"Excuse me! Excuse me!"
Katherine stood at the front desk of the rehabilitation center, clutching her hat in her hands. She waited anxiously, and then called out again.
"Excuse me?"
"What do you want, lady?" a brisk voice asked as a tall, lanky man with red hair emerged from within. Katherine stiffened, but stood her ground. "I'm here to see a convict….Crutchie Morris."
The man sighed, and dejectedly lifted up his stack of papers. He rifled through them for a few minutes, and then sighed again. He glanced up to Katherine, and moved out from behind the counter. "Follow me," the man instructed sadly, and shuffled wearily down the hall. Katherine quickly became appalled at the conditions here; it was like Jack's drawings of the Refuge had jumped off the paper and became real, only ten times worse. Women and men were huddled in cramped quarters, and occasionally Katherine glimpsed the once bright and shining eyes of a child aged beyond their years. Rats and vermin scurried everywhere, and all around there was a fetid stench of putrid urine. Katherine ignored the cries of hunger, money, and pain that echoed all around her. Every few cells she passed, it seemed like a guard was threatening a convict, or beating them. Grubby hands reached out for Katherine's fine clothes, shouting at her to let them go free. She passed one wailing person who was rocking back and forth, clutching their head and moaning, and another who was screaming bloody murder. She gritted her teeth against a child's pitiful yell for their mother, and all but blocked out the vicious treatment the guards were dealing left and right. The man brought her down another hall, and stopped outside a wide jail cell. The inside walls were covered with mold and tally marks, and other such drawings that prisoners had made to pass the time. But most importantly, Katherine saw Crutchie. Her mouth tightened into a thin little line as she caught a glimpse of his bruised face and the large bloody cut just visible beneath his hair on his forehead. She was confused, though, because he was sitting next to a woman with dark, matted hair in the corner, and they were talking in whispers.
"You have a visitor," the man who had led Katherine here told the prisoners. Crutchie glanced up, and broke into a painful smile. "Katherine!" he exclaimed happily, but didn't move from where he was sitting, even though his crutch was right next to him. Jack's fear had come true: Crutchie wasn't able to walk even when Katherine was there to rescue him. The woman next to Crutchie gave Katherine a glance, and narrowed her eyes in a statement of hostility. Katherine stared right back.
"How do you feel, Crutchie?" she asked gently.
"Good," Crutchie said casually, unaware of the staring match between Katherine and Rosa as they tried to figure one another out. "Are ya 'ere tah get me out, Katherine?" Crutchie asked hopefully.
"He can't walk," Rosa interjected rudely, and Crutchie shot her a look. "They beat him so bad that he can't even walk across our cell."
"Then I suppose I'll have to figure something out, won't I?" Katherine asked testily.
"And quick," Rosa stated. "I won't have him dying on me."
"I ain't gonna die!" Crutchie protested from the back of the cell. "Jeez, Rosa…"
"I assure you he'll be safely back in Manhattan before that happens," Katherine interrupted him.
The guard glanced at Katherine, and jabbed his finger at Crutchie. "We got special instructions fer this one. we can't let him free for a week. We also got….special permission to handle him as we please."
Katherine eyed the brass knuckles he was tossing back and forth between his hands, and smiled sweetly at him. "Thank you, sir," she said. "For that bit of priceless information." With that, she rammed her fist into his jaw, and grabbed the keys. Katherine quickly unlocked the cell door, saying, "Desperate times call for desperate measures. Come on, Crutchie."
A beat went by while Crutchie stared at the unconscious guard, and then back up to Katherine. "Can Rosa come?" he asked.
"Crutchie, I can only take one of you," Katherine said a bit impatiently. "And it has to be you."
"Why can't you bring the both of us?" Rosa asked, moving closer to Katherine, who quickly stepped away.
"I brought my bicycle," Katherine explained matter-of-factly. "And Crutchie's small."
"Small?" Crutchie echoed while Katherine walked over and helped him to his feet. "Katherine, Rosa's gotta come, 'cause-"
"I can only take you, Crutchie!" Katherine told him.
"She's my aunt," Crutchie finished, and Katherine looked over at Rosa. "Seriously? You expect me to fall for that one? What are the chances that you two end up in a prison cell together, and-"
She stopped talking as the guard groaned, and they all looked at him.
"Let's go, and discuss this later," Rosa said quickly, and ran out of the cell. Crutchie slung his arm around Katherine's shoulders, and they walked out of the cell more slowly than Katherine would have liked.
"Is she really your aunt?" Katherine asked him.
"Yeah," Crutchie answered. "She's gotta picture of my mom an' me an' my brothah, what more evidence d'you want?"
"None, I guess," Katherine said slowly. "But….you're sure."
"I'se sure," Crutchie stated, and the pair stopped as Rosa walked back up to them. "We've got to hurry!" she hissed. "It won't be long before they notice we're gone."
"HEY!" Crutchie glanced back as they heard a man's shout. Three guards, including the one Katherine had knocked out, were running towards them armed with the clubs and brass knuckles.
"Run!" Rosa screamed, and pushed Katherine and Crutchie in front of her. They hurried down the hall while Katherine desperately hoped she remembered how to get out of this horrid place, and avoided all the guards as best they could. Katherine rushed through the doors, thankful to be out in the bright sunlight again. She sighed in relief, and then wasted no time in getting Crutchie on the bicycle. Crutchie's eyes were tightly shut, and his head was bowed as he tried to avoid the bright sun. He hadn't been outside in over a day, and coming back out of the dark quarters was hard. It was nothing compared to what Rosa was feeling, though.
The minute they got out of the building, she stopped and stumbled to the ground, dazed. The guards ran up, confident that they could catch this easy prey, but were all pushed away by Katherine, who ran up to Rosa's side. Katherine pulled her towards the bicycle, and they quickly scrambled to get it moving away from the reform facility. Katherine hopped on to sit on the edge of the seat, and started pedaling as fast as she could. Crutchie held onto her like a baby koala with his crutch in one hand as they wheeled away from the place of horrors, Rosa right by their side.
"This isn't going to work!" Rosa yelled at them a while later, taking a glance back to see coppers chasing them. "You'll have to leave me!"
"You wanted to get out of there!" Katherine yelled back.
"Not like this! I'm only slowing you down!"
Katherine didn't answer, instead waiting until they were close enough to the docks to hop off the bicycle and answer Rosa. "Get on the ferry, quick!" she called to her. "We'll be right behind you!"
"You can't take the bicycle!" Rosa said. "They'll be looking for it as soon as we get back to Manhattan!"
Katherine sighed, and shook her head. "Rosa-"
"I have a plan," Rosa insisted, and grabbed the handlebars. Her eyes were still half-closed because of the sunlight. "Go with Crutchie."
"We can't leave ya behind!" Crutchie protested, and Rosa shrugged with a small smile. "Sometimes you have to leave people behind, kid. It's the way it works."
"I jus' met ya yesterday-there's so many things I ain't asked ya!" Crutchie said as Rosa hopped on the bicycle. Katherine pulled Crutchie back through the crowd that was moving onto the ferry. "What do I do?!"
"Make up the answers!" Rosa yelled back to him, placing a foot on the pedal. "That's what I did before I met you!"
She expertly wheeled the bicycle around to face the coppers, and raised her head as they walked towards her. "You can't get them now," Rosa told them. "They're already on the ferry. So, whattaya say, fellas, ready for a little chase?"
She pushed off the ground and rode straight through the group of policemen to lead them away from the ferry. Rosa and the wheeler soon disappeared from Crutchie's sight as Katherine pulled him onto the boat. For all he knew, she had been caught and was now being carted off to the reform center again. Something inside him hoped, or maybe knew, that she had gotten away; after all, that wheeler was pretty damn fast.