Fawkes was huddled in the shade of Horace Greeley's monument when Jack was escorted back by the Delanceys. She knew because of the murmurs that rippled through the crowd.
"When the Delanceys go to lock him up, aren't they going to notice they're missing their keys?" Spot wondered. He was standing over her, watching Jack's return from a distance.
"I reckon they'll be looking for me. It's why I am sitting down here. They could just assume they lost their keys in the tussle." Even she didn't believe the story she was selling.
Spot said nothing for a span and she knew why. He didn't believe it either. "You ran away from the fight," he said at last.
"I was outnumbered. Of course I did." When her response was met with silence, Fawkes raised her gaze. Spot was eyeing her curiously. He knew she didn't make a habit of running.
"Oscar made me," she admitted quietly.
"What do you mean?" Racetrack piped up.
"He knew I was a girl before the fight even started," Fawkes explained. "I wasn't going to let him get up close and personal."
"But you have the keys?" Race asked.
Fawkes pulled a ring, with a handful of clunky keys attached to it, from her pocket.
"Now what?" Race wanted to know.
"We wait for nightfall," Fawkes replied. "Then, we make our move."
As night descended on the streets of New York, Fawkes recruited folks to jump the cop that would stand guard that night.
She'd assembled a handful when she heard commotion behind her. She turned to address the issue.
Patrick Mackey was talking to a handful of cops on the corner. The Delanceys were there too.
The girl felt her breath catch in her throat.
No.
She dropped into a crouch and watched the scene play out between the milling bodies of the newsies. There weren't enough cops to expect to comb the area and come up successful if they intended to search for her.
Was Mackey trying to entice them to stay? He was going to need the backup. Mackey might not know how tricky she could be, but he knew better than to underestimate her. He'd done it before and he wouldn't let it happen again. The Delanceys knew she was no slouch either.
"Do you think they're here for you?" Spot had dropped level with her.
His interruption brought a whole new angle to her postulations. Were they here to collect her, not because of her tussle with the Delanceys, but because they'd realized Jack wasn't the person they needed to quell this strike? She'd made things easy for the cops to find something to charge her with by roughing up Oscar.
Jack loitered by the fence, watching the Delanceys and the former King of Brooklyn in the growing dark. They were arguing with some other cops. Eventually, the extra cops shuffled away, leaving only Mackey. He looked livid.
Jack didn't have to guess that Fox was the reason why. He knew.
She was up to something. He didn't know what, but he did know he wasn't going to like it. She wouldn't have broken her cover to fight the Delanceys unless she had a reason.
He'd struggled all day to make sense of what he'd seen. He knew Fox. She fought tooth and nail. She always had.
Why had she only thrown a couple punches and then run away? She didn't make of any her usual small talk or banter that normally would have given him a clue.
She had to be playing them. She wasn't foolish. She could avoid detection when necessary.
So why had she revealed herself?
Jack had noticed the bolstered ranks of the strikers. They hung out in the square round the clock now. Fox was among them. She was the reason why.
It was only a matter of time before Pulitzer's men tracked her down. Before, they hadn't been able to confirm if she was still in the city. Now, they knew she was. They would (rightly) assume she was the reason the newsie strike hadn't faltered. They would find her in the square, holding her position. They would charge her with assault. But then what? Would Pulitzer jail her? Would he try to get her to flip?
Jack knew she wouldn't. His concern was what would happen when Pulitzer got his hands on Fox. Would Jack Kelly become redundant? Would Pulitzer re-neg on his deal? It seemed highly probable. That man couldn't be trusted.
The teen let out a snort of realization.
Fox was one step ahead of him. Because she was free, she ensured the strike would prevail. She knew that Pulitzer would not be pleased with that. She'd anticipated Jack's position becoming tenuous.
She was planning an escape so that Pulitzer couldn't use him as leverage in whatever happened next.
Jack grinned at the idea. He knew there was a reason he kept her around.
Fawkes waited until the only light was that offered by the streetlamps before making her move.
The Delancey brothers keeping watch with Mackey was not something she'd planned for.
Being able to think on your feet is what keeps you alive on the streets.
She'd planned on being Jack's retrieval, that way she could explain to him why she was doing what she was doing. Three men standing guard changed things.
She could recruit more men, but Fawkes knew what would work better. The common denominator was her. Mackey had words to say to her, and the Delancey brothers had a score to settle. She was the perfect distraction.
Fawkes delegated retrieval to Racetrack. Spot was going to lead the charge on Mackey.
The game plan set, the girl strode past the newsies camped out on the picket line, still wearing Jack's cowboy hat.
It wasn't until she crossed into No Man's Land that they noticed her.
Oscar glared at the girl, "You have something that belongs to me."
Fawkes slipped her hands into her pockets, "Come and take it then."
Oscar's frown turned upside-down. A grin flashed across his face, but it was gone in a matter of moments. He shot a look over at Mackey. The look that replaced it was suspicious. He was clearly recalling their fight earlier in the day.
Fawkes removed her hands from her pockets and held them up in a show of innocence, "Really. You think I have something of yours. I know I don't. That's why I came over here. To see if I could help clear up this misunderstanding. I assumed it had something to do with me."
Nobody moved.
"You can search me if you want," she offered.
Oscar stepped forward.
Mackey extended his arm and, with it, his nightstick, halting the brother.
Mackey had looked suspicious from the start. Now, he just looked grumpy. "I don't know what sort of game you're trying to play, but it's not going to work."
"I'm just trying to clear up a misunderstanding with this gentleman," Fawkes lowered her hands and pointed at Oscar. "I don't like being falsely accused of things," she narrowed her eyes meaningfully at Mackey. "I want the matter settled."
"We have no time for your notions of honor," Mackey informed her. "You're coming with me to see Mr. Pulitzer."
Fawkes had to remind herself to breathe. And form a comeback. "Like hell."
"There's three of us and one of you, be smart about this. You can't fight us all."
Fawkes grinned, "I can fight you all. Doesn't mean I'll win."
Mackey managed a smile, "So you'll come with me?"
"Not a chance." Fawkes was ready to run. She didn't like the look she was getting from Oscar, and she refused to be manhandled by Mackey. There was an alley just down the way. She could make it there no problem. Would they pursue was the big question. The alley was a dead end. The newsies would be able to corner and subdue them.
Mackey saw her begin to twist her feet away. "Don't do this," he warned.
"Don't tell me what to do," she shot back.
"Just come with me to see Mr. Pulitzer," he tried.
"No. You didn't give me a choice."
"There is no other choice, Connie. If you don't come with me willingly, Mr. Pulitzer will hire men to bring you to him and they won't be nearly as friendly."
Fawkes seemed to consider it. She gave a sort of half-nod. "If you want me, you're goinna have to work for it." She set off down the street at half-speed.
The men followed after her, watching her turn down a side alley.
It was dark there. The high walls prevented any illumination by the street lamps on the main road.
Fawkes stood on the edge of the light that had managed to filter into the alley. Behind her was darkness.
When the men turned into the alley and saw her facing them, they pulled up short.
They were all immediately on their guard. There was no way that she could beat all three of them. They were seasoned thugs. They could easily overpower her.
What made them uneasy was that she wasn't cowering with fear.
"What are you up to?" Mackey demanded.
"You'll find out," Fawkes grinned.
In the silence that filled the alley, they became aware of approaching footsteps. There were many feet and they were moving quickly.
The men turned to face the sound, aware that they were backed into a corner. That was when they heard more feet, coming from behind Fawkes.
Newsies surged toward the thugs from both the street and the dark. They were tackled and brought to ground by their blindside.
When Mackey was taken down, hands grappled for the whistle he carried and yanked it from his possession.
They found no fight from him.
His head had bounced off of the cobble. He was unconscious.
Kid Blink wasn't taking any chances. He delivered a swift kick, just to be sure.
The coordinated attack had caught Mackey by surprise. He wasn't used to a clever two-pronged attack. He was more familiar with people running away when they saw him.
Oscar and Morris were used to this sort of thing. They didn't have a commanding presence or Mackey's history. They readied their fists and stood back to back.
Surprised with how easily they'd subdued Mackey, the newsies swarmed the Delancey brothers and made short work of them. In a matter of minutes, all three men were bound and gagged.
Fawkes didn't wait and watch. She got out of the alley as soon as she was able. She was heading for the door on the far side of the circulation center.
She'd decided against using the big creaky gates that served as the front entrance. Not only was the location too open and exposed, it was going to be noisy, which would attract unwanted attention.
Jack was slinking through the shadows toward her, Race at his side. "What are you up to?" He wanted to know when he identified her silhouette.
"This strike is refusing to go away. I don't want to be stuck on the defensive. I don't want to sit idly by and wait while they comb the city for me because having you in their pocket didn't work."
"What does any of that have to do with breaking me out?"
"I needed to talk to you, to discuss our options and to make some plans, and not have to worry about your bodyguards getting in the way."
Jack nodded, "How bout I do you one better?"
"You've got a plan?" Fawkes's face lit up.
"Yeah. It starts with finding the guy who wrote this…" Jack held up a tattered and creased sheet of paper.
Denton's article.
"We can do that," Fawkes said.
After Denton had ditched them, a few newsies had come forward to tell Spot that they knew where the guy lived, if anyone was planning some revenge action. They were hoping Spot would send some of his bigger Brookies to make Denton regret turning his back on them.
Spot had resisted, partly out of shock-the full extent of everything that had happened in that twenty-four hours hadn't sunk in yet. Later, he turned them down because Denton wasn't like them-he wasn't some rough kid on the streets who'd rolled on them to save his own skin. He was an adult. A respected one. He'd done them a favor by taking their pictures and getting their names and cause in his newspaper to be read by the populace.
They all knew that newspapers were fickle. What's news one day is garbage is the next. Their mistake was trusting Denton so implicitly and all he could do. He'd made them famous for a day because his job was reporting the news. His boss had decided that news was better elsewhere.
They knew better. Trust isn't a thing you should give easily. People will turn on you for the right motivation. It's safer not to get attached.
Spot had related the story to Fawkes when she'd been freed from the Refuge to see where she stood on the issue. He'd been surprised when she agreed not to move against him. He should have known better. She'd made him promise not to move against Jack and he'd betrayed them too.