a change of heart | e.k

Chapter Eight

Nowadays, if someone told her a piece of information about her future that she would've otherwise found ridiculous, she wouldn't laugh.

In the span of a month, maybe less, she'd found a boy who would love her unconditionally, told off the other one who'd taken her for granted, and had lost her family to The Unknowns. She doubted anything could surprise her, anymore.

Dipper had always had a hard time with change. Try as she may, she'd never been able to fully suppress the toll it took on her. The sheer amount of recent changes in her life were almost too much to bear, yet she knew she had to keep going. To prove herself? Perhaps. To be of as much help as she could be, at the very least.

This was her mindset the day the masked men appeared.

It'd been a long day. The winds had been bitter, and every potential customer had opted to stay inside. This made their job of selling papes all the more difficult, and as if that hadn't been enough, the headline was no better than it usually was on a Thursday. She was cold, she was tired, and if her runny nose was anything to go by, she was sick. She'd gone back to the lodge that evening feeling like she could sleep a hundred years, if given the choice.

She wasn't. Next thing she knew, there were screams from outside, coming from the people she knew far too well. She ran out as fast as her legs would carry her, halting as she processed the sight in front of her. The newsies had all but waged war against the men in black, pushing their way through the sea of kids, coming towards her.

Towards the lodging house.

She stood, perplexed, for a moment, wondering what was happening. It seemed as though they — being the group of men — were there searching for the objects. Hadn't they learnt their lesson last time? What confused her was why they weren't targeting the newsies, as they weren't exactly hiding themselves. Unless they planned to harm the kids later on, yet wanted to attract the least amount of attention as possible before doing anything rash. Grab the objects, kill the newsies, and be on their merry way before the bulls showed up.

She clenched her jaw, enraged by this idea, and prepared to throw herself into the fray if needed. No, it was needed. If she went down, it wouldn't be as a coward. Mush seemed to sense this, as the next moment, he stood in front of her with panicked eyes. "What are you doing?"

She gestured towards the chaos with furrowed brows. Wasn't it obvious? He, too, turned to look, before he returned his attention back to her, grabbing her shoulders. "No, you go back inside. We'll deal wit dis."

"Mush, I wanna help," she pleaded. "C'mon, I'll jus feel guilty if I stand by. You've gotta let me help."

"You do help," Mush assured, "in oth-ah ways. But dis... dis ain't fa you. Do you know how scared Albert would be if he saw you mixed up in all dis?"

"Mushy's right," Race said from a few feet away, to which she rolled her eyes. Really? Two against one? "Plus, none of us wanna see ya get hoit."

"Fine," she relented, sighing deeply. "But I ain't goin' inside, I'll hide behind tha bushes."

Mush sighed as well, just as exasperated. "Alright, fine, jus do it quick. Those guys ain't gettin' any further."

She nodded and shot off to the right, crouching behind the bushes she'd just pointed out. Panting, she observed as the newsies did everything in their power to stop the men from trespassing. But they were huge, and on closer inspection, were also carrying guns.

Dipper worked on quieting her breathing, hardly blinking as she watched.

At last, one of the newsies came up to the men from behind, and whacked a stick into the back of the middle one, letting out a battle cry that could rival a bear's. All was silent for a long, dreadful moment, before the man, unphased, spun around and knocked the brave yet foolish newsie to the ground. Dipper slapped a hand over her mouth as she caught a glimpse of the boy who'd fallen.