Chapter Ten: Alibi An' Win
Criss-Cross watched Wicked go, suddenly remembering where he was from. He was one of Spot Conlon's "Brookies" also known as Brooklyn gangmembers. Wicked had been in the first group that had come across Criss-Cross on the day that had started her true Brooklyn life. At the time she had been Kat Conlon, a "perfect little daughter". Shy and poised as any proper girl should be. Though, that was hardly the truth. She'd been fierce as a tigeress and twice as deadly, even before her Brooklyn training...
Richer-than-the-average-man's daughter, Katherine Conlon, was a pretty little thing. At seven and a half years-old she was already sick of house life. She'd been a street rat up until the age of 6 and a half, and then suddenly she'd been forced into a dress and brought to the doorstep of the house on which she now stood again, only this time, she was prepared to leave. She was holding a pillowcase stuffed with 4 newly baked loaves of bread (that she'd baked herself), a quilt that she'd had since young childhood that had once belonged to her mother, a too-big pair of men's trousers with suspenders, a couple extra shirts, and 3 dollars she had taken out of her father's dresser drawer. She was still in a girl's skirts and shirt, with a cape over her shoulders and the hood up. But under the skirts and shirt she already had on men underwear, and in her skirt pocket she carried a small sewing kit with which she planned to take in the trousers. She also wore a sensible pair of boots that she'd had when she'd arrived at her father's doorstep.
Locking the front door, she silently slipped off down the street in the early morning fog. Silent as a shadow she snaked her way through the streets, heading North towards her home back in Queens. Her roots lay there, with Frisk and Chris.
Suddenly, out of nowhere it seemed, five boys appeared out of the fog, cornering her against a wall.
"Listen kid, we'se ain't about ta rough up a goil, but we'se in needa money, an' you'se look fancy enough ta have got some," the first kid spoke.
Katherine looked defiantly up from under her hood. "I'se got none!" she proclaimed, reaching for the small knife Frisk had given her in the two seconds they'd had alone before the bull had dragged her off.
"You'se got none!" the speaker sneered in disbelief. "You'se lyin' ta us kid. An' nobody lies ta us. Evah. Ya heah?"
"I'se got none. D'ough, if you'se lookin' foah food, I'se got fresh loaves a bread. But I'se ain' about ta share dem wit' you'se chumps," she retorted, a wicked grin coming across her face. Her grammar had never become as her father had wanted it to be. She was a street rat at heart, and she was determined to stay one.
The speaker, who apparently led the small group let out a growl. The chump comment had started his blood boiling. But a hand on his arm stopped him from hurting the pint-sized brave girl. "Let 'er go Alibi," the owner of the hand, a boy two years older than Katherine named Valiant Winter, Win for short said softly. His name would later become Wicked Winter as he changed lodging houses.
Katherine nodded to Win and said in the voice of someone who could only be a smart-alec, "Eiddah let me's go, oah take me's ta yer leadah. An' I'se meanin' ya real leadah, not some rif-raf who'se'd beat on a little goil."
Win nodded, and said in his soft manner"Follow me den..."
Criss-Cross smiled softly, remembering how Wicked had been at first. But then she saw the boys across the street begin to walk down from the end of their alleyway. With an angry, betrayed gasp, she recognized the boy leading them...