Amy, wherever she is lol ^ >
I know that's not what her clothes would've looked like back then, but it was the closest I could get alright-
Romeo rushed into the Lodge, heart still pounding, practically in his throat. That girl, Laces, had spotted him and Amy behind that backdrop with trees painted onto it. She obviously wasn't aware that they weren't supposed to be there, unless she had just been too angry to care. Everyone saw how full of rage she'd gotten when Spot mentioned the fact that she could've been a suspect just as easily as anyone else. It was a miracle no one had come to look at what she'd been yelling at after she left.
Romeo assumed they'd all just passed it off as madness. She looked kinda crazy, anyway.
That had been the end of the meeting, for the most part. Spot had ordered Lane to stay back so they could have a one-on-one interrogation. Romeo wanted to get back to the lodging house before Jack or Finch did, and didn't want Amy to be caught in the middle of it all if he were to ever get caught, so he sent her home. She seemed a bit sad to leave, but he knew that he had gotten her some of the answers she'd wanted.
He had to hope that it would be enough.
"Jack 'n Finch?" Romeo directed hurriedly at Jojo, who immediately understood.
"Haven't gotten back yet," Jojo said, watching him curiously. "Where's Laura?"
"Ugh," Romeo groaned, heart beat starting to slow. "I don't wanna he-ah 'bout anoth-ah goil fa tha rest 'a me life."
"Please." Race rolled his eyes, twirling his cigar between his fingers. "Ya got more years behind ya den ahead. Give it a day or two."
Romeo grunted at that. "I don't know. Everythin's jus so confusin' right now, y'know?"
"Yer own fault," Crutchie reminded him. "Ya didn't have ta get involved with two sist-ahs. What'd ya think was gonna happen?"
"It ain't like dat!" Romeo yelled, attempting in vain to defend himself. "I nev-ah liked Amy. Not like Laura. She- Yellow's more of a friend ta me."
"Nev-ah said she wasn't," Crutchie said, but Romeo could see he still disagreed with him. "I jus don't think ya shoulda gotten so close ta Amy 'fore ya told her it wasn't real."
Romeo's blood pulsed hot in his ears. "Look, I get it, alright? Ise a terrible person. Now can we please jus talk 'bout somethin' oth-ah den me love life? Or anyone's, fa dat matt-ah."
Henry playfully saluted the boy. "Ise good wit dat."
Race snorted. "I jus can't belive dat Romeo, 'a all people, don't wanna talk 'bout love. What has dis woild come ta?"
"Somethin' bett-ah, I hope," Albert grumbled.
"Ah, shut it, Al," Mush commented, grinning. "Dere's nothin' wrong wit a little love."
"Dat boy don't even give a goil a chance ta romance him," Race joked. "Ya'd think dey was bears, from tha way he runs away from 'em. Maybe he jus don't wanna see 'em runnin' from him."
That quickly led to Albert chasing Race around, shouting something along the lines of that 'he'd show him a bear', while Race continued to make teasing comments about how any girl would start crying within a five foot radius of the redhead.
"So much fa not talkin' 'bout goils," Romeo said flatly.
It was at that moment that Finch came stumbling through the door, before exhaling shakily and reaching his arms out to clutch the door frame. There was sweat dotting his brows.
"Finch?" Albert questioned from where he'd been trying to shove Race into a bunk with his foot, pushing his face away, stepping closer to the quivering newsie.
"Lane's wit Spot," Finch said, clenching his eyes shut against the light. "He... uh... he wanted ta question her, I think..."
"How's yer head?" Albert whispered, not daring to raise his voice any louder in fear that it would make things worse. The newsies respectfully kept quiet.
Finch squinted his eyes so he'd be able to see his friend somewhat. Romeo guessed Finch wanted to show that he was at least listening to the boy, despite the pain he was in. "It... um..."
"Alright," Albert muttered, before slinging one of Finch's arms around his shoulder. "Buttons, get ov-ah he-ah."
Buttons complied, and together they led Finch to the nearest bunk, while Finch argued weakly that he was fine. Race had taken the job of dramatically waving his arms back and forth ahead of them in order to make a path, with Sniper trailing in their wake, looking scared for his older friend.
Romeo and the others could hear the group talking about Finch's condition. Apparently, he'd been feeling off the whole meeting - which Romeo had certainly not noticed - and the stress of Lane being held back had pushed him over the edge.
"I hate tha Refuge," said Mike suddenly. "Look at what it did ta Finch. He's got a deaf ear 'n a broken mind. Lane flinches every time ya touch her, Crutchie's been afraid 'a tha dark ev-ah since he came back, 'n I think we all he-ah Albert wakin' up at night. Tha oth-ah newsies who was in dere, too. Not ta mention all it did ta Jack."
Which was quite a bit, indeed.
"Ise jus glad it's shut down fa good, now," Ike said. "But dere's still everythin' dat don't even have ta do with tha Refuge. Rememb-ah Lane's speech? She brought up how a lotta us was abandoned by our parents, 'n she was right. Me 'n ya would probably be lyin' dead on tha street somewhere if it wasn't fa tha lodgin' house."
"Or wit kids like Race," added Crutchie, "whose parents was abusive. And wit Jojo... well, we all know what went on wit Jojo. Even Finch, who ran away. He don't talk 'bout it much, but somethin' horrible musta happened."
"Why does no one ev-ah mention me?" Elmer wailed dramatically. "I've had tha hiccups five times ta-day. D'ya know how hard it is ta sell-" he hiccuped- "ta sell when ya can hardly speak? I'll tell ya what's horrible. Dat's horrible!"
So then, of course, that led to the newsies attempting to get rid of Elmer's hiccups by jumping out of nowhere at him, sneaking their fingers near the back of his neck - where he was the most ticklish - and even going as far as to force a glass of water down his throat.
"What..." Kid Blink paused in the doorway, watching the scene unfold in front of him, gesturing vaguely towards Romeo. "Where's Laura?" He questioned after a moment.
"Romeo's decided he don't believe in love anymore," Race chirped up.
Romeo shrugged.
Albert intervened. "Wese tryna cure Elmer's hiccups right now, 'n we've still seen no sign 'a Jack. Finch is back, but he left Lane behind, 'n his head is killin' him."
"Killin' him?" Sniper asked in fear.
"I can taste tha blood 'a death!" Elmer exclaimed after yet another hiccup. "Someone, tell me muddah dat I love her!"
"Ya don't got a muddah," Albert commented dryly.
Henry glared at him. "Who asked you?"
"Elmer's gonna die?" Tommy Boy cried.
Kid Blink stared at him for a few moments, before shaking his head and walking back in the direction he came from.
Shrugging once more, Romeo made his way to Jojo. "Things is lookin' a little grim ta-day, ain't dey?"
Jojo gave him a side glance. "Depends on how ya look at it. It was a good sellin' day fa me. What's got ya so glum?"
Romeo bit his lip, eyes flicking around nervously. "I was out wit Yellow earli-ah."
"Thought ya didn't wanna talk 'bout love."
Romeo huffed, not able to meet the boy's gaze. "Dat ain't... she wanted ta know somethin'."
"What?" Jojo questioned. "Why ya led her on?"
"I already apologized fa dat," Romeo said, shooting him a glare. "She wanted ta know 'bout Brock's death."
"Well," began Jojo, laughing, "dere ain't many places ya can go ta get those kind 'a answers, unless you was plannin' on breakin' in ta tha meetin' Jack was holdin' ta-day..."
He slowly trailed off as he took in Romeo's sheepish look.
"No," Jojo denied. "Rome, please tell me ya didn't break inta dat meetin' wit Amy."
"I didn't break inta dat meetin' wit Amy?"
Jojo groaned disbelievingly. "Well, I hope yer happy. Ya coulda gotten Juliet inta some serious trouble, y'know."
Romeo gaped at him. "What about me?"
"Yer a newsie," Jojo told him, waving him off. "Ya woulda been fine."
He let it slide, knowing that the boy was probably right. "Dey think tha kids from tha Refuge did it."
Jojo frowned. "Yer sure? I mean, I know dat place can do a lotta stuff ta people, but what reason would dey have had fa goin' aft-ah Brock? Flushin' may be a little off-puttin', sure, but they's one 'a tha least problematic boroughs we have. Why wouldn't dey have gone aft-ah Brooklyn? Or even us?"
Romeo sighed. "I dunno. Maybe dey had somethin' personal against Flushin'. Maybe they's plannin' on workin' their way up."
Jojo visibly shuddered, and Romeo swallowed hard. If Jojo was so openly nervous, then they really had something to fear. Romeo knew the boy hated letting his fear show. He knew Jojo just wanted everyone to be as happy as they could at all times.
But that wasn't how life worked.
"I guess we jus bett-ah hope dat it ain't nothin' like dat," the boy eventually replied.
Meanwhile, Sniper was still in the middle of having a heart attack, watching a motionless Finch. "Is he dead?"
"Look," Albert said at last. "He ain't dead. He's jus too weak ta deal wit a headache."
"Albert," Buttons said warningly.
"What?" Albert questioned innocently. "It's Finch. He would say tha same 'bout me."
Mush frowned. "I don't think we should be talkin' 'bout Finch right in front of him."
"It's alright," Specs said. "He's layin' on his good ear, he can't hear ya."
"I can hear ya."
"He can hear ya," Specs muttered reluctantly.
"We should keep things down fa him," Buttons mentioned. "Wese probably only makin' his head worse. It's tha least we can do ta help."
Everyone grumbled their disagreements, but obediently made their way out further from the bunk room nevertheless.
"Has anyone seen Jack?" Crutchie questioned, bringing back their earlier predicament. "He was s'posed ta be back by now."
"Well, he obviously ain't," Romeo pointed out absently, glad to see Race nodding along at his comment.
"We nev-ah noticed," Albert deadpanned.
Jojo came bounding towards them, probably itching to soothe their anxieties. "Hey, Jack's gone missin' 'fore. Ise sure he'll be back he-ah in no time!"
But Romeo was hardly listening. His mind kept wandering back to Amy, Amy, Amy. He knew it was wrong. He didn't even know why he was thinking of her. Laura had made it quite clear that he was better off with her. She knew Amy better than he did, anyway. After all, they were sisters.
And he did like Laura. A lot. When he thought hard about their relationship, he could see that they both had feelings for each other, however deep down they were.
But it wasn't like it was with Amy. She wasn't like Amy.
"I know I ain't s'posed ta want dis," Romeo whispered to himself. "Can ya take me back ta when it was jus papes 'n Jacobi's?"
He sure thought about it a lot.
Jack came stumbling into the room then, much like Finch had done, looking like he'd quite literally see a ghost.
"What's tha matt-ah?" Crutchie questioned, standing up in concern. Romeo admired his restraint at not demanding where their leader had been right away, and although he didn't care much himself, he was curious as to what had come across Jack's path that made him so late to get back. Romeo hoped for the boy's sake that whatever it was had been for a good reason, as everyone would surely tear him apart if they found out that he'd just been slacking off, like he'd warned the newsies not to do a certainly generous amount of times.
But that would soon become the least of everyone's worries.
"It's Smalls."
(2025 words)
I can just feel everyone's want to murder me right now, and I haven't even published the chapter.
Yikes.
I feel like I'm the worse. I'm the absolute worse because I'm killing off all these likeable characters and someday I'm definitely gonna get what's coming for me. I can feel it coming already. That's great, honestly. Love that for me.
Welp, now that I've accepted that, lemme tell ya about a dream I had last night. So, for those who don't follow me, I do these things occasionally where I post a question on my message board, and usually reply to everyone who answers. Anyway, so in my dream, I get this PM telling me that I should do a Harry Potter themed question, (??), and I didn't know how to tell them that 1) I don't usually (sometimes I do, and I have my reasons) reply to PMs because of something that happened a few years back, and 2) that I wasn't in the Harry Potter fandom at all XD.
I'm pretty sure I woke up before I was forced to make any life changing decisions, thankfully-
Also, for those who've been looking into Cimorelli music since you've found my profile, there's a brand new Lisa Cimorelli cover of Still Have Me by Demi Lovato that came out a few days ago at the top of this chapter. The girl who she collabed (is that even the word?) with has such a great voice, too. I've been streaming it ever since it came out lol.
So this is the last chapter of part one! And, lucky for me, exams are coming up as well! So that means that, unfortunately, I probably won't update an actual chapter until the end of next month, when I'll just publish four at once. I'm leaving Wattpad by the end of this month, and I'll be back sometimes after the 15th of June probably. We will see.
Anyway, please don't kill me for killing Smalls. I need to finish this book, at least.
~ nutcracker645