Emmaline was amazed Spot hadn't figured anything out yet, and her respect for him as a leader made her irritated with out much she was deceiving him. It wasn't the deception that bothered her, it was the potential of so many problems when it came to the impending meeting with the Rebellion. The one place she felt Dorjan had misjudged was with Spot. While he had been able to predict Spot's actions at the beginning she knew he hadn't even imagined what would happen if Spot knew. All he had said was not to let him find out, but when the alternative was nothing happening it came down to Emmaline to make the decision.
If Spot knew it would make it easier – less of a façade to maintain and much less questioning. She had to keep it in her control, though, and have him find out in such a way that she did not just tell him. She couldn't lie to Dorjan, so she couldn't just let it slip. If he figured it out on his own, though, how was she supposed to stop that? He had to know, but she had to control it. With Dragon watching her every move, she needed to make it private.
"Emmaline, get in here," Spot ordered as she walked past his door. She quietly obeyed and shut the door behind her. He stared at her for a long moment before speaking. "We're putting off the meeting with the Rebellion."
"What?"
"So many things have been happening, it might not be a good time for this," Spot continued.
"Oh, stop being a coward," Emmaline snapped before she could stop herself. "There will never be a perfect time; you might as well go while the getting's good. It's as good as it'll get, probably."
"Emma," Spot growled, his hand tightening on his cane.
"I'm sorry, I just don't understand why you wouldn't go after them," she continued edgily. "How often do you get this kind of information? Even if you don't want to go for them, they're coming for you – or are you forgetting that one small detail? You can't make them decide to hold off because the time isn't right – if anything, that would encourage them!"
"You tell them to hold off, then," he ordered, crossing his arms.
"Oh yes, because they'll certainly listen to me," she shot back. "What's their motivation? Having you right where they want you, and you wanted to just roll over and let them at it? Brilliant plan, Spot." He stared at her, matching her narrowed eyes with his as she breathed heavily, anger pulsing through her veins. Had she really gone to all this trouble just so the so-called leader of Brooklyn could bail out? If he knew the truth, she new he would reconsider.
"Emma—"
"Are you ready for the Rebellion or not?" Emma demanded hotly, her eyes locked on Spot's, watching them narrow with anger even more.
"What makes you think you can tell me what I should be doing?" he asked, his tone cold. "Why do you think you can say what my boys should be doing?"
"You're not, I figured someone should," she shot back before she could stop herself. Her thoughts flew to Dorjan and how she knew what would happen if anyone used that tone with him, or said those words to him. She was glad to remember the significant difference between the two, though she could see she had severely stepped over the line.
"You're on thin ice here, Emmy," came his steely reply, his voice laced with anger.
"Don't call me—"
"You're here by my good graces and what do you do to show your gratitude?" He grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him. "What, Emmy?"
"Don't!" Rage shone through in her eyes as she pulled her wrist from him, shoving him away. A low growl resonated in his throat as he lunged for her. With a sickening thud they both hit the floor, Emmaline wriggling to get away and Spot struggling to hold her down. They struggled against each other fiercely before Emmaline realized her opportunity. It hadn't been often that she had used her wiles to get her way with a job, but this was a situation where it would work. From those few encounters, she was certain that he would not question what was happening. He was a young man, after all, and she had never heard of a young man who would turn down what she was offering. She stopped struggling against him and instead grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him down to her. He froze in shock at first, when her lips met his, but other than the initial surprise he seemed to have no reservations about it at all. Their struggling against each other quickly turned into fighting to be closer to each other as they tumbled through the night.
Laying there in his dark room, Spot turned his gaze upon the girl next to him. He ran his fingertips along Emmaline's back, tracing along the ridges of her spine. As he brushed her hair out of the way, his eyes were drawn to her shoulder blade, more specifically, to what was on her shoulder blade. He recoiled as if he had been burnt and scrambled to get out of bed – away from her.
"You're a coyote!" His frantic yelp was followed by silence as he stared at her, for on her shoulder blade, standing out against her fair skin, were several black marks topped with the outline of a coyote's head. "A fucking coyote!"
By the second exclamation, she had rolled over to face him, pulling the sheet up to cover herself. Her dark eyes stared into his light ones, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Very good, Brooklyn," she finally stated quietly. "Why don't you shout it again? I'm sure there are people in the Bronx who didn't hear you the first few times."
"What do those lines mean?" His voice betrayed his fear, but he had his reasons for being afraid. For weeks now, he had been in company with a possible murderer and now he was yelling at her. How fast could she kill him? he wondered. And how many had she already done in?
"Ranking system," she stated, not taking her eyes off him as she stood up. "Relax. If I wanted to kill you, you wouldn't have gotten past the first time you yelled at me."
"So you do kill."
"Of course I do." Spot had been in his fair share of brawls. He had seen many people go down, never to come back up. He had never killed someone, nor had he ever known someone to talk about it as nonchalantly as the girl standing before him wrapped in his bed sheets.
"Stop thinking of me like that, it'll help," she offered, a smirk twitching at the corners of her mouth.
"What the hell am I supposed to think, then? Apparently I know nothing about you at all!"
"I'll tell you about it," she volunteered. He stared at her a long moment before responding.
"About what?"
"The House," she said, leaning against the wall. It was rare to get such an opportunity, she hoped he understood that. She would not give him all the information in the world, but she was willing to give him enough to tide him over.
"Okay," he replied, thinking over his questions while keeping his eyes on her. "I want to know how it all got started, and how you got stuck in it."
"First of all, I never said I got stuck," Emmaline snapped, her temper flaring as she thought of all her comrades and her relationships with them. "That is my family you're talking about and I refuse to hear anyone say I was 'stuck' with them."
"Alright, fine, I take it back," Spot responded, holding his hands in front of him.
"Nothing I tell you leaves this room," she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. "Especially not to Dragon and his group. If I'm going to be honest, here, I need your word you won't tell anyone."
"I swear on all of Brooklyn," Spot stated with a nod. Emmaline eyed him, waiting for him to break into a smirk, but when he didn't she sighed.
"The House has been around for a long time," she started, pushing her hair out of her eyes. "No one really knows how it started because no one who is currently in it was around in the beginning. As members grow older, new faces come in."
"How do you join?"
"You don't join," she answered quickly. "You're chosen."
"How old were you?"
"Thirteen, I think." She shrugged as she thought about it. "Yes, thirteen." He stared at her for a long moment before his next question.
"What about your family and everything?"
"My family was simple enough, I guess," she said with a frown. "I had parents just like everyone else. They wanted me to be the perfect daughter, and it didn't happen. My brother was younger and constantly got picked on by all the other kids his age. He was too little to stick up for himself so I stuck up for him, and that's how I got in trouble. My parents didn't like their little girl getting into fistfights with the neighborhood kids. One day, someone came up to me who didn't mind me not being a perfect girl. My parents had made it perfectly clear by that point that if I didn't start behaving they were going to send me to my aunt and uncle's house in the county. I didn't want to go, they didn't want me, and this other person did and didn't mind me picking fights. So I went."
"Who came and got you?"
"The boy who ended up being in charge of it all," she responded, a smile flitting across her face briefly. "He saw me fighting with this kid one day and came up to me after it was all done. He said I would fit in will with his family, and he wanted me to come and meet them. Once I did, I didn't want to leave."
"So you started, um, killing people when you were thirteen?" he asked hesitantly.
"Of course not," she laughed. "Don't be ridiculous. They start the younger ones off at pick-pocketing and you work your way up to the top."
"How many of you are there?"
"Not that many," she said with a shrug. "If we had a lot, wouldn't it be easy to find us? We have just the right amount, and each with their strengths. I couldn't tell you the last time we were all together in the same place, though."
"Who's in charge?" he questioned, looking over at her. She frowned as she thought over how to answer.
"I can't tell you that, Spot," she finally murmured.
"Why are you here?" he demanded, a bit put out at her refusal from his last question. "That should have been my first question, actually, so I really want to know."
"That one's simple," she answered quickly. "You hate the Rebellion and so do we. The problem is, there are only so many of us that it doesn't make sense for us to go into a fight with them alone. You have the numbers, strength, and hatred for them that makes you and your newsies a perfect choice. You were never going to be fighting them alone, you know. We would have been there."
"So they were never coming for us?" Spot questioned, anger rising in him now. He was not some pawn for an unknown person to play with and he detested the idea he had been used as one.
"Yes they were, and are," she replied calmly. "That wasn't a lie. They are coming, and soon. It's just that now you know that you have some extra help on your side."
"I want to meet him," he ordered, his fear of her fading as he became angrier. "This leader. I want to meet him. He decided he could use us; he should at least have the decency to meet with me and talk about it. You'll set up a meeting for us."
"Oh, I'm not sure if that's the best idea," she muttered, biting her lip. "You do realize what he's capable of, right?"
"Set up a meeting," he demanded again. "Tomorrow night. I don't care where, but I want to meet him." He was regretting his demands almost immediately after he made them, but he wanted to meet this unnamed figure who was running his newsies from afar.
Magpie sprinted across the bridge, pausing midway to catch her breath before resuming her race to get to Dragon. She hoped he was at the lodging house because if he wasn't she didn't know how long she could contain her news before she burst and told everyone she could find. She was under strict orders to report to Dragon first but she was so excited she just hoped she could make it to the house. The hot afternoon sun was beating down on her as she ran down the street, rounding the last corner. If he wasn't in the house, she didn't know how much more she could run to find him.
Much to her chagrin he was not sitting on the steps to the house, as he often was around that time of day. He was, however, lazily descending the staircase inside when she burst through the door. Glancing down at her, he raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"
"I have new," she blurted out, hunching over with her hands on her knees as she breathed heavily, trying to recover from her run. "About that girl."
"Kitchen," Dragon ordered and she gladly obliged, sliding into a chair once she was inside. He sat across from her and leaned across the table. "Now, what is it?"
"I was down toward South Street today," Magpie began, running her fingers through her hair, "and I overheard people talking. There were a bunch of them and they were as tall as trees, with these massive arms, and—" Dragon gave her a pointed look and she bit her lip. "Well, they were big, anyway. They were talking about the girl who got killed in the park. They said there was blood all over and how she was barely recognizable."
"Magpie, we know that already," Dragon cut in with an exasperated sigh. "Please tell me you ran over here for more than that."
"Of course," Magpie said with a grown, looking irritated by the interruption of her story. "They said what the girl looked like."
"Why would I care what the dead girl looked like?"
"Not the dead girl," she continued, looking proud of the information she had gathered. "The girl who killed her." Dragon sat up quickly and stared at her.
"She got killed by a girl?" he questioned, standing and beginning to pace around the kitchen.
"Yeah," Magpie continued. "A vicious killer, according to them. They said she had no reason to do what she did."
"What did she look like, Magpie?"
"Eyes as dark as her soul, and –"
"Straight facts," he barked at her.
"Fine," she muttered, crossing her arms. "Dark hair, dark eyes - like I said, and kinda tall. Said she was responsible for killing another one of their people a while back, too."
"They'd know her if they saw her, right?" Dragon asked, excitement ringing through in his voice. Magpie shrugged.
"I guess," she sighed. "Dutchy would, too. He just couldn't remember because he was so shaken up." She stared up at Dragon for a long moment before speaking again. "You know, I would appreciate it if you were a little nicer when I come to you with news. You've never even explained to me why I'm in Manhattan. I'm just told to hang around South Street, one of the last places I want to be, and live in a house with all those boys who aren't ever in a good mood!"
"Christ, have you even met her?" Dragon exclaimed, looking at her incredulously. Magpie just stared at him blankly. "Emmaline, Magpie. Have you met her?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about, so no," she replied haughtily.
"This girl Spot took in, playing a double agent from the Rebellion," he explained quickly. "I've been suspicious about her from the beginning, but Spot wouldn't hear of it. You just described what she looks like."
"That doesn't make sense," Magpie said slowly, processing what he'd said. "Why would someone from the Rebellion kill one of their own? And there was a witness, too. There's no way she's from the Rebellion, if they're the same person." She stared up at him, biting her lip.
"There's still something not right," Dragon started, stopping abruptly as Magpie leapt up from her chair.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, her expression triumphant. "I forgot... I don't know how... most important part..."
"Spit it out!" Dragon snapped at her. She stopped and looked up at him, her eyes wide.
"The girl who killed her," she continued quietly, "is a Coyote."
"You get Dutchy," he ordered quietly, "and bring him here tomorrow. I want both of you to see her, and I want to know for sure. I can't go and tell Spot and be wrong, especially about something so big. Get him, bring him, and we'll figure this out."
Emmaline scowled as she sat waiting, sipping from a glass and ignoring the bartender's glances. This had not been her idea, she did not endorse it, but when she thought about it she knew it had to happen. Spot had not been thrilled, finding out he was a pawn, and wanted to regain some control. Demanding a meeting with Dorjan had been a bit overdramatic, especially since he had no idea who Dorjan was. She had considered asking Hades or Ace to sit in for him but with his way of doing things, they didn't know enough. It had to be him.
"This better be good, Emma," his deep growl came from beside her as he slid onto a stool. It had been easy to get him there. She had merely sent a note with Ace, saying she needed to meet him. If she had said why, he never would have come. She glanced over at him and frowned even more. Dorjan was already looking worn out and nothing had happened yet.
"He found out," she said plainly. "He's kind of pissed we were using him like that and just wants to be in the loop." She braced herself for his reaction but was glad when she heard the other familiar voice cut in.
"Emma?" She turned slowly as she heard Spot's voice behind her. Dorjan breathed in sharply.
"This is out of line, Emma," Dorjan hissed. She bit her lip, looking up at Spot. Dorjan was the least public member of the Coyotes and he never liked to be trapped into meeting people face to face. It was always his choice of when and where he met anyone. She could see his fists clenched on the bar out of the corner of her eye.
"We're going to the backroom," she muttered. "Calm down, alright?" She motioned for Spot to move toward the door first and he seemed slightly hesitant about being shut in a private room with two self-proclaimed killers, despite his usual tough façade. "I told you, Spot, if I was going to kill you I would have already."
At that, Dorjan chuckled under his breath. Spot, still wary, took the lead as he and Emmaline walked to the backroom. Dorjan grabbed a drink from the bartender before following them.
A table had been set up in the room, and the three sat at it. No one spoke as Dorjan took turns glaring at the other two. He quickly downed his drink and scowled.
"How did you find out?" he demanded, his eyes focusing on Spot.
"I saw her tattoo," Spot began, stopping as Dorjan's eyes snapped to Emmaline who was deftly avoiding his gaze.
"You did, did you?" he growled, not taking his eyes away from her. Spot watched as she finally looked up, her jaw set defiantly as she stared at him.
"Yeah, I did," he said, continuing to watch her for a long moment before looking to Dorjan. "And I knew what it meant. I knew what she was."
"Easy," Emmaline murmured, watching Dorjan as he scowled even more.
"Oh, I doubt you know what she is," he muttered, "but continue."
"So I told her I knew," Spot went on, "and I wanted to know why she was doing what she was. It didn't make sense, her posing for the Rebellion with us. I wanted to know why. She told me and it made me angry, honestly." His voice grew stronger, as did his confidence, as he frowned again. "I don't like being used. I don't like my boys being used. You never thought to tell us. What if it came down to the fight and one of our guys went for one of yours because they didn't know any better?"
Dorjan laughed barkingly as he shook his head. "You think if it came down to one of my people against yours, your guy would win?"
"Expendable?" Spot demanded, clenching his fists. "That's what my boys are to you, isn't it?"
"Look," Dorjan replied, leaning over the table, the laughter gone from his face. "I don't understand why you're making such a big deal of this. You hate the Rebellion almost as much as we do. You should be thanking us for giving you such an opportunity, here, Conlon."
"You never gave us a choice," Spot shot back. "What if we didn't want to put ourselves on the line like you're asking us to do? You never gave us the choice to say no, you just mislead us into this situation we can't get out of!"
"You never had a choice," Emmaline added quietly. "I told you that, already. They're coming whether you want to deal with them or not." Dorjan watched her for a moment before turning his gaze back to Spot.
"We didn't make them come for you," Dorjan explained, his tone not as harsh as before, but growing as he spoke. "That was already in motion. Cage had made the decision to take Brooklyn out before I sent Emmaline to you. We're essentially helping you. We gave you a warning about it, and we're giving you the best back-up you could ever ask for. You're complaining about not having a choice? You never had one. We just made it easier."
"You should have told me!" Spot exploded, slamming his fists against the table. "We could have avoided all of this if you would have just swallowed your damn pride and told me what was going on!"
"You think it's pride that keeps us from telling ourselves to everyone?" Dorjan shot back, his temper flaring. "You don't think it's for our safety and well-being? This situation is exactly why we don't tell anyone, don't you see? You know who we are now. You could go to the police, you could give them full descriptions, and we would be done. This is exactly what we try to avoid and I would be lying if I didn't say I was beyond pissed off it was happening." He shot a glare at Emmaline and she met his gaze coldly.
"I did not make this happen," she said in a low tone, not looking away from him. "He found out, I tried to explain it to him, and he demanded a meeting with you. If I could have avoided it, I would have and you know that. It was either this or everything was off, much to everyone's detriment. You wish I would have ruined your plans entirely?"
"How well can you keep your mouth shut?" Dorjan asked, looking to Spot.
"I can keep it shut fairly well," Spot replied dryly, and Emmaline rolled her eyes. She doubted he would be able to keep something this big from Dragon but if he wanted to think he could, so be it. Perhaps the ever present threat of death was a good motivator for him.
"You say word one of any of this to anyone, and we can make you disappear so fast no one will know where to start looking," Dorjan stated, standing up and beginning to pace. "I want your people to stop keeping tabs on Emma. If she's followed anywhere, by anyone, we can't guarantee they'll come back unscathed. Stop trying to find information about her. Let her do what she needs to do and don't ask questions. You've put us in a bad enough situation already." He stopped to look at Emmaline. "Go back to the house and let them know."
With a nod, she rose from her chair. Spot looked like he wanted to leave as well, to avoid being alone in a room with Dorjan, but he stayed put. Dorjan didn't look like he was done talking and he didn't want to do something to make him angrier. She glanced back at Spot before she shut the door and a bemused smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. As soon as the door clicked shut, Dorjan leaned across the table.
"Get this into your head now, Conlon," he growled. "You know practically nothing of what she is – you've just scratched the surface. I wouldn't recommend trying to get any deeper. If you touch her again, you have my word that I will kill you. Personally."