, continued with his story. "Well, Beans told me that what Mack wanted to do was fuck some little girl, right out in the open. I don't know why or anything, but they ran across some girlie just outside a park and he thought she would be tight. Beans and the other kid, Snaps or something, tried to talk him out of it but he cornered the girl. The girl started to cry after Mack got her down and, who knows why, but Mack couldn't get it up." Trace paused momentarily, his gloomy mood broken by a snort. Both boys knew from experience that Mack was always raring to go.

Rip was not in the mood to reminisce. As it was, Trace's tale paralleled exactly what Mack had told him earlier. "Then what?"

"Well, Beans said that him and Snaps started to laugh. Hell, even the girl stopped crying. She looked at him and spat out something in another language. I think he told me that she ended up being a wop and, get this, wasn't too fond of an Irish boy trying to work his way under her dress. Beans and Snaps walked away and let him get yelled at by this girl. He regretted it later, though. When Mack finally met up with them later, he was bloody and said something about showing the hussy who was the boss. They never talked about it again but he used to tell me that Mack killed her and that's why most of the other boys let him fuck them. They was afraid to be like that girl."

Rip listened to Trace tell his story, his hands clenching tightly just as the older boy finished speaking. I knew it. Maria… His whole body seemed heavy just then and a sharp pain shot through his chest. After two years of not knowing, two years of wondering what had happened to her, he knew. True, his justification was based on hearsay and gossip from a bunch of rascals but he accepted it.

And, as Trace stared at the boy standing before him, shaking slightly and not saying a word, he watched as something happened that none of the boys in the Harlem House had ever seen before – or believed, when Trace gossiped about in the months that followed Rip's own disappearance.

Rip Divenize began to cry.