As morning progressed, the shadows regressed. The night had been able to hide Mackey and the Delancey brothers.

Day could not.

When Mackey and the Delanceys got free, they were going to come after Jack and Fawkes. It seemed beneficial for them not to be in the same place.

Spot volunteered to keep Fawkes company. Racetrack offered to go with Jack.

In their pairs, they scoured the early morning streets, distributing their self-published paper to any kid who could read. When their hands were empty, the only thing left to do was wait.

If everything went as planned, the new recruits would converge on the square in front of the World building at noon. Until then, they had to find some place to hunker down while the word spread.

The logical place would be the square-to rally the troops and wait. Fawkes knew she shouldn't. If Mackey and the Delanceys were free, they would be waiting for her to turn up so they could arrest her.

Fawkes decided to go to Medda's. She was hoping to nap in the wings or her old dressing room to recharge for a couple hours before the final showdown.

Medda welcomed the girl with open arms. The singer should have been angry, considering the damage the cops and Pulitzer's goons had done to the place. Instead, she was just glad to see Fawkes safe. Witnessing grown men beat up mere kids had hardened her heart against the authority in the city.

"Have you come to get your old job back?" Medda asked with a grin. "You're welcome to sing here anytime."

"Maybe one day. I'm just looking for a small corner of quiet to call my own," Fawkes answered.

"I don't know that you'll find that here," Medda made a face. "I'm going to keep that storage closet of a dressing room open for you until you book passage for Ireland, in case you change your mind."

"Thanks."

Jack was slumped in the chair in Fawkes's dressing room when she and Spot slipped inside.

Spot identified Jack by his hair and turned back towards the door, "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

"What do you mean?" Fawkes was puzzled by his itchiness to leave.

"You and Jack both consider this to be a safe place. How can you be sure that it still is? You both got arrested here. How do you know that they won't look for you here just as readily as they will where we've been staying?"

Fawkes shrugged, "I don't. They knew to come here before because we advertised that the rally would here. They don't know that we have any connections beyond that."

"They do," a new voice added.

Spot and Fawkes whipped their heads around to find Jack sitting up.

"Oscar knew you worked here. He threatened to come down and introduce himself before you met him a little less formally on the street," Jack explained. "He knows what you look like. And that you're a newsie as well as a singer. When he doesn't find you on the street this morning, he might try here."

Fawkes was silent. Jack was right. She'd overheard that conversation between Jack and Oscar. She'd forgotten. She couldn't stay here because they might think to look for her here. "If they show up, they'll be looking for me. That won't stop them from trying to hold you," she told Jack.

"I can handle the Delanceys," Jack replied, resettling himself in the seat.

Fawkes bristled. As if she couldn't?

"She's right," Spot spoke up, sensing the impending disagreement.

Jack peered over the head of the chair to glare at the boy, "You would side with her."

Spot rolled his eyes, "This is a big day. Let's not ruin it by having either of you get arrested. You should both be present in the square later today. It was you guys who started this. You should both be there to see it through to the end."

"You're getting cocky," Fawkes accused Spot. "No one said anything about this ending today."

Spot bit down on his response. She was trying to get a rise out of him. He could see it.

"That sorted," Fawkes said, turning away when he didn't rise to the bait, "we should get out of here." It would appear that napping was not on the horizon for her today. "Let's stay split up, just in case."

Jack nodded as he stood, "Probably wouldn't hurt to take the scenic route getting back. We've still got some time to kill."

Fawkes didn't respond. She slipped out the door. Spot was close on her heels.

The pair set off from the back entrance while Jack used the front. They met back up at the square. There were some newsies milling around by the monument, but fewer than usual. They must still be out distributing papes.

Fawkes felt a sinking feeling in her chest. What if they didn't arrive in time?

Racetrack and Kid Blink were pacing when Fawkes, Spot, and Jack arrived.

Race looked relieved when he saw them, "About time!"

Fawkes cast a look around, "What's the rush?" She was trying not to let the unease build inside of her. They still had an hour.

"We've been waiting for you."

Fawkes was immediately suspicious. She hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary on her cursory inspection. There weren't even any cops milling around. She hadn't considered Racetrack as a traitor until this moment. He'd been with Jack earlier, but when she ran into Jack at Medda's, Cowboy was by himself. Where had Racetrack been? More importantly: what had he been up to?

Fawkes found it hard to believe that he would flip. Racetrack was a small time bookie whose only crime was being an orphan. He had no reason.

That was when she saw that he was concealing a grin. There was nothing sinister about him. She was overreacting.

"I thought you might want to hear about the fate of your friends in the alley," Race began.

Kid Blink pushed Race aside, "Like you'd know. You were off with Jack."

Race crossed his arms and wrinkled his nose, but he didn't say anything.

Kid Blink grinned, "It was the morning crew who came to hold the line-only there weren't no newsies to push against, being where we all had jobs this morning. One of the bulls went down that alley-to take a piss, I reckon. He shouted for help, which is how our friends got free. They were cursing you left and right and were demanding that the cops round up all the newsies. Of course, when they got back on the street…"

Fawkes nodded. The newsies had deserted the square to distribute their paper this morning. There was no one to round up.

"The cops waited a couple hours, just in case," Kid Blink continued. "But there was no one to subdue or intimidate, so I imagine they slipped on back to their precincts."

"Old Joe must be loving the quiet," Jack remarked, looking to the top of the World building. He turned back to grin at Fawkes.

She was wearing a smile as well. She hadn't anticipated this. It was going to work out well in their favor. Was it possible those in positions of power thought this thing was over?

Fawkes didn't mind. She liked the idea of lulling them into a false sense of security, only to knock their socks off later.

"They're probably just trying to make sense of what's going on," the girl said. "We attacked their thugs. They know Jack is gone. They're probably puzzled as to why we aren't raging in the streets. For once, they're waiting to see what our next move is."

"They'll find out," Spot promised.

Fawkes hoped so. They'd done everything they could do. Their endgame relied on strangers. She didn't like the idea. She liked the grand gesture. Pulitzer could pay people to ignore his problem, but he couldn't pay the whole city. That was how they'd win.

As the minutes drew closer to noon, Fawkes and Jack began to display their nervousness by pacing. They marched towards each other, passed, turned, and passed again. Neither wanted to voice their concern.

What if nobody showed?

Spot grabbed her shoulder.

She didn't turn. She didn't need to.

A whole bunch of bike messengers had just rounded a corner and were coming down the block. They were heading straight for her.

Behind her, Race and Kid Blink were pointing over each other's shoulders, their mouths wide open in disbelief. Young people were flowing towards them from every street that led to the square.

Jack shoved her, a grin on her face, "Nice work, Ginger."

She shoved him back, "It was your plan, Sullivan."

Jack scrambled up onto the monument to watch all the bodies flock toward him.

On the periphery, Fawkes noticed the policemen. A group this massive couldn't escape attention. That was the point. The police must have followed to figure out what they were up to.

Their plan had worked.

Everyone was here.

Fawkes realized suddenly: there was no way out. They'd trapped themselves. When the bulls got sicced on them, there'd be nowhere to run. They couldn't. There were too many people.

The girl tried not to think about that. Instead, she looked out over the hundreds? thousands? that clogged the square, proud of this accomplishment.

In the crowd were familiar faces-newsies she'd fought alongside and defended; unfamiliar faces who didn't have a voice; enemies-she saw the Delancey brothers trying to work their way closer to center; and friends-Denton was pushing his way toward them.

As the groups, coming from their respective directions, met each other in the square, they crowded in close. What looked like a mass of people was actually organized groups of workers. There were the bike messengers, chimney sweeps, factory workers, and everything in between.

After everything Fawkes had seen, between people letting her down or trying to screw her over, this was something beautiful to behold. The young people clumped together, but they still didn't fit in the square. They filled the side streets and the main roadways in solidarity. Once there was no space left to fill, the groups were forced to come to a halt. They began chanting, "Strike! Strike! Strike!"

It was deafening in such close proximity, with so many voices raised toward the World building.

Not long after, the front door of the World building opened and one of Pulitzer's refined lackeys stepped out. The cops had surrounded the building as if they expected the group to mob it.

Fawkes poked Jack in the leg. He was still standing on the Horace Greeley monument, chanting with the rest of the strikers. He looked down and saw who was hailing him. He bent double to hear what she had to say.

Fawkes shouted as she pointed, "I think we're up!"

Cowboy nodded and jumped to ground level. The pair pushed their way through to the front door. Mackey was there, in addition to a finely dressed man with white whiskers for sideburns. He looked friendly enough-like a bulldog. He looked nicer than Pulitzer.

The pair were shown to the top floor where Pulitzer was waiting.

The old man was puffing on a cigar, holding onto a leather-backed chair for dear life. His eyes narrowed as they entered. Another man with a sniveling voice stopped the man with the sideburns.

He was whispering that the city was an uproar. Everyone was calling to complain or blame Pulitzer for bringing this about.

The teenagers kept their heads down so they wouldn't get scolded for smirking, but it didn't stop them from sending sidelong glances at each other.

As they approached the mahogany desk that separated them from the man, Pulitzer began his tirade. His voice was soft, but the tone was threatening, "If you defied me, I promised to break you. If you had done as I asked, you could be free-"

Jack cut him off, "You and I both know that's not how it was going down, Joe. The strike was growing stronger even without me. You were never going to give me my freedom, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I can't be something I'm not."

"Smart?" Pulitzer guessed.

Jack forced a smile, "A scab."

"But I gave you everything-"

"And you could take it all back on whimsy, just to remind me that I am nothing and you are everything. I can't live like that, Joe."

"I don't understand," Pulitzer rumbled. "Anyone who doesn't act in his own self interest is a fool."

Fawkes couldn't hide her smile, "What does that make you?"

Pulitzer honed in on her, "What did you say to me?"

Fawkes stepped forward, "I said, 'what does that make you?' You sit up here in this tower pretending you're better than us-"

"I am better than you!" He roared.

Fawkes's easy grin never left her face, "With the strike on, circulation's gotta be pretty low for you. You can't be making much profit these days. A smart man would acknowledge that and try to remedy it by making a deal with his newsies and putting an end to this strike. Instead, you try to squash us under your boot like ants you didn't invite to your picnic. You need us, but you won't listen to what we have to say. You refuse to yield your position and allow an agreement to be reached. I don't understand why. You must be losing thousands of dollars. You've pushed beyond stubborn and into the realm of stupidity it seems."

"He can't yield to us," Jack explained, "because we're nothing. If he did, that would give us power. He's willing to bankrupt himself to prove that we don't matter at all, even though he knows full well we do."

Pulitzer didn't like to hear that, "I've sent for the police. Seeing as how you've both got crimes to answer for, you won't be my problem for much longer."

Fawkes could see Jack starting to get angry. She understood what he was feeling. Everything they'd said was true. Pulitzer was being stubborn to the point of his own detriment, all so he wouldn't be seen folding to two orphans from off the street. Two orphans with rap sheets. He was too concerned with his own image to see this wasn't about him. It was about justice being served. It was about the little guy standing up for what he believed in and getting acknowledged and thanked for his contribution to society, instead of getting ignored and kicked around for once.

Maybe it was because they were kids and he didn't like that they were being disrespectful, or that they had so thoroughly smoked him. But, Fawkes told herself, they were only being rude because Pulitzer was treating them like something he'd stepped in-something he could ignore if he just closed his eyes and wished it away. They had to be unruly to get a reaction.

"I'm not going back to jail, Joe," Jack said. He moved around the desk to the French doors that looked out over the square. "I'll tell you why, because this isn't about you threatening us anymore. It's bigger now. The whole city is standing right outside your door because they object to how you're treating us. They're waiting to see what you'll do. They know you created this mess. They know you're the only one who can fix it. Can't you hear them asking you to fix things?"

It was impossible not to. On the streets, the sound was deafening. Up here, it was a dull roar-until Jack opened the door.

The sound slammed through every person in the room.

Pulitzer put his hands over his ears, his cigar forgotten. He couldn't help but be drawn to the sound. To the sight. Everyone on the street and in the square was there to protest against him.

He tried to shout to them. "Go home! Go home to your mothers and fathers!"

Jack laughed, "That's it? That's all you got, Joe?" He was forced to yell over the din of the crowd to be heard. "Those kids have to work because their parents can't make enough to get by. Their parents' bosses won't pay them a livable wage because like you, they deem folks who weren't born to money and privilege, people who work for a living, as less than human. Or maybe their parents got hurt on the job and they got laid off. They're useless now and they had no union to protect them and now their kids have to work in their stead, risking injury or premature death. That's if they got parents at all, Joe. How are the kids who don't have parents supposed to get by? Those kids are me and Fox, Joe. Who are we supposed to go home to? Who are we supposed to rely on to survive?"

Jack slammed the door shut as Pulitzer cowered away, the noise was too much. It was overpowering him.

"No one." Jack's voice was quiet as the sounds on the street were dulled. The effect of the transition was profound, and Fawkes couldn't help but smile at her friend at his skill for theatrics. "We've got no one in this world, Joe, but the family we create. That's why us newsies bonded together. We're all we have. We work because we need to eat and we can't rely on anyone to help us. With what little you pay us, we can't even afford to eat some days. That's what this is about, Joe. That's all we're asking for. Put the price back where it was so we aren't starving in the streets."

Pulitzer was fixing Jack with a look Fawkes didn't trust.

"We work for you, Joe," Fawkes spoke up. "You command a lot of power in this city. People listen when you speak, and they do what you tell them. Imagine the precedent you could set. By giving the newsies a livable wage, you'll get more employees. They'll increase your distribution. Not only that, imagine how your reputation would improve, by lending a hand to those less fortunate, by taking care of kids who live on the streets who might otherwise end up as vagrants. Increasing employment, reduces crime. I think I read that somewhere," Fawkes remarked.

Jack was stone-faced when he spoke up, "We don't just sell your papes, Joe. Sometimes we read them too."

Fawkes sent Jack a look before continuing, "There's a lot of people outside and they aren't going away until you do something. You won't be able to solve it by throwing us in jail. They've found their voices, and they know they have the power to stop this city now, whether or not you want to acknowledge that they can."

Pulitzer was silent as he took a seat.

Fawkes glanced over at Jack, trying not to get too hopeful. Was it possible that they were going to get down to business and settle this thing?

"How is it possible you got so many people to assemble?" Pulitzer wondered.

Fawkes could see the man wore glasses, so his vision was questionable, but all the strikers who weren't holding signs, were waving the Newsies Banner in the air. He had to have noticed.

"We knew we weren't getting much press, Joe, so we printed up a special edition," Fawkes explained, shooting a hesitant look over at Jack.

He was grinning. He reached into his chest pocket and pulled out a folded up paper. "Extra, extra, read all about it." He unfolded the sheet and laid it out flat on Pulitzer's desk.

The man pulled a magnifying glass from a drawer and moved it over the headline.

"It's a pretty good paper, Chief," the man with the sideburns spoke up.

Fawkes started. She'd forgotten he was there, he'd been so silent, she'd mistaken him for one of the fine furnishings in the room.

Pulitzer didn't get very far into it. He looked up suddenly, "I put a ban on all strike matters. How did you get access to a printing press?"

Jack smiled, "I know a guy."

Pulitzer was silent, no doubt trying to figure out if Jack was being serious or if it was a joke.

"I learned from you that I should only accept the very best," Jack continued. "So, I just wanted to say: thanks."

Pulitzer's gaze narrowed as he put it all together. He could ignore them if he considered them criminals. He couldn't ignore that they were smart. They'd divided and conquered. They let him think Jack was in charge, and when he'd been out of commission, the girl had stepped up. They'd figured out a way to use his own press against him. It galled him to discuss terms with these upstarts, but he was out of options and they'd proven to be formidable opponents.

"What do you want?"

"For you to put the price back where it was," Jack said.

"I don't have that power. Every paper in the city did it."

"At your behest," Fawkes accused. "You can tell them to put it back. You're the one who made them change it in the first place."

"I could try," Pulitzer didn't sound convinced. "And if they don't agree?"

"They will," Jack promised. "They want us to go back to being subservient as much as you do."

"But if they don't?" Pulitzer pushed.

Jack looked to Fawkes with raised brows. The girl grinned, "If they don't, then tell them that we demand they buy back every pape we don't sell."

It was Pulitzer's brows that raised this time. "Buy back every pape?" He repeated.

"You asked for our demands. Now you have them. If you return the price to where it was, we stand a chance of getting by. If you want to keep the price where it is, we'd like you to buy back every pape we can't sell. When news is slow or the headline is bad, we still gotta eat, and it happens to us the most in winter when food is all that separates us from living or dying. The higher price makes that impossible, but if you let us sell back our unsold papes, we can survive on that. We can't eat unsold papes."

Pulitzer seemed to consider his options, "You wouldn't mind waiting outside? I have some phone calls to make."

Jack and Fawkes nodded and let themselves out. They were silent as they waited. They could still make out the drone of the chanters some stories below.

Fawkes could see Jack wanted to discuss what she'd offered Pulitzer, but he knew better than to do it in enemy territory. They had to present a united front here.

Sometime later, they were readmitted. Pulitzer agreed to recognize their demands that papes only cost fifty cents a hundred. All the papers would follow his example, he promised.

The pair waited until they were out of the building before celebrating. It all seemed so unreal, that they should get what they'd wanted after so long.