Unspoken Words | Jack Dawkins, The Artful Dodger

Prologue

London was nothing but a mass of fog and coal smoke.
The air reeked of the Thames and burnt ash. Eleanor moved through the alleys near the prison, the sound of her footsteps echoing against the wet cobblestones, each one pounding inside her chest. Beside her, Fagin walked in silence, his long coat trailing behind him.

Normally, Jack would have been there, cracking a joke, performing one of his acrobatic tricks, making the city feel a little less bleak. But without him, there was no spark left. Everything had turned grey, cold, and unbearably empty.

They stopped in front of an iron grate set into the ground, a dark wound in the pavement, breathing out the dying glow of a candle and the foul stench of the underground cells. Fagin knelt heavily, his joints creaking in the stillness of the night. Nell stood just behind him, hands clenched together beneath her shawl.

The silence lasted only a second before it was shattered by hurried movement below.

"Fagin !"

The voice made Eleanor stagger. She would have recognised it anywhere, yet tonight, it carried a fracture she had never heard before. Jack appeared beneath the grate, his filthy, scraped hands gripping the bars with a strength that turned his knuckles white.

"I knew you wouldn't abandon me !" he cried, his eyes blazing with a hope so raw it was almost unbearable.

Nell felt Fagin's hand clamp down on her shoulder, a grip of iron that kept her from collapsing, or from speaking. The old man inclined his head, his face lit from below, wearing that mask of false sorrow he wielded like a weapon.

"No, I would never do that, Dodger," he murmured smoothly, in a tone that made Eleanor feel sick.
"The trouble is, lad, I'm wanted for a murder I most certainly didn't commit. And that means the boys and I will have to keep our heads down for a while. I can't get you out just yet, there are priorities, you understand."

Each word struck Jack like a lash. Eleanor watched his face fall apart, the light in his eyes extinguished, replaced by a terrifying confusion. He turned toward her, desperately searching her gaze for denial, for salvation, but she stood frozen, mute, fear rooting her to the ground as Fagin's hand crushed her shoulder.

"Fagin, don't leave me here !" Jack begged, his voice breaking, climbing higher until it became that of the child he still was beneath the bravado.
"Please ! Please, don't leave me !"

Fagin didn't flinch. He seemed suddenly possessed by the bleak philosophy of survivors who no longer have a soul. He leaned closer to the grate, his shadow swallowing the little air Jack had left.

"Think about it, who's really in prison, eh ?" he said with cruel irony.
"You've got a roof over your head and a meal a day. While the boys and I, we're chained to the whims of life itself. Forced to fight just to survive. You'll be a king when you walk out of here, fifteen years at thirteen years old. I'm proud of you, my boy. You've built yourself a fine reputation. London won't be the same without you."

The praise sounded like a eulogy.

Eleanor felt tears burn her eyes as Fagin stood, pulling her back with him, tearing her away from Jack's sight.

"One of these days, Dodger ! Farewell !" the old man called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the fog.

But Jack would not let them leave like that.

In a final surge of despair, he screamed until his lungs gave out, a cry that struck Nell head-on, forcing her to stop, if only for a moment.

"No ! Fagin, I beg you, don't leave me here !"

Then, just as they were almost out of earshot, the name she dreaded burst from the darkness of the cell.

"NELL !"

She froze, breath caught in her throat, the image of Jack alone in that black hole seared into her mind. Fagin stopped one last time, turning toward the invisible grate, and with a final flicker, whether of genuine remorse or supreme manipulation, he let the words drift into the night.

"Dodger... if it comforts you at all, I regret this terribly."

There was nothing left but the silence of the night and the sound of rain beginning to fall.

Fagin resumed his walk, dragging Eleanor toward a freedom that had lost all meaning. She knew, in that precise moment, that she had committed the most unforgivable crime of her life.

She had survived, by leaving behind the only person who had ever protected her.

Dodger was the one locked away,
but it was she who would carry the heaviest chains.