AN: Wishing I had more readers and reviews! A big thank you to those you are still following this story! It's going to start getting good now!
Snoddy winced when he heard Alley shrieking at Blink from the washroom. He had been sitting on his bunk for the last thirty minutes, ignoring the boys questions and curious glances. His knuckles were raw and bloody and he could feel two black eyes coming in quickly. He had been waiting for Alley to finish with the boys hair. His plan was to sneak into the bathroom after she was done, clean himself up, and then sneak into her bunkroom in the dark and hope that she wouldn't notice until the morning. Clearly, that plan was out the window now that she stood in front of him, eyes wide with confusion and breathing heavily.
"What is this? What happened," she asked loudly to no one in particular.
After an awkward moment of silence, Kid-Blink answered, "He ain't talking about it to anyone...but we've got some of an idea."
Snoddy cleared his throat and reached beneath the bunk. He pulled out a small brown paper bag and said in a clear, calm voice, "I got your bread."
She took the bread and sighed, clearly softening. She sat down next to him on the bunk and opened her mouth as if to speak to him before stopping to look around the crowded room. "Let's get out of here," she whispered to Snoddy quietly.
He nodded, stood up, and followed her out of the room. He could feel each pair of eyes on him but he kept his eyes focused on the back of Alley's head. As he left the room, he heard Racetrack say, "Well, that was kind of weird."
In response, Jack yelled, "Hey! Mind your own business!"
Alley held the door open for Snoddy and waited patiently as he shuffled in and took a seat on her bunk. She knelt down and began unlacing his boots for him and waited a long minute before saying, "So? What happened? Start talking."
Snoddy sighed. "It was nothing. I just went out to get your bread and one thing led to another." He wasn't much with words, even with Alley.
"Oh please," she exclaimed as she sat back up. "You left this place with trouble in mind."
He sighed again. "I ran into the Delanceys," he finally admitted.
"You ran into them or you went looking for them?"
"I went looking for them. I took care of them."
"Snoddy," she scolded. "What did you do?"
"I worked them over even worse than they worked you over," he answered calmly.
"That was nearly 6 weeks ago," she reminded him.
"That doesn't mean I had forgiven them for it," Snoddy informed her. "The more time we spent together, the angrier I got about it!
Alley ripped off two hunks of the bread, handed one to Snoddy, and began chewing on the other. "You beat them up...all by yourself," she finally asked after a long moment of silence. He nodded. "How bad?"
"Real bad," he answered quickly. "I didn't know when they're going to come to so I hid them in some crates behind a packing house."
"We have to get you cleaned up," she said suddenly, as if it had just crossed her mind. She proceeded to led him into the washroom and began addressing his cuts just like he had done for her. He told her how he had found the Delancey brothers hanging around the distribution center, messing with some shoe-shine boys and how he had gotten the kids money back before Snoddy had cornered Oscar and Morris.
"It was easy," he whispered softly as she covered each of his knuckles in clean, white bandages.
"It was easy?" She repeated.
"Yes, because I was so, so angry." Snoddy proceeded to tell her that he had used their own brass knuckles on them and a lot of other details Alley wished she could forget.
An hour later, as they laid side by side in Alley's bunk, Snoddy voice cracked as he whispered, "Alley, those boys are good as dead." Alley bit her lip hard to keep from crying out. That's what she was afraid of. She sat up in bed and guided Snoddy's head into her lap. He rested there gratefully and wrapped his arms around her legs. "I went too far," he admitted, his voice muffled against her leg. "I went too far."