Cassie POV

I woke up around midnight to see Tyler in the room, his back turned to me, nursing a bad gash on his cheek. I jumped out of bed and ran over to him. "Oh my God! What happened?" I asked him.

"Queens happened," he replied bitterly. I took the washcloth that he was using and reached up to help him.

"They came here? Why?"

"Territory. They don't think that Spot should be running Brooklyn," he told me.

"Is he okay? What about Match and everyone else?" I asked, hysteria rising.

"Cassie, relax, everyone's fine. There was just a little fight," he said, trying to reassure me.

"I've never seen you get hurt in a fight before, Tyler," I said sternly, "so don't you dare start lying to me now.

"Seriously Cass, I probably got the worst of it out of everyone."

I finished cleaning his cut and then set the rag down. "Where's Spot? I want to talk to him," I asked Tyler.

"I think you should leave him alone for awhile. He's pretty pissed off," he replied. I just rolled my eyes and stalked out of the room to find hm. As I turned the corner in the hallway I walked into someone's hard chest. I stumbled back a few steps but they reached out to catch me. I looked up and saw that it was Match.

"Why are you still up?" He asked me.

"I'm looking for Spot," I said, trying to walk around him. He grabbed my shoulders and turned me in the opposite direction, back towards my room.

"Spot doesn't want anyone talking to him right now," he said as he guided me back into my room.

"Why not? I just want to ask him what happened," I replied.

"Cassie, you know what happened, and I think the worst thing you could do for him now would be to ask him what's wrong. He'll just get all fired up again." I sat down on my bed as Match went over to Tyler to look at his cut.

"You're lucky he didn't get that knife closer to your neck or you'd be dead," Match remarked.

"They had knives? I thought that wasn't allowed. Everyone knows that you can only have fair fights over territory," I said.

"Well Queens isn't fair. They never cared about it and they probably never will," Tyler said, anger evident in his voice.

"You two should get some sleep now, it's almost twelve thirty and we have to leave early in the morning," Match said.

"Where are we going?" I questioned.

"Manhattan. We're gonna need their help to win this," he replied. I smiled faintly at that. My boyfriend, Dutchy, happened to live there, but no one really knew that except for a select few people, excluding my brothers. "Cassie!" He snapped his fingers in front of my face.

"What?" I asked, coming back down to earth.

"Why did you get so distracted when I mentioned Manhattan?" He questioned suspiciously.

"I was thinking about the strike last year. That was so fun," I said, trying my best to come up with a lie and failing miserably.

"Really? Because I remember you saying how much you wished the strike would just end," Match commented. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Not that I'm aware of," I said, surprisingly sounding very convincing.

"Fine, just get to bed. Both of you. I'll be seriously pissed if either of you complain in the morning about getting up early."

I climbed into my bed, but Tyler went into the bathroom we shared to try to stop the blood that just wouldn't stop flowing. "Mason?" I asked, using Match's real name.

"Yes Cassandra?" I looked down at the blanket on my bed and started fingering a loose thread.

"I'm scared," I whispered. Match came over and sat down next to me on the bed, wrapping his arms around me tightly.

"There's absolutely nothing for you to be scared of. You have three older brothers that would die to protect you. Nothing is going to harm you," he gently said into my ear.

"But that's what I'm scared of. What if one of you dies in a fight? I wouldn't be able to live with myself," I said, looking him in the eye.

"That's never going to happen," he tried to reassure me. "We're the strongest borough in New York and almost every other one backs us up. We'll be fine."

"Then I want to fight too." I said indignantly.

We heard a knock at the door and I looked up. Spot stood leaning against the doorframe, his cold blue eyes surveying the scene before him.

"Cassandra, our mother is probably rolling over in her grave right now just hearing you talk about being involved in a fight. If you think that's going to happen you're sadly mistaken," he said smoothly.