Torch hit the rooftop below with a painful smack! that made her eyes fly open.

Crouching on the rooftop like a jungle animal, she whirled and postured herself to slide down the roof and on to the wall. It was slightly painful, but she was well used to pain, and besides, there was no avoiding it.

Torch then slide down the roof, down the wall, down, down, and landed on her feet on the street. Glancing around herself warily and with body poised for action, she slunk off down the alleyway and stole into another.

Sighing with relief, she slid down a wall and sat down, shaking from the aftershock of the adrenaline rush.

“Hey,” she heard, right next to her ear, very soft.

She flung upwards, knife in hand. “King O’Conner!” She cried furiously. “You- you- one of these days you’ll kill me with that!”

“Well, how else was I supposed to tell you I was there?” King put on a hurt expression and Torch rolled her eyes, but she knew better than to argue.

“When did you leave?” She asked instead, putting her knife away.

“Middle of the night.”- Briefly.

He began to walk and Torch followed. “How’s your hand?” He asked.

“Bad.”

“Let me see.”

“No.”

“Yes.” King, firmly, brooking no argument, grabbed her arm and pulled it over for inspection. She tried to stop herself, but cried out in pain.

King looked serious. “Torch, this is bad. Real bad.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he decided. He gently dropped her arm, and she changed the subject. “You gonna sell today?”

He smirked, back to his cocky, arrogant self. “Where better to find pretty ladies?”

Torch laughed outright as they rounded a corner. “You sound like Dusty,” she told him, watching for his inevitable reaction.

“Do. Not.” King was gritting his teeth and she knew it.

“Yeah, you do,” she told him, smirking.

“No, I don’t. He really falls for ‘em; I just look at ‘em and sell to ‘em.”

Torch had to concede, “Yeah, I guess that’s true… but you’ll notice that my selling don’t revolve around charm. I work.”

“Hey, it’s hard work charming!” King said indignantly as they neared the Distribution Center. “You ain’t never done it, so you don’t know.”

“Oh, ain’t I!” Torch retorted. “I said my selling don’t revolve around it; I do it often enough. I just don’t depend on it. And it’s not hard work.”

“Yeah, well, you’re pretty, so guys fall quick.” He gave her a saucy smirk.

“And you’re the King! You can do what you want.” Torch was quick to retort.

“True,” he conceded with a very smug expression.

King and Torch stood in line for their newspapers as they continued to talk. “So why do you charm, if being the King is enough?” Torch asked.

“’Cause I have a reputation to keep up,” he said with a very superior expression.

She whacked him. “That’s no way to do it.”

“Oh yeah?” He raised one eyebrow. “Then how come I’m more famous than you?”

“Ha!” Torch snorted. “You ain’t. ‘Sides, look how famous I am without all that!”

“Uh-huh,” said King, skeptical and unconvinced.

“Your turn,” Torch observed, ending the conversation.

Now first in line, King leaned against the wall just beside the barred window, yawned, smirked, and called, “Wicked? Oh Wick-ed!”

Poking his head out to glare at King, Mr. Andrew Wicke snapped, “How many times do I have to tell you stupid kids? It’s not Wicked; it’s Wicke!”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say, Wicked,” King said carelessly. The kids snickered.

“Give me fifty papes, Wicked,” King said, with a lazy authority. His tone denoted his being one so used to being obeyed that he need not rouse himself to appear at all intimidating, or even very loud.

“Seventy-five,” Wicke said, his eyes glinting with unspoken challenge, seeing if King would rise to his bait.

King did not rise to it. Instead he repeated quietly, a little more intensely, “Fifty papes.”

Wicke glared for a moment longer, unwilling to back down, before ducking his head back in to mutter to his counting assistant, “Fifty papes for His Majesty.”

King smirked as his sharp ears picked the last up, and, when handed his papes, he said grandly and haughtily, “Thank you, my loyal subjects.”

Wicke ground his teeth, but King merely stepped down with dignity and began to walk away with grace.

Torch shook her head. She knew there was no way she could equal his performance, so she merely steped up and slapped down her quarter.

Wicke, still stinging, said snidely, “What, your fire burned out, Torch?”

“Nah, just seems to me that you were at the end of your wick.” Torch replied, inwardly scolding herself for making such a cheesy pun. However, the bystanders treated everything like it was a stage performance and acted accordingly, whooping and hollering and laughing when a wise was cracked; and luckily, even a bad pun counted when cracked by a prominent leader.

“Hey, you gonna be able to sell with that arm?” King asked her softly as she stepped down, so as not to be heard.

They sat down together to look through their stacks of papers for anything interesting and Torch replied, “Yeah, of course. It’ll get me more sold, anyway. Sympathy and all that. ‘Cause it’s not a fake, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

A nice-looking young lad – Jewish, he looked to be – stepped up, and Wicke snapped, “Yeah, what?” in an extremely irritated tone and waited.

“Ten papers, please.” The young man said, looking confused at Wicke’s decidedly unfriendly attitude.

Torch wasn’t really listening or paying attention until she heard Wicke yell, “Beat it, kid!”

Torch pricked up her ears. It sounded like the beginning of a fight, and fights were always fun. She glared down at her injured arm before looking back up eagerly in hope that the fight would be starting.

Unfortunately for Torch’s anticipation of gore, Quiz, who was too nice for his own good, jumped up and began to, little by little, edge the boy away from the platform.

Torch caught Quiz say, “So what’s your name?” and the boy reply: “David Bens, but I only got nine pa-”

Torch rolled her eyes. “Jewish, are you?” Quiz interrupted heartily, still guiding David away. “Yes, but you see I-”

“You know, my grandparents were Jewish!” Quiz lied cheerfully. Everyone knew that this was a lie, with the exception of David; but had anyone accused Quiz of lying, he would only have widened his eyes and said, “Well, you can’t prove that they weren’t!”

Torch chuckled at this thought, and then sighed heavily as she watched the two boys make their way back out the gates of the Distribution Center. There went her fight. Oh well; the David boy was a wimp anyway and the fight couldn’t have been that glorious with a wimp playing the perpetrator.

“Ready to go?” King asked. Torch nodded, and they, too, walked out the gates.

“You selling with a partner today?” Torch asked.

King gave her a sidelong glance. “Yes.”

Torch grinned, but inwardly. “That’s nice,” she said indifferently.

“Yeah, I think so,” King smirked.

“Five-footed black cat found in Mayor’s home! The reasons could only be bad!” Torch shrieked suddenly, flinging a paper aloft and waving it wildly.

Not to be outdone, King raised his (somewhat deeper) voice to improve upon what Torch had said and call: “Mayor a Witch? Read all about it! Extra, extra!”

Each of them sold a few papers and continued on, each headline more outrageous and more popular than the one before.

Selling papes, although one of the somewhat easier jobs to be had (compared to sweatshops, that is), was still hard work. You really had to work on each and every individual person to get them to buy a paper; analyze them, target them, but not look their way too much, force yourself on some, ignore others— it was all sort of a like a desperate game in which the prize was life and the penalty was death.

The only thing more difficult than being a newsie was being a girl newsie.

As far as Torch knew, there were probably only about four or five other girl newsies in all of Queens and Brooklyn combined. And with good reason. Girl newsies had it tough from every angle: Customers, employers, fellow employees, and residents of their respective borough. Few had a good position and standing like Torch did.

Customers often didn’t like to buy from girl newsies because they considered them bold, crude, and vulgar. Employers often thought they could get away with cheating girl newsies because they thought the girls wouldn’t protest or argue. Fellow employees, since they were almost all boys, would often take the girls’ papers away, mug them, or worse. And being a newsie meant that you were usually on your own when selling, so the girls often got attacked while working. In fact, it was rather unusual that King would sell with a partner; but Torch had always been an exception for King, and now that Torch was so badly injured, he certainly wasn’t about to leave her on her own.

Torch didn’t necessarily try to look like a boy— that is, not in the extreme sense of the meaning. But she did dress as one, for, though all her fellow employees and employers knew she was a girl, and respected her for it, it was best that she appear as a boy to customers.

Her dark curls she kept hidden in her cap, and, now and again, as she sold, she impatiently shoved a stray curl back under her cabbie hat as it ventured into the realm of her face. Selling really was vigorous activity, and not intended for the faint of heart.

And Torch was not faint of heart. Just looking at her as she swarmed up to people and screamed fake headlines, David Bens could tell this.


David Bens was selling with Quiz because Quiz had invited him to, for no apparent reason other than the one aforementioned: that he was far to kind for his own good.

David was horrible at selling.

“You has to yell louder!” Quiz urged him. “Like this.” He raised his voice and bellowed, “MAYOR NEAR DEATH!!” He instantly sold fourteen papers.

“Um… okay.” David raised a paper cautiously and called weakly, “Immigrant moves into new home!”

Passersby merely continued on their way, not even bothering to give him a second glance.

Quiz shook his head and sighed. “You need to raise your voice and improve the headline. Where is that story?”

“Page four,” David mumbled, embarrassed.

Quiz flipped through one of his last four papers and read the very short article. Thinking for a moment, then raising his paper high, he yelled, “Immigrant family may or may not be related to Mayor!”

He sold his last papers and a few people bought some from David to read the (made-up) article.

“Wait, where did you get that?” David demanded when the people had departed. Quiz gave him an innocent look. “They moved into a flat a couple o’ doors down from him, didn’t they?”

“Yes, but-”

“And they knocked on the Mayor’s door, didn’t they?”

David sighed. “That’s only because-”

“That’s all you need to make up a sensational headline.” He clapped David on the back. “You’ll learn.”

“Learn to lie?” David mumbled, then said more loudly, “What if they find out you lied to them? Won’t you get in trouble?”

Quiz shook his head, “Nah. First, they expect it to be slightly… improved”— David snorted –- “and second, when you’s a newsie, you’s just another part of the town, like the streets and signs and buildings. They don’t remember what you look like.”

“Okay,” David said uncertainly, “if you’re sure.”

“Sure I’m sure! Hey,” he changed the subject, “d’you wana come see where a lotta us newsies eat?”

David smiled. “Sure.”

David followed Quiz as Quiz set out, mumbling, “David… David…”

“Yes?” David said, rather confused.

“Sorry, I weren’t talking to you… I’s just thinking of a good nickname for you. All newsies have ‘em. Don’t like to lie…” He scratched his chin thoughtfully, like he had a beard, and David laughed. “Let’s call you Truth.” He decided.

David shrugged, still smiling. “Sounds good to me.”

“An’ here we is!” Quiz announced, stopping in front of a rather dilapidated building. “Martin’s Place!” He spoke as though declaring the name of Buckingham Palace. “You can find out a lotta stuff here just by listening to peoples’ conversations- especially the leaders.”

“Food any good?” David queried.

Quiz grinned. “You’s about to find out!”

He pushed open a dark green door with the paint chipping off its surface to reveal dingy beige underneath. As they walked inside, David suddenly bent double for a second, but then quickly straightened and tried to look absolutely natural while holding his breath.

Quiz grimaced. “Yeh, the smell’s pretty bad. You’ll get used to it.”

David hoped Quiz couldn’t hear him as he muttered, “I don’t see how.”

If Quiz had heard him, he didn’t show it. Moving quickly to the table nearest the door, he began discreetly pointing out different people in the room, allowing David to take stock of the people he worked with. “That over there is Fire.”

David saw a boy with flame-red hair and dark blue eyes. He was talking to a girl -- the only girl in the room – and laughing.

“Don’t ever get in a fight with him. He’s an okay guy, but what a temper! That over there is Velvet.” The girl Quiz indicated had very blonde hair and grey-brown eyes that darted everywhere, as though looking for prey, cold and little like a snake’s. She was wearing an extremely revealing dress and was sitting halfway in Fire’s lap. “She ain’t always a newsie, and she ain’t one to tangle with, neither, but for a different reason. That over there is Bajo. He’s a Spaniard, and the girls have given up trying to ask him out.” David studied Bajo with a look of interest and amazement. He’d never seen a real Spaniard before, and was rather curious.

Bajo was sitting alone, smoking a cigar, and watching the room with narrowed eyes. “He’s a sly one, and you have to watch your back if he’s your enemy; but he’s a good one to have on your side. That-” David forced his gaze off of Bajo and onto the blonde boy Quiz indicated “-is Specs.”

David could understand why. Specs wore glasses and was deeply engrossed in the old, volumus tome he was reading— so engrossed that he set part of his biscuit in his water and dropped the other half on the floor and never noticed. Quiz laughed a little as he did so, not mockingly, just good-naturedly. “A little absent-minded, a little bookish, a little shy, but a good fellow. That is Argue.”

Argue was deeply absorbed in a conversation with another boy with a crutch. Argue himself had sandy hair and a longish nose. “He’s arguing, of course. Never could stop it. The boy with him is Crutch.” Of course. “That’s River. Got thrown in the river on his first day and survived. Tough and a real good swimmer.”

River had brown hair, but the thing that really stood out about him was his startlingly vibrant blue eyes. He was talking to a rather short boy and eating a hot dog. “The boy with him is Peashooter. He’s little but a real good hand with a slingshot. That…” Quiz’s voice trailed off and he frowned. For once he looked angry, and David was glad that Quiz had taken a liking to him and had not made enemies. Friendly Quiz may be, but not a good person to have on your wrong side.

David followed Quiz’s angry glower and located the person receiving the outpouring of wrath. This person was a tall boy, who had just walked in and sat down at a dark table in the back corner. He had dark hair and eyes much like Velvet’s.

“What the h*** is he doing here?” Quiz muttered, glaring in the boy’s direction. Just then the door opened and two people walked in. At a first glance, David thought they were both boys; but then he realized that the one on the left was far too pretty to be a boy. Her arm was in a sort of a sling; one very obviously makeshift, but David observed that the fabric was the same as the boy’s shirt and that the boy’s shirt was torn.

Quiz drew in his breath with almost-gasp at the sight of them. “There’ll be a big explosion.” He muttered, intently glancing from the boy in the corner to the two that had just walked in.

When David gave him a questioning look, Quiz hurriedly explained, “That there is King, the leader of the biggest gang in Brooklyn, possibly in all of New York. The girl beside him is Torch, the leader of the biggest gang in Queens; the first and only girl to lead a gang. She fought Black over there-” with a nod of disgust at the dark figure at the back table “-for the leadership of the gang and now she’s the leader and Black’s real mad about it. King supported Torch.”

King and Torch walked over to the table where Black was and sat down. Black appeared to have been waiting for them, for there were just enough chairs and food for three.

“This could be interesting.” Quiz muttered, then addressed David. “Care to join me?”

Walking casually, the two sat down at the table next to Black’s and, after ordering their food, listened intently.

“I believe you have something of mine, Black,” said Torch, low and dangerous.

“Really.” Not a question.

“Yes. Give it back.”

“Not just yet, dearest,” Black replied, quite congenially.

“So, Black,” King said, carelessly changing the subject, for he saw Torch beginning to get angry, “What is you doing in this part of the world?”

Black replied, never taking his searching gaze off of Torch’s glare, “Oh, you know.” He waved a careless hand, but should have left that out. His hand shook slightly. “Just lookin’ around. Seeing what I can see.”

“And what do you see?” Torch asked coldly.

“An extremely lovely young lady,” Black answered, smirking at her.

Torch’s uninjured hand went to her knife, but King put a hand on hers. Black saw and his eyes narrowed with anger and something else. “She your latest?” He asked softly, in a voice like the calm before the storm.

“No,” King said simply and calmly, and did not offer any more information on the subject.

“So… Torch,” mockingly, “when’re you going to turn it over to me?”

“I’m not,” said Torch, jaw working.

“What about all the things I could do? What about your hand, which is in such a, ahem, tenderly made sling? What about brother-dearest?”

Only King’s grip on Torch’s whole arm kept her from springing up and stabbing Black. Gritting her teeth, she replied: “He has friends now. Important ones, like Jon Stevens. They’d fight you to protect him.”

“That so?” Black said smoothly, with an unsettling smile. “And what about your hand?” He put on an expression of pretended pity and concern. “You know, if you’d just give in, it would all go away.” He put his mouth next to her ear, and she flinched, so lightly it was barely visible; but Black noticed and his smirk widened. “Just remember, Steel.” Her hand twitched convulsively. “There are two little words that could end all of this. You win.”

“You lose,” said Torch, with a surprising calm.

Black stood and started towards the door. King remained seated, and his voice was cool and unconcerned as he spoke, but there was an underlying iron that anyone could hear. “Black, leave and never come back or I will personally kill you. Stop messing with Queens and Brooklyn or you will regret it.”

Black turned at the door. “A corpse can’t kill nothing,” he said chillingly, quietly. Then he opened the door and walked out.

“Whoa!” Quiz took a deep breath as he and David stepped outside and began to walk. “That was one helluva conversation in there.”

David, although not completely comprehending everything that had just occurred, was dazed. “If everyone hates him so much, why didn’t they kill him?”

Quiz gave him a Look. “You need to learn the rules of street life, Truth. It’s King and Torch’s decision. We would kill him if they asked, but they didn’t. It’s their choice.”

“Are… are there a lot of… situations… like that in New York?” David asked a little faintly.

Quiz chuckled, “H***, yeah. That may be one of the more famous ones, ‘cause Torch’s a girl and Black won’t let go. But there’re hundreds of others, prolly.”

David took a deep breath. “Ah. And you support Torch, right?”

“Yeah, she’s in the right.” Quiz frowned. “I didn’t know Torch had a brother,” he muttered, more to himself than to David. “There’s a lot more going on there than meets the eye.” He added, more loudly.

“Well, if they were hoping to keep anything to the minimum, or secret, they failed.” David declared.

“How come?” Quiz took out a cigar, lit it, and began to smoke as they walked.

“The restaurant was crowded.” David pointed out. “Surely everyone heard.”

Quiz grinned. “Nah. Didja notice how quiet they talked? I’m pretty sure we were the only ones that heard anythin’. ‘Cept the very last thing King said, and everyone knows that.” He frowned. “I used to think Black was just an angry idiot, but it looks like there’s more to him than meets the eye, too.” He shrugged and clapped David’s shoulder. “Well, Truth!” He said, and David smiled, “Let’s get back to work!”


There was an unspoken Rule of Thumb that you did not ask a newsie where he lived.

Which was what David had just asked Quiz.

Quiz gave him a long, hard stare. “Wherever I happen to be.”

David saw danger on his radar and quickly retreated to safer ground. “Why is your name Quiz?”

The grin came back to Quiz’s face. “When I was first a newise, I asked lotsa questions. Like you.” They grinned at each other, and Quiz continued, “I wanted to know everything about everything. So they called me Quiz.” He cocked his head at David and asked, “You got a girl, Truth?”

“No. How about you?”

Quiz shrugged and made a dismissive gesture, “Eh, girls. They’re okay, but you have to watch your back with some of ‘em, and those you don’t you can’t get. I decided it was better to keep to myself in the long run.”

David nodded, “Yeah, I guess a girl like Torch would be hard to get.”

Quiz let out a laugh. “You kidding?! Impossible’s more like it!” A half-embarrassed, half-mischievous expression came over his visage. “I did ask her out. Once.” His hand went, almost involuntarily, to his face. “Got a shiner and a bloody nose.”

David laughed, then commented wryly, “I know one girl that wouldn’t be hard to get.”

“Who?” Quiz looked amused and interested.

“Velvet.”

Quiz let out a long laugh. When he was done, he wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes and clapped David’s shoulder. “Truth,” he wheezed, “you have excellent judgment. Yeah, she’s one of them types that you gotta watch your back.”

David nodded, grinning, completely forgetting about the cold, distrustful girl in the restaurant.


“I’m gonna kill him!” Torch’s face was flushed horribly.

“Mmm…” King put down another card.

“He has my ring. My ring, King!”

“Yes.” King slowly put down another card.

“I’ll take it back and kill him!”

“What about you-know-what?” King cautiously laid another card down.

“I don’t. Bloody. Care!” Torch slammed her fist down on the table and King’s house of cards fell.

“Look what you done!” He exclaimed.

Torch glared at him with wet eyes. “I have a problem here!”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” he stood, walked around the table, and put his arms around her.

“I just don’t know what to do!” Torch’s voice was muffled in his flannel shirt.

“Leave the state.”

“Thought of that. Won’t change nothin’.”

A sigh. “You’s right.”

Torch let go and stepped back, smiling bravely. “Thanks, King. You’s the best.”

He smiled at her fondly. “There’s a show on tonight. I know a way we can sneak in.”

Torch shrugged. “Sounds good.”


“You wanna go to the show tonight?”

“No.”

“Aw, c’mon! It’s fun!”

“No.”

“Well, I’m gonna go, and I want you to come with me.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“It’s amazing!”

“No.”

“And… there’s food!”

David stopped just before saying no and said instead, “Food?”

Quiz seized the opening. “The food’s real good! And it’s free!”

“Free?” David looked interested and suspicious at the same time. “What kind of free?”

Quiz shrugged and looked innocent. “Pull a few strings, sure it’s free!”

David couldn’t help but grin even as he said, “You’re awful!”

“Ain’t I,” said Quiz, looking like a very pleased cat.

“Yes. Terribly awful.”

“Let’s get going,” Quiz advised, “before all the ‘free’ food is gone.”

“All right, all right!” David laughed.

“You know,” Quiz confided as they walked, “I really have to admit that the food ain’t one of the main attractions this show holds for me.”

“Oh? What would the others be?”

Quiz hesitated briefly before replying, “Well, first, the leaders.”

“What?”

Quiz shrugged, grinning now. “There’s bound to be some sorta disturbance or something, because all the leaders come and get drunk.”

“I am getting a bad feeling about this.”

Quiz ignored him and continued, “Second, well, Panther’ll be there.”

David laughed. “Sweet on her, are you?”

“Nah, just wanna find out what that was in the restaurant.”

“Uh-huh,” said David skeptically.

“Third-” Quiz broke off abruptly. “Oh h***, I almost-!” He clapped a hand over his mouth.

“What?” David was all attention now.

“Nothin’!” Quiz said, removing his hand and giving David a brilliantly angelic smile.

“No, you were going to say something and stopped yourself,” David probed, his sea-blue eyes suddenly intense as he stopped walking and looked at Quiz.

Quiz pushed past him and kept walking, “C’mon, we’s gonna we late!”

David didn’t move, didn’t speak, just stood there with arms crossed.

Quiz turned slowly, reluctantly. “Look, Dave.” Quiz used David’s real name for the first time and looked very serious. “I like you. You’s an okay guy, and you don’t lie.”

David’s eyes twitched slightly.

“But there’s some stuff I just can’t tell you.”

David leaned against a building. “Tell me about it.”

Quiz sighed. “Dave, even if I was allowed to tell you, I wouldn’t do it in an open place like this.”

“Then tell me in Martin’s Place.” David looked challenging.

Quiz shook his head. “I said, even if I was allowed to. Which means I ain’t.”

David just looked at him. Quiz groaned. “Dave-”

“Truth.” David said quietly, firmly.

Quiz’s smile came back for a moment. “Right. Truth, I would love to tell you, but I can’t, so let’s go to the show and forget about it, eh?”

David compromised. They continued to walk to the theatre, but all of Quiz’s attempts at conversation fell flat, because David responded to everything with a deadpanned, “That’s nice.”

But Quiz didn’t back down or give up, and finally they reached the theatre. Just before they got to the door, Quiz stopped David and asked him, “Can you fight?”

Seeing that Quiz was very serious, David shrugged and replied, “A little. Enough, I guess.”

Quiz sighed. “We shoulda made sure before. You got a family?”

“Yeah…?”

“Oh h***. Maybe I shouldn’t take you in at all.”

David sighed. “Quiz, I’ll be fine. Seriously.”

“Okay… you got a knife?”

“No.”

“Here.” Quiz tossed him a switchblade, a real beauty. “Only use it if you have to.”

“Quiz, I can’t take-”

Quiz waved his protest away. “I got plenty others. Let’s go.”

“We’re just gonna walk in the doors?” David hissed incredulously.

Quiz grinned, a very mischievous grin, and David was on guard. “You any good at acting?”

“Here, now, Nathan, come back! Nathan, your mother will be furious! Nathan-!”

A very proper-looking young man tried to stop a less-proper-looking young man from getting away; but get away he did, and the proper-looking one called, “Somebody catch him!” and then took off running after him.

David had not been at all certain about this calling after him bit, because (as he told Quiz), he wasn’t sure if Quiz could run fast enough.

Quiz had assured David that he could, indeed, run fast enough, and that the most important thing was that David get to one of the lower backstage rooms quickly and without mishap. (He had been a little vague about how to get there or how to find him; David, he said, would have to “play it by ear”, which David supposed meant that he would have to find his own way.)

When David asked why they wouldn’t get kicked out, Quiz replied briefly, “I have connections”, and that was that.

Once David had gotten through, under the pretense of catching Quiz, he dashed down the nearest flight of stairs, and flung himself into a shadowy corner, breathless.

“Hey,” said a low voice from across the room. “Get over here.”

David, without even pondering the fact that the voice may not have been Quiz’s, obeyed.

“Good, you didn’t get caught,” he whispered to the dark figure, “I was-”

“Cut out the jaw,” the figure hissed, “ya wanna get us sent to the Refuge?”

David started. “Quiz?” He asked uncertainly.

“Nah,” said the figure, and grabbed his arm.

“Let go!” David ordered, trying to wrench free.

“Hey, hey!” The person protested. “I’m gonna take you to Quiz.”

David was not streetwise, but he did have common sense. “No.”

The person shrugged. “Suitchaself,” he said, then, cigar in mouth, walked away.

David felt an odd, cold finger of fear go up his spine. He thought that perhaps he’d seen the person before; but on these streets, it was impossible to be sure.

He shook his head. What now? He heard voices heading his way and thought, Well, the first thing is not to get caught. And so, in order to avoid this, he turned on heel and ran in the opposite direction of the approaching voices.

“Truth!” David stopped dead in his tracks. “Quiz?”

“Yeh, it’s me, get over here, hurry!”

“How do I know it’s you?” David said, his former mistake making him wary.

“Immigrant may or may not be related to mayor!” The voice was desperate as it hurled this back.

David, without hesitation, walked over to the source of the voice. “Is this how they all get in?” he asked Quiz breathlessly.

Quiz shook his head. “Lot of ‘em just dart in,” he gasped between pants. Apparently he’d been running quite hard, for he shook with hard breathing.

“Oh.” Suspicion was beginning to dawn. “So why didn’t we?”

They heard footsteps and squeezed tight against the wall. Quietly, they watched the high heels clatter by and heard laughter. Then Quiz spoke again, this time in a breathless whisper, as though he were trying to hold his breath while talking. “’Cause it was too risky.”

“Because of me, right?”

Quiz gave him a quick look but didn’t answer. David took this to be confirmation and sighed. “I really wish I-” he stopped himself.

“What?” Quiz asked.

“Nothing.” David said hastily.

“No, really, what?”

David glanced at him briefly. “I wish I could…” he hesitated, then muttered, “I wish I could be one of you guys.”

Quiz looked at him with a look that was half-sad and half-amused. He didn’t comment on David’s statement, however, but instead said, “Come on, we’ll be safe now.”

They got out and approached the stairs to go up, but just before they mounted them, Quiz stopped David and said, “I ain’t responsible for what you see, hear, or do. Right?”

David nodded, feeling his mouth go dry.

“Okay.” Quiz whispered. “Here goes nothing.”

He pushed open the door.


Torch leaned back in her chair and held her beer in one careless hand, staring at it idly.

“Hey, sweetheart,” King whispered, “loosen up. Have some fun.”

Giving him a wan smile, she leaned forward and put her glass back on the rickety table. “Just don’t feel too great, ya know?” She muttered absently, glancing around distantly.

Shaking his head, King leaned over and took her hand gently. She jumped, tensed, and gave him a startled look. He shrugged and said with a smirk, “Wanna dance?”

Returning his shrug with a shrug of her own, she stood and he stood.

Moving towards the dance floor, he added, “Why ain’t you in a dress?”

Torch raised one eyebrow. “You ever seen me in a dress?”

“No.”

“Exactly.” She nodded. “I intend to keep it that way.”

He laughed lightly, then continued to talk. “You dance, though.”

Another shrug. “Me…” she forced her voice to continue. “Me brother taught me.” Very softly.

He squeezed her hand; but she didn’t want pity.

“So, what’s your excuse?” She asked playfully.

“What do you mean?”

“You dance good. Really good, actually.”

“Eh… I picked it up.” He said casually, dipping her as he spoke.

Out of the corner of her eye, as she was down for that split second, she glimpsed someone she thought she recognized, but continued speaking smoothly, “Picked it up, huh? What a lousy explanation.” She said it carelessly, and King, with a twinkle in his eye, admitted, “Eh, well, Louise took it into her head to teach me one day, and, well…” he gestured with his hand and she almost fell over. “Sorry,” he apologized, helping her back up.

“You could just say ‘no’, you know.” Torch pointed out a little tartly.

“Well, it’s hard!” King said defiantly.

“I don’t find it hard.”

“You’re a girl!”

“Well, King, maybe you should take lessons in refusing things.”

“Not from you, I shouldn’t.”

“Yes, you should.”

“No, I- Torch.” His voice turned from joking to very, very serious all in a split second. “Don’t turn around, but be ready to fight.”

“Black?” She asked, carefully continuing to sway, but completely on guard.

“Yeah. He doesn’t know a warning when he hears one.”

“Torch, my dearest darling, my sweet blossom, my-”

“Shut up, Black.” Torch hissed, turning slowly.

She and King half-crouched, ready to fight.

“Oh, darling,” Black chuckled, “there’s no call for all this. I just came by to tell you that brother-dearest has been arrested.”

King just managed to keep Torch from killing Black on the spot.

“I would watch my step if I was you, Torch,” he said, and Torch wondered why he sounded so triumphant. “I’m going to take away every single thing you love.”

“What?” Torch breathed, panting as if she were a dog on a leash.

That was before she heard the gunshot.

Turning, she saw one of Black’s men dragging King away. He’d shot him while Torch’s attention was fixed on Black. Torch started towards him, pulling out her knife, but Black caught her around the waist and held her.

She managed to give him a good slash on the arm before he threw her down on the ground and held her there with one foot.


“David! You stay here; I gotta go!” Quiz seemed to be agitated to the point of utter distress. He’d seen the whole scene play out, and David had not.

David, however, was not dense. “I’ll come with you.”

“No! You can’t fight!”

“Can too. Let me come.”

Reluctant, even angry, Quiz conceded, “All right, but hurry!”

Rapidly approaching the prone form of Torch, Quiz instructed David, “Get her outta here while I distract Black. And h***, do it fast!”

David, giving Quiz one last incredulous look, shook his head and ran to where Black still held Torch down.

Relying on Quiz to take care of Black, he dove down for Torch, grabbing her arm. As soon as he had a firm grip on her, he jerked her out of Black’s hold and began to drag her away.

Suddenly, the whole place was swarming with fighting gangs. Even some of the gangs who weren’t at war with one another were fighting. David’s eyes were the size of full moons; he had no idea where to go or what to do.

Luckily for him, Torch awoke at this juncture and took command. Somehow, she seemed to know everyone and have men everywhere. Orders, loud and authoritative rang out, until she and David stood beside the entrance.

“What do we do now?” he asked frantically.

“Duck!” was her short and concise reply.

Just as they did so, two bullets hit the wall where their heads had been just a moment before.

David stared in dumb amazement. “How did you-?”

“Kid, shut up and come on!” she yelled back, dragging him by the arm outside of the theatre.

“Wait, what about Quiz?” David shouted at her.

“Don’t worry, he’s handled this before, you ain’t!” she shrieked back at him.

“I don’t trust you!”

“That’s fine, I don’t trust you neither, there ain’t no trusting involved here!”

David never would have guessed that a girl could look so incredibly pretty while saying so many horrible words in rapid succession.

Torch eventually lapsed into irate silence and then began to lay out the facts, in what David thought was a rather unnecessarily pessimistic manner. “Black got Crutchy in jail. He’s got King kidnapped. And here’s me, stuck with a sucker like you, with half my gang probably either in jail or dead.”

A pair of sea-blue eyes met a pair of amber ones across a rickety table. “What’s the plan?” David asked softly.

“Is you brave?” Torch asked seriously.

David didn’t move. He was completely sincere as he said, “I guess I am. Or at least I’m guessing I’ll find out today.”

Torch nodded slowly. “You’s a good sort, Jacobs.” She cleared her throat. “Here’s the plan. Tonight, after it’s dark, we’ll get Crutchy outta jail. After we do that, we’ll leave him here and go get King. Okay?”

“And ideas as to how we’ll get Crutchy out of jail?”

Her lips set in a grim line. “You leave that to me.”

He nodded slowly. “I’ll do that.”


“You afraid of heights?”

“Depends.”

“You afraid of getting arrested?”

“Sort of.”

A sigh. “I’d better go up, then. Give me a hand.”

Torch got two hands as David lifted her by the waist up to the window ledge. She let out a rather undignified squawk, but it was instantly muffled. “You’re a strange one and no mistake, Jacobs,” she murmured down to the tall figure.

He shrugged.

Torch began to climb, going from windowsill to windowsill, nearly vertically, with very little to hold onto. She trembled and broke out in a cold sweat; she didn’t like heights any more than David.

Each step was slippery, and the ledges were barely an inch wide. Not only was she trying to climb at such horrible conditions; she was trying to balance the rope she’d brought on her shoulder as well. Her fingers groped wildly on the ledges, which seemed cold and slick under her shaking fingertips. Slowly, painfully slowly, at the pace of a snail, she climbed upwards. Her hands began to cramp, and she was afraid she’d fall back down the thirty feet she’d just climbed when her hands alighted on a much, much wider ledge.

After groping around, she realized that it was the top of the roof. Hauling herself up the remaining bit, she rolled onto the rooftop and laid there, facedown, panting and almost crying from the pain. Her hands felt as though someone had seared them with flames and then dipped them in ice.

She took a deep breath and stood on shaky legs on the flat rooftop. She couldn’t stop. She had work to do.

A brother needed rescuing—a brother that hated her.

Torch took the rope she’d brought with her and, finding the small stick-like object protruding from the roof, which she had used many times before, tied the rope securely around it and went to the edge of the rooftop.

Taking a deep breath, Torch forced herself to jump from the rooftop, just as she’d done (was it only this morning?) at the Home.

Her heart flew up to reside in her mouth; the beer she’d drunk threatened to come back up (why had she drunk it anyway?); and she nearly screamed with fright.

But she came to the end of her rope safely, and she didn’t fall thirty feet to the ground to die.

And now came the part which just might be the hardest part of all: confronting her brother.

Torch already knew that Crutchy would most likely have been placed in the end cell, because that was always where they put new comers before they moved them to a new cell. They just stuck them in there until they could find another cell to hold them.

“Torch!” She heard a voice saying suddenly. She let out a half-shriek and almost let go of the rope. Looking up, she saw it was David who had called her.

“You bloody -! I’ll kill you!” she informed him very sincerely. She registered a double take. “What are you bloody doing?”

“Helping you,” he replied with some difficulty. This was not strictly true. Seeing as he was climbing down the roof after her, it looked more like he was trying to commit suicide.

“Idiot! I don’t need your help!”

“Really,” conversationally.

“Yes, really!”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

Torch leaned her head exhaustedly against the wall of the Refuge. “I don’t care,” she muttered, then slid down the remaining two feet and kicked the bars of the jail cell.

She recognized her brother instantly; but with a sickening terror, she also recognized the warden, Mr. Church. She wanted to scream.

Supposing he looked over and saw her? Supposing one of the inmates betrayed her presence? Supposed her brother came over to see her and they both got caught?

A million horrifying scenarios flashed before her mind’s eye. And then, as she hung there, body trembling, hands sweating, on of the scenarios came into being.

Mr. Church turned around – gaped – registered a double take – and blew his whistle.

Instantly, the entire room was in an uproar – but all Torch saw was her brother’s eyes – blue, they were, so different from her own amber ones – before she found herself falling…falling…falling…


Torch couldn’t move her legs. Ugh, she couldn’t move anything!

It was dark. Why was it still dark? She’d awoken from the faint…cold terror clutched at her, trailing its icy fingers down her spine.

Was she – no! – she couldn’t be – was it possible? She didn’t even want to think the word, much less speak it.

But her lips formed the word, and, “Blind,” she breathed, bringing trembling fingertips up to her eyes.

Suddenly she heard a voice. “What’s the problem?” It said. It sounded confused and – more surprisingly – concerned. Then footsteps, half-shuffling, meaning they were close; then she could feel a presence crouch beside her. “Torch?”

“I…I can’t see anything.”

“Oh!” David (she was pretty sure it was David, anyway) stood back up again and crossed whatever floor they were on. Torch could tell that she’d been laid on a sort of a pallet, made, perhaps, of blankets.

Then, suddenly, she heard a hissing sound and almost cried out in relief. She wasn’t blind. The room had merely been so dark that she had been rendered utterly incapable of seeing anything. The match that David had struck flared up and he lit three candles.

Torch looked around. They were in a shack, she thought, and there were three guys lying around on chairs. She tried to sit up.

David, ever the gentleman, was at her side in an instant, helping her sit up.

“What’s wrong with me legs? Where are we? How’d you get me here? What the h*** happened?”

“You damaged your spinal chord,” David began; but Torch cut him off, her eyes narrow, suspicious. “What does that mean?”

David looked at her carefully. “I…it…”

One of the thugs in the chairs stood up and stretched. He was tall. Torch’s eyes widened for a split second; but she wasn’t the leader of a gang for nothing. She kept her poker face.

“Look here, doll. I could prolly tell ya everythin’ a lot faster than this here gennulmun could.”

“Then talk fast,” Torch snapped back.

He smirked smoothly. “I’m Chaser. That over there is Bully, and that one’s Tiger. But you ain’t interested in introductions. We’re a gang called the Stalkers, and we found you and Davy here in an alleyway.”

“How’d we get there?” Torch demanded, looking from David to Chaser.

David almost blushed. “I…sort of carried you…” he cleared his throat. “When you fell, you…you hurt your back pretty bad. So I just kinda picked you up and ran away, ‘cause I could tell there was gonna be trouble.”

“Yeah, and so we found you guys,” Chaser interrupted, “and we brought you here.”

“Thanks,” said Torch, her eyes still wary; “whaddya want?”

“Torch,” David hissed, “they sort of saved our lives, I think maybe we ought to –”

“Naw, she’s right,” Chaser said, his eyes somehow cold and humorous at the same time. “You’s the leader of the Cats, ain’tcha?”

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” Torch lifted her chin almost regally.

At this interval, Chaser was interrupted. Tiger lurched to his feet, grinning like the plague and holding out his hand. “Lord luv ya, lassie, it’s gud ta meetcha!”

Torch blinked and sort of twitched. “By all that’s holy, he’s Irish!” She ejaculated.

David looked more confused than a fish caught on land. “What?!”

Chaser looked annoyed. “Tiger, you’s totally ruining it! Go back and sit down and we’ll go through it again!” Tiger obediently returned to his chair and Chaser whispered something to him.

“A-a-ahhh!” Tiger said, looking wise.

“What’s going on?” Torch demanded.

“Well, we were gonna surprise you, but good ole Ireland over there ruined everything.”

“Sorry, Chaser,” Tiger whimpered.

But abruptly, Chaser himself broke into a thousand smiles. “Torch, we’re the Stalkers, but what we failed to mention is that we know your brother and we secretly supported you against Black.”

Torch’s eyes grew wide, and then, to the shock of all, fainted.