"Oh, you wouldn't believe the day I had," Hades laughed as he sat beside Celia, having just entered the house. She looked over at him curiously.

"I suppose that's my cue to ask you about it?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow. "Okay, I'll bite. What happened?"

"Emma and I had to spend the day in Manhattan," he began, pausing at the look of outrage on her face. "I know it's a horrible way to spend the day. Anyway, we were just sitting in this park, no one around, and this kid tried to sell us a paper."

"This better get exciting soon," Celia sighed with a faux yawn. "Because so far…"

"Hush, I'm getting there," Hades interrupted. "I have to set the scene, alright? So this kid came up, and Emma was going to buy one to help pass the time, then this girl came up behind us and started yelling at the kid."

"Oh God," Celia muttered. "Please tell me Emma didn't pick a fight with her for it." Hades shook his head, grinning wider.

"So much better than that, Celia," he crowed, running his hand through his unruly hair. "Turns out this girl was a member of the Rebellion. Some huge idiot from the Rebellion came up, too, and tried to get Emma."

"That explains your shiner," Celia mused. "How very noble of you."

"Apparently," Hades continued, ignoring her comments, "the girl recognized Emma from before when we were picking them off. But yeah, so, the guy and I had a little bit of a scuffle, then Emma –"

"Did what Emma does best?" Celia finished cheerfully, smirking.

"For God's sake, Celia, I'm the one telling the story here!" Hades yelled, irritated. "But yes, she did. Should've seen his face. That guy will be out of it for a while." He looked over at her, his smirk matching hers. "That girl with a gun…"

"Does Dorjan know?" she asked suddenly, looking toward the door.

"Not unless he heard it from someone else," Hades answered, shaking his head. "Em and I split when we got to Brooklyn but I doubt she would have come here. She's smarter than that."

"Well, Dor has a way of finding things out before he's told so be careful," she warned, rising from her seat.

"Oh like he'll care, it was helpful," Hades scoffed. She just smirked at him, shaking her head as she walked away.

Early the next day, Cage held a meeting with his inner circle, minus Pierce. They all knew what had happened, but that did not make it easier to decide the next step.

"After this thing with Brooklyn is done, we have another task to do," Cage ordered, staring down at Cards and Max. "Those damn coyotes have got to go! I don't know how, but it has to happen."

"How's Pierce?" Cards asked gruffly.

"How would you be if Cats got shot dead in front of you?" Cage snapped, watching as Cards clenched his fists on the table. "He's doing as well as can be expected and that's that. We don't need to worry about him right now."

"If he's just going to drink himself into nothingness, we need to worry," Cards muttered, adding a few choice words under his breath.

"The point is," Cage continued, ignoring the mutterings across the table, "we need to have everyone at their best." Max cracked his knuckles wordlessly, looking at the vacant seat where Pierce usually sat. "Don't get distracted. I need you two making sure everyone else is ready."

"Is that all?" Cards asked after a moment of silence. "I have a game to get to." There was a reason he was known as Cards – the same reason he had a card stuck in his bowler. Cage scowled at him, but nodded.

The three left the room quietly, dispersing throughout the house. Cards had barely made it two steps before he was accosted by Cats, her arms slipping around his waist. He kissed her for a moment before pulling away. "I have to go."

"What?" she objected, her smile quickly turning to a scowl.

"I've got a game to get to," he mumbled, glancing away.

"Going to gamble away everything again, are you?" Cats spat sarcastically.

"I don't have any time for this right now, Cats," Cards replied bitingly, his temper rising. "I have to go or I'm going to be goddamn late!" His eyes locked with Cats, whose eyes narrowed at him. They stood in a long moment of silence, defiantly glaring at each other. Finally, he broke the silence. "I have to go."

"Where are you going?" Cats questioned, crossing her arms as he opened the door to leave. He turned to look at her, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Brooklyn."

"You can't do that!" Cats exclaimed, grabbing his arm. "Not now! Not with everything that's happened."

"I have to go to my game," Cards repeated casually. He leaned in and kissed her full on the mouth before turning again and heading out the door.

"Heard you had a bit of fun in Manhattan," Dorjan stated casually, watching Emmaline come into his room.

"So what if I did?" she said, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"While I appreciate the dedication," he chastised dryly, "you're getting careless. You were supposed to go to Manhattan and lay low for a couple of hours. I don't recall the itinerary including you shooting someone and Hades getting his ass kicked."

"Oy!" Hades protested from the hall.

"Dorjan, please," Emmaline said, rolling her eyes. "At worst, it helped us. How is it any worse than what we'd been doing before?"

"Think with your brain for once, not with your trigger finger," Dorjan snapped. "They know you now, Em! They know what you look like. You think they're going to just forget about that girl? They're especially not going to forget about her killer. That boy saw you – he knows you're a Coyote, yeah? They're going to have everyone out looking for you."

"So no more day trips to Manhattan," Emmaline dead-panned with a shrug. "Suits me just fine, I don't much like it over there."

"You're a cold-hearted bitch," Dorjan growled.

"Last time I checked, that's what you liked best about me," Emmaline retorted, crossing her arms with a frown.

"You're not a very smart one lately, though," he continued, staring at her intently. "Something like this, I can see them coming over here."

"They wouldn't dare," she snarled, but he held up a hand to silence her.

"If you saw someone from the Rebellion, who you knew was in the Rebellion, kill Celia, would you just look for them in Brooklyn?" Dorjan questioned, exasperation showing on his face. "No. It's not where they normally are. So why should they only look for you in Manhattan? They know what you and Hades look like, that means both of you have to lay low for a while which makes everything much harder."

"Dramatic much?" Emmaline muttered. "I'm sorry already. Not really, but I'm sorry you think it's such a big deal."

"It is—"

"I can take care of myself," she cut in shortly, her frown deepening. "You know I can. Why are you making such a big deal out of this?"

"Everything hinges on you!" Dorjan yelled, grabbing her arm. "You don't understand that. I chose you because I thought you could handle it. I knew you could work your way into Spot Conlon's little world, probably better than I'd like, get him to listen to you, and play front man for the Rebellion. I know you're good enough to do all these things, Emma, but I thought you'd be able to lay off for a few weeks!"

"You," Emmaline whispered angrily, "are the person who told me not to go anywhere unarmed. That girl recognized me, provoked me, and when that boy came and was overpowering Hades, I had to do something. You know I had to."

"All I'm saying," Dorjan continued through clenched teeth, "is that you've seriously jeopardized everything."

"I know, but I saw no alternative," she retorted.

"Whatever you do now, don't put your position in the newsies at risk," Dorjan ordered. "I don't care what you have to do, just don't lose us that connection. Otherwise we're going through all this for nothing."

"Got the point already, Dor," she snapped. "Are we done now?"

"Yeah, we're done." She turned and left his room, quickly making her way down the hall. It was later than she had expected and it was long since time for her to be back at the lodging house.

On her way back to the lodging house, her mind was whirring with thoughts. Despite her frequent annoyance with him, she could not help but respect Spot as a leader. He cared for his newsies more than he would openly admit, but she could see it in the way he defended them. She knew he would not be taking them to fight with the Rebellion if he did not think it would be worth it or have a favorable outcome. The way he had talked about the wrong people being blamed for that girl's death, Emmaline knew he would kill her, or at least try, if he knew the truth and they went after any of his boys or girls.

What she found most interesting was comparing Spot to Dorjan. Two completely different personalities, yet they were a lot alike. Both had egos as big as the sun but at the same time were extremely protective of their makeshift families. She almost laughed when she thought of what Dorjan would say if he knew she was comparing him, king of underworld society, to the pawn he had chosen for his grandest plan of all. She just shook her head as she walked into the lodging house.

"You're back awfully late," Dragon drawled from his seat on the staircase, his cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"I didn't realize I had a curfew," Emmaline muttered, walking up the stairs. As she passed, he grabbed her ankle and looked up at her.

"It's no secret I don't trust you, Emma," he started quietly, his grip tightening as he raised his eyes to hers. "Apparently that doesn't matter because Conlon does, so good on you for getting to him. But whenyou prove I'm right, believe that you'll regret it. If you hurt him in the process, even worse. That's my best friend you've hoodwinked, so if anything happens to him you'll answer to me."

"Are we done?" she asked coldly, folding her arms over her chest as she stood otherwise motionless on the steps. He just glared up at her as he released her ankle.

After waiting for her to disappear into the bunkroom, Dragon stood and made his way down the stairs into the kitchen. Two pairs of eyes met his as the door swung shut. "Reuben, Beth," he greeted with a nod, motioning toward the table.

Bethany closed the book in her hands as she moved to sit down. Dragon was glad to see her set it on the table, as she had occasionally taken to reading through his talks in the past. The quietest of his group of informants, Bethany was the one with a great inside track. Having left her to her own devices for so long, Dragon had forgotten about her connection. He studied her as she pushed her glasses to the top of her head, using them to hold her unruly dark red hair out of her eyes.

"You, uh, still see that Flynn from time to time?" Dragon asked gently, looking down at her. Bethany's eyes flitted up to his quickly and she nodded.

"Every so often," she answered, folding her hands on top of the table. Flynn had been her secret for so long. He was an Irish cop who was sweet on her and knew how to keep her around - by bringing her a book every now and again. Truth was, she saw him two or three times a week, but she didn't want the boys to know how much of a façade she was maintaining. "Why?"

"I want you to find out if he knows anything about Emmaline," Dragon ordered calmly. With Bethany, he always tried to be as nice as he could, as she was not the typical girl found in these circumstances.

"Didn't we already try that?" she asked, biting her lip. "We couldn't find anything.'

"Well, let's try again but without using her last name," Dragon mused. "I doubt she'd drop her real full name with us, as suspicious as she is. Emmaline isn't that common of a name."

"Does Spot know about this?" Reuben interrupted, leaning back in his chair. "He might not like us going after her like this."

"He told me to look for something if I was suspicious, so I am."

"Yeah, but that was weeks ago, Dragon," Reuben continued nervously. "Now he might not be too keen -"

"I'm still suspicious, Reuben," Dragon snapped. He sighed and glanced away from the other boy. "Beth, you're free to go. Whenever you see Flynn next, see what you can dig up." The small girl rose from the table and quickly left the room.

"There's something I've been meaning to tell you," Reuben muttered as the door closed.

"What?"

"That night you had me follow her, after she got that letter," Reuben began, "I didn't think anything of it at the time. She went a way with the guy who brought the letter but when she went into this bar he kept going. I saw her go into a back room when I went in but there was a guy at the door - he wouldn't let me in. Didn't really know what to make of it, but there it was." Dragon's eyes bore into him, clearly indicating he should get to the point. "Two nights later I was in the bunkroom and she came in through the fire escape, blood all over her hands. I tried to stop her, to see what had happened, but she went into the washroom, so I went and got Spot. The thing is, she didn't look hurt. I saw her hands real close and there weren't any cuts or anything." He waited, watching Dragon anxiously.

"Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" Dragon asked, rubbing his temples. "When it happened, maybe? That would have been a good time to tell me."

"Spot didn't make a big deal out of it, so I figured-"

"Of course Spot didn't make a big deal out of it," Dragon exploded. "He thinks she's the moon and the stars with her 'giving us the Rebellion' and all that. All she'd have to do is bat those big brown eyes at him and he'd do anything she said. He wouldn't say anything about her because she's pretty," he continued scathingly, "and she's hand delivering this to him." Reuben moved to get up from his chair. "Yes, go. And find out anything you can. I'm tired of this girl running the show around here."

It was two days before Bethany came back to Dragon, looking more pulled together than usual. Whereas she usually had at least one book, she just held a sheet of paper that was heavily scribbled upon. He watched her as she came toward him and motioned for her to go into the kitchen. "Found something, I take it?"

"It's not much," she offered apologetically. "We looked through everything. Flynn looked, rather, I just took some notes. He didn't want to break the rules completely and I'm really not supposed to see any of those things –" she broke off as he cleared his throat, pushing her to get to the point. "Anyway, there wasn't much to find. Emmaline is not that common of a name, like you said. The only thing we found was a missing persons report from several years back." She glanced down at the paper in her hand, scanning it for the place where she'd written about it. "Yes. Emmaline Starkey, age thirteen. Her parents reported her missing but nothing was ever found out about her and her parents didn't push her absence once there was no evidence after so long. Sad, really."

"Any physical description with it?" Dragon questioned, looking at the paper she was holding. She shrugged and flipped the paper over.

"Just really vague descriptors – medium height, brown hair, and brown eyes, nothing special listed," she murmured, shaking her head. "That was when she was thirteen, who knows what she looks like now. I'm sorry. This wasn't much help."

"Thanks, Beth," he said quietly. "I appreciate you looking into it. I didn't expect there to be much, but what you found is good to know." She nodded and watched him for a few seconds more before slipping out of the room quietly. He sat in silence, mulling over what she had told him, before going out to lobby and finding Reuben.

"What now?" Reuben asked lazily, leaning against the wall.

"Tomorrow, go to Manhattan and tell Magpie to linger around South Street," Dragon ordered. "Tell her to come to me the moment she hears anything suspicious. I want to know about it right away." Reuben sighed, but nodded. "What?"

"I still don't think we should be going behind Spot's back about this stuff," Reuben stated quietly, folding his arms. "If you're so sure about it, why aren't you telling him what you're doing? Having Beth go to that cop of hers again, he'd probably not like that very much."

"Mind your own business, Reuben," Dragon muttered, frowning. "This is important, and you just need to do what you're told right now. Go tell Magpie, and then come back. She knows what she's doing." Reuben just nodded again and went up the stairs to the bunkroom, away from the narrowed eyes of his superior. It was good of him to be worried about what their leader would say, but Dragon was sure there was something not right with the girl they had taken in. He was determined to find what that was, and at any cost.