"Haven't you filled your weekly quota for stealing things that aren't yours?" Gisa catechizes into my ear with that half-serious snark of hers.

Today, she wears a blue pinstriped dress, pieced together with transparent buttons down the middle, cutting off at her knees.

Another benefit of her job: there isn't a scrap of clothing in her closet that wasn't sewn by her own fingers. Her talent has saved us hundreds of dollars since she hasn't bought new outfits in years.

"Besides, I thought you gave up hunting for fools on Wall Street after the cops arrested you overnight."

I roll my eyes at the memory. Three years ago, I was getting a little too confident in my pickpocket talent and decided, like the fourteen-year-old fool I was, to try my tricks on New York's finest. It didn't occur to me that the rich might have more eyes than the idiots in Times Square do, that maybe, just maybe, some of them keep bodyguards and henchmen around.

I landed myself an overnight in the NYPD headquarters for that mistake. Save for the evening my parents told me I was done with dance, it was the worst night of my life, sitting in that grimy, quiet enclosure. At least the police had the decency to give a poor teenager a secluded cell, away from the drunks and actual felons of New York.

But if they really had the decency, wouldn't have they let me go with a little slap on the cheek and a warning? Not for a lowly citizen like me, I suppose.

"This week is different, Gee," I say to her, silently hoping she doesn't ask me more.

I don't know why I bother to hope such things, with a sister as smart as Gisa at my side.

Warily, she gazes upward at the buildings that scrape the sky. The streets in southern Manhattan are compact, squeezed in with concrete jungles on both edges of the sidewalks. In spite of the sun, the streets are somewhat shadowed, darkened by the tall buildings.

Around us, men and women dressed in suits and skirts and dresses scuttle about, pushing through revolving doors, snapping orders on phones, and waving down taxis to carry them to their next meetings.

Gisa halts, and her black fashion boots make a scuff on the pavement. She leans against a construction cone set between two others, giving me a frank look. "My lessons aren't for another hour. So why are we here, Mare? I thought after last time . . . you were done with Wall Street."

It isn't often my sister and I have real conversations like these. So, sighing, I glance around us, at the looming buildings, blocked-up traffic, and annoyed people, and lean onto one of the other cones. I know for a fact that I stick out like a sore thumb on Wall Street, not dressed like a tourist nor like a businesswoman.

And as always, good intentions or not, Gisa insists on being difficult by leaning against the cone, like cattle awaiting slaughter.

Or a doe, awaiting slaughter by wolves. The Wolves of Wall Street.

"Kilorn," I begin but immediately trail off, clueless of where to start. Has she even heard of the Street Fighters? My sister has never once stepped into Will's store and doesn't bother with the gossip of our apartment building. "He lost his posh job yesterday, and now he says . . . he feels like he has no purpose. He's going to try to join a gang. The . . . Scarlet Street Fighters."

The way I explain it sounds so incredibly stupid, but it's still the truth.

While she mulls over my words, I tilt my face up towards the rising sun, nearly at its height for the day. The shadows do little to keep the heat from reaching the sidewalks, turning them hot and blistering, and the sun just as quickly heats my face.

As I turn back to her, Gisa's brows are knitted in confusion, and she's tugging at a loose seam at the hip of her dress. Unlike her, to slowly ruin her art.

Her face stays passive, but that doesn't mean I can't pick up on other telltale signs. Her feet alternate in tapping the ground in some rhythm. Unlike her to move idly.

"So are you going to pay Kilorn off to stay out of it?" she asks quietly, not truly wanting the answer.

I roll my eyes, not at her, but towards myself. "Not exactly." I know better than to try to bribe Kilorn. He'd take it as an insult more than as free money. "I met someone in Will's store yesterday. She's a member of the Fighters, and a high-ranking one, I'm pretty sure. She said that she won't take incentives, but," I continue, proceeding to tell her my logic.

Diana Farley's gang, just as any illegal band of people, needs supplies. Supplies cost money. If I can snatch a couple jammed wallets, a couple of credit cards, she won't have the restraint to reject my offer the second go-around.

Gisa stares at the pale building in front of us as I go through the monologue I practiced in my head last night, in anticipation that I'd be telling her about Kilorn and the Fighters. Stares and stares, analyzing every cement block and pane of glass, even as her eyes finally contort with pain.

"You should do it," she blurts when I'm halfway done repeating the various reasons I'm being so, so stupid.

I stare back at her, just as wide-eyed. "What?"

"We already have one brother who might as well be lost. And Kilorn, blood aside . . . he deserves more." Gisa pushes away from the neon orange cone and hops onto the sidewalk, holding a dainty hand out to me.

I accept it gladly, happy to see her approval, however shocking. "You're not going to give me any crap or eye-rolling for this?"

Gisa indeed gives me an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "He's basically family. Just don't end up in a police precinct this time. Or if you do, try to get detained in one closer to home so Mom doesn't complain about having to go so far to pick you up."

She speaks lightly, humorously, even though the pain in her eyes stays, mixing with concern now.

"Thanks for coming all the way down here with me," I blurt, sensing that if we don't part ways soon I'll lose my nerve. "Get back on the subway and get to class. Meet me back here in three hours?"

She offers a curt nod before scampering off the direction we came. Gisa may rarely clamp her mouth shut, but she won't tell anyone of my plan. She knows what Kilorn would do if he ever found out I was manipulating things like this.

Even if I save his ass for it.

Today, I ferried my finest clothing from my closet, yet my appearance pales in comparison to the women I see exit monsters of buildings, adorning tailor-made clothing head to toe.

Pencil skirts, form-fitting dresses, and pantsuits breeze by as I walk further into the heart of the wolves' den. My body is bound by a bleak and simple gray dress, and my toes grow numb in a too-tight pair of boots.

My work can be entertaining, at least. I inwardly snicker at dumb businessmen and see all types of interesting events as I meander down the streets, bumping shoulders frequently now that it's lunchtime. Men bicker—some under their breaths, others incredibly loud—at street corners, undoubtedly over money and women. Interns balance stacks of coffee cartons, lunches, and the day's newspaper in their arms, trying not to stumble and have it all come crashing down. And then there are the disoriented tourists, who have found themselves so far from Midtown, who crane their necks so far back their heads might just fall off.

Only distractions, meager attempts to quell my taut nerves and rolling stomach.

I've done it enough times. I shouldn't be so scared of stealing from these men, who perhaps make up the most arrogant and oblivious sect of Manhattan.

But the bodyguards . . .

If they're here, I don't know. They look just like ordinary men.

Each of my catches is planned with a careful and wary survey of both my surroundings and their surroundings. Potential guards . . . security cameras . . . et cetera.

Before long, the worn canvas purse on my shoulder contains five wallets, two watches, and one diamond bracelet as I cross the street and continue onto the next block. I'll dump the credit cards onto Will, though most will be frozen. The watches and bracelet will amount to a thousand at best . . . maybe more, if the bracelet proves valuable. I couldn't say that there'll be more than another thousand dollars in the wallets.

I count the seconds since I plucked my most recent wallet from the back of a man's pocket. Forty-one, forty-two . . .

A minute. I force myself to distance each pickpocket by a minute, even as I think about how Farley would laugh if I went to her with what I have now.

I pass by a grand pillared building, much shorter than the rest of its neighbors. The streets have narrowed from their already slim state, giving way to more shadows and gloom, flags and banners off buildings and the occasional cheery shirt the only reprieves. In so many ways, Wall Street is Time Square's dark reflection and counterpart, shadows where there would be electric billboards, business where there would be theatres and restaurants.

No better than the tourists I ridicule, I relax my neck as I look upwards, towards the ever-present blue sky that seems farther away than usual. Tips of steel and concrete pierce into its innocence.

Sixty.

Another easy shifting of my hand earns me another wallet. I shove it into my purse a moment later, nothing more than a girl sifting through her bag for a compact.

Which I conveniently use to check the man behind me, who simply continues on his merry way.

No cars or taxis run along this block, and I drift from one side of the street to the other, like a phantom drifting through the crowd. Invisible and forgotten—just as I want to be today. I dissolve through a torrent of businessmen, then a line of tourists, before settling on a path at the street's edge.

Yet—

"What the—" a woman says rather loudly from behind me, voice full of dismay and shock.

I try, but I turn my head to find the woman, who's stopped in the middle of Wall Street.

She's middle-aged, wears sunglasses, a blazer and skirt.

I didn't mark her as I pickpocketed today. No, I took nothing from her.

But it's not a barren wrist she stares anyway. Though her phone is about three inches from her eyes.

I turn back around and place a hand to my heart, realizing how quickly it sped up. How my legs slightly shake, as if having prepared themselves to run in these silly heels.

Nonetheless, my grip on my compact tightens as I brush off nonexistent dirt and dust from my dress, comb my fingers through my hair. Take a few deep breaths, allowing my counting to restart.

One, two, three . . .

But echoes of the woman's exclamation sound around me when I allow myself back into the world. Dozens tap at their phones, tilting them sideways to watch something.

For once, it isn't me who did it, who stirred a street of Manhattan into a frenzy before vanishing into a crowd.

Within a moment, a blink, Wall Street's become a photograph of inanimate humans, particularly the business people, who wear expressions of terror, confusion, and vexation. The tourists turn around themselves, pulling out phones and shoving them back into pockets. Though I don't know whatever it is that concerns these people so thoroughly, I find myself unable to move, like the tourists. Unsure of what to do as half of Wall Street fails to recall the city encasing them.

For the peace has rendered me useless. Pickpocketing requires motion from both me and my subjects.

Covertly as I can, I sneak my eyes over to the nearest phone, only to find a half-familiar news anchor on the screen. The woman holding the device doesn't smile as she shifts it slightly, allowing me to see at a better angle.

"Thanks," I mutter quickly, intent on hearing what's got Wall Street panicked this time.

I expect for the stock market to have crashed. Not what I actually see on the screen.

A news anchor stares grimly at her camera, the terror Wall Street feels written into the deepest creases of her face.

"BREAKING NEWS: NYC Businesses Vandalized and Threatened."

Well now. I raise a brow to that.

". . . the three identified attacks have each occurred in southern Manhattan, centered around Wall Street and targeting big businesses. If you're nearby, my team and I urge you to move to somewhere safer until new information is released. This could be the first of many attacks, according to our sources."

A sign on my left reads the word "WALL," in all capital letters, and "ST," in a smaller print.

But I haven't finished my work.

"The buildings' interiors were badly damaged, with estimations of millions of dollars of destruction. Though the footage hasn't yet been delivered to us, the incidents only reported by the three companies at noon, it is to be assumed these criminals broke in overnight."

The anchor turns to the side, listening to someone off the air. Her face pales considerably, to the shade of a terrifying porcelain doll.

She must have a rich husband whom she's worried for.

Following the news anchor's announcement to evacuate points of interest, people begin to shuffle off the streets, into buildings, around corners, down subway stairs. I imagine many know friends who work at the three businesses, probably going to check up on them.

An attack on a few businesses hardly scares me. I'm more interested in the receding wallets.

Whether for my sake or disinterest, the woman whose phone I peer into remains. And when the news anchor returns from her chat, she straightens her spine.

"It appears," she starts, gulping. "An organization has claimed this attack on Manhattan as their own. The Scarlet Street Fighters, a locally based radical group has taken responsibility for this series of planned—"

The phone screen goes black.

"My battery should be charged," the woman at my side argues, more to herself. She taps a finger at the screen more than a few times.

The Street Fighters . . .

But a new face comes onto the screen, dashing away any hope of understanding.

I take a few blinks at the face, taking in the cropped blonde hair, blue eyes, the rest of her obscured by a bandanna, scarlet as the blood in my veins.

Diana Farley.

She doesn't introduce herself or bother with any finesse.

"You forget about us, didn't you?" She huffs out a callous laugh through her kerchief. "The lower-classes, I mean to say. Condemned to work in the shadows of your skyscrapers and your corruption. The rest of the world might turn a blind eye to it, but not us. We've never once forgotten about you, pushed away; ignored.

"Bribery, extortion, embezzlement, fraud . . . I could go on," she says, tutting. "The citizens of this city make your buildings taller, prettier, rather than employ the unemployed and repair the rotting neighborhoods of this city. What an obsession.

"Your empires will rot like that. Because the Scarlet Street Fighters plan on taking over every borough of New York if that's what it takes to corrupt and slaughter your precious profits. So until you agree to this change . . . enjoy finding your buildings the way we ransacked them with such ease last night.

"Rise, Red as the Dawn."

I went for a walk.

A very long walk that had me in Midtown with enough time to return to Wall Street where Gisa and I agreed to meet.

Three hours later, as we agreed, Gee comes running around a street corner, a bag brimming with half-finished designs at her shoulder.

A sweeping gaze from my head to my toes tells her I'm fine, that no buildings blew up and no Street Fighters launched themselves at me from alleys in the wake of that video. Geez.

Still, she asks, "You okay?"

I nod, more mentally shaken than physically. The walk to Midtown did little to ease my rapidly fraying sanity. First I hear about the Fighters through Kilorn, then I see Farley. Twice.

What the hell kind of week is this?

They managed to break into multiple high-security complexes without issue, without a single one of them getting caught. The news anchor never said how exactly the buildings were vandalized, only that it was awful, expensive damage. How . . . how could a bunch of ragtag brutes come up with the money to sneak past security like that in the first place?

They must be much better connected than I initially thought, not merely petty felons.

So powerless. It only reaffirms how I have nothing to offer her.

She must see my frustration, my fear because Gisa takes me by the wrist. Her eyes are wide, full of some emotion I've never seen from my sister. Raw determination and . . . anger.

"Give me a minute. Loop around the block and meet me in a minute."

The streets have become a shell of what they were not so long ago, no more than two dozen on the block, another dozen on the next.

Among the two dozen walks a group of seven men hurrying down the block.

Gisa tilts her head towards them, not twenty feet from our place at the construction cones. "We're not done. Not yet." Before I can blink, my sister is charging ahead of me, right towards the outcropping of men.

I open my mouth to say something as she charges forward, then relaxes into a path parallel to the oncomers.

And like the little amateur she is, Gisa slips her hand into one of the men's coats at the back of the pack. He looks tall and young from here, and my jaw clenches.

Her first correction: choose the weakest link. In this case, that would be the stocky, slow-walking man on the other side of the group. It doesn't work consistently, but she'd have a better—

We're the only damn people on this street, the workers and tourists gone. Cars still inch through the streets, but their horns don't blare anymore. No sound, no uproar to hide what she's doing.

Even I wouldn't dare it. And I've done some stupid things.

Gisa doesn't move in a particularly subtle way. Her steps reflect that determination and rare anger instead.

She makes it two steps of determination and anger before the man's hand clamps around her wrist. I finally locate my sense and move my feet.

The words to apologize and beg are halfway formed in my mouth, and my body's made it halfway across the distance.

The man whirls on her, taking one sneering, disgusted look.

He throws her to the ground just as I come within speaking distance of him.

Gisa goes face first, sprawling out a hand to brace herself.

Her right hand takes the brunt of it, wrist bending too far as her arm keeps coming forward, Gisa's mouth crushing into her shoulder as she emits a shriek of pain.

I hardly process it, don't allow myself to think about how that's her sewing hand.

He stares at her, perhaps—hopefully—not realizing he hurt something.

"Get your sister under control, girl," he says, turning on me with a snarl.

Several of the men look at me with similar expressions, and I don't argue.

I don't have anything to say at all as I look down at my sister, curled up on the ground with one hand in the other.

I took Gisa home, made sure nobody bumped into her on the subway, and asked her if she needed to stop into a store to buy anything for her wrist.

She stared right ahead on the subway and asked, "With what money?" Certainly not my hundred-dollar bills or frozen credit cards.

It wasn't sarcastic or spiteful. It still felt like a knife to my gut.

Barely glancing into the living room I opened the door to the apartment, gave her a gentle nudge inside, but didn't follow her in.

My parents won't blame me, and neither will Gisa, despite all that she is. But none of them will believe their own words if I've learned anything from my seventeen years living with them. They'll put on their sad smiles, Dad will give me a pat on the back, Mom a hug. It doesn't change my obligations. My responsibilities.

Since the day that we sold our car, I've had the task of protecting her from the moment we leave the apartment to when we re-enter it. The rest of our family doesn't even know that I allow Gisa to walk herself to work after we reach the outskirts of Times Square.

A bad sprain, from what I can tell, that'll keep her from her apprenticeship for the rest of the summer. She could only move her wrist a fraction when she tested it on the subway. And it breaks me in a million ways, but we don't have the money or insurance for a trip to the hospital. Not when it's not broken.

Now I walk the streets of my neighborhood, which I've long since lost the fear of.

And I have not forgotten my mission.

If there was a point, I'd be back on Wall Street. But due to the attacks, everyone's retreated to their homes for the night. I'd imagine the security companies are getting a nice influx of calls right about now.

I'm not bound to make much, but one woman's trash is another woman's treasure. I'll make a few bucks and snag a nice bracelet for Gisa.

An apology.

I stalk by a local tavern, known as the GrAveyard. I never understood why the A's capitalized.

The front buzzes with beer logos, alight in red, blue, green, and yellow. Even in the dim lighting, it's obvious how badly the windows are in need of a washing. But its name never deters, and I ponder entering. Bars are a goldmine, and one never knows how many drunken and idiotic rich folk have found their way to this dump.

Before I enter, I snag a reach into the pocket of a loiterer, blocking one of the signs.

As I reach his wallet, a wickedly quick hand clamps my wrist, just as that stranger did Gisa.

"Thief," he says with eyes a beautiful red and gold.